
Children of parents classified as “tiger” have worse grades, are more depressed - nostrademons
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/05/_tiger_mom_study_shows_the_parenting_method_doesn_t_work.html
======
pchivers
I was under the impression that Amy Chua (the woman who wrote "Battle Hymn of
the Tiger Mother") gave up the "tiger mom" strategy after one of her children
had a breakdown:

"What brings the situation to an end is two horrifying incidents. First, Lulu
hacks off her hair with a pair of scissors; then, on a family holiday to
Moscow, she and Chua get into a public argument that culminates in Lulu
smashing a glass in a cafe, screaming, "I'm not what you want – I'm not
Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head?
I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her
relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white
flag."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-
chua-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-chua-tiger-
mother-interview)

~~~
sown
> "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why
> can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I
> hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis,
> Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag."

I started crying when I read that. I literally have tears in my eyes right
now. I'm hardly surprised, though.

I expressed my opinions years ago here on HN, about this tiger mom horseshit
and how it's basically child abuse, to me, even though I'm into my 30s it's
still with me.

My mom did this shit to me and I had a couple of good, solid breakdowns.
Constant pressure, college resume padding horseshit, extracurricular
activities that I don't care about (kudos to you if you enjoyed them but most
of the people at these things aren't enthused about it). NOthing I ever did
was good enough, impossible busy work, constant comparisons to so-and-so
kid's, being paraded out to brag about the family name, etc.

Then I did the unforgivable. I flunked out of college. I got _FAT_ \-- the
worse! And grew a beard. She told me I was a complete embarrassment and she
didn't want me around. Because of a beard. I guess I was about 25 when she
said that, and I've seen her a three times since then.

~~~
ScottBurson
At least you're still alive.

I am reminded of the tragic case of Mengyao "May" Zhou, an MIT grad and
Stanford grad student, whose death in 2007 was ruled a suicide. (While there
was no clear evidence of foul play, the evidence for suicide was not
overwhelming either -- in particular, she left no note.) While she was clearly
very successful in her studies and was thought to be happy, some of the
details that came out at the time left me with the distinct impression that
she killed herself to get out of a life she had not chosen and could see no
other escape from. Her father in particular seemed to have a habit of stating
flatly how she had felt, as if he didn't have to ask her. That struck me as a
big red flag that suggested that he related to her as an extension of himself
rather than as a separate person -- a common pattern in "tiger" parenting.

I emphasize that this is only my impression; I didn't know her and have no
privileged information about her. But the father's subsequent behavior --
insisting she was murdered and making rather wild suggestions about who could
have done it and why -- did nothing to change that impression (even making
allowances for understandable grief). Instead of stopping to wonder whether he
really knew her -- who wouldn't wonder that after an unexpected suicide? -- he
dug himself into his position. I think that in his denial that she could have
felt any other way than how he wanted her to feel, he is still refusing to
hear the message of her suicide.

It is bad enough to be living a life designed by someone else, where you know
it's not your choice but you feel compelled to do it anyway. But to have had
your own desires and feelings so rigidly unacknowledged for your whole life
that you can't even imagine living your own life for your own reasons -- that
seems to me unbearably painful. I have a feeling that is the place May Zhou
was in.

~~~
httpuser
I remember reading this NYT article on Elizabeth Shin's tragic suicide:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/magazine/who-was-
responsib...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/magazine/who-was-responsible-
for-elizabeth-shin.html)

It's a sobering read, including interviews with the parents, Shin's
classmates, etc.

~~~
ScottBurson
A sad story. Thanks for the link.

------
tokenadult
As I commented when I shared the link kindly posted here among my Facebook
friends, "Like most studies of child-rearing of this nature, it is
correlational rather than experimental, subject to argument about definitions,
and not yet replicated, but this is food for thought." So if we think about
what this means, yes, parents should be affectionate toward their children
rather than reserved. Parents should also be open to children pursuing THEIR
OWN interests rather than the profile of interests reputedly best for getting
into a famous college. Indeed, parents should be open to the possibility that
a career in private industry in an occupation in which job applicants show
what they can do through work-sample tests and being a "smart and gets things
done" worker can be better for a young person than piling on lots of higher
education degrees.

