Whatever Happened to the Tiger Mom?
The tiger-mom joke describes the smaller group of mothers in a long Chinese American study. Asian parents still rank a college degree far above other U.S. parents, and nearly half say they are raising kids differently than they were raised. Parenting influencers may be amplifying that. Whether it helps is still open.
Someone at dinner still says it. A cousin mentions the tutor, and somebody answers, "Okay, tiger mom."
The joke got famous in 2011, off one family's rules. Most mothers in the big Chinese American study did not match it. Plenty of Asian parents today still want the college degree, and nearly half say they are raising kids differently than they were raised.
Parenting accounts now have a whole look for the mom who says she is doing it differently. Posting that look is easy. Knowing whether it helps is still open.
Teenagers in Kim's Chinese American study were more likely to describe supportive mothers than tiger mothers, and Pew's 2023 survey still finds 70% of Asian parents calling a college degree extremely or very important, with 47% trying to raise their kids differently. If a parenting account is helping write the rules, ask whether the rule is for your child or for an audience.
What the teenagers actually said
In January 2011, Yale law professor Amy Chua published Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. A Wall Street Journal excerpt, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," turned her house rules into a national fight.
No sleepovers. Nothing below an A. Hours at the piano.
Su Yeong Kim, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, had already been following 444 Chinese American families in Northern California. The study ran about eight years.
Most of those parents had immigrated from Hong Kong or southern China. The typical parent had some high school, and the kids were in local middle schools. A Yale law professor's house and these houses were not the same.
When the teenagers described their mothers, supportive parenting was the biggest group, about 45% at the start. Tiger parenting was in there too, about 28%. By the last round, the tiger share had fallen to about 18%.
The kids with supportive mothers had stronger grades and fewer symptoms of depression. Tiger parenting came with more pressure about school, and a weaker sense that they belonged in the family.
Teens described their fathers, too. There, the tiger share rose, from about 19% to about 28%, and supportive parenting was still the largest group.
The joke had a real household inside it. Among the mothers, that household was the smaller group.
The degree is still the point
Pew Research Center asked U.S. parents, in a survey published in 2023, what they want once their kids are grown. Seven in ten Asian parents said a college degree was extremely or very important. Among White parents, 29% said that.
The same parents were asked if they are repeating their own childhood. Thirty-seven percent of Asian parents said they are trying to raise their children the way they were raised. Forty-seven percent said they are trying to do it differently.
You can want the diploma and still drop the strictest rules from the house you grew up in.
Across Asian adults, the degree is already common. In 2023, 56% of Asians ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or more, compared with 36% of Americans overall, in Pew's look at Census data.
That average hides a wide spread. About 83% of Taiwanese adults in the same chart had a bachelor's or higher. About 18% of Laotian adults did.
If you already have the degree, a lighter week can sound like good sense. If you are the first in your family to figure out U.S. schools, it can sound like a risk. At dinner, both of you get the same nickname.
What the phone added
No one has a count of what influencers changed. Gentle-parenting videos, and posts about growing up with a tiger mom, gave people a way to talk about it that the 2011 talk shows never offered.
Some of those posts look like the supportive mothers in Kim's study, with the camera on. Warmth and high standards show up in the same week, said out loud. Some of them are a performance: the right snack, and a caption about being the chill mom.
Nearly half of Asian parents in the Pew survey were already trying to raise kids differently, before a reel could take the credit. The feed might be spreading that change, or just teaching the caption. Kim's study and the Pew survey cannot tell those apart.
If this is your house, try one line before you adopt a rule from your mother or from an account. "Is this for her week, or is this so we look like the right kind of family?"
Say it out loud at home.