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Amy Chua returned to Yale from a long, exhausting book tour in which one television interviewer had led off by noting that Internet commenters calling her a monster. By that point, she had become practiced at the special kind of self-presentation required of a person under public siege. "I do not think that Chinese parents are superior," she declared at the annual gathering of the Asian American Students Alliance. "I think there are many ways to be a good parent."
蔡美儿在结束了漫长疲惫的巡回售书活动之后回到了耶鲁大学，途中一名电视台的记者在采访她一开始就引用了一些将其称之为怪物的网络评论家的言论。那个时候，她已经练就了在公众批评的舆论下仍能进行自我展示的特殊能力。她在亚裔美国学生联合会的年会上宣称：“我认为中国的父母并没有什么特别之处，我觉得要成为一个好父母有很多途径。”
Much of her talk to the students, and indeed much of the conversation surrounding the book, was focused on her own parenting decisions. But just as interesting is how her parents parented her. Chua was plainly the product of a brute-force Chinese education. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother includes many lessons she was taught by her parents—"Be modest, be humble, be simple, her mother told her. "Never complain or make excuses," her father instructed. "If something seems unfair at school, just prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good."
她对学生们说的话，以及书中所记录的对话，确实很多都集中体现了她的为母之道。但同样有趣的是她父母当初对她的教育方法。蔡美儿本身就是中国强力式教育的产物。《虎妈战歌》中涵盖了很多父母对她的谆谆教诲——她的母亲告诉她：“要谦虚，要低调，要朴素。”她的父亲教导她：“决不能抱怨，也决不要找借口。”“如果学校里发生什么看似不公平的事，你就得加倍努力，变得更加优秀，以此证明自己。”
In the book, Chua portrays her distaste for corporate law, which she practiced before going into academe. "My entire three years at the firm, I always felt like I was play-acting, ridiculous in my suit," she writes. This malaise extended even earlier, to her time as a student. "I didn't care about the rights of criminals the way others did, and I froze whenever a professor called on me. I also wasn't naturally skeptical and questioning; I just wanted to write down everything the professor said and memorize it."
在书中，蔡美儿描写了她对进入学院之前一直在执业的公司法的厌恶之情，她在书中写道：“在公司的整整三年中，我总觉得自己像是在演戏，穿着西装的我显得那么滑稽。”这种叛逆甚至在她早年上学的时候就已经发生。“我不像其他人那样关心犯罪分子的权利，当教授点到我名的时候我直接无视他。当然我也不会有任何疑问，也不会去质问什么；我只是想把教授所讲的一切都记下来并背下来。”
At the AASA gathering at Yale, Chua made the connection between her upbringing and her adult dissatisfaction. "My parents didn't sit around talking about politics and philosophy at the dinner table," she told the students.
在耶鲁的全美学校管理者联合会上，蔡将她的成长经历与成年后的不悦联系起来。她告诉学生：“我的父母不会在餐桌上谈论政治和哲学。”
