"Tiger Mothers"

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Asian parents of the Chua type push those skills so their children have the necessary battery of extracurriculars to get into Harvard/Princeton/etc, Broomstick. They're simply an ancillary function of their more or less open goal to get their child into the best school in the world and then graduate with a 4.0 through their Doctorate.

Now, there's a lot that's overwrought about what families like this do, and it can be emotionally damaging, but on the other hand, inoculating children in an absolute expectation of their success in life is definitely not a bad thing. Never pressed this hard, but my father never even let any of us think about not going to college. When the subject of a collegiate education came up there was no if, everything was framed in terms of graduating from college being a natural part of the human progression, and we would simply grow up and go to college and that would be the end of that, there was no discussing the subject. This attitude of "you Will be going to college and you Will get a degree" does indeed contrast with a lot of highly indulgent parenting, where children are allowed to pursue their own life interests. Even if you're let out to wander and play like I was, you come back home to the implicit and explicit psychological reinforcement that life has a certain path, and getting good grades and graduating college is part of that. I think a lack of total expectation of success does indeed contribute to American failings in terms of educational productivity these days.

On the other hand, it also means I was raised to associate not being college educated with being a child, which contributes massively to my snobbery, which has never been that much of a good thing.

[Broomstick]

College wasn't an option for me, either, I was going whether I wanted to or not. Hell, my nephew with the massive head injury has been pushed back into college (which is alright, he's recovered enough to handle it). But it didn't require the level of obsessiveness "Tiger Mother".

There's a point at which pushing becomes abuse. The line is a bit fuzzy, but as you point out, it's not just that the kids have to go to college, they have to go to an elite college, a particular college. It totally ignores that there are perfectly valid paths to achieve a high level of success. You don't have to go to Harvard to be a world class lawyer or MIT to be a world class engineer. Going to Harvard doesn't guarantee success as a lawyer, nor does going to MIT guarantee success as an engineer.

I completely agree with pushing a kid towards high achievement, but what's portrayed for Tiger Mom isn't healthy. I suspect, given what I've seen of her kids, who have also been in front of the TV camera, things weren't quite so strict as the media portrays and Chua herself says she backed off some when the kids hit their teens. I suspect the woman is more pragmatic than portrayed.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, I think that's where you have to draw the line.

Push the kid in areas where they need to succeed to be high-functioning, yes. Push the kid to succeed rather than fail, yes.

But push the kid in areas not critical to success (like playing the violin?) That's just a waste of money and time- both theirs and yours. Push them towards a specific success that, realistically, even excellent students have only a 1% or so chance of achieving? That's a waste of time and hope.

Cast all that pushing in terms of "you're worthless if you're not X?" That's a recipe for a child who keeps excelling right up to the moment when they collapse, because they've just run out of things to give a damn about that they have any chance of accomplishing.

I'd argue that human beings cannot thrive when motivated solely by the fear of falling behind. They have to have something else to give them a reason to get up in the morning and face another day of the rat race, something that makes it not just a rat race.

[lance]

Didn't a bunch of porn stars originate from this back ground? I know Asia Carrera and some others did. Its enough to make me think of what the ratio is compared to less strict up bringings.

[spartasman]

Didn't a bunch of porn stars originate from this back ground? I know Asia Carrera and some others did. Its enough to make me think of what the ratio is compared to less strict up bringings.

It's slightly disturbing that you know that. Then again, it fits in with the stereotypical "daddy didn't love me" reason behind strippers being, well, strippers.

[lance]

Didn't a bunch of porn stars originate from this back ground? I know Asia Carrera and some others did. Its enough to make me think of what the ratio is compared to less strict up bringings.

It's slightly disturbing that you know that. Then again, it fits in with the stereotypical "daddy didn't love me" reason behind strippers being, well, strippers.

I thought Asia Carrera was pretty well known on this, and the others are just a few tidbits that I picked up when I randomly wiki somebody.

[aieeegrunt]

We're going to reap some consequences from this "everybody must go to post secondary education and only for a desk job degree" attitude. Give it another ten years or so and a lot of skilled trades are going to be very hard to find. I'm having my workplace set me up for several tickets, and I'm looking forward to absolutely bill-raping snobby white collar desk monkey idiots who can't unstick a fucking window themselves.

