Is tiger parenting the norm among upper middle class parents?

Parents Forum
521

I guess I’m not understanding which of these are professional (ie meaningfully paying) opportunities, apart from giving music lessons. Or is that the assumption, you make your money by teaching music (to kids?) then you have the financial flexibility to take advantage of all these opportunities? That’s what my S’s drum teacher seemed to do, though I don’t know anything about his finances.

At least in the dance world, teaching seems to be what you do after a performing career (and is to some degree dependent on your success in that).

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522

This is absolutely how I would describe all of the professional musicians I know as well. I would also add that none of them were the products of tiger parents. One of my husband’s oldest and dearest friends is a singer/songwriter who is a household name to most of us who were around in the 90s. (As in he sells out stadiums and refers to Springsteen as “Uncle Bruce” lol). Several years ago, we caught one of his shows after a day of touring colleges with our teenage son. When my son told him what we had been doing all day, our friends’ response was. “I didn’t go to college. My mom would never have even taken me to look at a college. She didn’t give a sh*t about me”.

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523

How many in person music competitions have you attended? It’s super competitive at the top.

Visit certain pre college conservatory programs to get a sense of competitiveness.

But it has also gotten ugly at the middle. Parents and kids fighting over orchestral seating and such. But that’s an issue with some parents, not a culture thanks god. But winning competitions is one way how kids make a career often.

524

I absolutely agree. What I am saying is just like dance, few make it to professional orchestras. So it’s competitive similar to dance in a way that professional musician seats are limited.

525

They have their own bands that play out (at music venues) as well as in (hired for events.) They are highly sought after studio musicians. They go on tour as back-up musicians. They stay in town and are hired as back-up musicians for touring musicians who don’t travel with a complete band. They have regular church positions. They write music and earn royalties. They release records. They are hired for professional musical theater productions. They do voice and/or instrumental work for commercials. And yes, they can also teach lessons if that is something they like doing.

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526

Interesting. My kids have friends who spend hours each day practicing for competitions and auditions under pressure from their parents. Some of their friends love the music. Others just feel as pressured to fill parental expectations.

I also know several adult classical musicians who describe being traumatized by angry and rigid music teachers during their childhood as well as feeling as they were forced to spend all of their time as youth musicians competing in one form or another. They believe that they grew to love music in spite of their parents/upbringing instead of because of it.

However, I also know quite a few classical, jazz, and folk musicians who had lovely, warm teachers growing. Off the top of my head, most of the adult jazz and folk musicians whom I know seem to talk about internal drive more than external (parents and teachers) pressures. My guess is that for all types of music, at some point (maybe high school, maybe college), students give up their instruments or at least become casual players unless they really love it and want to make a go of a professional music life.

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To me if you have unrealistic expectations for your child and don’t take into account your child’s natural abilities and/or interests and continue to push to your expectations at the detriment of your child’s mental and/or physical health, you are tiger parenting in a harmful way. Question is how common this situation is? I don’t think it a a norm, but I see it way more than I think I should nowadays in CA. To me this behavior is a negative attribute of a tiger parenting.

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The type of musicians that I know aren’t household names to the general public…but their names would be known to your husband’s friend and to “Uncle Bruce” :smile: too. In their case, they did have parents who cared about them, but not in any tiger parent type way. A few went to college, but others were good enough musically that they entered directly into professional music by early adulthood.

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529

I was part of that world, thanks to having a very talented sister. It was how I paid for my room & board (off campus) & books during college. My mom saved our prize money, and what we didn’t get for scholarships, we had to finance out of that. I had enough to just about make it through. I asked them for $500 to pay for my last semester of books, but I did graduate with $500 in the bank to start my new married life. My H had 0, lol.

My sister OTOH got the full 4 year scholarship, room & board, extra $$$ for stuff. She used her prize money to buy a new Mustang. (loan free)

I definitely saw lots of tiger parenting! I wouldn’t say my mom did that, but she did have to pester my sister to practice one hour a week, otherwise she wouldn’t even do that. She didn’t need to lol.

But I never had any interest in becoming a professional musician. My sister never seemed to want to perform professionally. She taught music in the schools, and was the music minister for her church.

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530

Oh, I agree completely. I just think it’s a pity, because with music there is another way, a way that doesn’t involve competitions. And to me it seems that it produces better results with much less damage.

But some people just can’t be happy without a competition, it seems. To them, that’s more important than the music. (And they are just as happy to have the competition be by proxy–their kids.)

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531

I will say, my kid felt competitions and auditions for entry to summer festivals to be very important to his growth both when he was in HS and at conservatory. They can be the best way to prepare for professional auditions down the road. But they need not be a toxic situation. While he is a very self motivated and driven individual, (some would say competitive) he looks at auditions/competitions in such a positive way, an opportunity to learn what works for him to produce his best music.

We have never once pushed this kid to practice or perform. And what seems like paralyzing pressure to me (a professional audition) is a goal and an exciting prospect for him.

Just another view. :blush:

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Mine loves to perform so he sees them as an additional performance opportunity.
I will say though that we were pushed to do it by the teacher who believed it was a must to build a resume for music schools. I don’t know how true that statement is, but we are glad we did.

