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American Parenthood

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Clarissa

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I really like observing scenes from American family life because they are so different from what I’m used to.

A colleague is greeting guests who have arrived at her house for a visit. As she is doing it, her kid keeps tugging on her sleeve pretty hard.

“Mom! MOOOM!! MOOOOOOOM!!” the kid repeats loudly while the mother is telling the guests she is happy to have them over.

The mother interrupts herself, turns to the kid, and with a truly angelic patience asks, “Yes, sweetie. What can I do for you?”

“Open this bottle of Pepsi,” the kid says.
The mother opens it and continues the conversation.

Can anybody guess how old the kid in question is?

Fourteen. Years old, that is. Not fourteen months. Years.

When I imagine acting like that in front of my mother at any age, my blood runs cold.

So I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I truly admire the mother’s patience and love for the kid. On the other hand, I’m perplexed because, culturally, I’m completely unprepared for this kind of thing. I know that if I were the parent in this situation, I would not be kind or understanding. I’d be livid.

Opinions?

32 responses to “American Parenthood”

  1. Isabel Avatar
    Isabel

    How would you feel, if while in your home country, an immigrant generalized every weird experience she had to Ukrainians in general and complained about them as such on her blog? I can assure you that every American reading this blog post would react as you did if they witnessed such an incident. No this is not an example of “American parenting”.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I didn’t want to believe this is a wide-spread attitude at first either. But I keep seeing such things all the time. There are other posts around here with similar stories.

      If people tell me that this is not a normal thing around here, I’ll only be happy to hear it.

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      1. Isabel Avatar
        Isabel

        Well you didn’t answer the first part of my comment. I’ve notice you bristle when others make observations about your country.

        I have spent endless hours with foreign visitors (many from Eastern Europe and Russia) and relatives as they went on and on shaking their heads about “America this” and “America that”. What the hell am I supposed to say in response? “Yes we are all idiots here. And yes, we are so easy to stereotype and compartmentalize, the whole 300 million of us. Thank you so much for your enlightened observations.” It gets old after a while believe me. And if I were to dare to do the same in another country I would be written off as an ugly American of course, even if my criticisms were justified. And I would agree with that assessment, it is rude whoever is doing it.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “Well you didn’t answer the first part of my comment. I’ve notice you bristle when others make observations about your country.”

          -I’m yet to encounter a reader who has lived in my country. Do you know of any? I’d love to hear their impressions. Patriotism of any kind is completely alien to me, and I don’t believe that anybody could say nastier things about my culture that I have shared on this blog. Of course, the observations of people who have never even been there are not very useful to me.

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          1. Isabel Avatar
            Isabel

            Well you were offended at the idea of characterizing eastern european women as “poor” yet you yourself called Ukraine a third world country! As if assuming women become prostitutes or porn actresses out of need was horribly offensive and stereotypical…not quite the same thing I realize.

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            1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
              bloggerclarissa

              I think I explained about the differences between the financial independence of women in my country and the US clearly enough. I can only repeat that the amount of debt a regular North American woman carries by the age of 30 is unheard of for most women in my country. I can also repeat that as a 20-year-old student in Ukraine I was better off financially than a 35-year-old professor in the US.

              In the past, I also explained that my definition of a 3rd world country doesn’t include starving to death. Nobody starves in my country. Of course, anybody who’s been there would notice that.

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              1. Isabel Avatar
                Isabel

                Do you have a link to your definition of third world country?

                It’s strange that in a place where women are more financially secure and independent they more often choose to go into porn and prostitution.

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              2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
                bloggerclarissa

                No, this isn’t strange if you take into account our history. In the early nineties, 90% of graduates of the most prestigious high schools in Moscow declared prostitution as their dream profession. For decades, during the Soviet Union era, we were made accustomed to the idea that working – actually working – for money was shameful. When I was a university student in Ukraine, there were 3 students in my cohort who worked (all female) and made very good money: me (working as a translator), a student who worked modeling underwear, and a student who was a highly paid professional mistress. Would you care to guess which of us was shunned and marginalized for the way she made her money and which ones were admired, envied and celebrated?

                I linked on this blog to my favorite Russian-language blogger. She is a very famous high-paid journalist and blogger in Russia. But her entire blog is about her efforts to become a paid mistress of a rich guy because the way she makes money by honest work is not prestigious enough. I have many many more such stories to tell.

