Eileen Gu credits her mom with giving her the freedom to find her own path.
Speaking at the Karim Family Foundation’s Inspiring Women Leadership Series in Singapore on Monday, Gu spoke about her upbringing and how her mom set her up for success 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 also attended math and science camps and went for singing lessons.
“There were lots of things, right?” Gu said. “And so, the point being that when I was younger, she really gave me the full spread so that when I was older — when I knew myself better and when I was responsible to make those decisions — I could make an informed one having tried all the options.”
The Olympic freestyle skier said that being entrusted with that agency and responsibility at a relatively young age was critical to her becoming independent.
Gu said people often wrongly assume her mother was a “tiger mom,” a label she described as a controlling, helicopter-style parent who forces their child down a particular path.
“She was in many ways the opposite of that, where she just vigorously provided me with freedom and agency, and enforced my freedom really intensely,” Gu said. “That was the effect of her tiger mom.”
Now, Gu said, they still do almost everything together.
“As I got older, I kept calling us cofounders because I really think that’s the best way to encapsulate our partnership,” Gu said. “We travel together every day. We live together. We work together. We develop together. We change together. We evolve.”
Gu said neither she nor her mother has all the answers, and they are both figuring life out as they go.
They often start with different views before talking them through, finding common ground, and sometimes even landing on each other’s original sides, she said.
“We come in with unique perspectives and, most importantly, a respect for one another. We have dialogue that is respectful, that is critical, that is conducive, that is productive,” she said.
