Tiger Mom

By Louise Vancisic

Title: Tiger Mom

Author: Louise Vancisic

Warnings: F/f  M/f n/c

Both Stephen and Joyce Kim were second generation Korean-Americans raised in a value system that stressed hard work, education and achievement. It was therefore no surprise that they would raise their own children in this manner.

Stephen’s parents were both middle class professionals and encouraged his work ethic through example, support and recognition. They chose to live in a neighborhood that supported those values and sent their son to good schools. In return, Stephen’s grades were mostly A’s with occasional B’s. The Kim’s were not permissive but they were reasonable in their expectations. For his part, Stephen was a respectful, diligent son and punishments of any sort were a rarity.  

Joyce Roh’s childhood was quite different. When Joyce turned eight, her father began taking jobs out of town that required him to be gone for months at a time. That left his wife to raise Joyce and her two younger brothers largely on her own. Whatever Mr. Roh was doing didn’t bring in enough money and so Mrs. Roh worked as the cashier in a restaurant. Dinner was the restaurant’s busiest time so Mrs. Roh often didn’t return home until very late.

As the oldest, Joyce was tasked with enormous responsibilities at home. Every day she had to walk her brothers home from school, prepare dinner, supervise their homework and put them to bed. Then Joyce could turn her attention to her own homework and cleaning up the apartment to her mother’s demanding standard. When Mrs. Roh returned around ten PM, she expected to find everything in perfect order. Usually it was and she’d enter Joyce’s room and bestow a light, warm kiss to the forehead of the sleeping girl.

When it wasn’t she’d march into Joyce’s tiny bedroom, roust the child from her bed, drag her over to the offending unwashed dish or un-swept floor and demand an explanation. Of course, Joyce never had an acceptable explanation so over Mama’s lap she would go. There her nightgown would be lifted and her bottom soundly spanked. Joyce would then have to correct the housekeeping deficiency before she could return to her bed and cry herself to sleep.

Mrs. Roh was tough but very fair. She felt bad having to put such a burden on the shoulders of a young girl but she felt she had no choice. She had to go to work and breadwinner single mothers with limited English could not be choosy about their jobs. She understood that it wasn’t in the nature of children to forego playing for cleaning, cooking and caring for siblings without a strong motivation. She provided that additional motivation with her right hand.

It worked quite well. Knowing that slacking off the least on her chores would only result in a sore bottom, Joyce learned to push herself and be more efficient. She also motivated her brothers to help. Spankings for incomplete chores became less and less frequent.

Further, Mrs. Roh demanded ‘A’’s from all three of her children. All three could expect to be spanked for failing to meet the standard. But, sometimes, when her brother’s fell far short, Joyce’s mother would judge that the girl was remiss in supervising his schoolwork. She’d punish the boy first, and then make him watch while she spanked his older sister. This humiliated Joyce but it motivated her to be especially diligent in supervising her brothers. Indeed, she would come to credit her success to her Tiger Mom upbringing and decided that when she had children she would use the same techniques.

Married after college, Joyce and Steven put off having children till they were both established in their careers. Steven became a software engineer and Joyce secured a university professorship in biochemistry. Shortly after receiving tenure, Joyce Kim got pregnant. The Kim’s would have two girls, Cynthia and Jessica. They never referred to Cynthia by other than her full name; Jessica however soon became the rather informal Jessi. It was a difference not lost upon the older girl.

Shortly after her fifth birthday, Cynthia Kim received her first formal behavioral spanking. Prior to that, misbehaviors might earn a few swats on the behind but this was the first ritualized correction complete with lecture, undressing, positioning, smacking, concluding lecture and straight to bed. It was administered by Joyce but Steven was home at the time.

Joyce had instructed Cynthia to clean up her toys and help set the table. “OK Mommy” the girl had said but then went on playing. Joyce fumed for a minute then strode over to the girl, grabbed a tiny wrist and dragged her up and over to a kitchen chair.

