Ramaswamy is right: America needs more 'tiger moms' for the sake of our kids | Opinion
Instead of fearing the excesses of tiger parenting culture and settling for the current state of American education, we should adopt its best features. In other words: Americanize tiger parenting.
Hide your sitcoms and sleepovers because Vivek Ramaswamy is coming after them. Or that’s what many would have you believe after the pharmaceutical entrepreneur and Trump administration appointee called out American mediocrity in education amid a heated debate on immigration.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers," Ramaswamy posted on X. "A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers. … More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’ ”
What many Americans heard was no more sports, no more sleepovers, no more fun. They saw Ramaswamy trying to turn Americans into a nation of “tiger moms” – overbearing (often Asian) parents who force their children to spend endless hours on academics.
Academic achievement is declining in the US
But Ramaswamy identified a real problem, despite the poor messaging. Reading and math scores among American students have been declining for years. Dozens of schools in Chicago and most of the public high schools in Baltimore recently saw none of their students test as “proficient” in math.
China recently began to outpace the United States in the number of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) doctoral degrees awarded to students, suggesting that America might lose its competitive advantage.
At the same time, Asian Americans consistently earn higher wages than other groups, were mostly unscathed by pandemic learning loss and generally excel academically in American schools.
Clearly, despite people’s fears about so-called tiger parenting and its prevalence in the Asian American community, those parents must be doing something right.
We need American version of tiger parenting
Instead of fearing the excesses of tiger parenting culture and settling for the current state of American education, we should adopt its best features. In other words, Americanize tiger parenting.
The ambition that drives tiger moms and their children to success is fundamentally rooted in the fear of failure. Many Asian Americans are recent immigrants who have faced intense competition in their home countries, where failing a single exam can significantly hinder their prospects.
In China, the “gaokao” exam can make or break a student’s future, with some young students enduring 16-hour cram sessions at “gaokao mill” schools.
In India, more than 180,000 aspiring engineers vie for fewer than 18,000 spots at the top-tier Indian Institutes of Technology – the MITs of India – by taking an extremely difficult entry exam.
The excessive focus on academics is what helped these groups survive in their home countries and what opened opportunities to come to the United States. Tiger parents want their kids to withstand the unexpected hardships of life – be it a recession or a family member becoming severely ill – through stable, high-income jobs. They push their kids to work hard and provide a clear and predictable path to success.
Yet, excessive attention on academics and prestige means many kids pursue activities they don’t care about, or even despise. That can lead to resentment against the parents and a fear of making mistakes, which inhibit risk-taking and can lead to burnout.
Americans do not need to adopt the high-stakes testing culture that exists in India and China to succeed. What makes America great is that we encourage students to pursue their passions.
Unfortunately, what’s been missing from American education culture for some time now is motivation. Many students are raised in homes that have little to no expectations for achievement, academic or otherwise. And while tiger parents often push their kids too far, their children are likely to at least end up with solid career opportunities and achievements to fall back on.
Ramaswamy went wrong when he failed to correctly diagnose the apathy in American students and families. Instead of pitting “jocks” and “nerds” against each other, Ramaswamy should have acknowledged that both athletic and academically focused students demonstrate drive and self-discipline.
However, the average American student is not a high achiever like sitcom characters Zack Morris, A.C. Slater and Screech. If anything, they are more like Cameron Frye from "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off," or Cory Matthews from "Boy Meets World."
They might not stand out in any particular area, and increasingly, many feel disengaged from life and society. These students need purpose and direction. That needs to be instilled in the home, by a parent willing to motivate their child to step away from some leisure time to work on something of value.
For those who are highly motivated, there remains a problem: Ambition is more publicly celebrated for sports compared with academics. Parents often don't question the value of participating in after-school sports for hours every day, with supporters pointing to how athletics teach kids discipline, dedication and teamwork.
Yet, the work required for academic competitions like spellings bees is often perceived as unnecessarily doing more school out of school. Those who compete in academic competitions for the right reasons also learn similar values of discipline, dedication and teamwork.
Instead of picking which achievements matter more, we should foster a culture that celebrates children who demonstrate a bit of the tiger mom spirit in pursuit of their goals, whatever those goals may be. Bringing the social rewards for academic achievement more in line with those for athletic achievement would go a long way toward fixing our problems with educational apathy.
Cultural choices contribute to poor outcomes
Ramaswamy made an attempt to return to the roots of the modern populist movement – one that listened with empathy to Americans’ grievances, but also saw how their own behavior often contributed to their problems.
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" did exactly that for working-class Appalachians. It critiqued the culture in Appalachia from a place of understanding, but it didn’t normalize the toxic behaviors that too often led to tragedy in this community.
If Americans want to preserve and expand their competitive advantage against the developing world, they need much more hunger and motivation. American creativity and passion combined with the intensity of the tiger mom will be a force to be reckoned with.
Neetu Arnold is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute and a Young Voices contributor. Follow her on X: @neetu_arnold