[Hamstray]

Didn't a bunch of porn stars originate from this back ground? I know Asia Carrera and some others did. Its enough to make me think of what the ratio is compared to less strict up bringings.

Doesn't this rather fortify the argument of strict upbringing guaranteeing becoming a success?

[Akhlut]

Cast all that pushing in terms of "you're worthless if you're not X?" That's a recipe for a child who keeps excelling right up to the moment when they collapse, because they've just run out of things to give a damn about that they have any chance of accomplishing.

It also makes me wonder how much that person can accomplish without someone yelling at them to achieve. While I honestly could have used some more discipline being enforced at home to give me more of a work ethic, I'm also curious how much initiative a person would have if all their activities were scheduled for them and set in stone without any of their own input.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Cast all that pushing in terms of "you're worthless if you're not X?" That's a recipe for a child who keeps excelling right up to the moment when they collapse, because they've just run out of things to give a damn about that they have any chance of accomplishing.

It also makes me wonder how much that person can accomplish without someone yelling at them to achieve. While I honestly could have used some more discipline being enforced at home to give me more of a work ethic, I'm also curious how much initiative a person would have if all their activities were scheduled for them and set in stone without any of their own input.

Not much, in all honesty. My future was all assumed for me to the point I had no say, and was just following the plan others had laid out for me. Once I reached the end of that plan, I was all "what now?"

I still don't have an answer.

[HeadCreeps]

Some of the more recent comments here are somewhat related to the NEET situation. It doesn't appear to be a huge problem currently, but in China, according to my article, the prevalence is getting stronger. I'm mainly posting this because earlier I said I had no proof regarding NEET being an issue in China. It is an issue, albeit an uncommon one.

Asia Times
February 17, 2006

Youth makes everything possible. Really?

The NEET phenomenon has recently received attention in three Asian societies - Japan, South Korea and China. Standing for "Not in Education, Employment or Training", the term was first used in England in the late 1990s and Japan picked it up to indicate unemployed people aged 15-34. The increase of unemployment, the number of young people in particular, has been a major social problem in Japanese society. The term has also come into use in South Korea and China to describe an emerging problem in those countries.

Isolation from society
A 34-year-old Korean man has lived off his brother's family for two years. He had graduated from a famous college, the best way to start a successful career in South Korea. He worked in several companies, but none of them satisfied him. He switched jobs habitually and ended up leaning on his married brother's household after their parents' passing. "I felt embarrassed at first to live with my brother and out of shame couldn't have eye contact with my sister-in-law and nephew. But time solved the problem. The longer I have lived like this, the less I feel ashamed," he said in a Seoul newspaper on February 2.

In the past few years, the Korean media have started to address the issue of NEETs. Even though the NEET problem is less common than in Japan, South Korean NEETs are increasing much faster. Afraid of becoming NEETs, Korean college students delay graduation for a year or two to prepare for work or go abroad to study English, or they continue their education for a few more years by pursuing master's degrees.

According to China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security, 70% of the registered unemployed labor force comes from among the young. China Newsweek and the Hong Kong newspaper Wenweipao noted that Chinese NEETs are members of the one-child generation that has emerged since the start of strict birth-control policies in the 1970s. Growing up in a time of rising prosperity, these primarily urban Little Emperors are doted on by parents and grandparents. Parents are loath to let their only children have a hard time and are ready to protect them at any time.

In Japanese society, NEETs make up 2% of the population, the Wall Street Journal reported on January 16. The problem seems not so widespread as in Korea and China, but their numbers have been increasing for years. A current concern about NEETs is their complete isolation from society and even family. In the 1970s, hikikomori (social withdrawal) emerged as a social problem, with adolescents refusing to go to school and staying at home for several months. The issue has spread from teenagers to people of other ages. Sixty percent of hikikomori in Japan in 2003 were in their 20s, Chosun Ilbo reported.

Fast changes
All three of these countries have seen decades of rapid economic growth. South Korea and Japan industrialized quickly from the mid-20th century. China has joined its East Asian neighbors since economic reforms in the late 1970s.

Education has developed along with the economy, and perhaps faster. Parents and students in these Confucian societies have placed high value on attaining status through schooling. Educational institutions are now spitting graduates in large numbers, but job markets are unable to absorb them all.

