Jesus -- a Tiger Parent?

We've heard all about the Yale professor-cum-"Tiger Mom." Today's text is a story Jesus tells about a dad and his two sons.

What mother would say to her daughter, "Hey fatty -- lose some weight?"

A Chinese mother -- according to Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, the author of Day of Empire and World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability and her most controversial published in February 2001, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Here's the thing: Parents -- whether they're Chinese, Hispanic, American, Korean or Italian -- dream dreams for their children. Yes, they do. Mothers in the barrio or the inner city, in a house on the farm or a house in exurbia -- they, too, dream dreams. They want the very best for them even if they sometimes feel personally unable to deliver those dreams; they imagine their children as successful, well-rounded, involved, both interested and interesting.

And obedient -- every parent yearns for obedience. When parents give instructions, they want their children to respond immediately -- not after the program ends, not when this...