It’s just a generalisation based on anecdotes, but Ive known and grown up with alot of people who grew up in traditional asian tiger families and were either emotionally scared as a result or otherwise materially successful yet immensely unhappy. I think what the writer was alluding to was the discomfort, anxiety and stress that such an upbringing can cause. I’ve witnessed friends develop all sorts of issues and with asian families that type of dysfunction especially the extreme manifestations of it (ie. eating/mood disorders, crippling anxiety, codepedancy, process and substance addictions etc) is never admitted or properly treated so it just festers.
Maybe it’s because I used to work in the mental health field so that I am more attenuated to it, but I can pick up on people’s emotions and behaviours better than most people. Either way I’ve known alot of outwardly successful people who were absolutely miserable. While they appeared well adjusted, that outward presentation doesn’t match the inside. Alot of people are driven to succeed because they are seeking a sort of validation and they have an expectation that the outward signs of success and the pleasure associated with that will fill some internal void/unhappiness. I can see some signs of that on this board…
The counterargument, of course, is that unsuccessful people also suffer from anxiety, eating disorders, alcoholism and drug abuse. Surely, some successful people exhibit signs of psychological trauma. However, I would find it difficult to believe that these disorders (for instance, drug abuse) are more common among highly educated, high achieving people than in the population on average.
well than I must be the black sheep of my Asian tiger family. because I am not an ambitious overachiever. I have no eating or any mental disorder. unless pursuing CFA charter is is one.
But stereotypes can be true statistically. On average, Asian students get better grades than students of other races. Asian people also, on average, make more money in the US than people of other races. While individual members of the population might defy these statistics, there is a difference when looking at the population as a whole.
sherbeer’s example might illustrate reversion towards the mean. For example, one possible explanation is that all moms in her lineage are Tiger Moms. However, some children resist the effects of Tiger Mothering. Hence, sherbeer is not an “overachiever”, as she describes. However, she then falls into the same familial pattern that makes her child an overachiever.
In addition, the definition of “overachiever” is subject to interpretation. When sherbeer says that she is not an overachiever, what is she using as a comparison?
those statistical trends are shaped by social forces that will change inevitably…relying on them or using them as a guide is a sure way to mislead yourself…
Many stereotypes are based on some degree of truth. One of the problems of Asian stereotyping, is that it is often perpetuated by new immigrants, which is growing faster than the local Asian (American) population. The Tiger Mom mentality is something that is popular in Asian countries due to the very structured school system they have there (national exams, clear cut best colleges, etc.). While many multi-generational Asian Americans will realize that the Tiger Mom way of teaching kids is sub-optimal in the US/Canada, all the recent immigrants will keep following it and make it the “common” perception of Asian parenting. That being said, I cannot imagine the bullshit a multi-generational Mexican-American family has to go through…
Yes - I agree that immigration is very important in determining culture, and that some cultural characteristics might fade once immigrant families have been in the new country for a while. However, this does not mean that statistics will mean revert completely once immigration has slowed. Take African Americans for instance. Many black people are stuck in a cycle of poverty that results in low academic achievement, low income, etc. It’s hard to say how long this will last, or if this will just continue forever - social trends are difficult to change, despite the best efforts of individuals within the population.
Or take Jewish people, for instance. Like Asians, Jewish people are statistically and stereotypically associated with high income and academic achievement. However, few Jewish people in the US are new immigrants. They have just been caught up in social and cultural trends that have perpetuated over many generations.
The other argument, of course, is whether these trends are a product of culture and ethnicity, or general socioeconomic status. However, in either case, it’s hard to say that the trends are not significant, or that they cannot persist for a very long time (if not indefinitely).
According to US Census Bureau, US citizens of Asian descent do indeed have a higher median household income than other races. They also have a higher poverty rate than non-Hispanic whites though.
Part of the large black population stuck in low income, low academics I would say is due to parenting. A black person I knew once told me her parents gave her only 1 goal in life all throughout high school: don’t get pregnant.
Seriously. They didn’t say she needed to work hard, or do well in school, and she did whatever she wanted.
Few kids at that young age will discover for themselves the real need to work hard at something, unless you implant the desire or persuade them in some way, or you give them a good environment that fosters hard work to success. So, if the parent sucks and doesn’t give a damn, then the kid usually will be similar
Hmm. I suspect that the poverty rate is due to immigrants. One side of my extended family, for instance, consists of Asian immigrants who got to the US under some kind of family-related visa. In general, they were not college educated, barely spoke English, were not used to high standards of living, etc. Their children, however, are very successful and earn much more money than the median US person - presumably an effect of Tiger parenting. This illustrates both the low end and high end of income, as your data suggests.
I have no data to support this, but I would suspect that more recent Asian immigrants would tend toward the higher income levels as they likely represent the cream of the crop. I’m under the impression that there aren’t all that many poor, uneducated Asians emmigrating to the US these days. There are obviously some exceptions, but I would think that the majority of Asian immigrants in the past 20 years have come here for a college education and stayed, or came here with advanced degrees already in-hand.