<\/p>\n
The attention that Western society gives to \u201cTiger Moms\u201d is an unexpected story of cultural exchange around parenting. Many tend to think that Western ideas on child-rearing\u2014focussed on parenting that develops individuality, self-assertiveness, and autonomy<\/a>\u2014will gradually come to rule the world. Such a shift has certainly been well documented in agrarian economies as they industrialise.<\/p>\n However, the \u201cTiger Mom\u201d concept has very publicly migrated the other way\u2014from East to West, that is, from the more traditional world to the \u201cdeveloped world\u201d. In the West, concerns about the importance of education have made parents ready for fresh thinking. They\u2019re open to the idea that pushing their children hard to achieve academically may have something more to offer than laissez-faire Western approaches that have failed some children.<\/p>\n What does this cultural exchange tell us more broadly? The starting point is that good parenting is not uniform the world over. That\u2019s because societies hold different goals for child development. Consequently, parents have different expectations of their children, and these expectations shape their child-rearing practices. The value differences are sometimes framed as \u201ccollectivism versus individualism,\u201d \u201cinterdependence versus independence\u201d or \u201cself-orientation versus group-orientation\u201d.<\/p>\n