Economics of Tiger Mothering

This opinion piece in the NYT points out a crucial economic principle, and how it relates to Amy Chua's teachings on parenting. That is, that a person's willingness to forego present rewards may result in future greater rewards. We commonly refer to it as delayed gratification, and most parents hope that their children learn its potency - and are willing to go to college so that their future success is greater than if they started working out of high school. Amy Chua argues in her parenting approach, that it can be taught to children.

In some ways, Chua’s book is an extended disquisition on an attempt at using extrinsic incentives to try to instill intrinsic motivations. If a commitment device is something that “takes choice off the table,” then Amy Chua herself was the mother of all commitment devices. Amy made sure her kids stuck with her plan. She makes a strong argument that parents often have better information than their children about what their children can accomplish with hard work. Parents can use this informational advantage to push their kids to attainments that kids themselves could not imagine. As Chua says, “there’s nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t.”