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.
I’m sorry that happened in your family-it is far too common...
I walked out on my cub’s biological father as soon as I knew I was pregnant-moved back to the ranch and my family-it was obvious that I’d been naive-he was a spoiled., well off college student who wanted nothing to do with having a child and couldn’t quite grasp why I was totally against abortion.
Getting the monthly child support from him was no longer an issue after I married my 1st hubby-he adopted the cub as his own, and he was a wonderful dad. We had fertility issues and were not able to have other children, so she was very precious to us...
I believed it was still proper for her to spend time with the man responsible for her conception after she was about 10-11 years old-but the few times in my daughter’s life that she spent time with her father, he spent the time telling her how mean her daddy and I were to make her do chores, follow rules, etc.
There is still a small rift and resentment on her part there between she and I that comes from those visits, even though she is has long been an adult-in retrospect, I should have been a bitch and forbade the contact altogether instead of doing what I believed was the Christian thing...
As I see it, Russians since 1991 are trying to undo the ravages of seventy years of communism. They have re-embraced Christianity and churches appear across the countryside like mushrooms after a rain. The great cathedrals destroyed by the Bolsheviks and the non-Russian Stalin have all been rebuilt. Church weddings and baptisms are the norm (I have not been to Russia; closest I got was Central Asia where they still spoke Russian).
And there is still that anomie, a sense of not being connected to a greater purpose; alcoholism & abortions still afflict millions with shorter life spans.
The large military parades in Red Square seem to be back; did I see both Russian and Soviet flags in the ranks? It gives people something to identify with and the Lenin mausoleum is till occupied.
I wish Russians well and I wish America and Russia could be friends but the drive for spheres of influence are still there.
I live in a subdivision that is home to many first and second generation emigre’ s from Belarus. My anecdotal observation is that they are fully committed to family and acquiring wealth. They live the American economic dream but will not allow natives to invade their space. They all speak impeccable english but do so only for business transactions. As to their children, which are many, they homeschool and are rarely seen in the neighborhood, but I suspect their behavior is exemplary.
Kids don’t need to be wearing nice clothes to play-you are right-that is what old cutoffs and T-shirts are for-but outside is the place for kids to run around and shriek-not indoors around the adults-if it was raining, we had a patio and a barn-granted not everyone lives in the country, but there are outdoor playgrounds everywhere...
To be fair, if you’re from Massachusetts, they have a lot of like minded people all around them now......
Apologies for the joke.
These people weren’t like that at all.
In every life a little jerk must fall.
I once thought it was good for children to have adult connections outside of the family, but after my daughter’s friend’s mother, I no long think that. People have their own agendas, and adults want to meet their emotional needs as well as family needs on your kids.
So much for “mentors” in this day and age.
Can’t be avoided, I guess-my mom apologized to me 20 years ago for encouaging me to “do the right thing” and let the cub spend time with her father-even though she agreed with me that he was pretty much just her sperm donor, and doing the right thing is not exactly the 1st inclination of Latina women when it comes to a man who a jerk-but no good deed goes unpunished-I stick to venganza instead now...
“” “” I wish Russians well and I wish America and Russia could be friends but the drive for spheres of influence are still there.”” “”
Quite interestingly US and Russia theoretically might be the World’s dominant powers independently or at least feel so about themselves based of two independent theories.
First by Alfred Mahan stating that the World belongs to the power which controls the Oceans and sea lanes. I know that the theory was studied and taken seriously by both British and then was critical in US decision to have a serious blue water Navy at the time.
Another theory is by Halford Macinder stating that there is a main ‘global island’ or ‘heartland’ meaning Eurasia minus southern edges and that control of it comes from the East Europe and means global domination. Ironically, Macinder theory didn’t seem to make much sense at the time it was first formulated but things changed with the Cold War. Macinder died in 1947.
Both theories does not necessarily mean the conflict between such powers. They just set independent conditions for the power to be dominant on its own different terms.
There is a third theory by I don’t remember who and the guy introduces the definition of ‘rimland’ or the Western, Southern and Eastern coasts of Eurasia as vital to global domination meaning probably the idea of containment of ‘heartland’ power by the sea power.
All of the above makes sense if you analize US Cold War policies. It also shows that the Cold War was more like the sort of offensive by the sea power against the ‘heartland’ power and the latter was on defence and not the opposite.
