Data Confirms That Tiger Moms Eat Their Young

A couple of years ago, during the uproar over Amy Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the Wall Street Journal asked if a regimen of no play dates, TV or computer games, combined with endless hours of music practice, could create happy kids? The answer, not surprisingly, is no, according to study published in the March 2013 Asian American Journal of Psychology.

The study, which followed 444 Chinese-American families for eight years, found that parents who fit the “Tiger Mom” profile had kids with lower grade point averages and educational achievement than children raised by more easygoing parents. They also had a lower sense of family obligation and were more likely to feel depressed or alienated.  Furthermore, contrary to the stereotype, the study found that the majority of Chinese-American mothers do not even fit the tiger mom profile.

It is predictable that Chua’s form of parenting can lead to depression and alienation. After all, she sees no harm in calling children “fatty” or “trash,” even in front of friends, family and strangers (according to her piece in the Wall Street Journal), and believes that excoriating, punishing and shaming a child for “substandard” performance is an appropriate and effective way to achieve improvement. Yet many might be stunned by the evidence that it is associated with poorer academic achievement, rather than higher. However, when one looks at the characteristics prized by Chua, even the poorer academic achievement starts to make sense. For example, she says that Western moms are more likely to teach their children that learning is fun, whereas no Chinese mother would ever say such a thing: “nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work.”

If children embrace the idea that learning is not fun and just a lot of work, they may learn how to “play” the academic game (e.g., score well on tests) without developing the motivation to delve more deeply into concepts, think creatively and independently or how to ask critical questions. Consequently, they may learn how to get the right answers without understanding why, let alone how to apply their knowledge to unique or unexpected situations. Perhaps more troubling, however, is the possibility that the chronic stress and anxiety induced by Chua’s style of parenting could also be producing long-term physiological, cognitive and emotional damage through overexposure to the stress hormone cortisol, which can impair memory and cognitive function and increase the risk of developing hypertension, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Furthermore, the idea that children never want to work is ludicrous. My 5-year-old son can work with his Legos for hours at a time, constructing creatures, vehicles, robots and buildings, precisely because it is fun. He experiments with different parts, like gears, axels, hinges and levers, to solve numerous architectural and mechanical problems. He may not be learning the piano or expository writing from this play, but he is certainly honing his mathematical, scientific and creative skills, as well as his manual dexterity. More importantly, he sees this play as a learning experience and proudly proclaims that he is being a scientist because he understands that he is using his senses, logic and experimentation to solve novel problems. He also loves school (at least so far). Rather than being a chore he grudgingly fulfills to avoid punishment or disapproval, he is excited by the learning and this motivates him to persevere with challenges and to take chances that broaden his learning.

The assumption that children never want to work and that every minute of their lives must be organized and controlled by an all-knowing parent is not just grossly exaggerated and cynical. It can also lead to familial and social dysfunction and become a self-fulfilling prophecy for children. How does one develop self-confidence, intrinsic motivation or independence when she is assumed up front to be a lazy shirker, constantly in need of monitoring and scrutiny, and never given the chance to make her own choices and her own mistakes?

Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Reduces Educational Outcomes for Children

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

There has been considerable research over the past decade showing correlations between long-term chronic stress and elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in humans. There has also been considerable evidence linking elevated cortisol levels to serious medical conditions like heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and cancer, and to memory and cognition problems. However, a new study, “Maternal Stress and Child Outcomes: Evidence From Siblings,” by Anna Aizer, Laura Stroud and Stephen Buka, has found a direct link between in-utero exposure to cortisol and the cognition, health and educational attainment of the exposed offspring.

The study, which compared 1093 children born between 1959 and 1965, found that elevated levels of cortisol in utero significantly affected their verbal IQ and health at age seven. Children born to mothers with elevated levels of cortisol also had worse birth outcomes and slightly lower levels of adult educational attainment and verbal cognition than siblings who had lower exposures to cortisol. For example, siblings exposed to very high levels of cortisol had an average IQ that was 5 points lower than their siblings and nearly half a year less schooling, and a 48% increase in chronic health conditions.

