Very much so. In many ways the fictional Mr. Spock was more realistic than the Dr. Spock.
Posted on 09/06/2019 10:09:38 AM PDT by Freelance Warrior
A blog entry intended for the Russian readers by a Russian mum who moved to the USA's Harvard from Russia with her husband and two children. The people who're interested in cultural differences might like this text.
Translated from Russian.
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When we came to the USA I immediately took notice that the US children were very different from ours and that wasn’t just about that there were some black children. It was about their behavior, speaking and almost everything. My children, in turn, became objects of curiosity for my new American female friends and the school teachers. They took every chance to ask me questions about our country’s habits and principles, and the parenting issue wasn’t left out either. What was so uncustomary about our children for Americans?
Obedience
Comparing to American children mine were exemplary obedient (though they actually weren’t so good at that). After they had lived here a half of year and got assimilated they still remained obedient. My oldest daughter avoided dirtying her clothes, asked permissions, such as to go to another playground with other children, and she immediately came over when she was called. “What do you do to them?” the American women said in surprise. “Russian parenting secrets?” asked the mums who couldn’t get themselves heard. My daughter’s American friends sometimes didn’t pay attention at all on what they were told by their parents, torn and stained their clothes as they liked and coming back to ask for permission was out of question. Their motto seemed to be “I want it and that’s all what matters”.
Punishments
On hearing that Russian children may be smacked made American mums’ eyes pop out. I don’t know what dreadful images they were imagining (battered half to death children?) since any sort of corporal punishment to kids is illegal in the US. Preschool and school teachers watch any bruises or grazes and immediately report them to the social services.
Well, I’m an opponent to the corporal punishment too. We mostly talked with our eldest daughter and the naughty corner was left for outstanding cases as the most severe punishment. To say the truth, she got smacked on the buttocks for a couple of times (being 3 or 4 years old) in the heat of the especially severe tantrums just for her to regain the self-control. Those two cases were enough to learn at an early age the borders of what is allowed, and that she could expect something more than talking from the parents. The older she grew, the easier coming to terms with her became. The youngest has been following her example in everything and therefore she’s no problem at all. On the contrary, the American children are. No borders, no leverage, smacking is a dreadful crime, the “labour therapy” is prohibited, and naughty corners are out of use. All the tools left in the parental inventory here are passionate speeches calling to the reason and the master stroke: “you did badly, go away to your room”. Can you imagine such a punishment? To send children to their rooms with toys hoping that the reason will flash through their mind by itself. The consequences of that “go away to your room” I watch every day in supermarkets, restaurants and playgrounds, when children throw tantrums in toy shops, pelt each other with French fries in McDonalds or ignore their parents when tell them that it’s time to drive home. I feel really sorry for American mums!
Helping with household chores
An American friend of mine once had a look at our family life when she was visiting in our house. I called my eldest and said that the pile of dishes left from the lunch and cooking for the next week was waiting for her. A rule of this house is that chores are distributed: I cook, my eldest daughter washes up. Masha wasn’t particularly happy, of course, but having snatched a cooling off curd croquette from the plate went away to put on the apron. At a glance at the face of my friend I got something was wrong. “That’s an abuse” she whispered and looked back. Yelena was one of us but she had come to the US when she was 7 years old and at her 37 she was quite an American and had two kids too. She explained to me that American children weren’t made to do anything about the house. The maximum that they could be assigned was keeping their rooms clean. As for other household chores, they did them only if they wanted. On that occasion I should have asked the daughter: “Mary, dear, wouldn’t you want to help Mum and do that heap of dishes?” Ha, I can guess her answer, so I would have done that dishes myself, but something else was more important. Had another good member of the American society been in the Yelena’s place, that person would have telephoned the social service at the first step away from the front door, and the outcome of all this would have been a matter of doubt. Yelena didn’t call anyone, of course, instead she gave me a lecture (lecturing people is very American) that my parenting style was child abuse and something to not afford here.
By the way, in several months from that situation Masha, having returned home from school, came up to me with a remarkable talk: “mum, they at school told us about the children’s rights and said, among other things, that I wasn’t to do anything I don’t want (that was the 5th form). It implies that I needn’t do the dishes (I thought: “those buggers have finally brainwashed the child”), because that’s abuse”. I don’t remember exactly how I wriggled out and persuaded her to go on helping me in the kitchen, but still you can’t just set your children to help with the chores, but if they take them up themselves.
