The Megyn Kelly Show - Amy Chua on the Climate on Campuses, Political Tribalism, and Being a "Tiger Mom" | Ep. 46

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by author and professor Amy Chua, to discuss cosmopolitan elitism, the current climate on college campuses, her experience defending Brett Kavanaugh, cancel culture, self-doubt and confidence, reflecting on being a "Tiger Mom" and the value of hard work and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we've got Amy Chua. You know who she is. She is a professor. She's the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She's one of their most popular professors for reasons that will become obvious to you. She's married to another Yale professor. And she's got two young daughters while they're in their 20s now. One's a double Harvard person.

One's a Harvard Yale person. So she's done pretty well in raising really smart kids. She also happens to have written a couple of years ago, the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, talking about the difference between her approach and the approach of many Chinese moms. And she says that that can include people who are not Chinese and more Western parents who are more like protect little Johnny's feelings. She's got really fun parenting thoughts and she took a beating for some of them, but she's really honest and owns who she is. So you're going to like more tribal as things go on now that Trump is lost and Biden's going to be sworn in. So this is somebody who's at an elite university.

She's going to talk about the partisanship there, what it's like to be a conservative on Yale campus. Can you imagine? She's got some thoughts on how things have changed from just a few years ago, and I think you're going to love her. We'll get to her in one second. But first, I shared a hot story a couple of weeks ago, and it nearly crashed the Scoremaster website. The story is that the average American has 97 points, 97, that they can quickly add to their credit score. That's big.

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Amy Chua, how are you? I'm great, Megan. Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted to be speaking with you. I'm such a fan of yours. I always have been, ever since you came out with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and I thought, this is one brave woman. I loved it because you were getting so much shit. You were like, yeah, I don't care. This is how I feel. That's how it was on the outside. That's how it

was on the outside. But yes, that's that's basically me. We met for the first time in person when I was doing a profile on JD Vance. And I went to Yale Law School to talk to you as the person who had encouraged him as his professor to write that memoir. But, and, and now we've become friends, but I I'm just so inspired by your toughness. You are one tough M ever. You are. Well, coming from you, that means so much. I mean, obviously I'm a huge fan of yours and I would say the same thing. But yeah, it'll be fun to talk about this. I don't even I don't even see myself that way. But kind of looking back, it does seem like it does seem like I'm still standing. Yeah, exactly.

And you're just you know, you're exactly what we need right now, which is somebody who is unapologetic for how she sees the world. And and unless we get more Amy Chua's in the world, we're going to lose these bizarre cultural battles that I won't even say we're fighting. It's more like rational people have surrendered out of fear. We need to start fighting. Yeah, it's starting. People are starting to fight, but we need more numbers and more just toughness, mental toughness in the world. All right. So before we get to all that, because I definitely want to ask you about Battle Helm of the Tiger Mother. It's exactly the

opposite of my own parenting style, but it's my wannabe parenting style. So you're going to help me. Okay, we'll get to that. Let's start with tribalism. You wrote a book in 2018 on tribalism called Political Tribes, Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, which was prescient. And it not only obviously we were in the middle of the Trump administration then, but it foresaw where things would go, including the challenging of electoral results. And like that here we are. So you accurately diagnosed, I think, what is happening to the United States right now, before he was elected, during his term, and now in 2020. And I want to talk to you about how we got here and where we go from here, because it doesn't sound too promising. All right. So your theory is that a toxic mix of identity politics and demographic transformation

is threatening our democracy. So break that down. Should we start with, well, where should we start? Yeah, no, that's actually perfect. So you have it exactly right. I mean, I'm proud that I did correctly predict the Trump election, which is pretty amazing because teaching at the most liberal college campus, you know, everybody had the Hillary Party's all ready to go. And I just knew that there was so much

underground that nobody was allowed to talk about that they were going to get it wrong. But yeah, that's kind of what I tried to do is be above the fray and kind of to diagnose the problem. Why are we at this moment and seeing everything that we're seeing? Because if you can't, if you don't know the causes of the problem, then you can't solve it. And yes, I think there are two big factors that explain this kind of just hatred that we have everywhere in this country. And the first is this massive demographic transformation that we've seen in the last 50 years. So basically, for most of the United States 200-year history, you know, the country was dominated economically and politically and

culturally by a white majority. And we can debate what white meant and that, you know, different people, Canada's white at different times, but that's basically the dynamic. And when that happens, when one group is so overwhelmingly dominant, a lot of terrible things can happen like slavery and oppression, but that white majority can also afford to be more generous and inclusive. And that's actually what the white Protestants did in the 50s and 60s and 70s when they essentially voluntarily opened up the Ivy League to more African Americans and minorities because they just kind of felt that was the right thing to do. Right now, it's completely

different because for the first time in U.S. history, whites are on the verge of losing their majority status at the national level. The Census Bureau says it will happen around 2044. You know, there's some debate about what it will look like, but it's already happened in places like California and D.C. and Texas and tons of big cities. Non-Hispanic whites are no longer the majority. And why is that important, Megan? Because studies show that it's when people feel threatened that they retreat into tribalism. And at this moment, it's not just minorities who feel threatened. Whites feel threatened. It's not just Jews and Muslim Americans who feel threatened, but Christians feel threatened. So, you know, with Donald Trump in the White House, women feel threatened with the Me Too movement, men feel

threatened, Latinos, Asians, straights, with the Me Too movement. Men feel threatened. Latinos, Asians, straights, gays, everybody at this moment feels threatened. And again, it's when people feel threatened that they retreat into this kind of us versus them tribalism. And that's why you're seeing this fracturing, this splintering on both the right and the left. I mean, if you look at the Democrats, they're just falling apart. There's so many different pieces. And same with the Republicans. You know, there's barely a cohesive group called the Republicans. And and that's partly because of this massive demographic change. So that's one big factor. And before we get to number two, so tribalism and, you know, I think people understand a bit that we feel more tribal.

We feel more dug into our respective groups than ever. But but in general, you know, I think people understand a bit that we feel more tribal. We feel more dug into our respective groups than ever. But but in general, you talk about tribalism and how it could potentially be a good thing, but it could also be a bad thing. And one of the reasons we do it is because, A, we're humans and B, it feels good. Right. So but so just talk about before we get to number two and the reason why we're becoming more tribal. Why is tribalism such a thing for us as humans? Well, so first of all, it's just in us. We are biologically predisposed to be tribal, just like fellow primates. And you could obviously imagine all the evolutionary reasons why, you know, it was always better to have a family and a group and a tribe as opposed to being on your own.

And you just you put it perfectly. There's nothing inherently wrong with tribalism. Families can be very tribal. I will be the first to admit that I'm a very tribal person, very loyal to my friends. Sports is very tribal and it's fun. The real problem is when tribalism takes over a political system. That's really the problem. Because then policy and facts just don't matter. You basically just, you just want to cling to your side. You see everything through your side's lens. And you want to take down the other side, no matter what. And you could see that, you know, all my friends, I mean, Yale, again, is the most progressive place. So for four years, for me to figure out whether a certain drug works, I have to flip between Fox and MSNBC to see what they're saying and take an average.

But that's really where we are now, where the danger is that we can't talk to each other anymore. It's not just like Republicans or see, it's not that people see people who voted for the other side is just, you know, people who are wrong that they want to argue with. We're in a situation now where we see people who voted for the other side as enemies, as evil murderers, you know, people who harm people. And that's really dangerous. It's a recipe for civil war if we don't fix it. If you,

if you view half the country as un-American. So this is why when people say, oh, you know, if if Trump loses or now that Trump's lost, the country is going to go back to normal. We're going to settle down. I imagine you're thinking, no, yeah, crazy. I mean, all the dynamics are still there. And the reason I predicted that Trump would win is because, I mean, well, clearly his personality had a lot to do with it. You know, a bit like Hugo Chavez in a totally different way, you know, very effective. But they were just conditions, things that were already in the United States. So, you know, that phenomenon was just waiting to happen. And those facts and

conditions are still existing today, even with the change in leadership. All right. So we were primed for someone like Trump to come along. Number one, because we're getting more tribal. And the reasons are number one, this massive demographic transformation, becoming a minority majority country. Everyone feels threatened. The whites, I know in your book, you cite the fact that 50 plus percent of whites believe, quote, whites have replaced blacks as the primary victims of discrimination. So we're all retreating to our little mini tribes and not feeling very generous toward other people. But you cite is cosmopolitan elites, the coastal rich people who look down on the working class people of America. Do I have it right? You do have it right. I'm so impressed,

Megan. And of course, this is the group that, you know, we more or less belong to. So I understand. But yeah, just kind of backing up quickly for most of my 25 years as a professor, I've written about developing countries and foreign policy. And I always said the United States is so lucky that we don't have this one terrible problem that I called% tiny Chinese minority. So they're not Indonesian, right? Like the 80 million people are mostly Indonesian, but there's this tiny 3% minority that is ethnically Chinese. And they're viewed as these arrogant people that control everything. And they talk their own way. They marry their own people.

And they just look down on all the poor people. And what I wrote in 2000 is that when you have that kind of a dynamic, when you have elections, democratic elections, you don't get what Americans always expect, which is peace and prosperity. But you get like demagogues coming in and saying, vote for me, it's all these people's fault. They're not real Americans. And you get scapegoating, and then you get this kind of populism. And that's basically, you know, for years we didn't have that because we don't, you know, we don't have a little minority controlling the U.S. economy. It's not true that Jews control the U.S. economy.

