Chapter 26

I’ll state this for the purpose of keeping consistent terminology in the future: My mom isn’t a true Tiger parent. The main reason my mom’s not a true Tiger parent is that to be one of those you have to be always around with a watchful eye. My mom was an absentee parent. It’s, I suppose, another reason why when she threatened me with welfare that it seemed to strike such a chord with me. 

Are you confused about that sentence? Read on, I’ll explain it soon enough.

She never really watched me study or made sure I did, she simply guilt tripped me into doing something then took my word that I did it. She had high expectations and then forced me to execute the role of the prison guard. In middle school, the attention-hungry me took any interaction I had with mom very seriously still. I suppose my early early years may have had something to do with that too but anyhow. My point is this. She wasn’t directly involved in my studying. She doesn’t really qualify to be a helicopter parent because she never watched over my shoulder trying to make me do the work. I simply had the expectation that the work had to be done and do it all myself. 

Here’s how usually my mom would do her “parenting”. My mom would often tell me how disappointed she would be in me whenever I didn’t do well in school. After that, she would try and “motivate” me by comparing me to other kids around our neighborhood who did better than me on a test or something or the like and then … something something … guilt trip achieved. It kind of only worked to make me feel worse about myself most of the time without actually addressing the issue. She wanted me to be exceptional and told me to do it without providing me with any tools. She never understood that it wasn’t that I wasn’t trying to be exceptional, it was that I was sometimes just average at some things. But still, I had too much value in what my mom thought of me. My years of childhood neglect had instilled in me the need to please my mom as much as possible. So while my mom never gave me the tools nor the supervision to succeed. I still imposed those expectations onto myself. I hated myself. I hated my own incompetence. From a very early age, I became very aware of my own shortcomings. 

So, while my mom wasn’t a true Tiger parent, I was definitely a Tiger Cub. I’d given myself the expectations my mom had demanded of me and carried them like they were my sins. Somewhere down the line, I realized that I couldn’t stop demanding those expectations from myself and became my own Tiger parent. By this way of thinking, soon I became my own worst tormentor too. I almost never met my own expectations and wanted more out of me. My self esteem was already hit hard enough by me never getting to a competent enough level to please CC and it was an easy offshoot to start becoming depressed and see myself as a failure

I classify a Tiger cub as someone who has expectations from their parents and took some of those expectations to heart to a point where their world value system and world view becomes distorted. Someone who fully and wholeheartedly believed in their parent’s expectations of them as their primary reason for existence. 

If you’re wondering then if Tiger Cub has anything to do with being Asian, it kind of does. Mainly in the the value systems of the family for Asians tend to align quite well. So much so that I think we started the trend initially out of a racial stereotype.

Now, I’m not saying my classification of a Tiger parent or a Tiger cub is the only one out there. That’s unfair to those with similar or even more different positions. All I’m saying is this what I would classify a Tiger cub as. I think it’s fair. But I also know of other classifications. Some would tell you that all you need to do to be classified as a Tiger cub is to have Asian parents. Others would tell you it’s Asian trends you follow. Here’s a few common points my friends have always brought up to me about my upbringing which I think plays into the stereotype of being a Tiger cub:

• Plays classical music
• Got tutors for math, physics and chemistry
• Gets yelled at and/or beaten for underperforming in school

Are you not convinced I deserve to call myself a Tiger cub? Oh well, I mean it’s my blog so…*shrug* deal with it. I’m by no means saying I had it the worst. Hell, even in my closest friend circle I had friends who had parents who are much more strict. In comparison, I know friends with parents who would make my mom look tame with their toxic forms of parenting. But here’s the thing, you really shouldn’t be having a competition to see who has it worse. There are no winners in that game and that is not what this blog is all about either. It’s about me and my personal story as well as my relationship with the world and my mom. 

Speaking of my mom and her toxic side. Let’s go back to that welfare threat thing I alluded to. I think the story is worth revisiting because not only does it reveal a very common core memory some Asian kids have but it also fills in a plot hole from the previous chapters regarding my high school experience. 

Speaking of which, let’s start there.

What does that mean for an asian high school student to be successful? Being successful in your classes. Specifically, being successful in your science and math classes. Now, if you read between the lines, you may have thought that something didn’t add up. Where the hell was I getting the time to really study for you’know, my classes? I said I would study here and there but between the music, the breakdancing and the lifeguarding, when would I really have time to actually study? The math did not add up. So what gives? The answer? 

I got tutors. This was a very common thing in our community of Asians. Hell, it would probably be a block on “Tiger Parent Bingo” if such a thing existed. “Does your Asian parent force you to do cram school, tutoring school and/or have private tutors?” Ding ding ding!

Tutoring and extra-curriculars involving studying was commonplace. Just like classical music, these were things in my Asian community that are seen as good parenting. These activities ate up tons of teenage shenanigans hours for high schoolers and kept them busy for most of the summer almost every summer. There was also no choice involved here either. Your parents made a decision on you attending cram school at one point in your life and that was it. Say goodbye to your TV summer programming and your summer vacation. 

For most outsiders, this feels like a kind of tough love kind of scenario where the kids are denied their freedom and subjected to miserable homework with the hope that they will wound up on the other end a better person. There’s always this undertone of the parents taking on hate from their offspring to teach them to be better. However, in my community, this wasn’t completely selfless. The community decided some time ago to simply ignore the self centered teenageras and focus on the parents as the protagonists instead. This meant when parents sent their kids to tutorial school, this was seen as an act of honor for the community. Going back to my critique on the Asian Tiger parent lifestyle, this is another scenario where the parents are trying to have their mooncake and eat it too. 