That said, letting Junior play video games all day (as contrasted with WRITING
a few video games) is not good for Junior either. Maybe Junior won't report
being depressed in that case until reaching his twenties and finding out he is
unemployable at a living wage that allows independence from Mom and Dad. Maybe
Junior, while growing up and having limited life experience, might benefit
from some actual adult leadership and guidance. It is possible to do too
little as well as too much in parenting.

(Basis of knowledge: I am the father in a "half-Asian" family, although oddly
I am probably the "tiger-like" parent as a native-born American, while my
Taiwanese wife is more easy-going. We have one child who has grown into
independent adult life as a hacker and three younger children still living at
home.)

~~~
vishaldpatel
You know, unless Junior wants to go pro.

~~~
tokenadult
_You know, unless Junior wants to go pro._

Are you talking about the video games? I have local friends who have more
children than I have, and two of the boys in that family traveled overseas to
try out the professional gaming circuit in one of the countries with serious
gaming pros. (That family is very supportive of children trying out their
interests, to its credit.) After the boys made the trip, they came back here,
and if the last report I heard about their activities is still current
information, they are buckling down in their studies and pursuing other
careers.

~~~
vishaldpatel
How is being a pro gamer different than being a pro athlete? Lots of people
try and some finally make it. I bet all those who tried and failed are happier
for trying.

------
bitwize
In Japan there is the concept of "amae". The feeling of being loved and "taken
care of" is recognized as a valid need, and it is as much the job of the
parents to make their children feel safe and supported as it is the job of the
children to make their parents proud through high achievement. I don't know
what Chinese parents are like back on the mainland, but I suspect that they
have similar ideas, as Japanese concepts of loyalty are largely borrowed from
Confucius.

Not that amae-based relationships can't be pathological, but they are less
one-sidedly authoritarian.

So not only does it not work, I have grave doubts as to whether "tiger
parenting" is normal among Chinese, or Asians in general. If anything it's a
pathological development among certain first-generation Asian immigrants, who
felt the need to produce exceptional children in order to compensate for
perceived cultural disadvantages.

~~~
eric-hu
> If anything it's a pathological development among certain first-generation
> Asian immigrants

I was thinking this throughout your comment. I've also observed that it's a
trait much stronger among first generation families or those closer to them
(second generation instead of fifth, for instance).

I grew up as the children of Chinese immigrants and spent a year in college
studying abroad in Beijing. I expected to see a city of 20 million high-
achievers. I was in for quite a surprise. The people I met there were more
like the non-Asians I knew in America than the Asians I knew.

I have no idea what specifically about immigration causes this behavior, or if
it's just correlation. It could simply be the case that people prone to
extreme "life optimization" are more okay with the emotional upheaval of
moving to another country.

~~~
bitwize
1) Asian immigrants tend to self-select for high achievement.

2) Asians historically were at a cultural disadvantage compared to other
Westerners in America. Americans were at least passingly familiar with other
European cultures, and had quite a bit of common ground with them; much less
so with Asians so there was a mutual unintelligibility problem. So to
compensate, Asian parents tended to pressure their kids to excel in something
universal that Americans would consider valuable -- hence the tendency of
Asians to gravitate towards the hard sciences, math, and music (oddly enough,
Western classical music at that). Amy Tan wrote about this, remarking how
unusual and against the odds it was that she became a writer instead of the
scientist or classical violinist her mother wanted her to be.

------
jjtheblunt
It's almost like kids benefit from running around outside with other kids,
rather than being forced to be mini adults. Or something.

~~~
rayiner
On the contrary, the chart in the article shows that "permissive" parenting
produced lower achievement than "authoritative" parenting. The distinction in
the article isn't about letting kids "be kids" but whether parents are
responsive/warm versus cold.

~~~
nostrademons
"Authoritative" parenting means letting kids explore the world and their own
interests while still setting strict limits that are necessary for the health
& well-being of the kid. An authoritative parent wouldn't prevent their kid
from running around outside with other kids, they'd let the kid run around
outside "but stay away from the railroad tracks, and don't get drunk or do
drugs, and be home by 11".

