Tiger Mother? A Jewish Mother replies:

I let them do whatever they want. Of course I object & try to impose my wishes when I don’t agree, but they scream and carry on so loud & hard, I give in. I get no support from their father. He lets the oldest girl (O) get away with everything, including torturing her little sister (Y). He won’t punish her for that or anything else, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. While I’ll never admit it, I see that my younger daughter is depressed, doing badly in school, not eating. I’m worried about her mental state.
O rules the house; she hasn’t thrown herself down on the floor in a long time now, but she will throw things while she screams her lungs out until she gets her way. I threaten to take away her cell phone, no sleep-overs for a month, no TV, no sports or extracurricular activities… It makes no difference because I’ve never carried out the threat, never followed through. I’m too afraid to. God knows what she’ll do.
Both girls do whatever they want. I follow them and do what I’m told, from homework to buying everything they want. I feel that I have to do this.
There was always a lot of screaming in my house when I was a kid, just like here. I guess that’s what life is about.