On the occasion of World Parents Day, The Quint is republishing one of its articles from July 2016. We Indians are an impassioned lot, driven by parents who are relentless warriors. Tell us if you relate to any of this!
The door creaked open with an eerie stillness. One would think an absent-minded gust of wind had crept in. The sound of shuffling feet could be heard. One could see shadows lingering a little too close to each other.
Despite this, there was a silence in the household.
Outside the bedroom across the hall, a pair of Tiger Parents were stationed with sombre expressions. They looked like a painting.
Everything seemed set in stone.
For the Tiger Parents, in their 40s, there was nothing unnatural about the setting. This was routine. This was second nature. Their 16-year-old daughter was inside, reading for tomorrow’s class. It was an important one. All these classes were important ones.
Importance, though, had lost its exclusivity for the 16-year-old. Everything was important and nothing was important. She had always been a star student but only recently she had found out she was finding it difficult to read fine-print.
Her eyesight had weakened over the years, but she had no cause to worry. Her parents would drive her to the doctor tomorrow. Their eyes would permit no change.
Yes, this isn’t a typical horror movie. Much more subtle, much more real, this is the world of intensive parenting. Without further ado, ladies andgentlemen, here’s introducing to you the Tiger Parents of the world. They dribble, dodge, hover and shoot the hoop of surveillance with extraordinary prowess.
Where can they be found?
1) At school bus stops.
2) Outside examination halls.
3) Across the road from their kids’ office buildings.
4) 50 steps away, from their kids. At all times.
What are they armed with?
1) Water-bottles, school bags and tiffin boxes.
2) Postpaid connections to keep a hawk’s tab.
3) Undying adrenaline.
In 2011, Amy Chua, an American lawyer and author, published her third book called The Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother. The book was a memoir of her parenting journey and cited extreme techniques of parenting and monitoring one’s children in order to get the best out of them. Some of them included not allowing the kids to attend sleepovers, not accepting anything other than the best grades from them, threatening to burn their toys and so on and so forth.
Naturally, the book elicited a storm. Amy received death threats and abuses. Going further back, the term ‘helicopter parents’ originated in the 1960s when the book Between Parent & Teenager by Dr. Haim Ginott mentioned a teen who complains: “Mother hovers over me like a helicopter... ”
Helicopter parenting isn’t anything new. More importantly, Indian parents alone cannot be crucified for hovering too close. This leads us to important questions. How close it too close? Also, is the degree of vigilance much more eccentric when it comes to Indian parents?
I know of a friend whose mother joined Tinder on her behalf. Every morning, tiger mom meticulously swipes left or right with an air of self-appointed importance. She chooses on her daughter’s behalf, talks to a candidate for a bit and on having sanctioned the ‘match’, she bows out with a slamdunker’s smile playing on her lips. Goodbye Bharat Matrimony, Welcome Tinder.
Another incident I bore witness to last week had two pairs of tiger parents conversing. Astonishingly, they kept exchanging phrases like, “We had a class test last week” and “We weren’t taught that chapter”. It is amazing how they’ve seamlessly managed to thread together their child’s life and theirs, to a point where it is impossible to view each one as autonomous.
However, there’s always a why to the what. If we can allow ourselves to be slightly forgiving, one can argue that these parents stand pre-judged. Today’s tiger parents are stuck in an unsettling crevice with technology, millenials, Western liberalism and traditions. Things are changing too fast to find some method in the madness and it is perhaps only natural that they are fiercely looking out for their own.
The helicopter that took off ages ago is perhaps hovering only because it doesn’t quite know where to land.
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