~~~
rayiner
That's not really how it's defined in the article. It's more "this is what
you're going to do, but I'm willing to negotiate the details."

~~~
nostrademons
There's a bunch of background in the psych literature beyond just this
article. Here's one summary of authoritative parenting:

[http://psychology.about.com/od/childcare/f/authoritative-
par...](http://psychology.about.com/od/childcare/f/authoritative-
parenting.htm)

If you've ever had a good boss, there's a good analogy there. A good boss
doesn't micro-manage or tell you what to do: she lets you arrange your time as
necessary to accomplish your objectives and exercise a lot of discretion about
your day-to-day work. However, she doesn't let you just spin your wheels and
not accomplish anything either. She provides just enough guidance to ensure
that you're still moving forwards without dictating _how_ you move forwards.

A good parent is very similar. He provides structure and direction, but lets
the child discover his/her own interests and pursue them. It's only when the
kid is at risk of stepping seriously off the rails that the parent steps in.

~~~
TheLegace
Definitely agree. But I wonder what happens when your parent(s) do both those
things but in different ways for different things?

Kinda what I could say happened to me, my father being extremely
authoritative(making me work at very young age for his business), but at the
same time not being around to not set very much boundaries.

------
mtowle
I never know what to make of these kinds of studies. The author has full
license to decide what "categories" will be part of their spectrum and what
their definitions will be, and then further to interpret every data point by
themselves. The former you can review and question, the latter you cannot.

So let's question the former:

>Kim decided that for her study, she would both parse further the different
dimensions of the Eurocentric profiles and create new ones that better fit the
styles of the East Asian families.

Oof. Two biases don't make a right.

>The responsiveness that’s considered an aspect of “authoritative” parenting,
for example, was broadened to include both positive and negative attributes:
warmth and hostility. Control, she would write, has “multiple facets …
positive control is measured by parental monitoring and democratic parenting;
negative control is measured by psychological control and punitive parenting.”

The Stasi were a form of positive control, apparently. Just kidding -- kind
of. Suffice it to say none of the above are so mutually exclusive that they
should be put in categories called "positive" and "negative."

~~~
WalterSear
Go read the actual study then rather than the article, and find out how she
justified her decisions. Most likely, she based them on definitions that were
defined and validated by multiple previous studies before her, or presents
research demonstrating validity of her claims.

From my time in academia, I can assure you spend most of your time and writing
justifying your decisions, and a whole load of very critical people have to
agree with your judgement before something gets published.

~~~
mtowle
>Go read the actual study then rather than the article, and find out how she
justified her decisions.

If you've got $11.95 to spare, I'll take you up on that. Unfortunately all
that's available is the abstract. But if you want me to analyze that, I will.
232 words, not counting the copyright. 122 unique. 'Tiger' occurs 7 times --
4th behind 'parenting' (15), 'the' (12), and 'and' (9). My analysis concludes
that Kim doesn't just have something she wants to say, she has something she
wants the public to hear. I.e., right or wrong, Kim has an agenda.

>Most likely, she based them on definitions that were defined and validated by
multiple previous studies before her

I don't see how; she openly states in the quoted section of the parent comment
that her delineation of categories was aimed at challenging the standard in
the field.

>a whole load of very critical people have to agree with your judgement before
something gets published.

In this case, it was the fine people over at the AAJP. The Asian American
Journal of Psychology. Most def not a journal oriented toward "their version"
of the truth, I'm sure.

~~~
gertef
What is "their" version?

~~~
WalterSear
Find out here:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5684360>

------
cafard
"he vast majority of parents were foreign-born in Hong Kong or southern China,
with relatively low educational attainment and a median income of between
$30,001 and $45,000 in each of the study’s three phases, spaced out equally
over eight years."

Wait. Amy Chua is US born, no, and of at least the educational attainment
needed to teach at Yale Law--which I assume is paying her & her husband rather
more than $45K between them. So how do she and her daughters relate to this,
except as a hook to grab our attention.

~~~
defen
Yeah, and her father is a EE professor at Berkeley who predicted the existence
of the memristor...not exactly a family of "low educational attainment".