They're disproportionately successful as are, you know, Asian-Americans, but they don't control the economy. But today, for the first time, because of something we'll get to, I think the way our education system is broken, there's just so little mobility now. And, you know, you have what we see is basically this emergence of a group that I call cosmopolitan elites. or Chicago that are viewed by the rest of this country as these arrogant people that care about the poor in Africa more than they care about the poor in Appalachia, whom they disdain, and who kind of go to the same private schools and use their own politically correct vocabulary and control Hollywood and Wall Street and Silicon Valley and D.C. And I do see that the election in 2016 followed this prediction that I actually said. I said, you're going to see this backlash against this little group. And it's not ethnic or racial. Like Barack Obama, J.D. Vance wrote this, is the classic, is viewed actually as the

most cosmopolitan elite. He sounds like a professor. He dresses so elegantly. He eats kale. Right. Healthy foods. And so it's an identifiable group that is viewed as very, very kind of selfish and scornful of the rest of the country. And I think part of the 2016 election was, you know, President Trump tapped right into that and said, look, let's take back our country for real Americans. Let's make America great again. And it's so it's not dependent on race. You point out Barack Obama and it's not dependent on party because I would say Mitt Romney falls directly into this group. You got it. You got it.

Yes. Actually, probably most people that you and I know, it's just by virtue of the schools that we attend and the fact that ethnic groups are often defined by intermarriage. So if you have two groups, like Black and white Zimbabweans that don't intermarry at all, that's like an ethnic difference. Like Chinese and Indonesians, they don't really marry because one is Muslim and one is ethnic Chinese. Well, the sort of whites have, the difference between poor whites now, you know, Appalachian whites, rural, essentially President Trump's base, and coastal cosmopolitan whites, that difference has hardened so much. There was so little interaction and so little intermarriage between these two groups of

whites that it's basically what social scientists would call an ethnic divide. I mean, there's that much difference. It's much more normal for, let's say, a Caucasian who attended Columbia Law School or NYU Law School to marry somebody who's Nigerian American or South Asian of a similar educational background than it is for that white person to marry another white person from, say, rural Kentucky. So why would they go for a person like Trump, who is very wealthy, flying around in helicopters, has his name on buildings, went to Wharton? What is it about him specifically? If you just look at Donald Trump and why all of my friends are cosmopolitan elite friends, just despise him, there you have your answer.

He actually kind of culturally and sociologically doesn't act like a cosmopolitan elite. The way he dresses, people made fun of that red tie that hung too low. He eats McDonald's and, you know, these taco bowls. And he deliberately plays up this political incorrectness, you know. So, you know, again, a lot of liberals, they're like, oh, my gosh, he said this, you know, that's sexist, that's racist. But what happened is just a lot of people in the middle of the country said,, you know, he's that's sexist, that's racist. But what happened is just a lot of people in the middle of the country said, wait a second, that's kind of how I talk. And I'm always getting called out now for being racist or sexist. I'm using the wrong word. I relate to that. You know, and he liked WWE wrestling and NASCAR. These are things that are anathema to cosmopolitan elite. So,

you know, even the way in which he was rich, you know, displayed the gold and Melania Trump. And it's, again, cosmopolitan elites don't realize how kind of intolerant and snobby we are. Everyone's like, oh, that's so gauche, you know, those colors that, you know. So I think culturally he, and I think he cultivated this, he's actually much more similar to his base, to blue-collar workers, the way he talks and rambles on and kind of locker room and what he eats. Yeah, I think it really fits, actually. So the masses who we're talking about, they're not anti-wealth. They really are anti-elitism. Completely. And this is another big irony. I think we'll come to this, but many of the people,

I think, most in favor of socialism that I know actually come from very privileged backgrounds. They're living in their hedge fund parents' huge loft, so they have time to be advocating for socialism. So whereas a lot of both working class people, where they want a fair shot. I mean, a lot of people want more, better redistribution, but no, they want the American dream. They want the chance to become like somebody like Donald Trump. And, you know, same with immigrants and immigrants kids. That's another, I've had so many students whisper to me, you know, on campus now, you know, I had a rocky American student whose dad lived in a refugee camp and she was fairly poor and she would love to be a partner in a law firm and go to Wall Street or maybe become a judge. And she's being told by all her progressive friends, no, that's buying into the hierarchy. That's too elitist.

You know, you need to be protesting and being an activist. I know. And so she's whispering to me, what am I going to do? I always thought the way to change America was if somebody like me, you know, somebody from a poor country could rise and actually be prominent and influential. What am I going to do? No, go get yourself arrested. That's the way it's done. You know, somebody from a poor country could rise and actually be prominent and influential. What am I going to do now? Go get yourself arrested. That's the way it's done. Be a Jane Fonda. Get arrested and make sure everybody writes an article about it. There's room for all types of. Well, it's funny because, you know, when you see, to your point, the mugshots of these people who get arrested at some of the protests and riots that we saw over the summer, it's nine times out of 10 is white women in their mid to young 20s who come from very privileged backgrounds. And they look like they're hot messes. I mean, half of them have

like, you know, a black guy or, you know, they look like they've been on drugs. I don't know what the story is, but it's almost never, you certainly don't see a lot of black people getting arrested. It's these white, educated, rich liberals, because some people will do a deep dive on the background, the economic background, a lot of these women, and they do, to a person, come from rich backgrounds. Yeah, a lot of people who have nine to fives, kind of working class people, actually can't take off time. They're going to be fired. So there's actually a lot of people who have nine to fives kind of working class people actually can't take off time. They're going to be fired.

You know, so so there's actually a sort of a simple economic explanation for it. But, yeah, it's it's there are a lot of ironies. Well, this is an interesting thought. We talk a lot about the media on this on this podcast and for obvious reasons. But one of the things that we haven't touched on is their elitism. You know, their bias is right there in our faces, and we know it. And we talk about what happened to CNN and how it's totally anti-Trump, and it's very biased without disclosing it, without owning it, I should say. But this is another strain. You know, one of the most viral clips of the entire election season was a segment hosted

by Don Lemon with two pundits. It was Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali. And they were disdainful of flyover country of Trump voters. They were making fun of them with Southern accents. Oh, oh, those Republicans are sort of imitating them going like, oh, you know, Biden and the Democrats with their their maps and their math. And they were hysterical, laughing at the other side of the country, who we now know is almost split right down the middle.

Seventy four million people. How big a factor do you think that was, the continuation of the deplorables attitude? I think it's a big factor. I mean, I didn't see that clip, but it's actually just such a poor political and strategic move. Even if you just forget about just common decency

and just being more generous towards fellow human beings. But, yeah, I think it's a really, you know, we all know human nature. Like, you just have to think, if you hear somebody talking about you like that, how do you feel? Do you feel like, you know what, I want to convert and be on their side? And that's the danger of tribalism. When you hear the way people are talking about you, you get angry inside and it just everything spirals downwards. More with Amy in just one minute. But first, I want to talk to you about Legacy Box.

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offer will not last long, so order their kit now, send it in whenever you're ready, go to legacybox.com slash mk and save 40% off while supplies last. This is actually one of my problems in these universities who are kicking out incoming freshmen for some sin, some loser in the person's social circle dug up and forwarded on to ruin their academic careers before they get started on them. You know, because now we're in that phase of life where we're supposed to rat out our neighbors for any perceived misstep on race, on gender, on identity, all this stuff. So you have a young person who made a mistake when she was 14. And it comes out when she's 17 or 18, as she's about to go off to some esteemed university. And the universities more and more are pulling the admission of these young kids. What a loss of a teachable moment. And exactly the opposite

is actually being taught, which is what person who loses their entire future at a university they worked hard to get into because they're being told they're a racist because of some stupid comment they said. What person then says, you know what? I'm with you. I'm genuinely on your side now. I'm listening to you and I want to be more like you and listen more and read what you want me to read. Totally open-minded to you. No, exactly the opposite happens. Exactly.

I totally agree. And it's, I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, some of the most moving stories and that give me the most hope for America are about redemption. I mean, that's what we should be looking for. There's this guy, I can't remember his name. His last name is Black, I think. And I think he's the maybe like grandson of the Grand Duke Ku Klux Klan person

or something like that. And he went through this metamorphosis in college. Basically, he went in this rabid, you know, neo-Nazi. And some roommate, not knowing, invited him to Shabbat and then he met a young woman. I had him on my show at NBC. I had both of these guys on my show. Exactly. And that's what we should be encouraging. And you're right. And you start rooting them out. And also anybody who has children, you know, this is a, this is just, this is, I actually think it's

not sustainable because at a certain point, um, at a certain point, everybody's going to look at their own kids and realize, oops, is it over now? He did this stupid thing at 13. Is it over? And there's got to be a self-correction mechanism. Of course, because it's like, of course, all of us make stupid mistakes. And we just didn't grow up in the era of social media and this weird, you know, snitch on your neighbor mentality. But by the way, to your point about

the great grandson of the KKK grand wizard. So he came on and, and with, with the guy who helped him, who was an Orthodox Jewish guy. And he just started inviting the descendant of the grand wizard to dinner at his house, to Shabbat dinner. And I asked him, so did you try to disabuse him of his notions about Jewish people, about black people? And he said, not at all. No, we just talked about life and love and college. And over time, the guy just came to the realization that he had been fed a bill of goods, that it wasn't true what he'd been taught about minority groups like Jewish people, and came to that conclusion for himself out of the love and kindness and friendship he was receiving from someone in that group. Exactly. That's exactly your point,

that if you really want to change people and persuade people, you don't out them and then target them and then shame them. That's just going to make them entrenched and sometimes go underground and become more radical. And going back to your original question about tribalism, people are like, is this so depressing, Amy? Are we all so tribal? But I have all these studies at the back of the book that are really hopeful that demonstrate kind of scientifically what you were just talking about, that if you can pull people out of their tribes, even just for a short time and say, okay, don't talk about politics. Don't talk about this. Just talk about your pets and ice cream and pizza and your children and sports. It takes such a short time for humans to connect on a human level. You know, I mean, it's people, I mean,

I'm an optimist. I think people are basically good, you know? And when, so yes, if we really want to bring people together, and if you really think the other side is terrible, you want to change their mind, you should be doing exactly what your, your guest did, which is just don't scream and yell and target and shame, but just, just try to be a human being. And I think, you know, it's hard not to do it on the other side too. By the way, my smart producer is just letting me know the guest's name was Derek Black. David Duke was his godfather and his father was a grand wizard of the KKK. So, I mean, there's pretty intimate connections to the KKK and he managed to extract himself. But I think

it's easy to, you know, having been on the receiving end of that kind of targeting, I think there's also a fight in your own heart not to give in to bitterness, to continue to use a generous lens on the other side that's saying the awful things about you. Because if you don't use the generous lens, then negativity breeds more negativity and you, you know, bitterness will set in. And the more you lean into your tribal mentality and the demonization of huge groups of people, the more alienated you're going to be. Yeah. You know, I, I see you as such a kindred spirit this way, because of course it's human nature to just hold a grudge and be angry. For me, I found it to be

true, even at a personal level. Sometimes I would get so angry. I would see stuff said about me or even worse about my family. If it's about me, I can take it. But when I see stuff about my children, my daughters, I just start burning up and get all these vengeful feelings. And then I realized when I get in that state, Megan, I'm awful. Like I'm awful to be around. And I also can't write. I can't write. I can't be productive. I just, so even again, just purely strategically, I thought you just let it go. You know, it's just a terrible state to being just be generous, take a deep breath. And I've tried to live by that. I got it from my parents. And that's actually the first piece of advice I give young people, just like, let it go. Don't be bitter.

