Here’s a confession: I do not feel particularly disturbed when great American institutions come under scrutiny, whether they be Harvard, the NSA, Wall Street, or the CDC. I figure if they are under attack it is probably for good reason, and either way will be made more honest by weathering the storm of outrage directed at them.
That is, until the only institution I feel any great affinity toward, and possibly the only thing I can claim any expertise in, was called into question last week. I’m talking of course of the Great American Sleepover.
Over the holidays, the technologist Sriram Krishnan was named as Trump’s AI advisor. Off of that, a battle over H-1B visas bubbled up, triggering a civil war in MAGA Land—where many say immigrants like Krishnan should not be prioritized over native-born citizens. That led to future DOGE co-chief Vivek Ramaswamy, whose parents were born in India, to take a swipe at American culture:
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote on X. He went on to recommend a different upbringing for America’s kids: “More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers.”
Fewer sleepovers is a position echoed by Amy Chua in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, part memoir, part ode to the intense and demanding parenting style of immigrants. “Attend a sleepover,” she writes, was the first bullet in a list of “things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do.” How else might they become “math whizzes and music prodigies”?
To which I say: Hold the corded kitchen phone. Okay, now put your mom on so she can talk to my mom about whose house we’re sleeping at.