To Asian families this is not surprising as we are familiar with this kind of upbringing. However I must clarify that this is so only with parents of my mother’s generation. To me, when I read what the Tiger Mother did, it was déjà vu.
My mum was a school teacher and discipline was inculcated into us by means of the cane most of the time. She had to as there were seven of us then. My father was a travelling salesman who worked very hard for his large family. Mum had to deal with us most of the time and handling seven young children, a year apart in age, was tough. She had to be strict. I think it had also to do with ‘face’. A teacher’s children must be better than others. Being the eldest of my siblings, I had to be exemplary all round.
Coming out first everytime in class was paramount. My younger siblings were also under great pressure to perform but I had the greatest pressure of all. I had to come out first everytime. I remember once I came out second and I dreaded going home from school. I walked as slowly as I could, my report card in my bag, feeling as if I were walking to the death chamber, my heart thudding with fear, as the distance between the school and my home shortened by the minute.
The scoldings, the lash of the cane across my legs and my back reduced me to a skinny mass of quivering jelly as I promised not to lag again. “Half bucket of shit” ( in our Hokkien dialect ) was a common term used when we presented less than perfect scores. So “garbage” as used by the Tiger Mother is comparatively mild. These days such treatment would be child abuse but in those days it was discipline, good for the child. It was upbringing that would stand you in good stead in a tough competitive world.
Woe betide you if you try to answer back, or if you ever dared tell that your teacher hit you with the ruler because all you would get is more of the same, more caning, as parents inevitably believed that the teacher was right to punish you. You must have transgressed to merit punishment. Being punished by the teacher brings shame to the family and for that you would be punished again by your parents.
So different are parents these days, that if their child is disciplined by a teacher, they would be up in arms. I remember an irate father coming to the school with a parang, looking for the teacher who had dared to discipline his wayward son. This was back in the seventies. Fortunately the school principal and the senior teacher were able to calm the parent down.
The discipline my mother dished out was for our own good, for all of us ( we finally totalled ten siblings ) turned out well and never got into trouble, such as the like of these days. We all performed very well in school and I must hasten to add that this was during our primary or elementary school days. By the time we entered secondary school, discipline had been so ingrained in us that mum did not have to resort to harsh measures.
However I must say that my younger siblings, number 7 to 10 had a better childhood experience than the older seven of us. However they were never molly-coddled. Neither were they subject to the caning that we had to endure for less than stellar performance in school, for playing in the rain, for running away from the dental nurse when we had to have our teeth checked at the government dental clinic which was a stone’s throw from our home.
Those were the days! Sigh……the drama of those days!
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