Best of both worlds

Cultural child rearing differences between China and the West are in the spotlight and 'tiger moms' are both loved and feared. By Yuan Suming.

She wants to get tanned in the summer, but her mom covers her up and says boys don't like suntanned girls. She dreams of becoming a photojournalist or art teacher, her mom wants her to aim higher. She likes to voice her opinion, her mom expects her to be obedient. It's a battle growing up in the United States for Christy Aumer, who has a Chinese mother and American father. She is a child caught between cultures.

The youngest of three daughters says her father had more of a say about how she was raised compared to her two sisters, so she had more freedom than them when growing up. "My sisters never had a sleepover," Aumer says. "I am the only child in my family that had sleepovers."