Before I was pregnant, I read and LOVED the book "Bringing Up Bebe". It provided such keen observations about American and French cultural values, both in parenting and beyond.
I recently found an American blogger who hosted a series called Motherhood Around the World. It consisted of American mothers living in other countries sharing their observations about what is different in parenting in their current cultures opposed to the states. Since graduating from college, I've begun to process what my place is in our family and in this world, and I've done a lot of thinking on cultural norms of wives and mothers as it pertains to career and education. I found it especially interesting to see how other cultures value the woman's role in and/or out of the home. It did seem though that from conservative to liberal cultures (as far as women's roles go), live in nannies are common in much of the world. As I think about being home alone with our bebe while Michael works 11 hour days, I think I could really get used to the idea of another woman to be around to share the load, and even to have the company. I love this section from the post on parenting in China (the link to the full article is listed below).
"Here, a nanny is called an “ayi,” which means “auntie” in Chinese, which I think is really sweet, because everyone feels like they're part of the family. She tells my girls that she loves them. I was coming from somewhere where I didn't have any help at all, so I thought, oh my gosh, I have some free time! It is a very normal thing here, and I can see why. My eyes have been opened, so to say! Moms just aren't meant to go at it alone. For some reason in the U.S., we have this huge expectation to be perfect and to accomplish that perfection all by ourselves. All those silly e-cards about stressed out moms who are drinking wine appear extra silly to me since moving to China, those moms just don't exist here. There's much more of a sense of a team effort around raising children."
A few of the other articles talked about strangers stepping in to help calm a child when he or she is throwing a tantrum in public. I would probably find this invasive at first, but how great would it be to have this "team" mentality in a stressful situation, instead of receiving judgmental looks from others passing by?
Below are my favorite posts from the series:
Much love,
-K&M
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