When the book came out and there was the initial uproar my wife bought it. We both really liked it and thought it pretty self deprecating and humorous. Maybe we were onto something or maybe we were just projecting as we skew slightly more her way than towards the earth mother direction! I’ll never be accused of enlightenment, but in any event, the author has interpreted her work for all of us now on amychua.com.
I like to suggest things to my kids but decision and responsibility lies on them, its their life. I’m their guide, not their drill sargent.
“On other side, its totally okay for parents and coaches to make kids practice their sport all day, that’s determination.”
Who has said that? Not me. I think that’s silly too ( unless it’s clearly child-driven). If hypothetically my kid had natural talent in a sport, I would not have disrupted our family life to “develop” it, because I don’t particularly value it, and if I neglected to develop the next Tiger Woods, oh well, so be it.
@Hunt I had to go back to work and I am just briefly getting back in here. I used to live in Montgomery county in MD and went to the ice rink in Rockville for ice hockey and figure skating practices for several years. I have seen many Asian kids in the rink learning how to skate, just like I saw many white kids. I am just pointing out that Chau’s parenting as described in her book is extreme and abusive for anybody’s standard, and should not be generalized to include the majority of Asian parents. As I mentioned before, I have seen white and black parents who are even more stricter than the “usual” Asian parents. Do I think they are tiger parents? No! Now, as parents, we all have disciplined our kids in one way or another, and I am 100% sure that all of our kids “hated” us for it at some point in their lives. Does that make us bad parents?
It is also laughable that you and others mention about Asian kids complaining about the Asian F’s (B’s). Really? If that were true, all Asians kids I know would be complaining, but far from it. My kids and well as ALL of my friends’ kids have multiple B’s and even C’s on occasion, but we do not berate or punish them. We would ask whether they need tutoring and encourage them to do better just like any of the non-Asian parents would. I am sure you and other parents on here would not be OK and say nothing if your kids came home with C’s on their report card. After reading many posts in CC, it seems that the majority of non-Asian parents in CC do care a lot about their kids grade for the sake of getting into good colleges, especially when future or present scholarship opportunities are at stake. Please stop generalizing and trying to force the stereotypical tiger parenting narrative to all Asian families.
"But I suspect that some of the interest comes from misplaced anger at how it affects the competitive field for admissions and jobs. " - I can see this easily, this is actually the only valid reason to get so emotionally involved with the issues that are none of our business. And my answer to that is instead of criticizing others for their methods of raising very successful and contributing members of society, we can direct our efforts at developing our own plan, based on values acceptable by us and aimed at raising kids who are easily compete with the ones who are raised in such a “wrong way” as determined by our personal set of values. I believe that this would be much more effective use of our resources, intellectual energy, emotions, time, and everything else.
In our school system the kids are offered a choice of band, strings, or chorus in middle school. I don’t see what parents “being more familiar” with string instruments has to do with it. The school is providing the instruction. Not all, but the overwhelming majority of the Asian students choose strings. Also, how is it somehow easier to get a kid to tennis lessons than to soccer practice?
“After reading many posts in CC, it seems that the majority of non-Asian parents in CC do care a lot about their kids grade for the sake of getting into good colleges, especially when future or present scholarship opportunities are at stake. Please stop generalizing and trying to force the stereotypical tiger parenting narrative to all Asian families.”
No one is trying to force it to all Asian families. On CC, though, we are not making it up to note that there are a lot of posts from students who describe their families as “typical Asian families” who are disappointed in the children if they don’t get into HYPSM, and / or who force them into engineering / STEM fields the children are otherwise not interested in. Is there NO difference? You can’t simultaneously deny and defend a trend.
I think some (not all!) families get caught up in a kind of “Asian arms race”. Pushing their kids for high grades & test scores, and becoming highly accomplished in a typical EC like music – just trying to get higher and higher against the same marks, But I think top colleges are looking more for interested and interesting applicants, applicants who view the world a bit differently and achieve in unusual and unexpected areas. They can tell the difference in admissions offices, and don’t want all students stamped from the same mold of academics and activities. They aren’t looking for energizer-bunny grinders. Then when students in that mold are rejected, there are complaints about discrimination. But if EVERYONE is trying to fit through the same narrowly funneled definition of “prepared for HPYSM”, and HYPSM wants some intellectual diversity in their class, inevitably some “highly qualified” students are going to be disappointed. Now… I also see non-Asian families & students making the same mistake sometimes.
Our school too. But serious musicians don’t start in middle school, they start (around here) with Suzuki or other private instruction at an earlier age. I suspect Chua’s kids did too.
“there are a lot of posts from students who describe their families as “typical Asian families” who are disappointed in the children if they don’t get into HYPSM”
These are kids talking. Adolescents say many things spontaneously without thinking first. Do my kids say “my parents are going to kill me for this C” to their friends? Probably, YES! But do my kids suffer any consequences at home? NO!
