Ramaswamy is wrong about the benefits of 'tiger parents.' My friends prove it. | Opinion
According to Vivek Ramaswamy, elite technology firms prefer to hire foreign-born workers, particularly those from India, over American ones because the former are simply more talented.
His comment helped kickstart a conversation about work visas and the American work ethic.
But Ramaswamy’s attempt at serious cultural criticism in his viral X post by alluding to high school social hierarchies was cringe-inducing. There was a problem with the former Republican presidential primary candidate’s post that went deeper than its misplaced references to various '90s sitcoms.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,” the soon-to-be co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency wrote.
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
He went on to argue that if Americans began celebrating the valedictorian over the jock and encouraged their children to spend their weekends at science competitions rather than sleepovers – the way many Asian immigrant families do – we’d have a much better shot at producing the talent the tech industry needs right here at home.
I grew up watching 'tiger parents' pressure my friends
Ramaswamy believes that the strict parenting style of many Asian immigrants can provide a solution to American cultural malaise. But take it from someone who grew up in a community chock full of “those kinds of parents”: So-called tiger parenting won’t actually breed technical and innovative geniuses and get our nation back its competitive edge in the tech industry or any other like Ramaswamy says it will.
Instead, it’ll only produce future generations plagued by the same mediocrity he claims has put America in its current slumber.
Like Ramaswamy, I was raised by parents who immigrated to the United States from India. While I wouldn’t say my own parents qualify as the prototypical tiger mom and dad, I am deeply familiar with the harsh, achievement-oriented style of parenting practiced by countless immigrants from India and other South and East Asian countries.
Many of my peers’ parents seemed to view childhood and adolescence as one long elite college admissions rat race. I watched them sign my friends up for after-school learning programs like Kumon and academic competitions like Model United Nations and heavily discourage them from pursuing creative projects such as starting a band or simply hanging out with their classmates at a pool party.
Even their demands that their children participate in more social activities like team sports had a cynical purpose: to ensure that holistic Ivy League admissions committees would perceive their children as being “well-rounded.”
And they didn’t let the grind stop after their children had gotten into college, either. The parents of my former college classmates insisted that their kids limit their choice of major to only a few “practical” options, such as statistics or chemistry, and do whatever it takes to land a high-paying job in one of a handful of acceptable fields: medicine, engineering, finance or law. Pursuing any other path, they would say, would amount to “wasting” the great opportunities they sacrificed so much in immigrating to the United States for their children to have.
Another view: Ramaswamy is right. America needs more 'tiger moms' for the sake of our kids.
Restrictive, demanding and, more often than not, Asian parents like these are commonly called tiger parents, after Amy Chua’s popular 2011 book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."
In her memoir, the Chinese American author and Yale law professor tells the story of how she raised her daughters as an unrelenting disciplinarian who barred playdates and computer games and demanded hours of piano practice, threatening “no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years” if they didn’t obey.
Chua believes that her authoritarian parenting style has the best odds of producing hardworking and high-achieving offspring. Ramaswamy, who, was a former student of Chua’s at Yale, clearly agrees.
Ramaswamy is wrong about the impact of 'tiger parenting'
But tiger cubs who’ve been robbed of any free time they might have used to develop interests and ambitions authentic to themselves and whose creativity and risk-taking capacity have been stifled by an oppressive household culture might simply not have what it takes to build, innovate and, thus, truly excel in the tech space and beyond.
In this sense, despite appearing perfect on paper, the children of tiger parents could very well still be, in a word, mediocre.
Now, in their mid-20s, upon having attained those high-status positions in finance or tech they worked so hard for, my friends raised by tiger parents often complain that they feel burned out and directionless. They admit that their academic and career choices weren’t choices at all and feel stuck working long hours in industries they don’t like and for reasons unbeknownst to themselves.
And they regret not having spent more time in their adolescence discovering things they were passionate about by experimenting with different hobbies or simply reading for pleasure past the eighth grade – not that they’d feel supported by their parents if they actually pursued those passions … but still.
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Tiger parents might, indeed, be the most successful at rearing children who wind up to be “successful STEM graduates” and future management consultants (although even this is doubtful, as one study found that compared with a more supportive parenting style, tiger parenting was associated with "lower GPA and educational attainment").
However, they are likely not the best at raising kids who will go on to be future inventors, artists and entrepreneurs – that is, exactly the sorts of people who might bring about the technological, economic and cultural dynamism our country needs to thrive and remain a global leader.
Americans can compete globally without 'tiger parents'
If we, as Americans, really want to ensure that future generations outdo our global competitors in the realm of technological advancement ‒ or any other domain of human achievement, for that matter ‒ we’ll certainly need to raise our children to see the value of challenging themselves intellectually.
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But we’ll also need to give them the free rein to discover their passions and commitments that exist independently of their parents’ or the larger community’s intentions for them, not to mention help them avoid the feelings of anxiety, depression and alienation that research shows are associated with excessively strict parenting.
Only then will young people find the inner drive to work hard to make their mark on their chosen field or industry and perhaps even revolutionize it.
As many have pointed out, tech entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Sam Altman were college dropouts. Steve Jobs even visited ashrams in India in search of enlightenment as a teenage hippie.
The history of the technology industry itself is evidence that despite what tiger parents would have you believe, embarking on a preprofessional path already laid out by the authority figures in one’s life is not the only way to achieve excellence or make an impact.
Encouraging more people to adopt the parenting style of Asian immigrants might lead a few more kids to become well-credentialed software engineers, but it won’t usher in a new American golden age, as Ramaswamy hopes. Only by allowing children to enjoy moments of leisure in which they may engage their unique interests and senses of curiosity – as I am grateful my parents did – can they stand a chance to do that.
Surya Gowda is a fact-checking fellow with USA TODAY Opinion.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vivek Ramaswamy is wrong. We don't need more 'tiger parents' | Opinion