And now we're really going down the rabbit hole, but I will share a story with you that for me was very illuminating as a woman, as a human. Back when I was in between marriages, my many marriages, no, I've only had two. So my first marriage had broken up and I was separated from Dan, had not yet met Doug. And I decided to get some counseling. This woman actually helped me decide that I was going to leave my first marriage. She was a relationship counselor. And so she was wonderful and really transformed my life and my thinking about a lot of things. But I went to her for individual therapy and shortly into the relationship, she was like, you know, you could really benefit from some group therapy. I was like, how fucked up am I? Like how many times a week am I going to be coming here? And she said,

it's a lot, it's women who are all going through the, you know, a big breakup or a relationship crisis. And I think hearing their stories would help you. So I was like, okay, I'll do it. So I went and that's what I thought we were going to talk about, the guys and whether we all wanted to break up or stay together. And there was some of that, but it turned into also an inward look at ourselves, at the way we approach friendships, at the way we approach other women. And I had some profound discussions there. And one of the discussions was about how I had always felt like when I walk into a room with other women, they don't like me that, that

instantaneously I was disliked. And maybe that had been true. Maybe it hadn't, but that it wasn't even appearance so much as confidence. Sometimes when you project confidence as a person, it can be threatening to others, right? Especially if they don't feel confident. There's so much envy of you, Megan. You know, I, yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. And sometimes I have to talk to myself about it because I feel bad. I'm like, why?

I feel like everybody hates me. Look at my, I'm looking at Twitter. Oh my gosh. And these are people don't even know me. And it's lethal. It's so deadly and toxic and like, Oh, and vicious. Like I, you deserve your daughters to commit suicide and all this terrible stuff. And, and I I've thought about it a lot myself. So how did that go? So I, I talked about it openly. I confess that to these women. I was, I was already on television at the time. I was like a first year at Fox or maybe second year. And, um, one of the women did me the favor of crying and telling me in her case, it was true. She said, I, I do feel threatened. I wouldn't want to go out for a drink

with you. I would feel like you would get all this attention and I wouldn't get any. And you would think you were better than me. And I wouldn't like the way I felt around you. And then I started crying because she was giving me a gift of honesty. And I got the chance. She gave me the chance to confess to her. That's not at all how I am, how I'm riddled with self-doubt. And while I know I project very confident and I, in general, I'm a confident person.

I have just as many insecurities as anybody else and am clamoring for approval, just like any other human. So we bonded and the end result of all of this was my lady, Amy, she was the therapist helped me and the other gals see the more you can walk into a room thinking, not they all hate me or they're all going to hate me, but thinking instead, they're all going to love me. The more you will get that back from that group and from life. And on a much larger level, I think that's what we're talking. Like if you could find a way out of the tribal instinct and try to look generously at the other side and say, what if they loved me? Maybe we could make some progress. You know, when I got back, I'll tell you later, but I had this weird medical crisis.

But when I got back to school after this really turbulent time where there were all these protests and it was another one of my firestorms, I remember going into a class and then a bunch of students said to me, oh gosh, during office hours, you can't believe it. All these people on the wait list for your class, you know, they were about to snitch. Like they were the ones actually saying terrible things about you and protesting. And I said, stop. I said, I don't care. I don't want to hear anything.

I don't want to know any. I want to give every fresh, clean slate. I like everybody. If they'll give me a chance, I'll give them a chance. And it worked out great. That's so good. That's so perfect. Well, don't you find in life, sometimes you run into that person who is just dying to tell you all the negative things people have said about you, right? Especially when you're younger and you really need to eliminate those people from your lives. I remember in law school, there was a gal, she sat next to me because we

sat alphabetically and she would just tell me all the time about like, this one doesn't really like you, or this one said that about you. Oh my gosh. And finally I looked at her and I was like, you know what? Do me a favor. Don't tell me any more of those things. I don't need to know those things. I told my daughters, I was like, you know, you don't be surprised that what kind of tiger mom advice I give, but this is a big one. I was like, I've discovered late in my life that they're basically two kinds of people. The ones that after you leave them, I mean, no matter how the conversation fell, you feel worse about yourself. For some reason, you just feel bad. And then the other half,

you leave and you could have been talking about potatoes, but you just feel better about yourself. And I was like, you always want to be the second kind of person. That's so important. I'll tell you the epilogue to that story about the woman I went to law school with. So I told her to stop telling me that stuff that I didn't appreciate it and it wasn't good for me. And she took offense and flash forward to the end of the semester. And we walked in and we're trying to find our seats and she had already seen the seating chart. And as I say, we always sat next to each other. So I saw her at the back of the class and I said, do you know where we're sitting? And she goes, figure it out yourself. And I looked at her and I said,

shove it up your ass, which is a great phrase. We should use it more often. I advocate for it. It felt so good. I think also when you talk about it, it can be inspiring. I've, I've had conversations with students that are very illuminating for me too, because I get the same thing, which is, wow, you're so strong. How can you just keep picking yourself up? And when you hear these things being said about you and how do you do that? And when I explained to them the process, I was like, oh, you don't realize, like just 10 minutes before I came into this room, I was like in bed under the covers, not sure I could deal with it, pounding the mellows just, and the decision to like, you know what, I'm going to put on a nice suit and actually present myself. You know, it's a lot of that's

hard. You just have to kind of make yourself and it's not like it's automatic. I'm a, I'm a, this is easy for you. I'm such quote unquote, strong person. It's, it's not, it's really, as you say, it's, it's, it's difficult. It's a struggle. And half the battle, as you point out, is just doing it, getting yourself up, and then doing it, even if it goes poorly, putting yourself back out there after a big challenge matters, matters in the perception of others and just in general. Okay, so getting back to our tribalism discussion, what, what do we do about it now? So Trump, you know, Trump has lost the election and the, the country's very divided. It's not going to go away just because, I mean, he's not going away. He's still going to be the voice of the Republican party for a long time. So what,

what's going to happen since you have studied other countries who get like this with the market minority majority, or however you phrase it, what happens next in those countries? Well, here's the crazy optimist in me, which I can't believe I can maintain teaching at Yale Law School. But I just think we have this extraordinary magic formula in this country. And I think it's because I'm an immigrant kid, we've talked about our similar backgrounds. But I mean, I know you're not an immigrant, but just similar kinds of upbringing. But, you know, I think my parents came from another country that was just so much worse. They were the Chinese in the Philippines that I was just kind of raised like this is such an amazing country. So I think that the fact that our national identity is not rooted in blood or a

certain race or a certain religion, but rather our constitution is going to save us. I think it's going to take a long time. It's going to be, we're going to have many, many rough years because we're going through growing pains. And some of it is really, honestly, a lot of previously silenced voices are finally getting to express themselves and that's good. And it feels very turbulent. But when you say, what should we do going forward? One crazy, well, I don't think it's so crazy, but the kinds of things that I think would be great for this country to bridge the divide between the cosmopolitan elites and kind of the rest of the country or Trump's base is this idea that people on both the right and the left of the political

spectrum have started to suggest and that's the idea of like a national service program whether you know maybe voluntary but so you've got kids so a lot of kids right after high school now especially coastal elites they take a gap year and it's wonderful they usually go to Australia or Amsterdam or Guatemala and they do amazing things. And but the thing is, they often go with their same kind of elite bubble, like they're still with their same friends and they go to amazing things. So what about, let's say, after high school, you know, people, young people are encouraged to, if you're from New York or San Francisco, to go to another part of the country, you know, Kentucky or Ohio or somewhere where you would never go and sort of interact on some kind of public service project, you know, build, planting trees or building something, housing because of the pandemic. But side by side with somebody, not in a condescending way, not like I'm going to teach you, but just, you know, and I think

some program like that, because we don't have the draft anymore. It used to be that the draft actually served this function. This is an interesting thing about the Vietnam War that was terrible for so many reasons. One very positive thing that I write about is that it actually, for the first time, brought Latino Americans and African Americans and Polish Americans and Irish Americans all together. And there are these inspiring quotes that when you're afraid for your life, you're in this dark cubby being shot at, you look to the person to your left and right, you don't care what class they are, what accent they have, the color of their skin, you know, and that was actually a great bonding moment. So if we can try to replace that with some sort of program where young people from more elite backgrounds can actually interact

as human beings with people from other parts of the country. I think that kind of thing would be a great start. I love that. I mean, we think about it now because of our kids. You know, I didn't grow up in any sort of elite circles, but now becoming a member of the media and then earning some dough, it kind of puts you there. And I do not want to raise those kids. I don't want kids that turn out like that. And so Doug and I, you know, we talk about it I don't want kids that turn out like that. And so Doug and I, you know, we talk about it all the time. Like, how do you, how do you make sure?

