Moms Talk: Are You a Tiger Mom?

Moms Talk is a new feature on Patch that is part of a new initiative to reach out to moms and families. La Jolla Patch invites you and your circle of friends to help build a community of support for mothers and their families right here in the La Jolla area.

Each week in Moms Talk, our Moms Council will take your questions, give advice and share solutions. Moms, dads, grandparents and the diverse families who make up our community will have a new resource for questions about local schools, pedestrian safety, nutrition, work-life balance and the thousands of other issues that arise while raising children.  

Moms Talk will also be the place to drop in for a talk about the latest parenting hot topic. So grab a cup of coffee and settle in as we start the conversation today.

Here's our discussion topic:

Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and a Yale Law School professor, contends that most American moms are , acting as unwavering cheerleaders even when they don't perform at the level that parents expect. She also says her parenting methods are modeled in the approach her first-generation Chinese-American parents used with her, which she says has made her successful.

Does Chua have a point? Do American moms, but more especially suburban moms, coddle their kids too much? Or is 'tiger parenting' setting kids up for trouble handling failure and a good chance they'll harbor serious animosity toward mom and dad later on in life? Could this be more than a cultural issue; is it also generational? Did our parents coddle us the way we may coddle our children?

Please take a moment to weigh in on this debate in the comments below.