“Mommy … what are you doing?” the girl pleaded.  “Wha …. What did I d … do?!”

“It’s what you didn’t do,” the woman snapped. “I don’t like having to tell you something twice. Get across my lap!”

Though scared of what would happen if she obeyed, Cynthia had the wisdom to be even more scared of what would happen if she didn’t. She practically scrambled atop her mother’s lap. She heard a hissed, “you’ll learn to listen to me the first time!” and felt her skirt fly up behind her.

The spanking began immediately; Joyce Kim slapping the tiny bottom with force and determination. The girl began to cry with her little legs vigorously kicking and scissoring. The girl’s mother lectured the entire time she spanked her, her hand striking the poor bottom over and over.

{SMACK}  “Are you going to listen to Mommy now?”

“Yeeesssss!”

“Is Mommy going to have to ask you more than once?”

“Yesss … Owww, I mean NOOOOO!” screamed the girl. “P … Please Mommy … please … I’ll b … be a g … good girl! I p … promise … I’ll be good!”

The spanking had the desired effect upon Cynthia’s conduct. This not only cemented Joyce’s inclination to use spanking as normal punishment routine but won over Steven to her view point. Generally, spanking was Joyce’s task, but after a little while, it became clear that the children considered her the tyrant while doting on their father who did not spank. Husband and wife discussed the matter and as a result, Steven became a co-spanker.

As the older child, more was demanded of Cynthia. Around the time of the third grade problems started to appear in Cynthia’s schoolwork. Cynthia was a solid B student; her parents however were only satisfied with A’s. They would not accept the reality that their daughter was just not as bright as they were. If their daughter did not bring home A’s it was due to not working hard enough. And having 6 year old Jessi consistently bringing home 100’s on her spelling and arithmetic tests only strengthened their convictions.

Cynthia’s first report card in the fourth grade contained two A’s, five B grades and one C. Joyce suggested that Steven administer the spanking in her presence. Further, she suggested that they advise Cynthia that until her grades improved, that she would be punished for any test score or homework grade below a B plus or an 85. At that point they called Cynthia into the living room. Having overheard her parent’s conversation, younger sister Jessi eagerly looked up from her book.

Cynthia stood before her father as he pointed at the report card. “Your mother and I are quite disappointed. You are certainly capable of better, are you not?”

The girl had no choice but to answer the rhetorical question in the affirmative.

“So why aren’t you doing better?” Steven asked ominously.

“I… I don’t know … Daddy … please … I try really hard  … I  …“

“I’ll tell you why,” the man cut her off. “You’re not a diligent student. You spend too much time playing and watching television and not enough time studying.  When your mother was your age she was taking care of her two younger brothers and she managed to get A’s. You have it so much easier Cynthia; you have no excuse!’

A lump formed in the little girl’s throat. “Please …daddy …I’ll do better. Please give me another chance.” Steven said nothing but his stern expression communicated that a spanking was forthcoming and delaying tactics at this point would be most unwise.

“Oh, I’ll give you another chance Cynthia   .Your next report card. But right now I’ m going to give you a spanking. You understand why?”

Lowering her eyes to the floor, Cynthia murmured a faint “y…yes daddy.”

Steven pulled a chair into the center of the room.  Cynthia’s eyes moistened as the painful act grew nearer. She looked over at her mother. There was no quarter there either, as Joyce, arms folded imperiously across her chest added, “you’ve been warned Cynthia. Now you will see how serious we really are about school. Let’s hope that this helps you make a big difference in your school performance. Get across your father’s lap”

Two fat tears rolled down the young girl’s cheeks as she silently approached her father. Placing her hands on his right leg, she let him guide her into position. When she was settled, the man raised the back of her blue checkered pleated skirt. Joyce made her contribution reaching for the elastic waistband of the girl’s white panties and pulling them down over the rounded buttocks.  With skirt raised and undergarments at her knees, sweet, gentle dark haired Cynthia Kim was primed for her first “educational” spanking.