Cause I see the trappings of wealth that they don't think too much of themselves. Number one, we always make sure they know they have nothing. They have no money. He and I have money. They got, they got nothing. Good luck.

Number two, we don't, you know, in our summers and nobody stays in New York in the summers. Everybody leaves New York City because it's hideous. We don't go to the Hamptons. We don't go to any sort of rich communities. We've been hanging out at the Jersey Shore. And it's a privilege to have a summer place. Don't get me wrong.

But it was by design that we chose to live on a crowded street with our home right in the mix of things next to people who are cops and firefighters and teachers and real estate agents and not, you know, you have to walk the red carpet just to get out to dinner at night. You know, we already freaking have that in New York. We don't want our kids to think that's real life because it's not. A quick story. Somebody really, really wealthy that I don't know very well, but, you know, that again, like through this lecture, Tiger Mom stuff, I meet interesting people and a billionaire's wife, um, carting around their really cute kids, but in private planes and everything said, okay.

Um, invited me to dinner, said, tell me one important tip, just one crucial secret, you know, cause look at these kids. I want to be a tiger mom and I'm seeing them float around in these private jets and everything, um, with all these tutors. And I said, make them take out the garbage. And I'm seeing them float around in these private jets and everything with all these tutors. And I said, make them take out the garbage. And she laughed. She's like, okay, but seriously, what should I do? Like, should I, you know, these tutors? I was like, no, I'm being totally serious. I was like, if you, I had my biggest fights with my daughter, Lulu, about taking out the garbage, which was actually hard for me because I'm such a

type A person that I love taking out the garbage myself. But it was just like what you're doing. You know, it's like, it was important for me to not get them too big for their britches, you know, like, you don't have people catering to you. And if you can't do this, you know, life is difficult. So yeah, little story. I think about it as they get older, because, you know, obviously, I like you have a bunch of connections. So if I if I really wanted to hook my kids up with some summer internship in, you know, some senator's office, like I'm sure I could. But I'm really hoping that I can get them to shovel fish guts at the local fish market in New Jersey, where we go, I really want that to be on my kids resume of life, you know, that they, they immerse

themselves in a job where they got their hands dirty and they figured it out. Cause that's, that's also part of development. You know, it can't all be model UN. Oh my God. To be perfectly honest, I actually think it's going to benefit even strategically. You just have too many elites all doing the same things. And it's obvious that it's through a connection. So, so not just for personal honest development, but I think that's, I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, you will find that it's hard though, because I'm, you know, quite a bit older than you, because if you, if you go up with humble beginnings, like I did, I mean, not dirt poor, but you know, we, I always had to wear the fake Adidas with four stripes. And it was so ugly. So, and you know, I just

never got the nice thing. So when, because we love our children so much, we want them to have what we didn't have. So I think that you will find that, you know, you almost have to control yourself because our natural instinct as parents is we want to give them what we didn't have. And I had to always resist that instinct. I find myself often telling them we can't afford them what we didn't have. And I had to always resist that instinct. I find myself often telling them we can't afford it. We can't afford it. We can't afford it, whether it's true or not, just because I want them to get used to that in life.

And I know people teach their kids how to budget and all that. I don't do that. I'm not much of a budgeter myself. I never have been. But I do want them to understand the world doesn't come to you very easily. And it's really about hard work. And we'll get to your philosophy because you're the queen of that in a minute.

But just to take a step back before National Service Corps, because I love that idea. If we don't do anything, if we don't do anything about this problem, I know in the book you say we're going to see an erosion of trust in institutions. Check. We're going to see an erosion of trust in electoral. Check. We're going to see an erosion of trust in electoral outcomes. Check. Keep in mind, folks, she wrote this book two years ago. We're going to see lurches toward authoritarianism. Check. We're going to see an elite backlash against the less educated working class or deplorables. Check. And above all, we're going to see the transformation of democracy into an

engine of zero-sum political tribalism. So if that's where we stay, zero-sum political tribalism, nothing gets done politically. We don't reach across the aisle as humans and friends. We retreat more and more. And what happens next? Because I heard Rush Limbaugh not too long ago talking about, people are talking about secession now. Like, we're just going to have to retreat into different states and say goodbye to this whole project we call the United States. Yeah, it's really dangerous. And I mean, I am, I am sort of impressed that I called it right. Because I actually wrote that even more than two years ago. It's amazing.

Yeah. So if you just kind of analyze the dynamics based on experience with other countries, I think it is a dangerous moment. I hope, I know this sounds Pollyanna, I hope that we, so I give talks all over the country and people are like, Amy, tell us another country that we can follow. Is there a country that, you know, whose model we can pursue so we can get out of our tribalism? And you know what, Megan, they're always thinking of Canada. But I just disappoint everybody. I'm like, you know what, I think we have the best model. We are at a terrible moment. We're seeing really the worst of ourselves right now. And yes, there are dangers that we could really fracture. When I talk to a lot of my friends and hear the actual hate in their

voices and disdain and fear for the other side, I do get really depressed. But I think we have the best self-correcting mechanisms. And I actually feel a little bit hopeful with this next four years. But we'll see. I mean, you could see that the Supreme Court, without getting into the details, has surprised a lot of people. I mean, you know, people, I had a lot of very liberal friends that just assumed the absolute worst. And instead, it's been a kind of a stabilizing force, a little boring, you know. But, you know, we do have, and so when I see people trying to get rid of this and that in the government, it's because I study countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe and Iraq and, you know, Libya, I'm like, wait, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater so quickly, right? It's kind of impressive that we have had one system for, albeit only just 200 years or so,

but, you know, it's a system that I think we should be proud of. As I read what you've written and, you know, just sort of what has brought us together typically over the years, part of it is patriotism, you know, belief in this country and what it stands for, the idea of America. And sadly, we really have gotten away from that. That's become more of a partisan tribal thing, too. You know, Republicans love America and liberals criticize it. And if you don't criticize it, you're you're for racism. Right. It's like, wait, what? Wait, how do we get there? You look back at any sort of historical movie show or read any books about history and you see how united the country was after World War II when we won and we believed that we had stood down Hitler and fascism. And, you know, we felt as one and we believed in our country more than ever. And of course, we had economic prosperity thereafter. But we've gotten away from that. And I don't know how to convince liberals like Democrats that doesn't mean they're

pro-racism or sexism or any ism to back the idea of America, to get that notion back into classes and schools where, because it could be a uniting force that helps reduce this tribal instinct. Yeah. You know, I've actually, again, more provocative things I've said, I wrote, I was quite a while ago, I said, you know, liberals and progressives shouldn't cede patriotism to the Republicans, just like they shouldn't cede family values, because it's, it's logically doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense that patriotism should be more of a right wing thing, you have the right to define, you know, but to kind of play the devil's advocate on the other side, you know, for, I think we're in a moment of redefining what our,

what our national identity is. And for a lot of people to really believe in America and believe in the constitution, those rights have to mean something to them. So I totally get it. You know, if you belong to a certain racial group where you're like, are you kidding? This particular right has never played out for anybody that looks like me, you're going to get cynicism. So there's work to be done on both sides. Like we also have to, you know, I totally get what you're saying. I've talked about education and well, I think it's great that we're not whitewashing our history anymore. I totally think it's great that we're not whitewashing our history anymore, I totally think it's great that we're revealing that there were a lot of flaws in our founding

fathers. And, you know, that's important. At the same time, I don't think we should overcorrect. You know, we need to find a way to teach our kids America's history in a way that's honest, while still letting them feel that this is a special nation with something that's worth fighting for and worth dying for. So, you know, I had a headmaster, again, talk about self-censoring at one of these super fancy New York schools. He's a white male, super progressive himself. But he said to me, Amy, I don't know what to do. A lot of my, the vast majority of my students think of the founding fathers as white male rapists, you know, and I can't say anything about that because I'm just going to get targeted. So

what do I do? And it's a terrible problem, you know, it's, and so, you know, I think that we need to figure out a way to teach civics in a way we can't have, because the constitution is the only thing that can hold this country together, our history. So, so that's, that's definitely, you know, something that we all need to work on. More with Amy in just one minute, but first I want to talk to you about legacy box. This is an effortless way to digitally preserve your home movies and photos so that you never have to wonder where they are or whether they are safe. You know, like now that the holidays are over, you got two big questions to deal with.

How long should the tree stay up? Long, I think. Long. And how can I stay connected with family between now and the next holiday? Well, this is how. Legacy box. Start your new year off right by giving your aging home movies, photos, and film reels a modern update so they're organized and easy to share with your friends and family. Legacy Box makes reconnecting with your past and your family to talk about your past as easy as pressing play. Now I did this. I got my Legacy Box. I filled it with old videotapes and DVDs and I got it back and we laughed. So some of the stuff I put on there was, it was me doing trial team training when I was a very young lawyer. And you should have seen what a

baby I was, first of all. And I still have my lawyer hair and my kids got such a kick out of me, like fumbling around the courtroom and trying to seem like a serious person. Anyway, it could just be something like that where you. Anyway, it could just be something like that where you have fun, or it could be something more important like the birth of your child, you know, what have you. With Legacy Box, you can have all that footage organized and preserved quickly and easily. It's shockingly simple. Use their kit to safely send in the moments you want preserved, create a digital collection by hand, that's what they'll do, and then it all comes back to you, stored in the cloud, a thumb drive or a DVD, along

with your original media. You go to LegacyBox.com slash MK to take advantage of this limited time offer and get 40% off. This exclusive offer will not last long. So order their kit now. Send it in whenever you're ready. Go to LegacyBox.com slash MK and save 40% off while supplies last. Before we get back to Amy, I want to bring you a feature we call Asked and Answered here at the show.

Steve Krakauer is our executive producer who's got the question for us. Hey, Steve. Hey, Megan. This is a good one here. This comes to us from someone on Instagram who didn't leave us their name. So in the future, leave us your name

and we can give you credit and give you a little shout out on the show here. The question though was great. What advice would you give someone that wants to pursue a career like yours? Don't do it. Run. Don't walk. Just kidding.

