Indian mums earn their stripes too

Stay-at-home mum Swati Rastogi watched her daughter Krisha play with plastic monkeys as son Dhruva lined up model cars in their two-bedroom apartment, surrounded by Hindi and English alphabet posters.

Dhruva, 3, asked whether Pakistan is part of India. He was informed that it's not. "I don't know where that comes from," his mother said, watching attentively.

That's a rarity for Rastogi, who leaves little to chance when it comes to her children's education. Although China and its diaspora receive lots of attention for hyper-parenting since last year's publication of the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Indians aren't exactly wallflowers in the child-rearing department.

During January's literary festival in Jaipur, Tiger Mother author Amy Chua told adoring audiences that Indian tiger mums may outnumber China's. "The crowd went gaga over almost anything she said," said Shobhaa De, a writer, socialite and mother of six. "I don't think she's seen such a positive reaction elsewhere in the world."

Indian tiger parents feature in Indian TV series, reality shows, books and magazines in a society willing to do almost anything for its children's future, even sometimes before they're born. "Looking for sperm donors," read a Chennai advertisement. "Must have graduated from a top technical institute."

Education first

As millions of Indians migrate from villages to cities, expanding India's middle class, parents increasingly view education as their family's ticket to higher social status and material wealth. In one survey, parents said they spent half their take-home pay on education. The sacrifices, monetary and otherwise, made so children can learn English and not have to work on a farm, lead to a frequent mantra, experts say: With all I've done for you, why aren't you getting perfect grades?

"It's become very crass," said Shayama Chona, former principal at Delhi Public School. The drive to succeed is filling the world's top hospitals, universities, multinational companies and start-ups with people of Indian descent. Given the growing competition from Chinese and Indian youngsters, American students must raise their game, President Obama warned recently.

"In Indian culture, parents say: ‘You're going to do engineering, not music, and you're going to be first. No excuses,'" said Indian-born University of Houston chancellor Renu Khator. Rastogi, who rates her intensity as average for an Indian parent, quit her software-industry job to raise her children, enrolling both in pre-nursery school at the age of 2, supplemented by home instruction. When her daughter turned 3, Rastogi and her travel-executive husband Aakash applied to 15 nursery schools, scouring their circle of connections to find one who was a board member at Delhi Public School, then charming his secretary for a recommendation letter. Covering their bases, they also prayed. "It was divine intervention" when Krisha got in, Rastogi said.

Rastogi then focused on Dhruva, showing up every other day at Krisha's school so teachers and administrators wouldn't forget her and making cut-out tree props for school assemblies. Dhruva was also accepted.

"If you want relaxing weekends, enrol elsewhere," the school principal told parents at orientation. "If you're ready to work weekends helping your kids study, you're in the right place."

Despite being taught the first-grade syllabus in advance, Krisha is struggling in Hindi and English penmanship, so she and her mother practise at home. "I give her a deadline, not a very tight one, just ten minutes," Rastogi said. "She's more interested in distractions than the blackboard." Recently, Rastogi backed off teaching Krisha herself — sending her instead to thrice-weekly tutoring — after realising she was losing her temper, occasionally slapping her daughter, when progress lagged. Krisha's also doing twice-weekly art and dance classes for relaxation.

From punishment to praying

A US government survey released in early March found that 99 per cent of Indian children had been either slapped on the face or hit with a cane at school, and 81 per cent had been told they were incapable of learning.

"Hitting, slapping and forcing kids, which is quite common in the Indian context, are traits of tiger parenting," said Mumbai's DNA newspaper. "Such parenting behaviour would have child-rights groups up in arms in the West."

Some mothers consciously reject the parental arms race. Novelist Namita Devidayal, a self-avowed "slummy mum", teaches her children yoga. "India used to be more holistic," she said. "We're trying to be like China, but we're not even getting there. Hopefully this will balance out."

The pressure carries costs: In 2010, there were 2,479 suicides in India committed by students who had failed school tests, compared with 1,571 in 2001.

Chennai's Sneha hotline, one of India's first such counselling programmes in a nation where mental-health treatment still carries a stigma, fields up to 450 calls daily from anxious students.

In search of offspring perfection, some parents wield guilt, anger, feng shui and time-management strategies, pushing teenagers to study for as much as ten hours a day outside classes, after cancelling cable-TV subscriptions and banning parties. "My mum went insane," said Kavita Mukherji, a recent graduate who now works in the publishing industry. "She locked me in, delivering food to my room, so I wouldn't leave the house."

At a temple one day, her mother made her walk around an auspicious idol for luck. "If I do 100 rounds, will I score 100 per cent in every subject?" Mukherji asked her mother. "She got offended and never took me to a temple again."

That said, most Indian tiger mums believe they're less fanatical than their Chinese counterparts, perhaps tempered by a more tolerant culture and core spirituality. "Tiger mums in India are not as fierce," author De said.

Back in her living room, Rastogi tells her children to pick up their toys. "I'm not a tiger mum," she says. "I'm just doing my role. Working would be selfish. It would just leave more for the grandparents."

— Los Angeles Times