A Chinese college graduate interviewed by the China Daily said, "Even since primary-school days, I have been told I would have a promising future if I only went to college. But nobody told me what to do after graduation. It seems to me that the only purpose of a dozen years' study is to take examinations." Education gives young people one kind of status, but job markets require young people with experience. This reality keeps those young people from settling on jobs.

China Newsweek on April 1, 2005, gave the example of a young woman who received a master's degree in banking and finance and who could not get a job because some places said that she lacked work experience and others said her education made her overqualified. She decided to study for another master's degree abroad, taking her parents' money one more time.

In addition, the recruitment conditions of East Asian companies, including age limits, experience, and sending a photograph with one's job application, make young people hesitate to try for jobs. Companies are also reluctant to hire NEETs who have stayed at home for several months because they are already behind in such fast-changing markets.

Campaigns to eliminate NEETs
Leaders in East Asia are striving to alleviate the problem of NEETs. They have launched job-search programs and supported job-training programs in schools. Japanese schools answer the question, "Why should humans do things they don't like?"

South Korean colleges have been busy opening career-consultation offices and programs. Local governments are taking similar measures. In China, professional training institutes are on the rise in response to the problem of NEETs.

Side effects of love?
NEETs' parents have worked tirelessly to give opportunities to their children, as family bonds in East Asian societies are very strong. They invest their earnings in their children's success and take care of them until marriage. Children's long-term dependency on their parents is accepted, and is expected to help them in the future.

Research on NEETs by Hyundai Research Center found that parents' excessive expectations for their children cause them not to seek their own accomplishments and bring about self-abandonment. While parents of NEETs endure their work no matter what, NEETs give up easily.

Hyejin Kim is a doctoral candidate in Global Affairs at Rutgers University, where she specializes in East Asian affairs, and a writer.

Certainly we have this kind of thing in the USA and other western countries, but a key difference is that in western society, you're probably still getting kicked out of the house whether you have a career or not.

If I had to conjecture, I'd venture to say a _successful_ western upbringing is less likely than Chua's Chinese parenting, but a successful western upbringing may promote greater levels of versatility and creativity because the child is more likely to be allowed to explore its own interests early on.

[Simon_Jester]

It also makes me wonder how much that person can accomplish without someone yelling at them to achieve. While I honestly could have used some more discipline being enforced at home to give me more of a work ethic, I'm also curious how much initiative a person would have if all their activities were scheduled for them and set in stone without any of their own input.

There's a huge difference between enforcing discipline ("you're committed to X, so you've got to put in the time to do X properly.") and setting the child's entire schedule for them ("I don't care if you'd rather be in a play than do violin practice, you are by God learning violin!")

[CaptainChewbacca]

My girlfriend is filipino, and she was raised very much like this. As a result, she's a hyper-achieving person who can't ever settle down and who is planning on going through college and getting degrees until she's 30.

But she's adorable.

[someone_else]

How you rise children depends from what you want them to become.

If you don't give a fuck or you have other interests you just feed the kid and hope for the better.
(an extremized "Western Way")

If you want a mindless drone of your ego, you force him to excel for no reason in anything. If you fail and it snaps it will remain a mindless drone anyway, so you haven't lost a lot. (an extremized "Asian Way") The main problem of this is that the parents are usually the main motivation, so after their pressure disappears (they die or focus on another kid), you get a confused guy who doesn't know what he wants to do in life and will be dissatisfied by anything.

If you want the children to become what he wants to become, you must use both ways, and add enough observance to detect when is enough and he cannot push more than that. This is hard.

Frankly, if I was risen by such "Tiger Parents" I'd have killed them asap.

[Simon_Jester]

No you wouldn't, something; you'd be a very different person who expected very much the same from your parents. You might resent their behavior, but it wouldn't fall so far outside the parameters of the normal that it would turn you into a homicidal lunatic.

Not in and of itself, anyway.

[Ilya Muromets]

Why is this being referred to as an "Asian" way anyway? Yes, there are anecdotes and stuff like this, especially among the more discipline-oriented communities, but Amy Chua is no standard for generalization. Personally, I've run the gamut of parental types: from hyper-disciplinarians to completely-doesn't-give-a-shit. Most of the teachers I've ever talked to mention the same. I've even talked to South Korean and Taiwanese teachers, and they've all seen a variation of parenting types. The hyper-disciplinarian and doesn't-give-a-shit types, however, were all considered by all of us as extremes. The parents we most often encounter -- surprise, surprise -- fall somewhere in between.