I don't know if you mean in journalism or if you just mean sort of like a big career in the public eye. But work hard is really the best piece of advice I could give you. Uh, too many people don't want to do it. They want to phone it in, but the one common denominator amongst all the successful people I know is they work their tail off. That's the only way, no matter what you do. And, um, if you're going to be a burger flipper, be the best burger flipper that restaurant has ever seen. And soon thereafter, you will no longer be the one doing the flipping. You will be the one doing the hiring and you will see your paycheck go up

accordingly. Don't be above any work. Go there, volunteer for everything. Do it all. Don't be a diva, right? Like nothing's beneath you. You're there to get your elbows dirty, greasy, and learn. Don't be afraid when you're young, especially to ask question, question, question, question. I mean, I'm, I'm not young and I'm still asking questions all the time because believe me, if you're wondering it, others are wondering it too. And better to ask than to just wonder and then later make a fool out of yourself. So I know, I don't, I don't know so much about seeking out a mentor. I always think it's sort of weird when somebody like asks me to be their mentor. That's something you kind of have to earn, but definitely find people

you admire and try to do what they do. And if you can get to know them and ask them real questions about their approach, that would be helpful as well. I also think that when you're interviewing for a job that you really want, don't be afraid to ask for the job. Say in the interview, I want this job for the following reasons, and they better be good and they better be concise and not sound like talking points. Make them real reasons because Fox News is number one, because I believe that fair and balanced is a life mantra, not just one for a corporation, because I believe the mainstream media is way too far left. And this is the antidote. That's not at all what I said in my Fox interview. I didn't even know that it was really number one at all. I found out later.

But anyway, and I actually didn't totally appreciate its ideological bent, though I had some clue. But have your talking points ready as opposed to just like, it's the largest company delivering packages today and hit the fortune, whatever. You don't want to do that. Say something persuasive that's real because people can smell a phony and then say, I like this job so much. I want it so badly. I will accept it on the spot. If you make me an offer, I will accept it on the spot.

You can negotiate salary and all that stuff later. You're going to have power later in your career if you've been the hard worker and then you can jack up your price. But in the beginning, go in there hungry, hungry for the job, hungry for life, hungry for growth. And then if you just maintain that attitude you will rise up in whatever field you choose you will rise up um you can't help but rise up because too many people have a lazy attitude and want things handed to them so you will shine by comparison and keep a

humble heart never get drunk on your own wine as great as you think you are there's always somebody better than you and as shitty as you think you are there's always somebody worse than you that And as shitty as you think you are, there's always somebody worse than you. That's why I watch The Real Housewives. Can't recommend it highly enough. No, they're not bad people. Well, kind of. Anyway, it's fun. But the point is, don't beat yourself up too badly and don't lift yourself up too high. Okay?

And listen, whoever you are, good luck. Coleman Hughes was on the show not long ago and I was saying something similar, like, how do you teach patriotism? And he said, you don't. You teach history. You teach world history and you let them see what America is and what it is compared to every other country on Earth. Right. Like, look at our history and look at theirs. I was like, Oh my God, that's it right there. All right. Let's talk about schools and education because you are at Yale law school. And I know it's like every campus lead campus, but really every campus other than two, um, it's very leftist and left leaning. So first of all, just broad brush, how does that manifest in your life there? Oh, it's so completely different, even from five years ago.

It's amazing. There are, I used to love, the thing that I loved most about being a professor was I would see friendships developing across political lines. So at Yale Law School, every student starts in a small group of 16 people. And so many friendships have formed in those small groups. And so, you know, somebody we both know, J.D. Banz, you know, poor Republican from Appalachia, I still remember, he was extremely close to, you know, a very progressive gay woman who shared absolutely nothing in common with him. And they became great friends. That cannot happen anymore. There's a conservative organization, as you know, called the Federalist Society. And I used to love seeing friendships across these political lines.

Now there's a concept called FedSoc adjacent. So if you're a liberal, but you have one friend who belongs to the Federalist Society, you will be targeted and shamed and called out. You are FedSoc adjacent and you are not a member of the tribe. And so it just shuts all that down. I see obsessions with vocabulary policing. So don't get me wrong, there are a lot of improvements. I'm glad that a lot of phrases aren't used anymore. We can all grow. But I worry that it's not in the spirit of unity and real progress, but more like gotcha. So I have a student who came, a transfer student who was, again, big Democrat.

Most of our students aren't Democrats. She's from a poor place down south. And she came all ready to do good in this class. She raised her hand and talked about you know prisoners rights immediately she was a white woman you know caucasian woman hands go up she was called out called out for using the wrong term you're supposed to say incarcerated peoples you can't say prison you know and same with if somebody accidentally says illegal alien you know it's not just a gentle reminder. It's that's xenophobic, you know. So I think that's a terrible development because instead of facilitating conversation, you just shut everything down.

I so I see a lot of self-censoring. You know, I know there's a big debate, but I can tell you students openly tell me, oh, you know, I'm not going to risk it. You know, I don't want to go up on the wall and find myself, you know, the center of a campaign. You know, there'll be a big criminal law class where there'll be a few outspoken people. It's a very big position at the law schools now to be against prisons, you know, defund the police and to be against prisons completely. I'm not surprised. That's actually part of the Black Lives Matter playbook. That's what they're pushing for in places like Seattle. It's written down. They want to empty all the prisons, open up the jails. Well, it's really complicated because it's easy

to caricature everything. I mean, I actually know people who have very subtle views about what they really mean. But yes, there are some people who in these classes will, you know, if you're even in favor of prison, then you're going to be targeted. So I have a bunch of students who, by the way, themselves are extremely progressive saying, oh, my gosh, I would never raise my hand and even ask a question or push back. It's just not worth it. So there's a lot of that kind of self-censorship. On the good news front, Megan, I stick a big banner on my syllabus, and I'm not the only one, but I'm in a small minority that says, do not take this class if you don't want this. And I'm like, this class, you know, is intent on promoting vigorous debate across all different political backgrounds and spectrums. Everybody has an assumption that they are not

a racist or, you know, xenophobe, if they say something, you know, don't take this class, if you don't want to be in that kind of environment. And I, when I said I was going to do that, a lot of my colleagues were, oh my God, first, you're going to be targeted. And also you're going to have 10 people. I had 180 person people signed up for a 60 person class. So I have a huge wait list. So I think there is a giant silent majority out there that is kind of squashed into silence because it's not worth it. That's the phrase. It's not worth it to be called out and to be, you know, suddenly find yourself in the middle of social media. But there's a craving to go back, to be able to have civil discourse, to talk to people on the other side. That's that to me is the answer to, you know, some of this far left

woke stuff that's being shoved down our throats. Speak up. It's OK to push back. Some of this stuff is insane. And if we don't start calling it out, we're going to have to live with it. And especially in the academic institutions, yes, it's going to take courage to speak up and be, you know, a minority voice, basically, you know, ideologically minority, but do it, grow a pair, be a man, be a woman, do it. You know, I just like, I don't have a lot of sympathy because at this point in my life, I've learned enough to know if you go along, it's still not going to save you. Just, just stand up for what you believe in. Yeah. And it's scary. Even as a professor, when you say that I, I, and I've actually done it on both sides where somebody says something and

they're immediately called out. And then I'm terrified because I realized, oh my gosh, if you, if you defend this person that said the dog has, are you going to get dragged down? And I forced myself. So I think it takes, but you're absolutely right. It, it, it works like, you know, this, I think that's the correct meaning of a role model, right? Because you're like, okay, she did it. And she survived. Yeah, it wasn't that pretty, but she survived. Maybe I can do it too. Right? It's and by the way, it's so liberating, like now in this sort of latest iteration of my professional life, it is so liberating to go on these media tours or

whatever, who's ever asking me to speak, and just say what I really believe. And it's always considered provocative. I don't care. I don't care. You can see people's eyes light up and like the words are being said, they're being said out loud in a forum like this. Oh my gosh. It's wonderful to be able to give people that feeling. I don't care if some people's feelings get hurt. I'm done bowing to that. But I know like you have lived this because I know you spoke up in support of Brett Kavanaugh. And you and I had an email exchange about it around the time because I also thought that was brave and I thought what was being done to him was outrageous.

You know him a bit. I think your daughter clerked for him, one of your daughters, when he was on the DC circuit, circuit, he was on the lower court. And then again, I think once he once he got elevated, but they were they were attacking your family and you took a risk. You spoke out. So what made you do that? Yeah. So I think it's the way I was raised. You know, my dad always taught me nothing is worth the price

of your dignity, you know, and and also I was kind of raised just to be loyal to my friends. Maybe this goes back to tribalism, but the media got it so wrong. Like everything is backwards. Actually, what happened was, believe it or not, you know, Brett Kavanaugh was known to be a very moderate Republican and he was a darling of Yale Law School. He was invited for 10 years during admissions week to come and talk to Yale Law Women, the Black Students Association. He was like this favorite alumni. That's not what you'll think anymore. But I actually wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. And again, this is, the facts are all wrong in the media, but you can find it. It was in the summer, right after he was nominated, before any of the scandal came out. And it simply didn't talk about his political views, but defended him as a mentor.

And I just quoted a bunch of my students. And frankly, all of the students ever sent to him were liberals, actually. And they all, to a one, just said he was the best mentor. And then all of the and my daughter was hired before that in 2016, before Donald Trump was elected, and I had nothing to do with it, I recused myself. And I disclosed that in the Wall Street Journal article. But then crazy life happened. In 2018. I taught my first class in August 28th, thinking, oh, another new semester. And that night, I was seized with a terrible pain, and I was rushed to the emergency room. The next thing I know, I was at ICU. All of my organs start collapsing.

