The tiger parent is dead; long live the tiger parent: Chinese immigrant parents in Singapore and their inconsistent parenting ideologies/discourses

• In Event: Refugee education and the experiences of migrant parents and teachers

Proposal

This paper stems from a larger study about migrant parenting in Singapore, for which the research team interviewed immigrant parents about their influence on children’s education. Among the interviewees was Audrey, a Chinese immigrant mother of two from Shanghai. Audrey described her move to Singapore with her children as an “escape” from China’s hyper-competitive, achievement-driven educational and social environment. She rejected the intense focus on academic and career success, which she had observed in the parenting practices of her peers in Shanghai and experienced in her own upbringing. Audrey felt that the pressure Chinese parents placed on their children to excel did not align with her own parenting ideologies. For her, getting good grades, attending a prestigious university, or securing a high-paying job are not the real meanings of education, nor do these achievements define success in life. By providing her children with a more relaxed environment through migration, Audrey hopes they, and perhaps she herself, can find the answers to these questions:

I hope my children can grow up in a relatively relaxed environment […] I don’t want my children to follow in my footstep, only knowing grades, only knowing how to study. I don’t think these are the real answers [to life]. Hence, I hope to find the real answer and that’s why I initiated the migration process.

Audrey’s eagerness to escape the parenting culture in China is not unique. Beck and Nyíri (2022) observed in their ethnographic study of Chinese immigrant parents in Budapest that this new generation of middle-class parents have left China in pursuit of their parental ideologies that prioritise their children’s happiness, individualism and freedom over academic and material achievements. These parents’ ideologies seem like a far cry from the conclusions of existing literature, which often homogenously characterised Chinese parents as being preoccupied with academic excellence, career success, and upward social mobility (Fong, 2007, Lee and Zhou, 2014, Li, 2004). Chinese parents are also frequently stereotyped as strict ‘tiger’ parents who embody traditional Confucian values, using strict discipline and excessive control to push their children to meet their high expectations of raising ‘dragon and phoenix children’ (Chua, 2011; Wu and Singh, 2004).

Much of this existing body of literature is now considered dated and they have predominantly situated their observations of Chinese parents within mainland China or Western anglophone contexts, particularly in the United States, the top migration destinations for Chinese immigrants (CCG, 2020). Until recently, little was known about the ideologies, expectations and practices of current generation of new Chinese immigrant parents who have migrated to non-western destination countries like Singapore (for exception, see Zhou and Wang, 2019). This is surprising given the significant presence of new Chinese immigrant families in Singapore. In 2020, mainland Chinese immigrants made up close to 20% of the city-state’s total migrant population, the second largest group after Malaysians (Pan and Theseira, 2023). This paper thus seeks to expand the context in which Chinese parenting is studied by presenting an empirical study that examines how relatively recent Chinese immigrant parents are raising their children in Singapore. This paper draws upon the accounts of 31 new Chinese immigrants raising school-going children in Singapore. The aim is to illuminate, first, the ideologies these parents hold regarding their children’s education and future. Second, it examines the specific expectations these parents have for their children and the practices they employ to achieve these expectations. Third, it investigates whether and how Chinese immigrants’ beliefs about education and success translate into their expectations and practices.

It is argued that the Chinese immigrant parents idealised Singapore’s social and educational environment, believing that it is relatively stress-free and thus allows them to practice their ideologies of broadening measures of success beyond academic excellence, material achievements, prioritising children’s happiness, and respecting their autonomy. They also consciously distanced themselves from the Chinese ‘tiger’ parent stereotype, criticising the strict control and obsession with academic results as pernicious to children’s development. However, inconsistencies arise between what parents claimed to believe and the actual expectations they imposed on their children and their parenting practices. Oftentimes, they exhibit parenting behaviours that they consciously seek to resist, such as over-emphasising children’s academic performance. It is posited that this inconsistency is not only fuelled by the enduring influence of Confucian ideologies on Chinese family and social life but also by the deep-seated anxiety over class reproduction faced by middle-class parents. The reality of Singapore as an equally achievement-driven and elitist society further drives these parents to reimpose narrow definition of success centered around academics and careers and revert to ‘tiger’ parenting practices. Even as the parents in this study reject these practices and success markers, they fear that failing to do so may jeopardise their children’s (and ultimately, the family’s) future survival in Singapore.

Author

• Peidong Yang, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore