My 9-year-old Diva is a straight-A student, unless you count the Bs and Cs in math and science, which I don’t, because why would I count them if they’re not As?

And you should see her room. It’s immaculate, except for the food wrappers on the floor and the pencils stashed under the bed. Luckily she doesn’t have to empty the trash very often because the dog eats most of it. Also, she loses nearly everything she owns nearly every single day.

WWACD? That stands for What Would Amy Chua Do? She’s the author of the new memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she asserts that the reasons Chinese children are so smart and successful stem from old-fashioned strict parenting.

According to Publishers Weekly, Chua “imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child’s phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values…stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority.”

Chua recounts tales of being disappointed in her young daughters when they had the second highest grades in the class instead of the highest. She never allowed her girls to attend sleepovers, and insisted they play both the violin and the piano. She once called her daughter “garbage” for not showing proper respect.

So WWACD if she met my children? I think she’d recommend that they be put down.

But that’s okay! I mean, not that my children should be put down. But Chua has taken a beating over the past few weeks for her parenting dogma, and frankly, I’m not offended by it. We need people to cure cancer and program remote controls, and clearly her kids will be up for the job. I’m sorry they won’t have happy marriages – I know this from a recent episode of Private Practice in which a super-successful Chinese-American woman left her husband because he had a brain tumor operation that left him less of a genius than he had been prior to surgery. But he had been having an affair with a dumber woman anyway because he couldn’t take the pressure of being all, “You’re so smart!” “No, you’re so smart!” “No, you’re the smartest!” with his brilliant wife all the time. How annoying.

So I don’t care if Amy Chua wants to berate her kids into brilliance. Obviously she loves them and nurtures them, even if it’s in a different, more controversial way. What’s slightly discomfiting, though, is the insinuation that her style is better than mine rather than just different. I get the feeling that if Chua had eaten breakfast with us this morning, she would not have appreciated my son asking for some diarrhea to eat. But I didn’t give him that! He ate some eggs and yogurt and then packed his Pokemon cards and got on the bus and is right this moment learning Important Stuff in kindergarten. This afternoon, he’ll watch a little television. I’ll ask him to read me his take-home book and he’ll say,”NO! I DON’T WANT TO!” and I’ll say, “If you read me the take-home book, we can bake some cookies,” and he’ll think about it while I lose my train of thought and run to rescue the Tyrant from the overflowing bathtub and the book won’t get read. But goddammit! He knows how to read, okay? He can even recognize the word “evolution” on his Pokemon cards. But he pronounces it, “evulsion.” I think it’s cute.

A friend recently was talking about a new child in the family who’s showing early signs of superior intellect, according to the parents. She’s two and she can say words. Now you know I’m rolling my eyes so hard right now they’re about to fly out my eye sockets and flip up over my head. So I said: “Well, you know that new song Eff You, by Cee Lo Green? Tell them that my 4-year-old knows all the words. Also, she’s composing songs about her new imaginary boyfriend Jade from California who buys her diamonds and bracelets but doesn’t kiss her because her daddy says no kissing yet.”

“I don’t think they’ll be impressed,” said the relative.

Well. I’m impressed.

We can’t all be over-achievers, Amy Chua. I think it’s awesome that your daughter could play Beethoven before she was old enough for public school. Seriously. I think that’s wicked cool. But last night, the Pterodactyl came to me with scissors and an envelope and cut out a complicated pattern that left paper shreds all over the floor. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m making a swing for my sister’s Barbie dream house,” he said. And that, I think, is wicked cool, too. So I didn’t mind picking up the paper shreds.