533

I felt like the music pressure was all internal and my D felt like she was competing against herself. She was very zen about it and loved performing. She did have a tiger parent like teacher at one point that nearly sucked all the joy out of it for her but we made a switch before there was any damage. He last teacher was excellent, totally relaxed, had no expectations about practice times and just wanted to instill a love for music. My D flourished with him and her playing was never better.

Sports was entirely different for D and our experience was that there were tiger sports parents and coaches everywhere. If you weren’t living and breathing the sport, they were losing their minds. The behavior of some parents and coaches at games was absolutely appalling. She quit her sport with our blessing midway through HS.

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534

Including for relevance to this discussion. It’s not a gift link so apologies if you’re paywalled.

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535

I feel as if my kid has placed crazy expectations on herself and my husband and I are sort of chill about it. She’s obsessed with her grades and we’re like, Big deal if you get a B. Who cares? You’ll still get to college, it will all work out. But she’s hellbent on all As. She’s also a fierce athlete, so this sort of tracks for her, but I honestly don’t know where it came from.

If I’m a tiger mom, it’s about her mental health–I watch her like a hawk because the pressure the puts on herself makes me incredibly nervous.

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536

That definitely does not sound like what I would call tiger parenting. If anything, it might be heading toward helicopter parenting, but maybe not that either.

I was just reminded there is another term I like which got coined by Neil Howe for a typical Gen X parenting style the NiceUnparticulars arguably do in fact practice, “stealth fighter parenting.” This was a play on helicopter parenting–see for example here:

Here is the core definition:

Stealth-fighter parents do not hover. They choose when and where they will attack. If the issue seems below their threshold of importance, they save their energy and let it go entirely. But if it crosses their threshold and shows up on their radar, they will strike — rapidly, in force and often with no warning. When these Gen-X “security moms” and “committed dads” are fully roused, they can be even more attached, protective and interventionist than Boomers ever were.

And probably “hawk” parents would be just as good of a metaphor–not hovering like a helicopter, but circling around higher up, monitoring, prepared to dive in at 200 mph as necessary.

Personally, this may be my Gen X speaking, but I don’t really see this as inherently problematic. But as with most things, it could be a problem if taken to excess. Indeed, that article is written for school administrators, and it is certainly not presenting this as all good. Then again, when it gets to what schools should be doing to deal with Gen X parents–that mostly sounds good to me!

Anyway, point being I don’t think what you are describing, particularly as applied to mental health, is a bad form of parenting. But I do think all of us stealth fighter/hawk parents need to be really thoughtful and deliberate about when we go into protective mode.

537

You have what I call a “tiger child”. One of ours was like that too, and IMO you are right to be vigilant.

The real challenge as a parent is when your child finds that something is unattainable (and due to continually rising expectations, that day will inevitably come), and teaching how to cope with that in a healthy way.

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538

Yes, for sure this. And I would say another potential vulnerability of the “tiger child” is an over-reliance on Trying Harder as a life strategy. This can cause a kid to work harder in situations where what they really need is more rest. And of course Trying Harder isn’t something that works at all in the realm of family relationships, friends, romance etc.

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539

Yeah, we try to communicate the message of work smarter, not harder, to our kids. But it is tough sometimes when they get a different message from peers.

I actually had a conversation with my S24 recently where he was explaining his roommate, who sounds like a “tiger child” of the premed variety, was reportedly already “studying” six+ hours a night. My kid was like, “What could he possibly be studying? It is the first week and we have basically just been going over the syllabus!” And of course I don’t really know, but I did mention that lots of kids are pretty nervous at this point, and possibly for his roommate this is how he is coping.

And then I learned his roommate is struggling to get up in the morning, is getting to class late, and so on. Not my kid so I am obviously not going to go into stealth fighter attack mode, but that does not sound good to me. Like, I definitely think this kid would be better off establishing a healthy, ample sleep routine.

So I feel for these kids. But as parents I think all we can do is provide a different message, and different role model, and hope it makes a difference.

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540

So, I sort of disagree with this. I think parents can and should go beyond healthy messaging and good role modeling if their “tiger child” shows signs of unhealthy behaviors. I think parents can and should set hard limits. --No you may not stay up past 10 pm studying; you need 9 hours of sleep per night for your health. --No you may not diet down below your natural weight in order to run faster/wrestle in a lower class. --No you may not exercise while recovering from mono. --No you may not sign up for yet another activity.

The issue with a “tiger child” is that these kids can sometimes react so violently to failing to meet their own goals (or even the slight chance of failing to meet their goals) that parents back off. --Yes I know he is sleep deprived, but if he doesn’t get an A on this paper it will ruin his 4.0 and he will lose his mind. --Yes, she’s lost 10 lbs and hasn’t had her period in 6 months, but her goal has been to run a sub-5 mile since the 7th grade and she is so close! --Yes, the doctor said no vigorous activity for 4 weeks, but the JO tryouts are 2 weeks from now and he has to get back in shape, he lives for soccer.

The toxic intensity starts to rule the family. The parents learn to tiptoe around it. They enable to prevent the meltdowns. The frog boils.

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