On that point, the OP is absolutely correct. Amy Chua is drawing and reinforcing the false dichotomy that "Eastern"/"Asian" parents are discipline-mongering drill sergeants. I'd like to ask those who've given anecdotes, what generation of Asians are these guys (first generation immigrants?, second?, there since countless generations ago?)? What's their social classes? Hell, what's their family business? Are their parents home a lot or often-absent? Are their family relations close or dysfunctional?

In my experience, those influence how strict or not Asian parenting can be more that purely because it's inherent to some overly-generalized Asian way or whatever. Hell, you hear very similar issues from ultra-religious Western families too.

[PainRack]

I finally came across OTHER extracts apart from the Wall Street Journal versions and frankly........ they been seriously overblown.

Ok, the not playing violen, no sleepovers and etc? Yes. Amy Chua did all of the above, and she believed it was for the best. She believed being strict and etc would work.

However, in the end, after her 13 year old daughter rebelled, she realised she was TOO STRICT and RELAXED her rules.

Without the whole book to draw context from, the other passages seem to argue that yes, she does believe in strict, demanding parenting, but a synthesis of "asian and Western values".Not the unyielding version of her own upbringing but rather, strict parenting that demand hard work from their children and in the end, she seems to acknowledge that she needed to give more freedom and in the end, responsibility for her children.

So, assuming that this means that she no longer regards the no sleepover rules and violin/piano lessons before relaxation(which seemed to have triggered the rebellion that caused her re-evaluation of her methods), what you're left with is essentially the SAME parenting values that praised in most successful people of the West.
Obama praise of her mom decision to strictly school him, dragging him from his bed for English and Bahasa Indonesia lessons, American history.Does this make her a "tiger mom"?

[PainRack]

Why is this being referred to as an "Asian" way anyway? Yes, there are anecdotes and stuff like this, especially among the more discipline-oriented communities, but Amy Chua is no standard for generalization. Personally, I've run the gamut of parental types: from hyper-disciplinarians to completely-doesn't-give-a-shit. Most of the teachers I've ever talked to mention the same. I've even talked to South Korean and Taiwanese teachers, and they've all seen a variation of parenting types. The hyper-disciplinarian and doesn't-give-a-shit types, however, were all considered by all of us as extremes. The parents we most often encounter -- surprise, surprise -- fall somewhere in between.

Because from the WSJ article, Amy Chua DID argue that this was the "Asian" way of parenting.
Its not wrong to blame the media for accurately describing the author claim that the Asian way of parenting is superior, because that is the claim she made in the opening portion of the book.

[PainRack]

I think this passage from here sums it up the best.

I have a wonderful relationship with my daughters, which I wouldn’t trade for the world. I certainly made mistakes and have regrets—my book is a kind of coming-of-age book (for the mom!), and the person at the beginning of the book, whose voice is reflected in the Journal excerpt, is not exactly the same person at the end of book. In a nutshell, I get my comeuppance; much of the book is about my decision to retreat (but only partially) from the strict immigrant model. Having said that, if I had to do it all over, I would do basically the same thing, with some adjustments. I’m not saying it’s for everyone, and I’m not saying it’s a better approach. But I’m very proud of my daughters. It’s not just that they’ve done well in school; they are both kind, generous, independent girls with big personalities. Most important, I feel I’m very close with both of them, knock on wood.

http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/ ... o-readers/

Again, without the whole book to read in context and relying entirely on a few extracts, the author interview and etc, it will appear that what Amy believed in is "strict" parenting that pushed their children to work hard. She herself acknowledges that she worked her children too hard and that caused her to reflect on her parenting style.

Frankly, if anyone here has read the book, I eagerly await your input.

[aerius]

I'd like to ask those who've given anecdotes, what generation of Asians are these guys (first generation immigrants?, second?, there since countless generations ago?)? What's their social classes? Hell, what's their family business? Are their parents home a lot or often-absent? Are their family relations close or dysfunctional?

