What do you think about "Tiger Mummy"..?

Recently, Win has been sending Renzo to school every morning together with Ayeaye. And there are 2 times he shared with me that Renzo was greeted by his classmates, once was his Audrey jiejie, who often gets brightened up whenever she sees Renzo, and another time by another boy we do not even know the name. Unfortunately all our little one did, was to remain oblivious to his surroundings, and went straight to his chair, sat down happily while waiting for his breakfast to be served. Look at how he took off his shoes and socks, behaves like a king right?!

And he even "kidnapped" this cute pair of slippers Win bought for me and walking around the house as if he is really an Angry Bird... so much pride huh?!

Anyway, knowing that Renzo is someone who’s able to express himself pretty well in full sentences, I did not expect that he refuses to talk to people most of the time when he’s outside. I meant if he can’t even talk, of course I won’t feel this bad. I am guessing it is probably because we didn’t really enforce the rules at home. Just like we try to cultivate good habit by asking him to say “Good morning” to his grandparents, most of the time he will keep quiet or respond with “Good morning 爷爷不要”. And more often than not, we just laugh it off without correcting him on that. That reminds me of Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother" way of bringing up her 2 daughters in a strict fashion. I have not read her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" but my cousin who finished reading that book, shared a bit with me about Amy's relentless determination and parenting philosophy, contrary to modern American standard of permissiveness and mediocrity.

Well, I am pretty sure that Win was not brought up in a "Tiger Mother" way, but to certain extend, I was. I remember vividly how my parents used to talk to us from young. They always encourage us to study hard and work hard for better life. They believe that's the best way to prepare us for our future. We learned the concept of "you reap what you sow" before we could even wrote our own names. During our era, there's no such thing as "parents should foster learning is fun", or "stressing on academic results is not healthy for kids". I am sure even until now, some of my mummy friends who are advocates of Western parenting style, eventually still get stressed out by peer pressures from those who managed to raise stereotypically successful children with a more "tiger-like' way.

So, the question is, am I too soft to Renzo? Maybe, but then, nowadays kids are so smart. There was one time Renzo muttered "Don't use your hand, use your spoon!" while feeding himself dinner. That's exactly what we have been reminding him almost everyday. Although he ended up stuffing 60-70% of his meal into his mouth with his hands, we didn't rake him over the coals just because of that. And the fact is, he really knows what is the right thing to do, just that it takes him time to put that into action, at least that's what I choose to believe. There was another time when Renzo was not even 15 months old, when I smacked his little hand and scolded him for biting my finger, he turned around and looked into my eyes, he didn't say a word (well he couldn't say much back then), but his expression made me feel that he's complaining: "You are my mummy, how could you do this to me?". Since then, I've never raised my voice at him again, not even once.

Guess I should stop thinking and talking like an expert, 'cause I am not. I still have no clue what is the best for Renzo despite self-claiming many times that I want to provide the best for him. But for now, I am not going to be a "tiger mummy" and risk myself of raising up a rebellious instead of successful kid, at least not before Renzo could write his own name. haha...