My lung collapsed. I had eight tubes put in me. I was unconscious for a week and in the hospital for three weeks. It was a freak medical thing. There was a, they found, when they finally opened me up, a two centimeter colon by colon that was releasing all these toxins. I was going to take shock. But right then, this is September 2018,

suddenly there were these scandalous things about, Amy Chua told people to look like models in interviews. It was so ridiculous. Because first of all, he's a Federalist Society judge. They're the most conservative judges. There's a uniform. When you interview, you have to wear a dark suit

and low heels. And it was like the opposite. It was just, it's like, if I were going to give crazy advice like that, that's not the way it would be. It just so ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But then I was in the hospital under oxycote, I mean, toxin,

and there were all these rumors like Amy Chua's faking her illness. So she doesn't have to, but we came out of it. And I'm proud that, you know, that there were all these calls that, you know, renounce him. I felt like cultural revolution China, you have to denounce them and renounce this. And I just said, no, you know, and then the people at school said, okay, you may not be able to teach properly. There might be protests. You may not get, even though I was always one of the most popular teachers, maybe there'll only be three people that will take your class if you don't issue an apology. And I said, you know what? I'm a great apologizer, but I will not apologize for something I didn't do. I didn't say, I actually would have been proud to have said something like dress, look good, you know, but in this particular

case, I did, it was just so ridiculous, like looking like models. So I, so I said, well, then if I only have two students, that's too bad. I'll start, you know, and I might in my head, thinking of my mom and dad, I was like, I will win. I will do it the immigrant way through hard work. I will try to win the students back one at a time. And it's been a long haul, you know, there was, but I will say it wasn't just three students, you know, again, I taught a big, you know, I have a class of a hundred people coming up and I've loved being back. So I think if you stand up for what you believe and don't cave, it's not easy. I don't want to sugarcoat it, but it comes out the right way. At least you, at least you can be proud of who you are.

Yeah. Yeah. You're you're 100 percent right. You know, it's it's hard, I'm sure. Extra hard because you're, of course, at an organization. I mean, you know, academia is like media. It's almost 100 percent liberal. And so and it's not just enough to you know, if you are a liberal, if you're a Democrat, you have to be, you know, woke. You have to be saying the right things. You have to not be saying the wrong things. And the lack of ideological diversity in these colleges and frankly, at these lower schools now, the former is a real, well, let me rephrase that. It's a real problem. It's a problem at the lower schools and it's a serious problem in academia now where the stats are like, at Yale, there was a survey in 2017 saying 75% of the Yale professors say they're liberal, less than 10% say they're conservative. I don't know what the others are, but it's probably even lower than that, honestly. And I don't even know, like, if you were conservative, why would you want to go teach at a university like that, where you're surrounded with people who not only don't think like you, but they don't like you? Yeah, it's definitely difficult. I mean, again, I am proud. First of all, I'm lucky that I teach

a class called Contracts and also International Business Transactions. So it's like so bland. But because I'm a minority woman, I always have a huge progressive block of immigrants, kids and minorities. And I love that they're really progressive. But what I'm proud of is I'm one of the only classes where I also have a really large group of Federalist Society students. So this just past semester, I had, I think, 14 Federalist Society conservative students and then like, you know, 45 super liberal people of color. And it worked, like if you just lay down the ground rules, there were some tense moments, I won't be, I, you know, I'll have to be honest. But again, if I just, I'm like, you lay down the rules,

I stand up for who think I think needs standing up for facilitate the conversation, you know, I made it work. And I mean, that's the academic project. That's why people, people came to law school to want to debate the other side and to hear the position and to learn how to articulate your position. And if you just stamp out any dissension or you refuse to listen to the other I heard, the college campuses were all about the safe spaces and you couldn't have honest conversations about, you know, these issues. God forbid you try to talk about race. It used to be just like abortion or religion, gay rights. You know, now it's crossed over into like gender and race or these third rails that nobody can talk about. And I just wonder because, of course, academia and frankly, again, media, those are the places, exactly the places you should be talking about those things and exploring different ideas and testing your own assumptions. Yeah, I'm not going to say it's gotten better yet, but I hope that we're going to turn a corner soon because partly this is a crazy thing to say.

It's getting so untenable. I mean, you just see people who were throwing out flamethrowers themselves getting sucked into it. Then they become the targets. And at some point, there's just nobody left. You know, when I see all the people that have been canceled and it's just a larger and larger pool at some point, you know, I think the term of having been canceled just takes on a different meaning. I mean, Coleman Hughes has talked about this. So, no, it was definitely still in the middle of this. You know, of course, President Trump, whatever, just he was an inflammatory figure. So maybe at least one thing is that the temperature will be reduced a little bit, even though a lot of the same dynamics are still underlying. You know, I'm just hoping that maybe we'll. And I also think people are exhausted,

Megan. I really think, again, I believe in the silent majority. You know, I go to these dinner parties. I, I talked to large student groups. I'm like, wait, where are you guys? How come the only voices I hear loudly shrieking are so unreasonable. And I've got this group of a hundred people. You all seem lovely. You know, I think I do think they're going to speak up more and more. And I have I take comfort in believing it's we had a guest recently who was saying the truth will win out truth. I think it was Andrew Sullivan was saying, truth wins out in the end over lies. And, and, and we just have to wait for that. Because we're being spun a lot of dishonest information on these subjects right now. And I think over time, more and more people will speak out. You've got scientists leaving the profession of science so they can be able to speak

freely. If that's what has to happen, then that's what has to happen. But I think we're going to get there. All right, let's talk about tiger mothering. This is so fun. So I'm very non-judgmental. And I know you are too. You're not saying you must be like me, um, when it comes to how people mother their children, but I'm fascinated. And I think you gave us all a gift in writing that book, battle him with a tiger mother, just because it's a window into somebody else's approach. And somebody who a has a very successful academic history herself, double Harvard undergrad in law, and now is teaching at Yale Law. And then as we know now, we didn't when you wrote the book, you have two daughters who you work to the bone,

but they both went to Harvard undergrad, one went to Harvard Law, one went to Yale Law. So boom, the proof is in the pudding in terms of academic achievement. Let me just start with an encounter I had with you, which is literally one of my favorite stories. So I met you a couple of years ago and we were talking a little bit about the book and I, and I was like, I get it. You know, you, you know, you were tough and really sort of rode them and they got these perfect grades.

And, you know, of course the criticism of the book is, but, but what about their happiness? And you said, I know, I know. Whenever I hear someone ask that question, I think to myself, yes, another one down. Like I'm in love with her. I love it. Your competitiveness, your open owning of academic competition, you don't really care. You're going to do it. So do you think, do you think that now having the girls, you know, become so successful academically, do you have any regrets about it? Well, I do. I mean, not big regrets. I would say that the thing I'm most proud of is actually not

their academic credentials, but the fact that we were really close that we, and I see, I know how you are with your kids. Like if I, if I, if my kids didn't want to come home and bring their friends, and if I didn't feel they talked to me, I would have counted myself as a failure. So that was the most important thing. And I love my own parents too. And the funny thing about the Tiger Mom book is, yeah, I am super tough and I'm still tough, but the book, the whole book was a little bit misunderstood because it was actually written because my younger daughter rebelled, my younger daughter, in such a big way that the last third of the book was not funny. And I think the first two thirds is funny. Not everybody gets it, but the last third is like, oh my God. I mean, you don't talk about, it was just dark as many parents with adolescents know

where I just, it was just horrible. I felt like she hated me where I was going to lose her and terrible things. And so I actually wrote it in a moment of crisis. So, so my own view is actually more nuanced than the media suggests. I do still believe that self-esteem, real self-esteem, real confidence has to be earned. So I would love it if I could have just said to my kids, you're amazing. You're amazing. You're the smartest. You're the most brilliant. And they would then be happy. This goes to your happiness point that that would have been so much easier, but I actually think happiness is so elusive. Like how do we help our kids to be happy when they grow up? And I sure don't have the answer, but I also do know that being, having not the skills or the confidence to get what you want in life,

it's not a recipe for happiness. Being given everything and having an aimless feeling, like you have no goals, is not a recipe for happiness in life. So it's complicated what parenting is. I've been humbled many, many times. But yeah, I mean, I'm sort of like a, still a tiger mom. My daughters will confirm that, but now that they're so much older you know, in a much more nuanced way, like one of the things I learned is that you have to, I used to think, oh, that's a waste of time. That's a waste of time. One of my biggest lessons learned after my kids became 15, 16 and went to college is that sometimes you need to waste time. Like sometimes you need to waste a lot of time. Oh my God, who are you? And what have you done with

Amy? That's, this is not you talking. No, there's a, there's an ulterior motive. Like my younger daughter would just get, not get out of bed. And I would be like, oh my God, we have these papers due and this, like, what am I going to do? And then fiendishly, I would finally said, let's go take a walk. And my daughter is the slowest walker. No one moves. I am such a fast paced person, but you know, so we're like crawling around at snail's pace. But after this so-called waste of time, she felt better. And finally at her own tempo would actually pull out a piece of paper, you know? So, I mean, there's just also, you just, there's another thing I learned is your kids are your, there's only so much you can do. They are who they are, you know? My kids are still exactly

the same people they were when, as they were when they were one, you know, a year old, same personalities. Well, let's talk about what some of the things that you did as a mom to raise these incredibly successful daughters. So you lay it out in the book and I'll just read the list and then you can sort of explain what the goals were. You start off by saying, look, how did Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids? Well, here are some things my kids were never allowed to do. Attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular

activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the number one student in every subject except for gym or drama, play any instrument other than piano or violin, not play the piano or violin. Those are the things they were not allowed to do. So I love it. So fun. What, what was the goal? Like, what's the goal in, in setting down that, those rules? So first of all, as you could see, it's a little bit tongue in cheek. I, my kids did get some sleepovers and play dates, but I stand by that list. I will say that that same list was applied to me, not in a joking way by my own parents. And when I mentioned Chinese parents, in the book, I defined it as actually including like Nigerian parents and Jamaican American parents and Korean. So it's actually a little bit of an immigrant kid phenomenon. So the goal,

some of that is actually benightedness. So my mother wouldn't let me do sleepovers when I was little because she came from a foreign country. And I still remember her looking at me when I asked to have a sleepover. She was like, but Amy, I don't understand. We have a bed here for you. Why do you want to go to someone else's house to sleep? You know, because she was an outsider. She didn't know these people. She was worried about kidnappers, you know. So some of it is just literally kind of ignorance. And I actually am a big, when I go give talks in China, I give the opposite advice. Like, you don't want to raise robots. You need people to know how to socialize. And I think the ones in Asia are so terrible. You just, you know, you just work all day that, you know, I'm always like, they need some time to off on weekends.