Pocket money
My American friend was stunned to learn that my eldest daughter (we moved to the US when she was ten) didn’t get any pocket money. When I confessed that I hadn’t got any when I was a child myself, she enigmatically uttered that it explained everything. American youngsters start to receive their pocket money on a regular basis when they have turned five or six. They can spend them on sweets, cheap toys or stationary. But since that moment their childish wishes and desires aren’t to be catered for by the parents, the children are expected to use their pocket money instead. So they learn to save if they want more valuable things rather than to splash out impetuously. There’s no a universally accepted sum, it may be $5 a week or $15 a month, as the parents see fit. The American psychologists claim that it’s not the sum what matters, but sticking to the rules such as to not pay in advance, to keep the sum the same for a set period of time and being never late. The childhood pocket money is an important exercise to build a child’s money management skills for his or her adult life. You basically simulate paying wages and the child task is running the personal finances, to spend, to save, to gift and to be aware that that the next payment will come about exactly when scheduled.
I know about myself that I struggle to plan my finances and I’m very spontaneous in spending. I presume the reason of it that in my childhood I had neither pocket money nor the practice of buying sweets.
Even though we were anticipating a visit from Dorian yesterday afternoon, my daughter sent me a picture of my 6 year old grandson Jack "driving" a rather large toy car. They purchased it online for $160.00. To my knowledge, he does not get a weekly allowance, but he does save every penny he receives as birthday or Christmas gifts. He paid for the car all by himself!
When I told my husband, he said that Jack takes after G-Dad (my husband) rather than his own father. My daughter is always asking me for money because he rarely gives her any. She is a stay at home Mom of two boys and would rather raise her own children than pay an outrageous sum for daycare. She has an AA degree in Early Childhood Education so she is qualified to do so!
A common Russian would be surpised to learn that your daughter hasn't been taken away from you and put in a foster home by the social services for child abuse. Judging from his/her idea of how the things are done in the USA, of course.
“torn and stained their clothes as they liked”
Kids should not be wearing expensive clothes during “play time”
I used to get irritated when older folks would look down on kids who ran around and made noise.
Let kids be kids. They will grow up soon enough.
To this uppity Russian woman, keep your “kids should be seen and not heard” attitude and take it back to Russia.
Yes to all of those disasters.
“American children weren’t commanded to salute Stalin ever”
“...or those Russian car crash videos.”
You’ve watched them, too!
Those manners are very old, not less than 100 years old, I’d say.
Russian mums do try to keep their laundry as small as possible.
but something else was more important. Had another good member of the American society been in the Yelena’s place, that person would have telephoned the social service at the first step away from the front door, and the outcome of all this would have been a matter of doubt. Yelena didn’t call anyone, of course, instead she gave me a lecture (lecturing people is very American) that my parenting style was child abuse and something to not afford here.
____________________
This makes me bitter.
During a very tough time in our family’s life, my 16 year old daughter had to shoulder some of the everyday tasks, make supper, and drive (I gave her a vehicle of her own with a gas card) her 2 teen sibs to their appointments and generally keep an eye on them while i worked the 50 to 60 hours per week to catch up financially (no I had not other options at that time).
I had promised my daughter that if she got us through the next year and a half, until her brother started driving, I would pay for her 4 year tuition at the local college.
My daughter’s friend’s mother, and my daughter’s father both worked on her that she was doing too much and that she was being “used.” and that this was child abuse. My daughter walked out about 6 months later to live with her friend’s mother. And her father, thus ending his child support to me (at the peak it was 720 per month for 4 children).
Our relationshp has never been the same, she carries resentment that I used her, when I tried to explain that this is what happens sometimes in families and that it could have been so much better for her if she had let me follow through once I had caught up.
I had been brought up that families work together to shore things up if they go south.
We have no relationship now. Sad.
This a very sad story, and I feel sorry for you. Your daughter and husband would be booed in Russia. Though divorces do complicate things.
Very much so. In many ways the fictional Mr. Spock was more realistic than the Dr. Spock.
Russian parenting? That is the traditional parenting by which I and my siblings were raised.
I came to the USA at 16 yrs old from the UK.
Boy did I find high school here to be a trip, a complete disconnect from anything I was used to. The expectations of the kids was notable, along with a complete lack of knowing about anything outside of the USA.
I’d never heard so many people talking about “losers”. The expectation of the kids, the pressure among themselves, to have solid plans after high school. I remember one kid getting a Corvette as a graduation present, I couldn’t wrap my head around that - as though graduating was some amazing accomplishment, as well as it being a Corvette of all cars.
Going from a place where I could buy myself a beer at a pub to it being an evil crime until you’re 21. Going from being treated much as an adult to being treated like a child. Same in the school, seniors with no privileges or responsibilities than a freshman? Odd.
It’s very different here. I don’t want to sound like it was bad, the differences manifest into both positive and negative. I wouldn’t trade my American citizenship for anything, I feel it is more precious to me than to many native born, they take it for granted.
As I grew older I appreciated what this country was actually about. It provided me endless opportunity. Then you realize what the Constitution really is about and that it isn’t common. That individual rights trump the desires of the collective - that what was is in the best interests of the collective ARE individual, inalienable, rights.
