Singapore, Jan. 18 -- Cultures are not monolithic, yet what first comes to mind when we think "Tiger Mother"?
I wager many would see Chinese mums hovering over, worrying, harassing their children about schoolwork. "Nothing less than an A. Understand?!"
But I am Chinese, and I am not a tiger mum, at least not in terms of calling my children "garbage", or threatening to set fire to their soft toys, which Professor Amy Chua confessed to doing in her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother.
Perhaps I am a bovine mother.
I was born in the Year of the Ox, and my family used to call me a cow because I moved so slowly. My papa said I walked like a mango. It was his impatient call to hurry up.
How a mango walks is knowledge most of us ...