But the kind of really touchy feely school I sent my kids to actually felt like a giant play date, you know, they didn't even do like math equations. It was just like blocks and puzzles and things like that. So so but the goal ultimately is back to self-esteem. Like, I think the way that a lot of immigrant parents think is I there's a line in my book. I'm like, you know, there are different ways that we all love our kids and we all want them to be happy and strong. But there are different ways of doing it. And the way a lot of immigrants think about it is I need to prepare them for the future. You know, they're only going to be children a certain amount of time. I need to arm them with the skills and the confidence and the grit that they need so

that when they fail, they have it in themselves to pick themselves up again and try again and again, because that's going to be life. You wrote Chinese parents assume strength, not fragility. I like the way you put that. I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm too lax with my kids, you know, because they're so sweet, you know, when I hurt their feelings and I have to remind myself, you know, it's okay to say, don't do that. You're better than that. Do better. Yeah. And it's, it's, I still believe in that, that we should assume strength, not weakness in our children. But I will be the first to say that parenting is not a science, but an art, like I'm always trying to calibrate, you know, and when I mentioned this dark phase, I fell into with my younger daughter, you know, I would say one of the lessons I learned is you

have to listen as a parent. So you have to, you know, our children are so smart. So they know how to play us. Right. So you're right. Like sometimes they would always know just the right words. Like they would, you know, certain kind of mental illness. And we're like, oh, my God, you can have anything you want. You know, I'm sad. Oh, my God. You know, but but having said that, it is tricky. Like I've I've made tons of mistakes where I just I had to have my oldest daughter or or vice versa.

Somebody said, you know, daughter X is not feeling good at all and you're not listening. And, you know, so then I change. So I think the baseline should be that we assume that our children are not just these fragile people that will fall apart if you give them any criticism, because once they go out to the real world, there's just going to be a lot of criticism. And there's a lot of things they're not going to get that they want. But I, yeah, I think it's a, I've been humbled many times where, um, you know, my daughters will say, you know, you made me feel bad for these years. And I felt we've had long talks about it. I I've like, I don't remember you feeling that bad. And they're like, Oh, that's because you weren't listening. So, you know, you're, I feel so much strike the balance, but I went just for the record,

what I hear you, I hear you being kind of defensive on the book. And I think it's sad because you shouldn't have to be defensive on the book. I think it's awesome that you, you raised them the way you thought was best for them. They turned out great. You have very solid relationships with them both, but I almost feel like you must've been shamed a lot by other moms and the media for your parenting style. And you shouldn't, you shouldn't have been. Yeah. Well, I do stand by it. So thank you for that. You know, I, I actually do. Yeah. It's, it really was not written as a how-to guide, but I, but so it's, it's this weird thing. Like I wrote it, believe it or not, I thought it was going to be an interesting work of literature. It was like a memoir. So, but yeah, but thank you. I am proud of the girls that I raised. I, you know, I don't say it's for everybody. I like the way you began

this. I mean, I'm a teacher. I have seen so many brilliant students. They come from every possible different parenting background. I mean, some people- No, but you can take from it what you will, right? Like I do think my general approach, other than being tough, like I don't coddle them too much. You know, it's like, like you, I don't say every two lines in a scratch of paper or like the next Picasso. It's like, eh, it looks fine. So I don't do that, but I think I'm too relaxed. Like I went to Syracuse undergrad. I went to Albany law school. These are not, I mean, with all due respect to them, these are not top tier academic institutions. And in the end it all worked out fine for me. And I probably made more money and had more success than a lot of people who wound up going to Harvard. Right. Which is the moral of that story.

Well, so, so like, I do have that perspective on it. Like, eh, if your kid doesn't get into those schools, it can all work out as long as they figure out what they're really good at and then, and then apply themselves. So like all successful people, I do work very, very, very hard. Um, that's the one key thing, all successful people have it. So, and, but you, what you, I see you doing is training your children to work very, very hard. You're training them from a very young age. I don't see anything wrong with that. But anyway, when I look at my own parenting, I think I should probably be training them harder. You know, like, I don't know if it'll kick in for them the way it did for me. And I don't see anything wrong with like, I like the fact that you said A's only A's. But then in the back of my head,

I'm like, what if they bring home a B? I don't think I have it in me to get the hundred practice tests, as you said, make them do it. Like, I don't know if have it in me to get the hundred practice tests, as you said, and make them do it. Like, I don't know if you can half-ass the Chinese parenting. No, you can't. I mean, I think if the focus on grades gets people, you know, upset, but like, just like with papers, you know what, I am proud of this. Like with my students, I, we have to resist the temptation for writing our kids' papers for them because again, it's so easy, right?

Oh, it's due, you know, and oh, they're crying and you want them to get a good grade. And so part of being, I think, I think everything valuable is difficult. And it's actually difficult just to not do it for them and make them do it. Another thing I say is like, I was like, okay, you've got to start early. Because, you know, I've seen my husband in the opposite model, which is he's so smart. He would do everything at the last minute and then, you know, pull out a decent grade and feel like so heroic. But that if you're competing against somebody who started two weeks ago, not as smart like me, you know, slowly, you know, the tortoise will beat the hare. And I'm always I say first draft, you know, you have to assume after you finished it that it's, you you know, that you're 65% of the way there, that you're going to need to begin.

And so I do have very high standards that I think people could learn from. How did you, so you talk, there's a very funny part of the book where you write about grades and you say, if I'm just going to read from, this is an excerpt from the journal. If a kid comes home with an A minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise him. A Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If it comes home with a B, Western parents might still praise the child. Some might express some disapproval, but be careful not to cause any insecurity or inadequacy. I'm paraphrasing now.

If a Chinese child gets a B, which would never happen, you say, there would first be a screaming hair tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A. Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their child can get them. When I read that, I remember thinking, how on earth did she find the time to do that? You were still working professional. You were, I think you were at Yale Law when your girls were young. How?

When did you do hundreds of practice tests if they ever did come home with a beat? Or something less than a perfect day? You know, that part, it's exaggerated and comical, but that part is true. It's comical. And by the way, it was kind of pretty ugly. Let me talk about, there was a lot of unpleasant yelling and screaming. So you have to factor that into whether it's worth it or not. I don't know what my husband would say, but the, but I, you know, so that's another reason that I kind of am proud. Like it, this is, it's not easy to be a

tiger mom this way. It's so much easier to say, oh my God, I love my children so much. I'm going out for a glass of wine with my friends, you know? And I think this is general, a more general point about women trying to strike this balance. Honestly, I just felt what I gave up was leeway in my life. You know, like I just woke up earlier and earlier. I had to be very regimented. You know, I'd see my husband at the same job as me and he'd go out for coffee with colleagues, you know, come home two hours late or, you know, I just, I couldn't do any of that. So, so for me, like a lot of women, I just had to get more and more organized. I mean, I remember that I was like, I was always looking at my clock. And

honestly, when I look back at that writing now, I am exhausted. Like I'm much older now. I just would not have the energy now to do that. Right. I admire exhausted. Like I'm much older now. I just would not have the energy now to do that. Right. I admire the energy and the commitment to it. I feel like I'm, I don't have it in me. I'm old. I feel like I just turned 50, but I'm, I'm an old 50. I'm tired. No, I am. I'm so tired. I keep asking my primary care physician. I'm like, it's actually a funny story. I went to him one time and I said, I think I have Lyme's disease. And he goes, Lyme, no S. And I said, I thought he was speaking Spanish. I said, Lyme C. He goes, I'm not speaking Spanish. Lyme is singular. I'm like, oh, okay. I said, well, I think I have Lyme disease. He goes, why? I said, because I'm

exhausted all the time. He goes, well, you work full time and you have three young children. You're going to be tired. I'm like, I don't think that's it. He's like, that's what it is. You know, whatever, you're old and you have three young children. So I don't, I'm exhausted just thinking about, you know, like your story with the little white donkey and Lulu. I don't know. I wouldn't have it in me to stay on her. And anyway, do you want to tell that story? Cause that's awesome. It's awesome. That's funny. Yeah. Oh, this is just my daughter, Lulu, who is so funny, but she is, we just fought like cats and dogs because her personality is very much like mine. And she was just, she was a kid born saying no, you know, she said she wasn't going to college, just all kinds of things. Oh, I remember when she was in

like second grade, we got a call from the teacher and the teacher said, oh, your daughter, she says she's having visions. You know, it's because she can't do any of the work because she has visions and they wanted to do neurological tests and maybe ADD and all, you know, she can't do any of the work because she has visions. And they wanted to do neurological tests and maybe ADD, you know, which it can be very serious. But I just know my daughter. I was like, she doesn't have visions. And I said, Lulu, those are called daydreams. And stop it. You know, on that one, I was right.

But Little White Donkey, it is a funny story. But basically, there was a song called Little White Donkey. It's really cute where the left hand on the right hand on the piano do different things. And Lulu just couldn't do it. And my husband and I had a big fight because there was a lot of screaming and yelling. And he finally pulls me aside and he's like, Amy, have you ever considered that maybe she just physically can't do it, that she's just too young and doesn't have the coordination? She was like six. And I was like, oh, okay. You just don't believe in her. You just want to be loved, which is actually true. You want to take

her to baseball games and, you know, water slides. And, well, I don't care because I believe in her. So I rolled up my sleeves and we went back and it was ugly. You know, we went for hours of fighting and ripping up the paper. But at a certain point, this weird thing happened. Her two hands came together and suddenly she could play this difficult piece. And it was a moment that she and I still both talk about because she looked at me and she could not believe it. She did not think she could do it. And when her hands came together, she would not leave the piano. She was so proud of herself. She just sat there and just wanted to do it over and over again. And I've gotten so much crap for this. People have been like, oh my God, it's child abuse. She would not let her daughter use the bathroom. And this was not Guantanamo Bay, right? Like, you know, little Lulu would be like, can I go to the bathroom? Like every five minutes.

