The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that “betamom,” which values autonomy and choice instead of raising the so-called “Tiger mom” style, which strictly controls children and forces them to enter prestigious universities and succeed, is emerging as a new parenting trend.
Sophie Jeff, who lives in Culver City, California, the U.S., is trying to give her two teenage sons more autonomy. If children live without problems for a week and keep the curfew, they are allowed to set their own schedules and work.
In addition, they say it is okay to stop the after-school activities they hate, and they don’t matter if they don’t get an A grade in all subjects.
Rather than pressuring his children to go to prestigious universities or have promising jobs, he said, he is focusing on growing up as a person who does not resent his parents even after he finds interest in himself and grows up.
The WSJ pointed out that in recent decades, Tiger Mom-style parenting, which elaborately designs the future of children, has been strong in American society.
Parenting methods led by parents, ranging from competition for prestigious kindergartens to comparisons and activity management for college entrance exams, were widely known through the 2011 book “Tiger Mother” by Yale University professor Amy Chua, a Chinese-American.
Economists say such a nurturing culture has spread since the 1990s as parents feel strong anxiety about securing their children’s competitiveness due to deepening inequality and spreading knowledge-based economy. In particular, the increase in women’s participation in the labor market is also cited as a factor that strengthened this trend.
In fact, women spent an average of 14 minutes per week helping their children with their homework in 1975, but it increased by about five times to an hour and nine minutes in 2018. Although the fertility rate has decreased, parents’ time to invest in childcare has increased.
However, skepticism about controlled parenting is growing as even professions are threatened by recent changes in the economic environment and the advent of artificial intelligence (AI).
Experts point out that excessive control-oriented parenting is rather counterproductive.
Clinical psychologist Claire Nicogosian said that over the past 20 years, talented teenagers have repeatedly given up music or exercise around the age of 15-16, and analyzed that excessive controlled parenting is the result of exhausting both parents and children.
Sarah Miracle, a lawyer specializing in criminal and family law, also raised the possibility that excessive intervention-type parenting may have affected some of the teenagers who caused legal problems, saying they were raised by overly controlling mothers.
Another major background is that parents who are tired of raising children in the Tiger Mom style want to change.
Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, said, “Parents are realizing that going to Harvard does not necessarily make it,” adding, “The current change is a reaction to a competition-oriented parenting culture that has already reached its limit.”
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