~~~
illuminate
We do not possess a media with any skeptical abilities, regurgitation of press
releases and narratives is all we have.

------
abalone
It sounds like the study reduced the definition of "tiger parenting" to simple
authoritarian attitudes.

I went to a high-achievement school with a lot of kids of tiger parent types,
including an elite music school. That's not the whole picture. Maybe these
kids ended up depressed (who knows), but worse grades? I don't think so.

The study notes "the vast majority" of parents it looked at had "relatively
low educational attainment and a median income of between $30,001 and
$45,000". Oddly it claims it also "controlled for socioeconomic status", but
that seems suspect when the vast majority of the sample is in one particular
income range.

So the study mostly looked at poorer households with low-educated parents.
This is quite different from Chua, a Yale law professor, on the high end of
both income and education.

There's a big difference between just yelling at someone and yelling at
someone while putting them in elite schools, music lessons, explaining
derivatives to them, critiquing their essays, etc. I don't doubt for a SECOND
the psychological impacts of authoritarianism, high stress and poor
socialization. For me the argument against tiger parenting is more than it's
not worth the psychological damage it inflicts and that it kills creativity,
both of which are really important in life, beyond just being a finely honed
academic machine. But poorer grades, no way. This study is just using its own
simplistic definition of the term.

------
candybar
What's clear to me from these articles and studies is that there's no silver
bullet - if you want to raise your child well, you have to spend a lot of
energy understanding your child and guide him, but from his perspective, not
your own. Be firm, for his own sake, but without injecting yourself too much.
It's wrong to forcefully impose your own goals and expectation borne out of
your own insecurities on your children at a stage when children can make
decisions on their own, but it's also wrong to be secretive, manipulative and
passive-aggressive about your expectations or pretend to yourself that they
don't exist. Instead be gradually open about your own feelings and
expectations and why you have them and allow them to make decisions that
incorporate, but aren't forced by your own desires. All of this is a hard
balancing act that demands a lot of mental effort and emotional maturity, not
something we can follow out of a book. The more we try to follow someone
else's rules for raising a child, the less effort we spend understanding own
child and/or look inside ourselves to understand what we truly need to do.

------
dmishe
I had to google what is tiger mom, and found this: "never allowed:

\- attend a sleepover

\- have a playdate

\- be in a school play

\- complain about not being in a school play

\- watch TV or play computer games

\- choose their own extracurricular activities

\- get any grade less than an “A”

\- not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

\- play any instrument other than the piano or violin

\- not play the piano or violin.”

Well, fuck.

~~~
eatitraw
Oh crap. Why do someone want to do this with their own children?

I am especially puzzled about the purpose of: "- play any instrument other
than the piano or violin \- not play the piano or violin." I just don't
understand the logic behind this two restrictions.

~~~
rickyc091
The idea is that if they cut out all the extracurricular / social aspects of a
child's life, then the child will have nothing better to do other than
focusing on academia. Of course, in reality that doesn't happen. Children will
rebel when they come to that age.

As for the no violin / piano. I think you have it wrong. It's "no musical
instruments other than piano or violin."
([http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-06/news/ct-met-
ti...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-06/news/ct-met-tiger-
mom-20110306_1_tiger-mother-amy-chua-tiger-mom))

~~~
RYUUSEiiSTAR
"Never allowed to: \- play any instrument other than the piano or violin \-
not play the piano or violin.”

you read it wrong.

------
swampthing
From the article:

"Tiger parenting doesn't produce superior outcomes in kids"

Not to point out the obvious, but correlation doesn't equal causation. It
could very well be that the worse grades a child gets, the more reason the
parents have to become "tiger".

------
beachstartup
i'm asian american and grew up in california, i knew lots of asian kids
growing up.

all the kids that had super-strict parents were screwed up in some way by the
age of 25.

dropouts, burnouts, social maladjusts, booksmart losers, drug addicts,
delinquents, criminals, etc.

not all asian parents are like that, but a LOT are, i'd say probably 4-5x the
rate you'd find in the general population. /anecdata

------
gwern
I jailbroke the paper for you guys:
<http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85192141/2013-kim.pdf>

------
epo
There is the old saying that "talent skips a generation". It is much an
observation on parenting styles as anything. This "tiger" moniker just refers
to extremely pushy (read "abusive") parents. Their reward will be producing
children who grow up hating them.

------
macey
I feel like this was always obviously the case in the United States. Nothing
about US culture complements tiger parenting. Go ask Chinese kids in China how
they feel about it. (hint: their culture fully supports and _expects_ this
parenting style)

