Eileen Gu credits her mom alongside giving her the liberty to discover her own path.
Speaking at the Karim Family Foundation's Inspiring Women Leadership Series in Singapore on Monday, Gu said concerning her upbringing and how her mom set her up for achievement from a young age.
"I think she really optimized for play, and she optimized for optionality. She put me into everything," Gu said, adding that she tried ballet, piano, archery, basketball, soccer, and cross-country skiing.
She additionally attended math and discipline camps and went for chanting lessons.
"There were many of things, right?" Gu said. "And so, the item being that whenever I was younger, she really gave me the complete dispersed so that whenever I was older — whenever I knew myself improved and whenever I was liable to create those decisions — I could create an informed one having tried all the options."
The Olympic freestyle skier stated that being entrusted alongside that agency and duty at a comparatively young age was crucial to her becoming independent.
Gu stated group frequently wrongly assume her mother was a "tiger mom," a tag she described as a controlling, helicopter-style parent who forces their kid downward a particular path.
"She was in many ways the contrary of that, anywhere she fair vigorously provided me alongside liberty and agency, and enforced my liberty really intensely," Gu said. "That was the consequence of her tiger mom."
Now, Gu said, they motionless do nearly everything together.
"As I got older, I kept calling us cofounders since I really think that's the finest way to encapsulate our partnership," Gu said. "We journey together all day. We live together. We activity together. We create together. We alter together. We evolve."
Gu stated neither she nor her mother has all the answers, and they are the two figuring existence out as they go.
They frequently commencement alongside distinct views before talking them through, finding average ground, and sometimes equal landing on all other's first sides, she said.
"We arrive in alongside distinctive perspectives and, most importantly, a regard for one another. We have conversation that is respectful, that is critical, that is conducive, that is productive," she said.
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Amanda is a elder manner newsman at Business Insider's Singapore bureau.Her reporting explores how group navigate important existence transitions, including occupation changes, relocation, and retirement, alongside a particular concentration on the experiences of those living in Asia. She additionally writes concerning travel, culture, wellness, and relationships.In 2025, she won the Singapore Press Club's Rising Stars Young Digital Journalist Award.She earlier worked as a author and video manufacturer at a satisfied promotion agency in Singapore. She graduated from the University at Buffalo alongside a BA (Hons) in Sociology.