Do you really believe all the things kids say especially on this anonymous forum? Do you honestly believe many Asian parents (very few might) would be DISAPPOINTED in their OWN kids if they didn’t get into HYPSM? If you do, wow, I don’t know what to say… Believe it or not, many, if not all, Asian parents also know how difficult it is to get into those schools. If my kids had near perfect GPA and SAT scores with really good ECs and didn’t get into the most select schools, would I be disappointed? Yes, and so would many parent posters here. But I would never voice my disappointment to my kids, but instead, congratulate them on their acceptance to whatever school they got into.
@mathyone “Also, how is it somehow easier to get a kid to tennis lessons than to soccer practice?”
I personally do not know since none of my kids took up tennis. But since tennis is an individual sport, I can see why and how it would be easier to arrange for practices and private lessons (you can make up your own time with coaches and courts) than soccer, a team sport. When both parents are working during the week (especially past 5 pm), it is very hard to arrange and fit soccer, baseball or any team sport practices during the week. Luckily, my job is flexible (so I drove my kids sometimes) and we also arranged carpools with other parents. If the Asian or any family is a first generation immigrant, it is not hard to imagine why this would be difficult on many fronts (working around your work schedule (typically past 5 pm), arranging carpools, having only 1 car (if that), etc.)
In my experience, tennis is very expensive, and soccer carpools are easy to come by.
“But since tennis is an individual sport, I can see why and how it would be easier to arrange for practices and private lessons (you can make up your own time with coaches and courts) than soccer, a team sport.”
I am not sure that the ease of establishing a schedule is the main attraction. The focus seems to be on sports that are both individual in essence and offer easy statistics to show one’s relative excellence and superiority. Hence, the flocking by Asians to sports such as tennis or ice skating over group athletics.
This general trend can be belied by anecdotes. During our competitive soccer years in Texas, the very best players in my children age group happened to be American born Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese with very involved parents. On the subject of parental involvement in schools activities, the same trend to focus on individual activities was prevalent. Asians rarely participated in volunteering activities but would find the time for attending the orchestra nights as long as their progeny was first violin or flute.
Hunt was 100 percent correct in his assessment of restrictions on certain activities. If course, that is what used to work before the admissions folks got wiser.
Also a factor is contact vs non-contact sports. Head should be preserved for SAT.
"Do you honestly believe many Asian parents (very few might) would be DISAPPOINTED in their OWN kids if they didn’t get into HYPSM? If you do, wow, I don’t know what to say… "
Who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes? I’ve seen posts to that effect on CC where, yes, indeed, I believe the young people involved are very sincere that their families are upset / disappointed / etc. that they have not gotten into the very, very upper tier of schools.
@Pizzagirl I can only speak from my own experiences as an Asian parent and my many Asian friends, as opposed to your “many posts on CC” experience. I am not denying the fact that there may be a minority of Asian parents who voice their disappointments to their kids, but I can assure you that in my circle of friends, no parent would ever do that. So, if you can’t believe an Asian parent who says that we don’t voice our disappointments (most of us are not even disappointed) that our kids didn’t get into HYPMS, there is no point to continue this discussion. And my oldest is a senior and as his parents, we would be thrilled and happy for him wherever he ends up in college.
“The focus seems to be on sports that are both individual in essence and offer easy statistics to show one’s relative excellence and superiority. Hence, the flocking by Asians to sports such as tennis or ice skating over group athletics”
I believe golf is also generally acceptable, likely for the same reasons.
I agree with @Hunt that reasons for differences in perception are at least partly regional. I’ll post more later. Have to leave right now. Also, not surprisingly, the more laid-back, accepting Asian parents will not be the most vocal and visible ones. However, my own direct experience illustrates a very high proportion of Tiger Parents relative to the school population as a whole and relative to parents of Western origin. Later…
Can we stop beating up on Asian parents and painting everyone with a broad brush? I can only speak for myself, but yes, I played tennis in high school. Why? 1. I enjoyed it, and 2. I was too short to play basketball and was terrible at softball. Nobody forced me into tennis. When our son was in grammar school, we encouraged him to try team sports - basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, etc. He decided sports was not his thing. Among my Asian friends, all the kids play team sports and surprise, no one plays piano or strings.
I can’t deny that there is a certain segment of the Asian population that is obsessed with the Ivies. Anecdotally, they are usually mainland Chinese. I don’t think many are aware that there are great colleges outside HYPS and attending an Ivy is not a guarantee of success.
Funny, my son did a college admissions panel at his school today- long story short his guidance con. told the panel afterwards that many Asian parents are paying big money to college admission planning specialists to craft a non-Asian looking Asian applicant for admission… i.e. instead of violin/orchestra, DECA, tennis etc to gear them towards other activities/ sports/clubs/service that makes them stand out from the other Asian applicants…