Eastern and Western have contrasting values and ways of life. When one compares parenting in these two worlds, it is said that the Eastern World is a “blessing” when it comes to parenting. Eastern parents are said to be detailed when it comes to taking ca

Tiger Parenting Regime: Looking Through the Eastern Glasses

 

Parents are the “final common pathway” to children’s development and stature, adjustment and success. - Bornstein (2002).

 In a world of nearly 7.8 billion ever-growing numbers of people, parenting has to be the inevitable thing to follow and nonetheless, the most challenging task there is. Parenting is more like being voluntarily trapped in a maze with a hundred thousand different unmapped routes, each leading to an obscure destination into a glittering Pandora box.

In this vast maze of choices, one feeble attempt to begin at would be to pick a compass and classify this ever-flourishing parenting regime into the Eastern and Western world parenting ways. With this, we open one of the many Pandora of the Eastern world parenting- the brighter side of Eastern world parenting.

Although “Eastern World” remains a common word among us in our everyday life, a clear demarcation as to which countries and areas fall under the umbrella of the Eastern world does not exist. But normally, when we say “the Eastern world”, we are mostly referring to Eastern Asia and the socio-cultural structures that exist in this region in the Eastern hemisphere of the world. This socio-cultural structure undoubtedly has had a massive influence on the parenting styles adopted by the people in the Eastern world in the upbringing of their children. These parenting styles and techniques in turn and many instances have proven to be a blessing to us Easterners. Let us begin by counting some of these blessings.

 

  1. Tiger Parenting

I doubt if anyone could do better than the tiger parents of Asia “tiger parents” as being derived from the Yale School Professor Amy Chua’s book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” when things boil down to getting your children to study for their exams, by hook or by crook as is often the case. Parents in the Eastern world are extremely serious when it comes to studies and commitment to excellence. No wonder the familiar stereotypes on Asians being good at science and mathematics and Asians being nerds. Precedents!

 In The Asian American Achievement Paradox, sociologists Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou have offered a compelling account of the academic achievement of the children of Asian immigrants. According to an article in New York Times, Asian immigrants in the US are also almost twice likely to have a college degree than the average American, “hyper-selectivity” as this phenomenon is often referred to. Other literature suggests that parenting is composed of purposeful activities aimed at ensuring children’s survival and development (Hoghughi, 2004). In light of this, the Eastern world tiger-parents are quite apparently the major contributors in all of this.

 

  1. Collectivism approach to parenting

 Based on research conducted in Haiti in July 2010 by Louis-Alexandre Berg, a scholar at the USIP and a rule of law adviser at the USAID, when the devastating earthquake shook Haiti in 2010, crime rates escalated like wildfire. But, when a similar earthquake took place in Nepal in the year 2015, the Nepalese people came together united and hardly any crimes were heard of or reported. This is a striking example of the blessing that collectivism can be.

Unlike most of the Western world that emphasizes individualism, the parents in the Eastern world take to the socio-cultural structure of the East that is based on collectivism. This includes being taught from a small age on the importance of collectivism, be it through living together in a joint family or a close neighborhood or through ancient idioms or tales and mythologies. These teachings over the years are most likely to instill values like empathy, affection, and responsibility towards family and other living beings altogether.       

All the same, people living with their parents even after graduating and having jobs, is common in the Eastern part of the world. This makes the bonding and attachment among the family members stronger and feelings of being alone, isolations mostly remain at bay. This also saves a good amount of money one would have to spend moving to a new house along the way.

 

  1. Virtues and values-based upbringing

Quinton (2004) suggests that parenting is something that parents do and not something, they have. It involves tasks such as giving physical care, boundary setting and teaching social behavior. Behaviors such as responsiveness, affection, and positive regard, relationship qualities such as giving emotional security and secure attachment. And when it comes to these cultivating these qualities in their children, Asian parents hardly leave a stone unturned, even at the cost of giving up on their own career to pay full attention in raising their children or imposing strict and sometimes, harsh rules and restrictions on the children.

           Apart from these blessings, there are countless other blessings and at the same time, shortcomings of the Eastern world parenting that must be worked on. Overall, it is best assumed that parents do what they think is the best for their children, irrespective of the places they hail from.