~~~
ceras
I'm not sure I understand your hint. When I studied in Beijing, most Chinese
college kids I talked to just lamented about how hard they worked throughout
their childhood and how overly stressed out they always were. Nobody spoke
positively about this.

------
jere
I'm reading this as: Asian students perform better than other groups even with
ineffective parenting. Am I missing something?

>“Whenever scholars compare European-American and Asian-American families,”
she said, parents among the latter “almost always score higher on controlling
and lower on warmth, which means they’re more likely to be classified as
authoritarian.” Yet, their kids were outperforming whites in school. This gave
rise to the “achievement/adjustment paradox”: kids doing well by external
measures while feeling torn apart inside.

~~~
sliverstorm
_Am I missing something?_

One thing that comes to mind; at least in the Bay Area, asian students often
grow up in whole communities made up of other asians, so even if their parents
are mucking things up a bit, they are still fully immersed in the culture of
extreme focus on academics and achievement.

------
eeemmmccc123
Both of Amy Chua's children are, in a sense, positive outcomes. One was "good
enough" for her mother's standards, and another rebelled. But sometimes,
different outcomes happen:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/magazine/who-was-
responsib...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/magazine/who-was-responsible-
for-elizabeth-shin.html)

------
alexholehouse
If tiger moms organize and control their kid's lives, do the kids ever learn
skills relating to decision making and time management, two absolutely crucial
skills for 'real world' survival?

~~~
RYUUSEiiSTAR
Not even just those two skills, but anything to do with the 'real world'. I
struggle to talk to people and have constant shivers even when I know I'm in a
non-threatening environment. I just can't make conversation easily.

Even something as simple as when I took the train for the first time by myself
going to uni. I was petrified I would miss my stop or something equally
stupid, when the solution would be to just get off and hop onto a train that
would take me back.

Again, I don't think I have a tiger mum, but she's awfully close.

------
dbg31415
Curious, why no mention of parenting that leads to high-achieving and high-
depressive kids.

~~~
jere
I think the implication is that those are incompatible.

~~~
laurentoget
Unless you include every jewish male character in a woody allen movie or a
philip roth novel, which can be read as a case study on highly depressed high
achievers.

------
aclevernickname
This "Tiger Parent" situation is a bit of a conundrum: we as society are
unable to tolerate this form of child abuse, but are equally unable to say
something about it, for fear of being considered "racist" by someone hiding
behind the shield of "Chinese Tradition".

~~~
ddoolin
Because it's not child abuse. Just because a group of people don't agree with
it does it make it "child abuse."

~~~
aclevernickname
Keep telling yourself that. I'm sure that will help you sleep at night.
Meanwhile, this "successful" woman will keep verbally/mentally/emotionally
abusing her children, and nice people like you will look the other way.

------
rayiner
This is mostly due to the study's redefinition of the term "tiger" to include
"unsupportive."

~~~
chockablock
Not according to the fine article.

The 'Tiger' category emerged from a clustering analysis of parenting styles,
and was defined by high scores on both positive ("Warmth, reasoning,
monitoring, and democratic parenting") and negative ("hostility, psychological
control, shaming, and punitive measures") dimensions.

The claim is that even when they show lots of warmth and positive parenting,
parents who are also hostile and shaming, have kids who do just as poorly as
the kids of very harsh, unsupportive parents.

~~~
rayiner
Right. The article defined the "tiger" category to include hostility, the
opposite of "supportive."

~~~
MichaelSalib
Human beings aren't computers and human interactions aren't binary. It is
perfectly possible for a parent to be both supportive of their children (i.e.,
have genuine warmth) and be hostile (i.e., lots of shaming). There is no
contradiction here.