This is where the USA is different than any other country on the planet. Everywhere else has a collectivist mindset, that the government should decide how far our rights should reach because they have the best interests of the collective in mind. Now I look back at the UK in horror. They only have a tradition of free speech but not as an uncompromising right in a Constitution understood by everyone. Having the right to own a firearm. Talk about guns to people in the UK, they immediately think you’re nuts. Why on earth do you want to have a gun? Conceptually, they don’t understand the reasons....all while their culture is being invaded and replaced, with the ruling class complicit.
Being a citizen of the USA in 2019 is one of the most precious things that has ever existed - anywhere at any time. Yet, we have a section of the population that claim they’re “oppressed” and are fighting “fascism” - they have no idea of what the hell they’re talking about. Just a bunch of virtue signalling narcissists that are completely naive to the rest of the world.
Excellent article, thank you!
When my 6 year old informed me that her school said it’s child abuse to discipline, I “wiggled out of it” by telling her, “feel free to report me to your teachers. But who will wash, cook and clean for you when I’m in jail?” That was the end of the state sponsored revolt of children against their parents.
I know they do... it was the friend’s mother that got to me. A woman who is in ministry in a church, however she wanted a full time playmate and more level head in the house for HER daughter. And that is what mine became. Here daughter’s babysitter and entertainment.
“...feel free to report me to your teachers, but who will wash, cook and clean for you when I’m in jail and you have been placed in foster care with a family of strangers?”
The woman from Russia does a good job of pointing out the things that have turned many American kids into whining, useless and entitled snowflakes who can’t even hold a job...
Dr. Spock’s book of “advice” was first in bookstores when I was a child-living on a ranch in a remote area, my mom just read excerpts from it in a few women’s magazines-and she and my aunt who lived on the property up the road made fun of the insanity of the advice.
Later, when I was pregnant with my own cub, one of my well-meaning aunts living in the city gave me a copy of the infamous Dr. Spock baby and childcare book when she visited us in BFE-when my mom saw it on a table in my cabin, she said it was all just ridiculous s*** took it outside and threw it in the burn barrel. Needless to say, I raised my cub the old fashioned way-with the use of the word “no”, and even the occasional smack when needed...
"I'm wondering, if their children are taught to report their parents then they must be aware about the consequences of doing so, and know that they'll be taken away from the mother and given to strangers... Aren't they afraid of this? Or do they all have the attachment disorder?"
I don’t understand why people are poo-pooing this Russo-American mom. I was raised much like she’s raising her kids, and I don’t believe that she is using the average child’s behavior as a starting point for comparison to her own kids. My friend is a 5th grade teacher, not one of the psychotic liberal ones, and she laments at the behavior of the kids which come through her class. They’re entitled, uncaring about anything outside of what affects them personally, and rude. Not all of them, of course, but many. I believe that this mom is referring to those kids, and not those who are well-behaved and engaging in healthy child’s play with other kids.
I was a stubborn kid, and am still a horrendously stubborn adult, though that is currently to my benefit. Needless to say, I got spanked and sent to the corner frequently until I was about eight. From that point on, it was groundings, and the length of time they lasted depended greatly on what I did wrong. No PC (monitored for school work), no phone calls, no video games, no TV. If I’d had friends, I wouldn’t have been seeing them either. I didn’t really have any until high school, but by then my behavior largely turned around.
When it came to pocket money, I got paid for extra chores I did around the house until I started working at fifteen, and birthday money usually went straight into my savings account. I also got a hand-me-down vehicle from my dad, but when my brother started driving, the vehicle got handed down to him. I got a new vehicle valued at no more than $3000 that my father initially paid for, but we scheduled a payment plan for me to pay him back, and I did just that. I was never the type to splurge, and I save whatever I can. Sadly, that’s not much right now. I credit my desire to save to the fact that I received an allowance for the extra work around the house and that I had to save for something I wanted or wait until my birthday or Christmas. Either way, I had to wait, because the things I wanted were generally costly.
If we were at a special event like Christmas Eve at a family member’s house, dressed up for the occasion, we were told not to rough house and make a mess of ourselves. If we ruined nice clothing, we were SOL because my parents couldn’t replace it easily. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my older cousins, but my brother didn’t have male relatives who might provide hand-me-downs, so he had to keep his dress clothes from being irreparably damaged. When it came to the day-to-day clothes, we were encouraged to be careful with them, but we weren’t punished for dirty knees and bottoms. Unless the clothes were brand new. Then we got a talking-to, because we really had to stretch the clothes’ lifespans.
It sounds to me like her kids are likely to become responsible teens, and thus responsible adults.
Russians poured into my area in the 80s.....nervy,pushy,entitled people.
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