1. Tiger Boy
Lutherville, Maryland (19761984)
Im sitting on the couch watching Gilligans Island, every second-graders favorite sitcom. Its the episode where the headhunters from a neighboring island attack the motley crew of castaways. As usual, the klutzy skinny first mate Gilligan accidentally saves the day, in this episode by scaring off the headhunters.
I really should be doing the geometry problems that my parents assigned me, but they arent home, and I love Gilligans Island. If my parents find out, Ill be in super big trouble. But Im prepared. I have a washcloth and a small pink plastic basin filled with ice water. The TV is on low enough that I will be able to hear my parents pull into the driveway, which will give me just enough time to turn off the TV and cool the back of the set with the ice-cold washcloth.
Does this seem over the top?
In her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother , Amy Chua, a Yale law professor, writes about what she calls tiger parenting, a traditional strict form of child-rearing popular in Asia and among Asian-American families. This tiger mom ideology accurately describes the approach of my Japanese immigrant parents, Sachiko and Takashi Ono. Like other tiger parents, they believed that their children could be the best students and that academic achievement is a reflection of successful parenting. Indeed, if their children are not at the top of their class, then the parents arent doing their job. My parents went a step further. If I wasnt the best student, then I would bring shame on my family. It was understood that it was my duty to be the best.
My parents in 1999 (photo by Olan Mills)
I emerged from my early childhood with the voices of my parents in my head that continually rebuked me for my inadequacy and my inability to live up to their unrealistic expectations:
Ken-chan, your parents are disappointed in you. You are embarrassment. Look at that professors children. Unlike you, they study all of time, and they what you should be. You sloppy. You spoiled. Your mother sacrificed her life for you, so you do your part. What wrong with you? You want play all of time?
Those voices told me that my parents would love me only if I was both a star student and a brilliant musician. Those voices told me that it was wrong to relax and have fun and hang out with friends. When I did those things, those voices made certain that I suffered tremendous pangs of guilt.
I now understand that many children today hear similar voices. Tragically, some of these children will succumb to those voices and take their own lives. Moreover, those suicides often occur in clusters, a phenomenon that has recently become a source of concern in communities like Palo Alto, where elevated academic expectations are rampant and such parenting is common.
Those voices are symptoms of an anxiety disorder that has been the focus of considerable recent study by clinical psychologists. Their research suggests that children of tiger parents are often burdened with anxieties that last a lifetime. The research also offers a possible biological explanation for this phenomenon.
When we realize that we have made a mistake, a predictable electroneurological process called error-related negativity (ERN) is triggered in the medial prefrontal cortex of our brains. It acts as a reset button for the brain. It is now believed that the strength of ERN is negatively impacted by prolonged exposure to harsh criticism.
I didnt need this research to understand the validity of its conclusions. I have firsthand knowledge. I became desperate for the love and approval of my parents, and when I failed and failed again to obtain it, my life began to unravel.
For you to understand how all this came to be, I will have to explain my family. My parents raised my two brothers and me under the assumption that we were somehow genetically predestined, with each son to follow a well-defined path that my parents determined in response to the talents and strengths we exhibited in our early years. Our job was simplestay on track and succeed in the lives that our parents had prescribed for us. I felt that I never had a choice.
My oldest brother, Momoro, was gifted in music. He was a child prodigy. You know the kindthe cute Asian-American third-grader with a bowl haircut, dressed in a tuxedo, dazzling television audiences with a precocious rendition of a Tchaikovsky piano concerto. He was going to be a concert pianist who performed at Carnegie Hall.
Santa, the middle son, had a different path. He was often described as the black sheep of the family, which is ironic, because he is the one who will go on to be the most successful son. My parents felt that he was unlikely to amount to much of anything, so he was expected to be an ordinary company man, whatever that meant. As a second-grader, I understood only that it referred to something that my parents viewed as significantly below concert pianist and university professor.
I was being groomed to be a mathematician in the image of my father. But I was also expected to be an outstanding musician. I was only in second grade, but I already had the next twenty-five years mapped out for me. I was to attend one of the best Ivy League universities, earn a PhD in mathematics, and then secure a professorship at a top university.
My parents showed their love for us, which I didnt understand at the time, by defining our long-term professional goals and offering opportunities that powered us toward them. Their entire focus was on those goals, in the belief that we would reach our happy places by achieving them.
The rules that they made were simple to follow, reducing each of our lives to an individual formula. To achieve the goals that our parents had set for us was going to be easyas easy as basic algebra: just as plugging x= 2 into the formula y = 3 x +1 gives the value y = 7, I was given a simple formula for becoming a mathematicianI had to be a straight-A student who earned top scores on all my tests. And for good measure, I was expected to become an accomplished violinist.
Everything outside of the formula was considered extraneous, and if we ever strayed in the slightest from our formulas, we were subjected to a litany of rebukes and threats that discouraged and humiliated us.
Here is a vivid example of what I am talking about. I was in third grade. Each year in elementary school, we took the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, standardized tests that were administered as a tool for improving instruction. These tests evaluated our skills in grammar, reading comprehension, and mathematics. When my parents received my scores, they were shocked at my poor performance: ninety-eighth percentile in math and ninety-seventh percentile in reading comprehension. They summoned me to the kitchen and sat me down at the head of the table. Pacing behind me, they rebuked me for my embarrassingly inadequate performance:
