Nautigal's post is what I was getting at-- only she's put it much more succinctly than I did, by using an example.
Bostonian, put it this way-- it's pretty darned hard to earn a music scholarship if all your parents can afford (or know to do) is public school strings/band. No private lessons, no professional-quality instruments.... probably no competitions (travel and $) all add up to a high school student who has almost no hope of competing for a scholarship with a student who has been prodded into a standard of performance (via lessons, a SAHP pushing, etc.) that allows for competition wins. KWIM?
So yeah-- in that instance, there are probably a LOT of kids who are that capable. They just don't have TigerParents. And no, I do
not mean that term as any kind of ethnic commentary. Frankly, I see far more of this sort of thing locally from UMC Caucasian families than I do from immigrant families of
any ethnicity. And yes, my family is considered "honorary Asian" by most people who know us-- but it's not because we're TigerParents,
per se, but because we are pretty strict about boundaries, and we set pretty high expectations, and we follow more or less Confucian idealogy-- but only because that seems more or less right and proper to us.
We are
not spending thousands annually on music teachers, tutors, etc. etc. the way that some of our peers in our community do. Can my kid compete with theirs? Well,
yes-- but only because she happens to be PG. If she were HG instead, their bright-to-MG kids would probably look "better" than her by virtue of all that endless prepping.