In my case both my parents and nearly all of our family friends & acquaintances were 1st generation immigrants from Taiwan. They have all different kinds of backgrounds; engineers, scientists, docs, lawyers, civil servants, salesmen, blue collar workers and the same is true of their social classes & everything else. Pretty much all of them were hard & strict on their kids, that's just the way it was, that was the way their parents raised them and they all believed this was the way to raise their kids, so that's what they did. We're looking at a sample size of several hundred people in my case.

[Anguirus]

It seems to me that Chua contributed immensely to the apparently erroneous public perception of her book by writing that WSJ article.

My parents expected me to succeed as well, but they didn't verbally abuse me. Ever. They wouldn't have needed to, but I doubt they would have anyway.

Everyone is different, and such a generalized race or region-of-origin-based dichotomy seems to me rather uninformative. I'm sure there is clustering but not to the degree that she cheerfully implies by constantly harping on "Chinese vs. Western."

[someone_else]

No you wouldn't, something; you'd be a very different person who expected very much the same from your parents. You might resent their behavior, but it wouldn't fall so far outside the parameters of the normal that it would turn you into a homicidal lunatic.

It depends on the theory you subcsribe about how children are just after they are born. (which is also a very good point to make in the discussion going on here, since that makes the difference between what each of us here thinks is best)
Some that think children are born as "blank pages" or "empty containers" that learn everything from scratch (as my parents thought), and I was most definetly not the case. I was borderline autistic and didn't do anything they told me unless there was constant control. I always hated being given orders by people I don't like. Then at 17 or so a miracle happened and I'm now a respectable guy (though maybe a little kleptomaniac sometimes).

That said, I'd keep my certainty that I would have killed so much abusive parents. I've thought about assassinating people I didn't like in the past, but to achieve a decent level of safety (i.e. not going in prison) I would have to devote too much time to make it worthwile. But with such abusive parents I'm pretty sure it would look much more worth it (since I know myself).

To sum it up, probably I was (am still?) already lunatic enough to try if pushed enough. Succeeding is another matter alltogether, of course.

Obama praise of her mom decision to strictly school him, dragging him from his bed for English and Bahasa Indonesia lessons, American history.Does this make her a "tiger mom"?

And look at how good it did to him. One of the weakest presidents ever.

[Simon_Jester]

It depends on the theory you subcsribe about how children are just after they are born. (which is also a very good point to make in the discussion going on here, since that makes the difference between what each of us here thinks is best)
Some that think children are born as "blank pages" or "empty containers" that learn everything from scratch (as my parents thought), and I was most definetly not the case. I was borderline autistic and didn't do anything they told me unless there was constant control. I always hated being given orders by people I don't like. Then at 17 or so a miracle happened and I'm now a respectable guy (though maybe a little kleptomaniac sometimes).

All right.

However, to be blunt, this means that you're not a representative sample of the population. You might have gone totally nuts if pushed this hard by your parents (this is unfalsifiable), but on the other hand, this proves very little about the method. One could equally well point out that some kids will grow up to be totally unmotivated pathological-slackers if they don't get a certain amount of drive from their parents pushing them as children.

Obama praise of her mom decision to strictly school him, dragging him from his bed for English and Bahasa Indonesia lessons, American history.Does this make her a "tiger mom"?

And look at how good it did to him. One of the weakest presidents ever.

You've got it backwards. Obama's schooling did you very little good, because he's a disappointing President of the United States. It did him an enormous amount of good, because disappointing or no, he is the President of the United States.

He's got a happy family and marriage. He's got an extremely high-prestige job with a very good salary and excellent perks. He's got millions of supporters and fans, and he's one of the most famous people in the world, with a guaranteed place in the history books.

He is doing great by any reasonable standard of personal performance. That doesn't make him a good president, but any parent would want their kids to grow up to be that successful, if there was any way of ensuring that it could be done.

[Todeswind]

Sorry to interject here but has anyone posting in this thread read the book? I"m midway through it and I have to say it seems less than congratulatory to the "Tiger Moms" way of doing things and more a commentary on the efforts taken by this specific woman in raising her kids.

[Starglider]

I think the Asian way is pretty eh, because all the family togetherness doesn't make sense when you end up hating almost everyone in your family. The Western way of kicking your kids out and letting them grow independently without such family interference is better, since the family will hate each other's guts anyway.

LOLWUT? Obviously there are lots of happy families who all get on fine as the kids grow into adulthood, mine is one of them. It is not impossibly hard, you just need everyone to put some effort into not being jerks.