In case you missed it over the holidays, Vivek Ramaswamy, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur tapped by Donald Trump to cochair a government efficiency committee, has a lot to say about parenting. In the midst of arguing for more H-1B visas to bring in foreign tech workers (angering many Trump supporters), the father of two took to X right after Christmas to explain why “top tech companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans,” noting that it “comes down to the c-word: culture.”
Ramaswamy, born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrant parents, writes: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the ’90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
The solution, he notes—proceeding to make a list of very ’90s-sounding references, with no mention of smartphones or social media—is, “More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ 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.’”
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024
The post, with over 116 million views, prompted a long debate thread, in which some support his perspective, some criticize it as “treasonous” or “thinly veiled ethnic resentment,” and others take the opportunity to make racist and anti-immigrant remarks.
Beyond X, though, the post has prompted some lively commentary about parenting—specifically tying it to the tiger mom parenting philosophy, popularized in 2011 by Yale Law School professor and mom of two Amy Chua and her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. That strict approach to parenting, as Chua laid out, is one that pushes academic excellence over all else, has high expectations, and has harsh discipline without rewards for positive behavior.
“What we need, apparently, is a country of ‘those parents’—Tiger moms—the sort of parents who see childhood as an 18-year-long college application process, better spent doing extra homework and practicing the violin than playing football or making friends,” wrote River Page in a response in the Free Press.
“His entire argument is a terrible proposition,” he adds. “Children raised to be good little robots might grow up to build robots of their own someday, and become rich. Asians are the highest-earning racial group in America, but are they happier for it? Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asians aged 15-24 … and the second-leading cause of death for those aged 25-34.” Page points to a Psychology Today post that blames tiger parenting for causing anxiety and depression and then asks, “Do we really want this country to be even more stressed-out?”
A Jan. 6 response in USA Today, meanwhile, supports Ramaswamy’s viewpoint, with Neetu Arnold, a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute think tank, calling for this country to “Americanize tiger parenting.” She believes that “Ramaswamy identified a real problem, despite the poor messaging,” and points out that reading and math scores among American students have been on the decline for years and that we risk losing our “competitive advantage.” Meanwhile, she says, higher-achieving Asian Americans prove that “those parents must be doing something right.”
But instead of pitting jocks against nerds, Arnold suggests, “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.”
And then there’s the New York Times opinion piece by journalist Zaid Jilani, who is Pakistani. On the one hand, he notes, “there is no doubt that an emphasis on academics and stable families has helped South Asians find a foothold in this country.”
On the other hand, Ramaswamy doesn’t mention “the trade-offs of success,” he writes. “Over the years, I’ve spoken to many South Asians who have related to me the stresses that this culture places on them. One therapist told me that the Indian American children she sees often struggle with low self-esteem, low confidence, and perfectionism.”
What we know about ‘tiger parenting’ and mental health
Research on parenting styles, begun in the 1960s by Diana Baumrind, has typically looked at three main categories:
- Authoritarian: having high expectations, a lack of warmth and nurturing, mistakes punished harshly
- Authoritative: high expectations balanced with warmth and nurturing, encouraging independence, fair discipline
- Permissive: loving and nurturing, few rules, lack of structure and discipline
Tiger parenting is most closely aligned with an authoritarian approach, which has consistently been associated with negative developmental outcomes including aggression, delinquency, somatic complaints, and anxiety.
After Chua’s book brought about a cavalcade of interest, some researchers focused specifically on tiger parenting—mainly through a special issue of the American Psychological Association’s Asian American Journal of Psychology, called “Tiger Parenting, Asian-Heritage Families, and Child/Adolescent Well-Being.”
A guest editor of the issue, Michigan State University associate professor Desiree Baolian Qin, pointed out findings that a supportive approach was actually more common than strict tiger parenting in Chinese and Chinese-American families. “Parenting in the Asian-heritage context is far more complex and nuanced than the stereotypical caricature of the tiger parent,” she wrote.
For those who do follow tiger parenting, researchers for the special issue found, the approach was associated with lower GPA and educational attainment, and less of a sense of family obligation. It was also associated with more academic pressure, more depressive symptoms, and a greater sense of alienation from family.
Even Chua, according to a 2023 interview, had some regrets, admitting, “I still believe achieving excellence can bring a lot of benefits, and I’m glad I instilled a sense of grit in my kids. But the things I regret more are the harsh things I said to them and losing my temper.”
About her mom’s parenting approach, her daughter Lulu, then 27, added, “I lost that childhood innocence, that sense of joy and wonder, and I definitely felt a lot of stress.”
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