Cultural Differences in Parenting

As the mixed race child of an Asian woman who married a caucasian American man and immigrated to the United States, who then herself married a German and moved to Germany (still with me?), I’ve been aware of cultural differences in parenting styles most of my life. I never really stopped to examine what role cultures play in parenting until reading the book Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent.  I could not put this book down.  I’d say this is hands down the best parenting book I’ve read so far (and there’s been quite a few), and if you were to only read one parenting book, I would recommend it be this one.

In this book, the author first discusses the biological needs of babies, namely, how babies evolved.  Why do babies cry?  What biological reasons lie behind crying?  Crying babies got the attention and nutrition they needed to survive.

The baby’s crying is not pathological—all infants around the world do this at two months.  Waking up several times a night is not strange—this is what babies are designed to do.  Constantly demanding interaction and attention is not the sign of a hyperactive infant—this is what babies need as social animals.

The author cites a researcher who recorded the amount of crying babies did in a famine struck country.  When the researcher returned several months later to do follow up, the babies who cried more were more likely to still be alive, while many of the quieter babies had died.  So the next time you’re sleepless, pacing the hall with an inconsolable infant, maybe it will help to keep in mind that this was a survival mechanism that we in the industrialized world have outgrown the need for, but our biology has not quite caught up to this fact.

The author goes on to present parenting styles of different types of societies.  Hunter-gatherer, nomad, horticulturalist and urban parenting styles are described, along with the styles of different ethnicities.  The author discusses how middle class American parents often cite fostering independence as their number one goal, while most other culture make no mention of independence as a goal at all.

Americans try to instill self-esteem in their children; self-esteem is a word not easily translated into other languages because the trait is not part of the cultural milieu of other groups—it is of import only in a competive self-achieving society.  The Dutch, in contrast, believe that regularity, rest, and cleanliness promote intelligent development, so much so that when children throw tantrums, as they do all over the world, parents assume there has been a break in the child’s routine that has caused the episode.

An especially interesting section of this book was about how people bring the parenting style of their cultures or ethnicities with them when they move to other areas of their country or the world.  I realized through this section that I was in many ways raised in an Asian style of child-rearing, and not so much in the middle class American style.  I can’t count how many times I said to my mother, “But this isn’t Thailand, this is American.  We don’t do things like that here.” (I know I’m going to be paid back for every time I said that though, now that I’m raising a child in Germany.

I also know now that I am raising my son in a hybrid Asian-American style.  Perhaps some of the reason attachment parenting seemed so natural to me (I was doing it before I knew it had a name), is that many AP techniques are practiced by Asians.  Reading this section also reminded me of how we should be open to the parenting choices other parents make.  No one style is right and no one style is wrong.

In one very telling study of Lebanese mothers transplanted to Australia, for example, the clash of cultures was clearly illustrated by how the women approached parenting.  The Australian mothers expected their preschoolers to be highly verbal and to be prepared for the rigors of school.  The Australian mothers also felt that certain developmental tasks have only a small window of opportunity during which a child can acquire those skills, and that if kids are not poked and prodded they will fall behind and be losers.  The Lebanese mothers, in contrast, felt no urge to teach their children any particular skills before they went to school and felt kids would learn skills as they needed them; there was no sense of “it’s too late.”  In addition, the Lebanese mothers were much more concerned about their children’s welfare at school.  As a result, Australian teachers labeled the Lebanese kids as unprepared for school and overprotected, but the Lebanese mothers felt they were doing what was expected of any mother…

Imagine the Cambodian woman new to America who is told by her physician to make sure the baby sleeps in his own bed.  Or imagine the Guatemalan woman who is confused by all the toys her new culture says she must buy for her baby’s happiness.  Or what about the British woman who looks in disdain at the Nigerian woman breast-feeding in public.  Now, more that ever, we need to understand how culture molds what we do and what others do.  By comparing ourselves with others, and comparing each group with yet another, we also obliterate any notions of “normal.”

A somewhat sensitive subject is discussed, the subject of not breastfeeding due to low milk supply:

Lack of milk is, in fact, an urban phenomenon—women in rural areas rarely if ever report that they have stopped breast-feeding because of lack of milk.  Some women may be rationalizing their desire to switch to formula.  It might also be that stress and anxiety in the urban environment contribute to the failure of the natural system.  For example, urban women often lack the multigenerational female support system to help teach them about breast-feeding.  Also, by definition, the urban environment means an emphasis on work that is physically and emotionally separated from home life; breast-feeding, or any kind of child care, is sequestered from the rest of urban daily life, unlike the environments of hunters and gatherers, nomadic herders, and horticulturalists.  In fact, the urban and Western styles of caretaking make breastfeeding particularly challenging; it is therefore not surprising that mothers in these environments give up.

No style is presented as perfect.  While the hunter-gatherer model is the model we had for much of human existence, and thus what children are perhaps most biologically set up for, it is not as a whole ideal for the life we live now.

There is no “perfect” way to care for babies, only trade-offs in which parents weigh the needs of the infant against the constraints of daily life.  Babies are clearly adaptable, at least within the parameters of their most basic organic needs.

What works for one set of parents may not work for another, and what is considered normal is only a cultural definition.  Kids the world over grow into healthy adults.  Sure, we need to take into account what the culture we live in considers “normal,” but we can also learn about the parenting styles of other cultures and peoples and consider if perhaps there aren’t things we can do differently.

Have you noticed differences in parenting between cultures and ethnicities?  What have you experienced?

You may also be interested in reading:

• My thoughts on being a stay at home mom (8)
• Breastfeeding After Reduction: One Year In (14)
• Breastfeeding After Reduction Surgery – 19 months and counting (5)
• Book Review: The Parking Lot Rules (6)
• Book Review: Punished by Rewards (4)

Tagged as: attachment parenting, Books, Breastfeeding, crying, cultural differences, Parenting