Tiger Mum: Good or Bad? Tiger Parenting in Singapore, Explained

Tiger mum, or not? Every Singapore parent has wondered. Usually around 10pm. Let's settle it.

Singapore edition. 9.30pm. The class chat pings. Someone's kid just finished Assessment Book 4.

Yours is on page 12. Of Book 1. Relax. Everybody does this.

Ever wondered why? Start with the word. Kiasu: Hokkien for "afraid of losing". It's in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Then came Mr Kiasu, a comic hero whose best-selling merch was a 13-inch ruler. One extra inch, just in case. Ask Singaporeans what makes a Singaporean. The top two answers: valuing education.

And being kiasu. And on the forums, the eternal question: "Why parents so gan chiong about PSLE?" The tiger arrives in 2011, with Amy Chua's memoir and a newspaper headline she says she didn't choose: "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior". The internet did not care.

But in the research, tiger doesn't mean harsh. An eight-year study of 444 families found four types. Supportive. Easygoing.

Tiger: warm, AND demanding. And harsh: all control, no warmth. Different animals. Also, tiger is relative.

One Singaporean mum moved to Chicago: "In Singapore, I was a chilled-out mama. In the US, I am now labelled a Tiger mom." Can you afford NOT to be a tiger parent in Singapore? Let's look at the receipts.

Here, in the tuition-centre carpark at 8.59pm, we observe the Singapore tiger in her natural habitat. Engine running. Snacks ready. Occasionally, the rarer male.

It starts before Primary One. Some parents volunteer 40 hours for a better shot at a school. Then they ballot anyway. At Tao Nan last year: 57 families, 20 places.

The tuition bill: S$1.8 billion a year, while the number of students fell. Fewer kids. More tuition. Some of it is... special.

When MOE scrapped mid-year exams, some parents bought mock ones. What does Primary One actually expect? Write your name. Count to ten.

One parent posted a kid's week online: maths, piano, science, art, Chinese, creative writing. Can that kid become a scholar or not? And some mums pay for tuition secretly, because their husbands think it's unnecessary. The secret tuition fund.

Why can't anyone stop? The Prime Minister put it plainly: what if my child loses out? It's a concert. One person stands up, and soon everybody's standing.

9 in 10 parents say kids do too much tuition. 7 in 10 would spend more if they could. Both. At the same time.

Does tiger parenting actually work? First, the objection: "But Asian kids top the tables what!" True. In PISA 2022, Singapore came first in the world in maths, reading and science.

So what's doing the work? The expectations, the effort... or the claws? A big American study asked why Asian-American kids outperform. Not IQ.

Not money. Effort. With costs: lower self-image, less time with friends, more fights with parents. What fuels good effort?

A 2020 review: parents' expectations had the strongest link to grades. Control? A small negative one. A Singapore study agrees: expectations lift effort, pressure raises distraction.

Back to our four animals: supportive did best, then easygoing, then tiger. Harsh came last. And one of the study's "shaming" questions? Pointing out other kids who are successful.

Every cousin comparison, scientifically logged. And the kids? "Got people not stressed meh?" "The average is AL3, but I only got AL5.

I'm cooked." And one 12-year-old's tip for parents: "Less nagging, and probably more encouraging." So, does it work? The high bar works.

The claws don't. Guilty if you push. Guilty if you don't. Let's open the group chat: real confessions, from real parents.

"'Just do your best,' I tell my child, while my browser tabs tell a different story." Then the chill ones. "I told myself I'd be the chillest mum that ever mummed." "No tuition?

Can they do well in the PSLE without it?" And a grown-up daughter, about her easygoing mum: "I wish she had chosen a better school for me." A former journalist was sure she was cooler than all this. After the PSLE results: "What have I done?"

A dad of three: "We still push them, sometimes too hard." Same chat. Opposite confessions. Same guilt.

Even the marriages are kiasu. Amy Chua's daughter, all grown up: "Tiger Mom, thank you." Chua herself? A head full of regrets, about the yelling.

Here's the thing. Guan, the Chinese word behind this style of parenting, means both "to govern" and "to love". Tiger or chill, it comes from the same place. As one dad put it: the only grade that matters is the one they'll give us years from now, when they look back and decide how much we loved them.

So, a little hack: let Aunty do the reminding. Homework, bedtime, piano: out loud, on time. You do the encouraging. Tell us in the comments: tiger, or not?