Why Asian American parents are shifting away from 'Tiger parenting'
Generation X and older millennial Asian Americans have been rejecting the stricter “tiger parenting” approach.
Many Asian Americans know the reality of growing up with piano lessons on Saturday, language school on Sunday — and trying to push back on it all whenever possible in-between.
Jennifer Chan was raised with similarly harsh expectations, but now the Clearwater, Florida, mom is trying to reverse that dynamic as a parent.
“I’m letting my kid be quite feral,” Chan, 34, said with a laugh about her oldest daughter, who’s almost 3 years old. “She just runs free.”
Chan is among a number of Generation X and older millennial Asian Americans who have been rejecting the stricter “tiger parenting” style for a looser approach — one with less emphasis on achievements and more focus on just allowing feelings to be felt and kids to be kids.
Experts and parents say it’s a shift that has been happening over the past 20 years, and they point to a number of factors: grappling with their own rigid upbringings, more awareness about mental health, having privileges their immigrant parents and earlier generations didn’t have, and a move away from collectivism and seeing parents as all-knowing elders.
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