What is a Tiger Mom? If you are one how are you different from everyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school my best friend (Asian immigrant parents) was Tiger parented. She loved art and was a very good artist but her parents forced her to study math and science. She was very rarely allowed to come to my house and not allowed to stay over with me and was never allowed to go to any social events. Her parents hired teams of coaches to help her in Math, Science etc and she was meant to study virtually all the time. As a result, she rebelled and dated a drug dealer who also went to our school. When it came to university, her choice was simple - Law or Medicine? (this was not in the US so both of these were undergraduate courses) She did a couple of semesters of Law but loathed it so dropped out.

She was one of 6 siblings all of whom were parented this way. One sister, the oldest, became a lawyer and did very well in her field. She married a guy of the same ethnicity as her family but from a lower social class and her parents refused to go to the wedding. Two other sisters dropped out of college and both had babies out of wedlock in their teens with non-Asian guys. The oldest brother was good at math and wanted to be an engineer. The parents forced him to study Medicine instead and he became extremely depressed during residency. After his first year of residency, he committed suicide.

After the suicide, the parents had a huge crisis and realized that they had made many mistakes in their parenting. My friend worked in various low level jobs none of which were her passion. She does art on the side and now she is a SAHM to three young kids. Her parents have become accepting loving grandparents and they put absolutely no pressure on either their older or younger grandchildren. They love my friend's husband even though he is not of their ethnic background. But this is all too little too late.

I realize that not all tiger parents are like my friend's parents but I've read Amy Chua's book and a lot of her methods sound very similar to the methods which were used on my friend and her siblings.

OP here- I can say similar things about kids who were raised in very liberal households. I know someone whose parenting philosophy was that their kids should have fun and experiment. One is in jail another working retail.

I rather my kid be in jail or (gasp) working retail than killed themselves because I forced them into a life they didn't want. But Tiger moms don't see this I guess. No one is saying a little tiger here and now is horrific. It is when you are treating them like robots and not humans with compassion that is a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school my best friend (Asian immigrant parents) was Tiger parented. She loved art and was a very good artist but her parents forced her to study math and science. She was very rarely allowed to come to my house and not allowed to stay over with me and was never allowed to go to any social events. Her parents hired teams of coaches to help her in Math, Science etc and she was meant to study virtually all the time. As a result, she rebelled and dated a drug dealer who also went to our school. When it came to university, her choice was simple - Law or Medicine? (this was not in the US so both of these were undergraduate courses) She did a couple of semesters of Law but loathed it so dropped out.

She was one of 6 siblings all of whom were parented this way. One sister, the oldest, became a lawyer and did very well in her field. She married a guy of the same ethnicity as her family but from a lower social class and her parents refused to go to the wedding. Two other sisters dropped out of college and both had babies out of wedlock in their teens with non-Asian guys. The oldest brother was good at math and wanted to be an engineer. The parents forced him to study Medicine instead and he became extremely depressed during residency. After his first year of residency, he committed suicide.

After the suicide, the parents had a huge crisis and realized that they had made many mistakes in their parenting. My friend worked in various low level jobs none of which were her passion. She does art on the side and now she is a SAHM to three young kids. Her parents have become accepting loving grandparents and they put absolutely no pressure on either their older or younger grandchildren. They love my friend's husband even though he is not of their ethnic background. But this is all too little too late.

I realize that not all tiger parents are like my friend's parents but I've read Amy Chua's book and a lot of her methods sound very similar to the methods which were used on my friend and her siblings.

OP here- I can say similar things about kids who were raised in very liberal households. I know someone whose parenting philosophy was that their kids should have fun and experiment. One is in jail another working retail.

I rather my kid be in jail or (gasp) working retail than killed themselves because I forced them into a life they didn't want. But Tiger moms don't see this I guess. No one is saying a little tiger here and now is horrific. It is when you are treating them like robots and not humans with compassion that is a problem.

I love all these generalizations about how Tiger Moms parent. Most come from parents of underachieving children.

One of my non-Asian neighbor did not believe in Tiger parenting. Her daughter started sleeping with random men by the time she was 13. She was not very good in studies, but the mother was never concerned or pressured her daughter to do better.

I expect the daughter to become an exotic dancer because she had a talent for singing and dancing. In any case, the kid ended up doing what she wanted to do, and there was never any pressure from parents to do anything else. I think the daughter really was very happy with her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school my best friend (Asian immigrant parents) was Tiger parented. She loved art and was a very good artist but her parents forced her to study math and science. She was very rarely allowed to come to my house and not allowed to stay over with me and was never allowed to go to any social events. Her parents hired teams of coaches to help her in Math, Science etc and she was meant to study virtually all the time. As a result, she rebelled and dated a drug dealer who also went to our school. When it came to university, her choice was simple - Law or Medicine? (this was not in the US so both of these were undergraduate courses) She did a couple of semesters of Law but loathed it so dropped out.

