Learning how to parent from people in other countries is all the rage on the best-seller list. From Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Americans are learning how to help our children get all A's and play Bach with fervor. FromBringing Up Bébé, we are learning how to sit and chat with a friend in a café while our bébé plays happily at our side, crunching some arugula for fun. And from How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm, we are learning how Kenyans live without strollers, Lebanese families stay close, Japanese let their children fight, and more. As a parent (of daughters in their 20s), I read this literature with a certain bemused distance. Alas, it's too late for me to use the tips to Improve My Girls.
But as an interculturalist, I'm at once fascinated, excited… and disappointed by these accounts of parenting in other cultures. Their descriptions of what parents say to and do with their very small children are a virtual gold mine of information about how cultural differences are formed … but they leave it to us to connect the dots.
In each case, the message is roughly, "Here's a new and superior way to raise your children; the result is better than what you're doing; try it, you'll like it." But nowhere do they describe the deep values underlying the parenting choices, the ultimate goals for the kind of adult parents are trying to raise, or the cultural milieu into which the children will be expected to grow.
Take Pamela Druckerman's engaging account in Bringing Up Bébé of how she got her preschool son to stay in the sandbox area so she could sit and chat with her friend rather than continuously chase after him. Her friend teaches her to be authoritative with her "Non!" and pretty soon bébé is, indeed, sifting sand safely at her side. The reason the French approach is a surprise to these American authors – and strikes such a chord with the American reading public – is because Americans parents have been so focused on something other than obedience. They've (we've) been busy tending to Junior's independence of thought, ability to express himself, sense of mastery and self-esteem. Note: this is how, for better or worse, the US became the most individualistic culture in the world. Alas, many think we've gone overboard, and are attracted to advice on how to attend to the collective needs of a family, which Druckerman beautifully provides us: believe that your child is not the center of the universe and communicate it clearly.
Or take Mei-Ling Hopgood's description in Eskimos of "how Buenos Aires children go to bed late." Her emphasis is on how her social life changed when she began to allow her 2-year-old to stay up to midnight – something that doesn't hold much appeal to me. But hidden within this description is the blueprint for how polychronic cultures differ from monochronic ones! She writes of her fellow parents in Argentina: "…spending quality time with relatives and friends is more important than getting their kid to bed at the same time in the same place every night." Interculturalists, extrapolate! Having solid, known, deep connections with business partners is more important than sticking to the agenda and starting meetings on the dot.
Plus, she tells us how it's done. Argentine parents don't enforce a bed time; they let their toddlers fall asleep wherever they like (including in their arms, their bed, at restaurants); they let them (!) sleep in till 9 or 10am; they and their friends entertain them to keep them happy. From infancy, Argentine babies are nurtured into a different sense of time and relationships than US American ones. When they grow up and run their businesses to a different drummer, why should we be surprised?
Nobody thinks cultural differences are in born. They're learned, somehow. These books tell us how! I'm having fun mining these books for their insights about how cultural differences are formed. Send me your thoughts!
Contributed by Anne P. Copeland, PhD, founder and Executive Director of The Interchange Institute, a non-profit organization focused on the understanding and support of people and organizations in intercultural transition. For many years, Anne was the Program Director for FIGT. She blogs at The Interchange Institute