But that's a great story for us because she tells a story now that when she much later, 10 years later in high school, taking a chemistry test, she would get blanks. Like she'd say, oh, my God, I'm going to fail. I have a blank. I'm drawing a blank. And then she told me that I would then remember, wait, I've had this feeling before, this feeling of I absolutely know I can't do it. I can't do it. But just by sticking with it and just by not giving up, I discovered that I can't do it. I can't do it. But just by sticking with it and just by not giving up, I discovered that I actually could do it.

And that is actually what I think is the real secret to true inner strength, real self-esteem that you have taught yourself at least once, you know, that way, you know, if I just hang in there, I actually can get a good outcome. I love that. See, I don't worry about what would happen to my daughter if I just hang in there, I actually can get a good outcome. I love that. See, I, I don't worry about what would happen to my daughter. If I did that, I worry about whether I have the energy to do it, you know, in the, in the wherewithal to do it myself. Cause I remember reading about it and you were like, she ripped up the,

the score, you know, the piano score. And I taped it back together. I put it, put it in plastic. So she couldn't rip it up. And then, and Jen was like, well, you know, the girls are different because you were saying your older sister, Sophia, could play it when she was your age. And you're like, oh, no, not that everyone's special in their own special way. Oh, no. I will be the hated one. I will be the one. You don't have to do a thing.

I'll be the hated one. She's going to play it. And she did. She did. I do think too often we let our kids off the hook too early and leave them with the opposite feeling of, you know what? I was right. I couldn't. Yes, that's a perfect way of putting it. Let's talk about school in general now, like the broader, because I feel like the country is going in a very different way. We're getting a little softer when it comes to SATs and testing and schools in general, because we're starting to believe that little junior shouldn't be forced to take tests. And, you know, maybe it's going to hurt their self-esteem or their happiness level.

What do you think? Yeah, I have such complicated views about this. And it might surprise you. I mean, I actually think that our entire education system is broken. I'm a little older than you, and it just wasn't like this. You know, I worked hard, but it's impossible to, like, I don't even think people should be aiming for the Ivy League all the time anymore. I know that's shocking to say, because, you know, my younger self, I was obsessed with

it. I'll be the first to say that's all I could think about. But the way it is right now, and other people have written about this, it's almost like you can't make a single mistake. You know, you have a bad year in junior high school or high school, you know, because everybody has a bad year and suddenly you can't get into top schools. You have everybody as a tutor, kids worrying about college at the age of 12. It's just, I think it's crazy. And if you're, it goes back to tribalism. If you are in the middle of the country, it used to be just 50

years ago that you could go to a state school, do pretty well. I mean, work hard and you could make it to the coast and you could rise. I mean, right now, you know, even if you're wealthy from wealthy parents, you could barely get to these top schools. So I think something is just deeply wrong with I think our kids are so stressed at a much earlier age that, you know, I had super crazy strict parents and I just had all this free time. I had all this free time when I was little. So I think that there's I think this is something i agree with you about like not getting too lax i think we should have standards of i'm so into sat vocabulary words i can't tell you like for a lot of immigrants and poor people that is actually something that you can actually do by working hard you don't have to you know uh i mean obviously wealthy people at an advantage

they can get these courses but i i think that words are important for power. I used to say with Lulu, when I was fighting with her about the SATs, words, memorize the exact definition, because words are power. You need them even to fight me, you need them, I would, I would yell at her. But I think we need a revamping. I mean, something's really wrong. Okay, so what about that? Yeah, because we see some people pushing for a lowering of standards. But in the meantime, we're in the midst of an epidemic with young children, teenagers who are on drugs and overwhelmed with stress and anxiety at the pressures of trying to get ahead in a world where all their classmates are doing the same. So what do we do about it? So I'm not an expert in education, but my general view maybe goes back to my own experience with this kind of tiger parenting is I don't believe in lowering standards at all. I think that's going to come back to haunt everybody. I mean, we need people who can do math

and who can read, you know, even with the new digital technology, that's not going to change. But we do need to do, all these studies show that you have to start really early with children. And I'm not talking about kids like yours and mine now, but just if you really want people to have a level playing field. And so I don't know, I thought a lot about like, maybe there's going to be another stage in my life where I kind of focus on this, you know, because I did it in such a concentrated form with my own children. I would love to, you know, contribute back to the country in a way, because I believe that if you just tell kids, let kids know that you believe in them and just do a couple of things right. I don't know. I'm a big education fan,

but I'm not answering this question very well because I'm just not an education expert. And I'm just because you're like, I did stress out my kids and it all worked out well. It doesn't doesn't end badly for everyone. And it's gotten even worse since they were, I mean, they're, you know, they're, again, they're in their 20s. And I think things have gotten progressively worse from 50 years ago to when I was in college to when they were in college.

So we went to one of these like parent events here in New York where you just sit in the audience and they get people from all the private schools, kids from all the private schools. And you don't know which school they went to, but they're all in high school and they get people from all the private schools, kids from all the private schools. And, and you don't know which school they went to, but they, they're all in high school and they all have an experience. And one of the guys who was there, he was so, so smart, so open. He goes to the parents, his random parents in an auditorium full of people. He said, do you want to know why your kids are so effed up? Because they're all told they have to achieve

perfect days. They all have to play at least three sports. They all have to be in at least 10 clubs and they're looking for an out. They're, they're, they're on drugs because they're looking for an escape. And of course, all the parents in the audience are there like, Holy shit. Oh no. Right. It scares me because I, I do want to drive them and I do want them to think to believe that they can handle a lot. But I don't want that. I agree. And I see that in my students. It's like a burden on them, almost like a joylessness, which I think it's new. You know, it's new. It's like they come in instead of just being so excited to learn.

I don't want to over romanticize it, but it's like they from the beginning, they're worried about the next step. You know, all the things that they need to do. And they're stressed, stressed, stressed. And I don't know. I just think I know it sounds very non-Tigerish, but I just think life is too short. So I agree with you. I think that's a real problem. And I think it's something new. It's a new problem, you know, worse than it was, say, even, you know, five or 10 years ago. Next book is going to be Peaceful Meow of the Kitten Mom. OK, now let's talk about college admissions for a minute before I let you go, because it's I had to get your take on the college admission scandal. And, you know, somebody who's at elite universities has daughters at elite universities.

You went to them and you teach at one. What did you think of that? I'm sure you weren't surprised, like most of us. Most of us were, you know, mouths agape. But were you were you surprised? I wasn't surprised. I so basically that the whole college admission scandal represents the exact opposite of tiger parenting. So tiger parenting, I had somebody very astute once say, it's reading the book. They're saying, this is so strange because as a mom, as a Western mom, I'm always, I want my kids to have an easier life. So I'm always like removing obstacles from them so that their life can be smoother. But I see that as a tiger mom, you're putting obstacles

in their way. It's like obstacles for them to train. And so this college admissions thing is the extreme of non-tiger parenting where I think it's the worst thing on earth. I mean, number one, you're doing it for the kids. Number two, they're not earning it. So there was zero self-esteem or inner confidence being gained from that in addition to just completely cheating at other people. So to me, I think that probably represents people who were afraid that they couldn't compete on the merits, you know, either with children who are naturally motivated or, I don't know, you know, immigrant kids or something. So, but I'm not, that relates back to the previous conversation. I think there's

something broke about our system that makes people so desperate that they feel they, they're, they need to do that out of love for their children. Right? I know. And and it's like, it's crazy. That's, that's sort of the grift. We didn't necessarily know about the gen pop, which in which I include myself when it comes to this kind of thing. We didn't know what's happening. It's the open grift has been more of a story where it's like, a your connections over time, right? You're sort of your dad went to Yale, your grandfather went to Yale, and therefore you go to Yale. That's one thing. But people, you know, they spend people are making millions and millions of dollars of donations to these universities just to pave the path for their kids. And whenever I see that, I'm like, how does the kid in, you know, Florida, who's working so

hard to be valedictorian of his high school, which by the way, you were too, of course, how does he stand any chance? How does he stand any chance the way the systems work today and how important, you know, your ability to donate is? Yeah, it's terrible. I agree. I mean, you know, inequality is a huge problem. And I think for me, it's inequality of opportunity. That is the thing that I focus on. And you're exactly right. I mean, this kind of thing is the antithesis, right? It's the definition of an unlevel playing field where people with parents with more money and connections. And to be honest, I see it all the time. I mean, and, you know, I understand the temptation.

Like you, I know a lot of people. And, you know, we love our children. We want to help them. And I think it goes back to kind of needing self-restraint to telling yourself that as a parent, the best thing you could do for them is not just to make everything easier necessarily. It sort of goes back to the beginning of our conversation, which is, you know, you said this broken education system stops people from moving into the elites, you know, group of the elites. Not that that's necessarily their goal, but the point is the elites kind of stop them from entering and the system perpetuates itself, including the resentment and the tribalism that comes from these divisions, which are just so dug in. Exactly. And in both directions, you see that for a lot of the people who are not the cosmopolitan elites, there's this anti-expert thing, these pointy head people, and that can be very dangerous

also, you know? So, so yeah, it's a big problem running in all directions. Well, if you want to understand how we got so divided on things like COVID even, you should check out Amy's book. You should read them all really, because you'll learn a lot as you can tell. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next. Now. I want to see what the tiger grandma is like when the girls get a little older and they get married, but it's been so fun catching up. Lots of love. Today's episode was brought to you in part by score master.

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