Joyce informed the girl, as this was the first time they would go easy on her. “You will receive six for each of the two ‘B’s’, nine for each of the three ‘B minus’s’ and a full dozen for the ‘C’. There will be another dozen for receiving only a Satisfactory in Conduct.

Cynthia’s poignant “please …Daddy” was ignored as Steven rested his open hand on his daughter’s bare bottom to set his point of aim, feeling the flesh flinch beneath his touch. “I hope this helps you,” he stated as he raised his hand and delivered the first sharp, stinging smack to the summit of the left buttock. The little girl’s form jerked and she cried out “no … daddy… noooo … please.”

Of course, the spanking continued, each blow inducing a childish shriek of pain. Short, slender  girlish legs, ran a race in mid-air, kicking and scissoring to the full extent allowed by the fettering panties. Soft feminine fingers clawed at the air while black trusses tied into a simple pony tail tossed about frantically as if trying to vent the anguish of her flaming behind through her flailing extremities. Despite these contortions, her midsection remained firmly under the control of Steven’s left arm. Many years later, one can only imagine the reddened surface of her behind shuddering and gyrating under that deliberately smacking hand; imprinted with yet another reddening palm print to blend into the previous ones.

The spanking was administered in segments; the subject, grade and prescribed penalty announced; the requisite slaps following. There followed a long pause for the girl to “reflect” and “resolve to improve.”

Halfway through the spanking and during the dozen for the ‘C’, Cynthia’s right hand unthinkingly reached back to protect her bottom. The offending hand was quickly grasped and twisted into the small of the girl’s back. 

“You know better than to do that young lady!” a stern voice commanded. “That will be two extra … no, make it three.”

The “please. … Daddy … I’m sorry ….” was cut off as the penalty was delivered instantly and to the back of her thighs, where the flesh was especially tender. Each of the three powerful smacks brought forth a girlish shriek. At the end, she collapsed into a convulsive sobbing. But, now, having given way to uncontrolled tears she found it easier to settle down and lay there meekly, crying her heart out, as her father continued to smack her liquid little bottom!

At the end of the lesson for her substandard grades, Steven paused for several minutes; then concluded with the final dozen for “conduct.” At last the spanking was over. But Cynthia, overcome with despair, just lay there, shaking and crying. After a while Steven pulled her to her feet and warned her that the consequences of a repeat performance would be even more painful. The poor girl just nodded and through broken sobs promised to study much harder.

Joyce stepped forward and helped restore her daughter’s panties and smooth out the pleats of her skirt. “You may go to your room and finish your crying; but I’d advise you not to pamper yourself too long. You still have homework and you might want to study extra hard for tomorrow’s Vocabulary test.”

The sobbing girl nodded and proceeded upstairs. In her room, she plopped face down on her bed and cried and cried. She cried for her sore bottom; and for the shame of her punishment; but most of all she cried from fear that maybe she just wasn’t smart enough for her parents; and this was but the first of an inevitable quarterly ritual. And that no matter how many times they spanked her, it wouldn’t help.

But the next evening, after her first report card spanking, Cynthia and her parents had a long talk. Well, mostly, Joyce did a lot of talking and Cynthia did a lot of respectful nodding and “yes Mommy’s” and “I’ll study very hard Mommy’s” and promising to be a good girl. At the end, Joyce expressed her confidence that Cynthia could be a really good student if she put her mind to it.

Over the next three months Cynthia buckled down and worked really hard. Though she really cared about her grades, Cynthia had to admit that it was the threat of an even more severe spanking that pushed her to go the extra mile and give it her best shot. The next report card showed significant improvement. There were four A’s, two ‘B pluses’ and two ‘B’s”.  And in recognition of the improvement her parents decided to forego spanking her for the ‘B’ grades and instead, take her out for ice cream.