She was one of 6 siblings all of whom were parented this way. One sister, the oldest, became a lawyer and did very well in her field. She married a guy of the same ethnicity as her family but from a lower social class and her parents refused to go to the wedding. Two other sisters dropped out of college and both had babies out of wedlock in their teens with non-Asian guys. The oldest brother was good at math and wanted to be an engineer. The parents forced him to study Medicine instead and he became extremely depressed during residency. After his first year of residency, he committed suicide.

After the suicide, the parents had a huge crisis and realized that they had made many mistakes in their parenting. My friend worked in various low level jobs none of which were her passion. She does art on the side and now she is a SAHM to three young kids. Her parents have become accepting loving grandparents and they put absolutely no pressure on either their older or younger grandchildren. They love my friend's husband even though he is not of their ethnic background. But this is all too little too late.

I realize that not all tiger parents are like my friend's parents but I've read Amy Chua's book and a lot of her methods sound very similar to the methods which were used on my friend and her siblings.

PP, I could give you a dozen examples just off the top of my head of Asian children who were the products of tiger parenting who turned out to be stellar successes in terms of academics, well balanced, service oriented and very close to their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school my best friend (Asian immigrant parents) was Tiger parented. She loved art and was a very good artist but her parents forced her to study math and science. She was very rarely allowed to come to my house and not allowed to stay over with me and was never allowed to go to any social events. Her parents hired teams of coaches to help her in Math, Science etc and she was meant to study virtually all the time. As a result, she rebelled and dated a drug dealer who also went to our school. When it came to university, her choice was simple - Law or Medicine? (this was not in the US so both of these were undergraduate courses) She did a couple of semesters of Law but loathed it so dropped out.

She was one of 6 siblings all of whom were parented this way. One sister, the oldest, became a lawyer and did very well in her field. She married a guy of the same ethnicity as her family but from a lower social class and her parents refused to go to the wedding. Two other sisters dropped out of college and both had babies out of wedlock in their teens with non-Asian guys. The oldest brother was good at math and wanted to be an engineer. The parents forced him to study Medicine instead and he became extremely depressed during residency. After his first year of residency, he committed suicide.

After the suicide, the parents had a huge crisis and realized that they had made many mistakes in their parenting. My friend worked in various low level jobs none of which were her passion. She does art on the side and now she is a SAHM to three young kids. Her parents have become accepting loving grandparents and they put absolutely no pressure on either their older or younger grandchildren. They love my friend's husband even though he is not of their ethnic background. But this is all too little too late.

I realize that not all tiger parents are like my friend's parents but I've read Amy Chua's book and a lot of her methods sound very similar to the methods which were used on my friend and her siblings.

OP here- I can say similar things about kids who were raised in very liberal households. I know someone whose parenting philosophy was that their kids should have fun and experiment. One is in jail another working retail.

I rather my kid be in jail or (gasp) working retail than killed themselves because I forced them into a life they didn't want. But Tiger moms don't see this I guess. No one is saying a little tiger here and now is horrific. It is when you are treating them like robots and not humans with compassion that is a problem.

OP again- I don't think anyone sane says treat kids like robots without compassion- that's abuse. Also, yuck who wants to make a choice between jail for a very serious offense and suicide? My prior point was that kids that come from all different home environments end up broken or worse.

However, I think a tiger parents definition of compassion IMHO is very different than other parents. Compassion in the context of tiger parenting sometimes means not being afraid to be tough. If a tiger cub doesn't like math- the tiger parent isn't going to coddle the child worry about self-esteem and say oh well that's okay you aren't really a math person. The tiger parent is going to work with their child create practice tests etc.

On a personal note, my oldest struggled with reading when he was younger. At the beginning of 2nd, the school told me that my oldest had a serious comprehension problem which was really my first wake up call that I wasn't doing enough enrichment as a parent. Do you know what I did? I read with him every day quizzing him as we were going along. We read no less than 1 hour and on weekends sometimes up to 5 hours per DAY. By the end of 2nd grade, his comprehension problem was "solved". Was it easy? Nope- but it worked without any sort of extra school services.

[Anonymous]

http://www.quickmeme.com/Lazy-Elementary-School-Kid/

[Anonymous]

As if the choice is between Tiger a Parenting and having your children have sex at 13 and end up in jail. Seriously? Most of the academically talented high school kids I know have not been raised by Tiger parents. I consider my DD one of them, extremely creative, top student with unique interests that are great but certainly didn't come from me. She has been given a merit scholarship to her first choice college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When non-tiger moms produce well balanced, high achieving, contented children, I will give more credence to their approach to raising children.

