<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"></figure>

In this episode, we’re sharing a conversation that Pam had with Iris Chen in 2018. At the time, Iris was new to unschooling her two sons in China and was writing blog posts about her experience at her website, Untigering. Pam and Iris talked about why she and her husband decided to move to China, her family’s move to unschooling, what unschooling in China looks like, deschooling expectations around achievement, feeling like an outsider in both Chinese and American societies, and lots more!

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

QUESTIONS FOR IRIS

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

I love how you describe your blog, untigering.com, on your about page: “Untigering is a blog about my adventures of trying to be parent in the tension of my Chineseness and Americanness. It’s about me moving away from being a typical tiger mom, but still wanting to hold on to my cultural heritage. It’s about figuring out what I believe about identity, family, and success as an outsider to both societies.” Let’s start with your shifting definition of success. You and your husband were well on your way to fulfilling the “American Dream” when you guys did a complete 180. How did that come about?

And then you had children. How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?

I’m really curious about unschooling in China. Can you share a bit about your experience and the pros and cons you see?

You have a great blog post about the value of letting go of expectations, especially ones around achievement. When a child dives into an interest it’s so easy for us to start envisioning that as their lifelong passion and career, like we need to rationalize to ourselves that it’s okay to let them have at it. Maybe we try to convince ourselves we’re just being supportive, but it can quickly backfire, can’t it?

I’d love to talk some more about your experience with the tension of feeling like an outsider in both Chinese and American societies. Can you share your thoughts around the process of weaving together your cultural heritage with what you’re discovering makes sense to you about children, learning, parenting, and family? What does that look like for you?

You recently published a blog post titled, ‘Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance.’ I thought it was a great piece and was hoping you’d share your thoughts about it here.

What is your favourite thing about unschooling right now?

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Iris’s blog, untigering.com

Scott Noelle’s podcast episode

The Alliance for Self-Directed Education

Peter Gray’s article, Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning

Iris’s blog post, Pros and Cons of Unschooling in China

Iris’s blog post, 3 Unschooling Expectations and Why We Shouldn’t Have Them

Idzie Desmarais’s blog post, In Praise of The Unexceptional: Because Unschooling Doesn’t Have to Be Impressive

Iris recently went to see the play Soft Power

Iris’s blog post, Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance

Iris’s Facebook page, Untigering: Adventures of a deconstructing Tiger Mother

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including Four Pillars of Unschooling and Navigating Conflict, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Welcome! I’m Pam Laricchia from livingjoyfully.ca, and today I’m here with Iris Chen. Hi Iris!

IRIS: Hello Pam.

PAM: Hello! Iris is an unschooling mom and I came across her work a few months ago. I really enjoyed reading around her website, untigering.com, and I was super excited when she agreed to come on the podcast!

So, to get us started Iris …

Can you share with us a little bit about you and your family?

IRIS: Sure! So, I am a Chinese American, and I was born in the States and grew up in the States and Canada actually. After I got married, we moved out to China to teach English, and then we had two boys out there in China.

And I’ve only been unschooling for about a year but have really just fallen in love with it.

PAM: Oh, that’s awesome, yeah, and it’s doesn’t take too long once you start diving in, does it? If it’s for you, if it’s a good match, it just sucks you right in, right?

IRIS: Yes, yes.

PAM: So, I love how you describe your blog, untigering.com, in your about page and I just wanted to read a little quote from it.

“Untigering is about my adventures of me trying to be an parent in the tension of my Chineseness and Americanness. It’s about me wanting to move away from being a tiger mom, but still wanting to hold on to my cultural heritage. It’s about figuring out what I believe about identity, family and success, as an outsider to both societies.”

And look! I got goosebumps again just as I was reading it.

Let’s start with your shifting definition of success. That’s a big one we talk about quite a bit here on the podcast, and as you mentioned, you and your husband were well on your way to fulfilling the “American Dream” when you did that complete 180 and moved to China. I’m really interested in hearing how that came about.

IRIS: Yeah!

So, we lived in the Silicon Valley. It’s a very driven, very ambitious culture here, and, at that time, my husband had been working for five years as an electrical engineer, and was doing well, and we were living a very comfortable, good life.

But I think we just wanted something different; we wanted something meaningful. We wanted to be of service somewhere. And we wanted a sense of adventure too, something different. And so, we went to China just planning on teaching English for just a year—we didn’t expect on staying out for very long.

We were going to give it a year and have a good time with it. But once we got out there, we just fell in love with it—fell in love with the people and the culture. I mean we are both Chinese, but yeah, just really falling in love with the people and the culture there. And ended up staying for the next 15 years and have been there ever since!

PAM: Was the biggest piece when you were talking about wanting to feel like you were doing service kinds of work, helping people—that was something you felt was missing? Was that a big chunk of it?

IRIS: Yeah.

I think sometimes when you stay in your own culture, you are stuck in these scripts or