Why Won’t the Tiger Mom Smile at Her Tiger Grandpa"

1.

My mother poured all her hopes into my brother.

My son will be extraordinary, she said. Every second of your life is precious.

She controlled every moment of his dayeven making him recite English vocabulary in the bathroom. She used physical punishment, verbal abuse, and guilt as her main teaching tools.

Under the pressure, my brother fell into depression and tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists.

I begged Mom to stop. Instead, she wrapped his bleeding wrist with duct tape.

"This way, the blade can't cut through," she said calmly. "If you're going to cut, use this hand. You need your right hand for writing."

After a dozen canes were broken across his back and there was no unmarked skin left, he was accepted into Oxford.

The day he got his acceptance letter, he jumped from the roof.

I thought his death would break Mom's obsession. Instead, she turned to me.

"My sweet girl," she said, a strange light in her eyes, "Mommy will make you even more successful than your brother."

But before she could start, on the seventh day after his death, my grandfatherwho had been in a coma for twenty yearswoke up.

And the first thing he did was continue the project he had started long ago: to forge his daughter into a success.

...

My brother was dead.

The day he found out his exam scores, the day my mother was already on the phone inviting all our relatives to come and see her perfect creation, he jumped from the roof.

There was no dramatic scene with people trying to talk him down. He just jumped. Cleanly, decisively. As if he had completely given up on the world.

Looking at his unrecognizable body, I felt a strange sense of relief mixed with my grief.

"Isn't that the Miller boy? I heard he did really well on his exams. Why would he do something like this?"

"Kids these days have no resilience. His mother worked so hard to raise him, and this is how he repays her."

"I know, right? That poor woman. She raised him all by herself, made him so successful, and he just throws it all away. What an ungrateful brat."

No one cared why my brother jumped. They only saw a single mother to be pitied.

They were wrong.

I wanted to speak up for my brother, to tell them how suffocating and painful his life had been in that house. But the words wouldn't come. I didn't have the strength. He was already gone. Nothing I said would change that.

I stole a glance at my mother. Her expression was a complex mask I couldn't decipher. Would his death make her reflect on her actions?

Not a chance.

Because I heard her mutter, "What a waste. All those years of training, and now I have to start all over again."

Then, her eyes found mine.

A chill spread through my entire body. I couldn't move.

My mother dragged me home without a second glance at my brother's body. Someone from the crowd called her name. I couldn't help but ask, "Mom, aren't we going to do something about brother?"

She didn't even turn around. "Chloe, you're not as naturally gifted as your brother. You don't have time to waste on irrelevant things."

Her coldness made me snap. "That's my brother! Your son! Is studying the only thing you care about? We're human beings, not trophies for you to show off! Can't you at least take care of his funeral?"

Her response was a sharp, stinging slap across my face.

"In the time it took you to say that, you could have memorized twenty vocabulary words."

My mother hadn't changed at all. She couldn't stand the thought of her children being average. She would do anything to get them into a top university, to ensure they had a good career. She didn't care what they had to endure in the process. All that mattered was the result.

It used to be my brother. Now, it was my turn.

My mother really did ignore my brother.

Neighbors and police officers knocked on our door repeatedly, but she refused to deal with his body. When they became too persistent, she would just scream at them.

"He's a useless piece of trash! Why should I waste my precious time on him? Can't you just find a ditch and bury him somewhere?"

The police, at a loss, had to contact other relatives to handle the arrangements.

All my mother did was push me to study. She held my last midterm exam paper, her brow furrowed. "How could you get such a simple question wrong? Your brother never made such a stupid mistake! It seems your foundation is very weak. From now on, you will sleep only six hours a night. You have to work harder than everyone else to get into Oxford or Cambridge!"

Those were the only two universities that existed in her world.

On the first day after my brother's death, I already felt like I couldn't breathe. My mother created a strict schedule for me. Three minutes to get out of bed. If I failed, I had to memorize vocabulary in the living room in my pajamas. Five minutes to eat. As much as I could shovel down. If I was still hungry, I had to study on an empty stomach. Two minutes for the bathroom. The second the time was up, my mother would burst in and drag me out, regardless of what I was doing.

I failed on the very first day. It was winter, and the five a.m. alarm was brutal. I groggily turned it off and fell back asleep. Three minutes later, I was dragged from my warm bed, and a freezing, wet towel was slapped onto my face.

I was instantly awake. I was only in my thin pajamas and wanted to change, but my mother stopped me. "Time is life. The time for changing has passed. Take your book and go to the living room."

The living room was filled with an intimidating number of electronic screens, all displaying countdown timers. When a timer hit zero, a piercing alarm would sound. My mother had deliberately opened a window to keep me alert. I stood there, shivering so hard my teeth chattered.

My mother glanced at me coldly. "The cold won't kill you. You need to be physically fit for the PE exam anyway. This is how your brother built up his endurance."

As soon as my food was served, a timer started. Five minutes. I had five minutes to eat. I stuffed food into my mouth, chewing frantically, not even stopping when I bit my tongue. I knew no one would feel sorry for me. The only person who would have was gone. As I ate, tears of frustration and despair streamed down my face. Was a good grade really that important?

Under my mother's supervision, I memorized a hundred English words, completed four reading comprehensions, and wrote half an essay. When it was almost time for school, for the first time in my life, I thought school was the most wonderful place on earth.

But my mother couldn't stand to see me happy. She wouldn't let me change my clothes for school. "I told you, you wasted the time for changing. Now you have to face the consequences."

I fought back. I pushed past her, trying to get to my room.

"You dare try to change?"

I turned back, my eyes wide with terror. My mother had opened the window and had one leg over the sill. "If you don't listen to me, I'll jump from here!"

The crazed look on her face paralyzed me. I had rarely seen her like this. Unlike with my brother, I had been mostly left to my own devices, sent to a boarding school for middle school. Whenever my mother had one of her episodes, my brother would send me to my room and handle her himself.

I swallowed hard, my voice trembling. "Mom! What are you doing? Please, just get down from there!"

She glared at me and shifted more of her weight outside, teetering precariously. "Are you going to listen to me or not?!"

I didn't want to. I didn't want to become like my brother. But I couldn't risk it. I couldn't be sure she wouldn't actually jump. I had already lost my brother. I couldn't lose my last remaining family member.

I fell to my knees, banging my head on the floor. "I'm begging you, please get down! I won't change my clothes!"

A triumphant smile spread across my mother's face.

I knew, in that moment, that I was done for.