Sending your kids to tutorial school was usually an act of honor and that meant that kids weren’t allowed to complain. We had to be grateful. So when your parents took away your summer vacation and your free time from your friends, you had to say thank you. Your parents expected you to believe those words as well. It was not an acceptable reaction to think poorly of your parents for taking away your freedom even if that was a natural feeling. Kids want to play. Now you’re being forced into a position where your parents wanted to control your freedom and wanted praise for doing it. Don’t get me wrong, it was for the greater good and most of the time, teenagers are better off for it. It would take a long time before I would recognize the benefits of all of this but I would be lying if I said it didn’t annoy me that my mom wore my tutoring like a badge of honor. 

As for my mom and me, we played somewhat into this social norm but we didn’t buy into it right away. What do I mean by this? Well, I didn’t really get any tutoring until middle school. 

I tried my best to do well in middle school. I did my homework and did my best to do well in all my classes. But as I mentioned, I rarely met the expectations of my mom. Then, sometime right after my first midterm season, my mom caught wind that some of the other parents were sending their kids to tutoring classes. There was one in particular that stood out. It was called “Brain Lightning”. It was super popular and was all the rage among the Asian community. Hell, even among the kids, the amount of people going to the classes made it seem like a popular thing to do! It was a memorization class designed to help kids memorize more efficiently. Mom saw all the other kids’ parents doing it and tried to sign me up immediately. However, I never got a chance due to our finances at the time. “Brain Lightning” was expensive. 

Due to fear of missing out, my mom sought out other tutoring schools after that. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt and would say she really did want to find me a tutor to improve my school grades and that it wasn’t just a source of pride but it’s hard to think back so far through the lens that I now saw the world. Anyhow, after trying to find a decent tutor for a while, she came to realize that it isn’t going to work out. We couldn’t really afford any tutoring.

Then she sank low a bit. I guess she was feeling incompetent about getting me the best education. A feeling I think I can sympathize with. However, I think she went about it the wrong way. Because on the second or third report card I got from my school, my mom got upset. I was pulling around a 75% average, a very normal and non-outstanding grade to have. It wasn’t spectacular however and this seemed to have made my mom furious. I feel like she was feeling incompetent about sending me to tutorial school and the fact that I was average highlighted this anxiety of hers to an extreme. I don’t think she understood that I was simply average at some things, like people usually are. Her expectations became more skewed after this. They got higher and higher. Soon, she was seeing any flaw I had as a sign of her failure. I think she really blamed herself for all of this but problematically set the guilt to full blast on me. A part of this is that I think because she was a single parent and had too strong of an internal locus of control, when I did average and she felt that internal locus becoming rattled, it was like the world was shattering. 

Remember how I mentioned my mom used to yell at me for not doing well in elementary school? Remember how I said it was unfair that I was getting bad marks because it wasn’t that I wasn’t trying, I was just bad at English skills since I immigrated when I was around 7 years old with no English training? Remember how my mom didn’t care about that? This is the kind of stuff that was still happening. But now it was cranked to 11. The only thing my mom knew to do was yell at me for being a disappointment. I think she thought that if she yelled at me enough, I would improve. I think she associated her effort of yelling as an effort of parenting. It was never really that good but now in middle school, I think the whole missing-out-on-tutoring thing really pushed this to the edge. 

I clearly remember one report card day when I came home from school feeling pretty good about having worked my ass off to get an 80% in English class. I was still struggling a bit with English and this was kind of a sign that I actually did do okay. But when I got home and showed my mom the report card my mom sat on the couch and asked me to come closer to her. She held my report card and told me how disappointing it was. I tried to reason with her. I was in ESL just a few years prior and was still adapting to a large class size. She didn’t care. Instead, she told me a sentence that I really hoped I would at some point in the future forget but was unfortunately unable to. 

“If you do this poorly in school, I am going to quit my job and go on welfare to manage you more closely.”

She threatened welfare on me. I didn’t even know what that was. But from the way she said it, it seemed like an apocalyptic thing. I got scared and even felt tears coming on for a bit. I realized that my report card wasn’t going to get any praise today. I then caught myself right away. What was I upset about? This is nothing new. 

“Okay, I’ll work harder.”

I immediately got to doing my homework. It did scare me straight a bit I suppose. From that day forward, I decreased my play time outside and my allotted TV time even more, I started to cram more for school. Tough love is what it is but looking back with the eyes of an adult. What the fuck was that? Why threaten your kid with your own adult responsibilities? You are really pushing for that worst parent of the year award here. This is when the mooncake problem comes out. What do I mean? I guess it worked, I tried even harder after that and eventually started to do a bit better in middle school but guess what? Congrats mom, you get what you wished for and though I am doing better, I will hate you for it. Here are the results you wanted, I suppose you really didn’t care for the methods involved. Though I am better off for it, I would never look back on this fondly. 

I guess the main issue was, it didn’t come off as tough love, it came off as my mom needing to guilt trip me to have some control over my emotions, free time and will. I was very fortunate that after this incident, high school would follow along and present mom and I with some financial stability. As she got the funds to send me off to tutorial school, she would slowly satisfy her disappointment in herself and her shortcomings. I would, in turn, also get less of the toxic side of hers. That’s pretty much the story. 

A definitive example of the worst scenario from the Asian parent playing out. I say that because it had a bit of everything. Poverty inducing anxiety. Anxiety trickling down towards the youth. Youth sacrifice their time to satisfy the anxiety of their parents. Success at the cost of emotional turmoil and familial bonds. This is one of the most common Tiger parent paths I’ve seen.