I am likewise struck at the childlike understanding that English/Euro types have of the USA. They think they know us because they've watched our media. In reality their ignorance is profound. But unlike us, they claim knowledge that they don't have.
I would add "and amusingly" in the case of Russia.
Halford Mackinder and Alfred Thayer Mahan... I figured I was the only one who read that kind of stuff.
Imperial Japan of course took Mahan seriously.
Mahan believed that dominance of the seas would be determined in decisive slugging matches between battleship fleets like Tsushima and Jutland.
Aircraft carriers changed all that. Marc Mitscher’s innovative Fast Carrier Task Force became the main strike arm of the Navy.
Part of Mackinder’s theory includes the concept of the Rimland and the Heartland so that may actually be the “third theory” that you are thinking of.
Thanks for correction, it is not eastly to keep everything in mind. But Nick Spykman is actually a third guy with rimlands. I don’t think that aircraft carriers changed any of the above theories in principle but more like improved the tooling of the sea powers.
Although the theories of course somehow dated in terms of taking into account modern technology. That’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems in the first place.
“” “” I would add “and amusingly” in the case of Russia.”” “”
Why not? It partly explains Nixon’s policy towards China and Carter’s policy in Middle East and East Europe.
Both policies produced other challenges though.
Russia has its peculiarities but not awfully culturally different comparing to Europe and US. You can’t say the same about China and Middle East.
“” “” Imperial Japan of course took Mahan seriously.”” “”
True, but for the manpower and resources of Japan it was obvious it couldn’t control the World Oceans.
One might think Hitler was reading Mackinder and failed at it for the very same reason Japan failed in Mahanism.
The Heartland Power did and still controls eleven time zones of land mass and under Soviet rule aggressively made war against the rest of the noncommunist world.
Defensive war planning against the Russian heartland land power carries no moral burden.
If Putin wants war, he’ll get war. Just because I like Stravinsky, pirogies, Pushkin, and vodka doesn’t mean I don’t regard Russia as an existential threat.
That is one take on it but it is not objective and a natural result of your belonging to an opposing group.
Once again US is capable to peacefully coexist with the Western Europe which was once a den of ‘Hostile powers’.
Western Europe is indeed culturally different from US but close enough. I have no idea why the same principle might not be applied to post-Soviet Russia which is pretty close to US and Europe, more so than Middle East of East Asia.
And to be honest Europe and Russia recognize it and do trade, not war.
“That’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems in the first place.”
Yep. ICBMs and space weapons have changed the game.
But again not dramatically. Just like the air power these are tools to change the situation on the ground. It doesn’t automatically provides control of the land but makes it easier.
This is true - they’ve “watched our movies”...I’ve actually heard that as a reason why “everyone knows the USA”. Smug Canadian’s annoy me the most.
That said, it also annoys me when American’s say to the British, “you owe us, we walked in and won your war for you” (WWII). That’s just as ignorant. Britain was fighting alone for years and far more Brits were killed, if they’d lost the Battle of Britain then the outcome of the war might look very different. We fought that war “hand in hand”.
America is a big place, lots going on...it doesn’t surprise me that many don’t know about much outside of it. That said, those that either go to Europe and fall in love with its architecture and history, along with its liberalism (after a week of vacation), or those that never go there at all and have no knowledge of anywhere...can be equally annoying.
I’ve also met young European’s that have quoted me George Washington (I just about fell over) - so there’s hope yet.
My guess is you’d be lucky to find one in ten Americans who have an opinion about the battle of Britain but 90% of Europeans will have an annoying attitude about America.
You may be surprised how many who called themselves "Christian," and even many conservatives on this site (just a few of which I have contended with), who oppose any corporeal punishment of children - despite it, as wisely judiciously applied, and as based upon principal, not peevish passion, is clearly Scriptural, though more necessary for some (if all all) than others.
And indeed, in the natural world, it is the reality of physical force that is ultimately behind even the demand "go to your room." For what if the child refuses to mind, and parents never use physical force? If one will not be correctly controlled from within, then they must be controlled from without. Resulting in the state getting involved. And whose power to coerce obedience ultimately rests upon the use of the sword of men, with the just use of it being sanctioned by the word of God. (Rm. 13:1-7)
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