The researchers also found that lower income mothers had higher and more variable levels of cortisol and that they suffered more acute effects from elevated cortisol levels than affluent mothers. Because their cortisol and stress levels varied over time, the researchers were able to compare siblings who had been exposed to different cortisol levels in utero. This methodology reduced variation due to short term stresses and controlled for unobserved differences between different mothers that could have led to biased results.

While this research is compelling in terms of the effects of maternal stress on children’s physical and mental health and their future academic success, the authors take a huge sociobiological leap by arguing that their results may be part of the reason why children of poor parents tend to become poor adults themselves. Indeed boys born to parents in the bottom quintile for income have a 42% chance of remaining there when they grow up and only a 5% chance of moving up to the top quintile (Corak, 2004; Solon, 1999). However, there are numerous reasons why there is little social mobility in the U.S. that have nothing to do with biology, including an entrenched system of governance, taxation and commerce that ensures that the wealthy and their families will retain and increase their wealth and that makes it extremely difficult for the rest of us to significantly improve our socioeconomic status.

The study’s authors note that the poor report a greater number of stressful events in their lives (Dohrenwend, 1973; Marmot and Smith, 1991), while researchers have measured higher levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in their bloodstreams (Cohen et. al., 2006; Steptoe et al, 2003; Kunkz-Ebrecht). This might seem counterintuitive in light of the stereotype of the highly stressed Type A businessman. However, bosses and the affluent have far fewer financial worries and those they have are on a completely different scale (e.g., whether or not to refinance their home or buy out a competitor versus how to make rent this month and avoid the homeless shelter or how to obtain enough money for dad’s diabetes drugs). Furthermore, wealthier individuals tend to have jobs in which they have higher status, greater respect and, most importantly, greater control over their responsibilities and time. Lower income people tend to have jobs with multiple bosses who may give conflicting orders. They tend to have less job security, which can force them to accept more abuse and degradation at work just to hold onto their jobs and meager incomes. And the wealthy tend to have much more disposable income to purchase (and time) to enjoy luxury and convenience items, travel, and recreational activities, which can relieve the stress they do suffer.

Even if maternal stress turns out to be a major contributor to socioeconomic immobility or poor educational outcomes, it is unlikely that there will be an adequate biological or medical solution. Prozac may make a person feel less gloomy, but it does not cause the boss to pay more or the landlord to lower the rent.

Of course it would likely help if, as a society, we ensured that all families received adequate perinatal care, including sufficient and nutritious food, exercise, medical care, relaxation, leisure and mental health support. As it is, the poor have a significantly higher chance of having a premature baby or one that is born with low birth weight. This is likely due to a combination of factors that include greater stress, as well as lack of health insurance and low-cost health clinics, the high price of healthy foods, overwork and access to paid family leave.

Cohen, Sheldon, Schwartz, Joseph, Epel, Elissa, Kirschbaum, Clemens, Sidney, Steve

and Teresa Seeman (2006) “Socioeconomic Status, Race and Diurnal Cortisol Decline in

the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study”

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Corak, Miles (2004). “Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons for Public Policy

from a Cross-Country Comparison of Earnings Mobility.” UNICEF Innocenti Research

Center, Florence, Italy.

Dohrenwend, Barbara S. (1973) “Social status and stressful life events” Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology. 28(2): 225-235.

Kunz-Ebrecht, Sabine, Kirschbaum, Clemens and Andrew Steptoe (2004) “Work Stress,

Socioeconomic Status and Neuroendocrine Activation Over the Working Day” Social

Science and Medicine 58: 1523-1530.

Marmot, Michael and GS Smith (1991). “Health Inequality Among British Civil

Servants: the Whitehall II Study.” The Lancet. 337 (8754).

Solon, Gary (1999) “Intergenerational Mobility in the Labor Market” Handbook of Labor

Economics, Vol 3, Eds Orley Ashenfelter and David Card.

Steptoe, Andrew, Kunz-Ebrecht, Sabine, Owen, Natalie, Feldman, Pamela, Willemsen, Gonneke,            Kirschbaum, Clemens, and Michael Marmot (2003) “Socioeconomic Status and Stress-Related

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