President Barack Obama's mother, Jonah Salk's mother, Bill Gates' mother, Oprah Winfrey's mother... how many millions of more non-tiger mothers do you want me to mention before you give credence to their approach to raising children.

Your comment is patently ridiculous and laughable.

How many Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer Prize winners were raised by non-tiger moms? ALL OF THEM.

This is total crap. I am scientist and work with these kinds of people. There are MANY who were raised by tiger parents.

One particularly famous example is Norbert Weiner. Look him up.

I'm not saying this is how to raise your kids, but cut the self-righteous stuff when you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As if the choice is between Tiger a Parenting and having your children have sex at 13 and end up in jail. Seriously? Most of the academically talented high school kids I know have not been raised by Tiger parents. I consider my DD one of them, extremely creative, top student with unique interests that are great but certainly didn't come from me. She has been given a merit scholarship to her first choice college.

$$, legacy and daddy knowing the right people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if the choice is between Tiger a Parenting and having your children have sex at 13 and end up in jail. Seriously? Most of the academically talented high school kids I know have not been raised by Tiger parents. I consider my DD one of them, extremely creative, top student with unique interests that are great but certainly didn't come from me. She has been given a merit scholarship to her first choice college.

$$, legacy and daddy knowing the right people

Nope. Another one here who was not Tiger parented. Quite the opposite. But went to Ivy for college and grad school, top of my class. Happy and good relationship with my parents. No connections or money got me in anywhere, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if the choice is between Tiger a Parenting and having your children have sex at 13 and end up in jail. Seriously? Most of the academically talented high school kids I know have not been raised by Tiger parents. I consider my DD one of them, extremely creative, top student with unique interests that are great but certainly didn't come from me. She has been given a merit scholarship to her first choice college.

$$, legacy and daddy knowing the right people

Nope. Another one here who was not Tiger parented. Quite the opposite. But went to Ivy for college and grad school, top of my class. Happy and good relationship with my parents. No connections or money got me in anywhere, either.

And my non-tiger parented cousin who attended a magnet program in MCPS 20 years ago is a drunk and is unable to hold a steady job.

[Anonymous]

Part of the problem here is that people are too quick to label Asian parents as tiger moms. While there are cases of extreme tiger parenting, most style of Asian parenting include high expectations and outside enrichment, but plenty of time for friends and extra-curricular activities. If a non-Asian parent has his/her child in 2 hours of sports a couple of days a week, an instrument, foreign language class and an enrichment class, very few people would call that tiger parenting. If an Asian parent has a kids in rec soccer, piano lessons, Chinese lessons and an enrichment class, that parent is much more likely to be called a tiger parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if the choice is between Tiger a Parenting and having your children have sex at 13 and end up in jail. Seriously? Most of the academically talented high school kids I know have not been raised by Tiger parents. I consider my DD one of them, extremely creative, top student with unique interests that are great but certainly didn't come from me. She has been given a merit scholarship to her first choice college.

$$, legacy and daddy knowing the right people

Nope. Another one here who was not Tiger parented. Quite the opposite. But went to Ivy for college and grad school, top of my class. Happy and good relationship with my parents. No connections or money got me in anywhere, either.

And my non-tiger parented cousin who attended a magnet program in MCPS 20 years ago is a drunk and is unable to hold a steady job.

Great. So that proves nothing. As does my example (PP above). So the conclusion is: Some tiger parented kids will turn out well, and some won't. And some non-Tiger-parented kids will turn out well, and some won't.

Ta da!

[Anonymous]

I can't stand this thread. There is so much racism going on. If a white parent has a child that excels, it is attributed to the innate superiority of the child plus good, supportive parents. If the parent is Asian, the success is attributed to an extreme Tiger Mom and a robotic child that will just be a dull follower with no creative or leadership abilities. All Asian moms are not the "tiger moms" depicted in the book and all successful asian kids are not products of tiger moms. Get your prejudices in check people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand this thread. There is so much racism going on. If a white parent has a child that excels, it is attributed to the innate superiority of the child plus good, supportive parents. If the parent is Asian, the success is attributed to an extreme Tiger Mom and a robotic child that will just be a dull follower with no creative or leadership abilities. All Asian moms are not the "tiger moms" depicted in the book and all successful asian kids are not products of tiger moms. Get your prejudices in check people!

Amen! My thoughts exactly. This thread reeks of prejudice against Asians.

[Anonymous]

You raise your kids I'll raise mine, don't complain when your kids don't get into TJ.