                I know this sounds very weird and hard to understand but that’s how our culture is at this point, this is where our history has led us, unfortunately.

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              3. bloggerclarissa Avatar
                bloggerclarissa

                And here is on Ukraine as a 3rd world country: https://clarissasblog.com/2011/03/04/is-ukraine-a-third-world-country/

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              4. Isabel Avatar
                Isabel

                Thanks, that was pretty enlightening!

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        2. Rimi Avatar
          Rimi

          This comment, Isabel, is in many ways — good and bad — a very American comment. Why on earth should you hold back if you think something is questionable, amusing or rotten about other countries? Is it because you think as a citizen of the world’s only super-power, as someone perhaps economically better off than most foreigners you meet (this is actually not true, but a widespread belief anyway), you have to be humble and modest and take the rubbish they deal you?

          This attitude is completely alien to me (and most Bengalis), who like nothing better than to rip their country and government apart in long political and cultural debates. They would consider this tight-lipped victimisation your foist on yourself very strange indeed.

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      2. Isabel Avatar
        Isabel

        And oh, I *did* just tell you that the behavior is not normal. If your other readers think that it is then you have a very peculiar readership.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Good. I feel better already. 🙂

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  2. Patrick Avatar
    Patrick

    I would agree with you Clarissa. Even at three years old, I would take my children to task for interrupting a conversation, especially for something so trivial. (“Dad, I severed my toe” is an acceptable interruption).

    Of course, now that they’re 12 & 7, they have no problem staring me down, and quoting, “Dad, I was talking. Please don’t interrupt.” To which I apologize for my rudeness and wait for them to finish their conversation.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Of course, now that they’re 12 & 7, they have no problem staring me down, and quoting, “Dad, I was talking. Please don’t interrupt.” To which I apologize for my rudeness and wait for them to finish their conversation.”

      -Kudos to you! This sounds to me like a normal, healthy interaction on both sides.

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  3. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    And the kid couldn’t wait politely until his mother was done talking?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      You’d think the kid was dying of thirst in the desert.

      Of course, there was also a father, hanging around and free to help. But he was not chosen for being pestered. 🙂

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      1. Patrick Avatar
        Patrick

        Kids learn quickly which parent to pester. Three guesses what the father would have said if the kid had been harassing him to open a bottle of pop.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Exactly. And good for him, I think.

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    2. Rimi Avatar
      Rimi

      Actually, this was what bothered me about the interchange, not it’s ostensible ‘Americanness’. This is one very ill-mannered and self-centred child (assuming he does not have a disability that might prevent him from understanding social norms), and I’m utterly amazed the mother didn’t reprimand him right away.

      On the other hand, if he behaves this way at 14, his parents have probably never been introduced to the concepts of discipline, which is an enormously underrated tool in raising socialised, considerate children.

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  4. Robert Lincoln Avatar
    Robert Lincoln

    I resist a lot of generalizations, but as a native American (not the same as Native American, however), I agree with your perception. It does seem that American parents to tend to overindulge their children – from my perspective – moreso than Europeans, at least. So many parents seem afraid of ever displeasing or discomforting their children. I’m far from advocating child abuse or neglect, but there’s a rational middle ground. Children should be treated with esteem and love, but at the same time, be taught that everyone else is deserving of the same respect. Maturity teaches us that we’re not the center of the universe, that it’s impossible to have everything you want exactly when you want it, that we all have to take turns, etc. Well, it’s supposed to. Unfortunately, maturity is discouraged by our consumer culture. As a society, we are getting more and more conditioned to always being stimulated, catered to, comfortable, immediately gratified.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      That’s exactly what I’m seeing, too. It’s nice to know I;m not being delusional. 🙂

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    2. Anonymous Avatar
      Anonymous

      I agree with Robert’s comments. The mother sounds like she’s over-indulging the child. A good many parents confuse over-indulgement with love and maybe they do so for many reasons, including guilt. This type of behavior is probably becoming more tolerated and wide-spread than what I’d like to see, but it is far from the norm. It’s certainly not how all parent’s behave. As far as comparing other cultures I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that.

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  5. Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’ve noticed that most people don’t have the patience they did even five years ago. Everything has to be RIGHT NOW, and this appears to be true of both adults and children.

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  6. Darque Avatar
    Darque

    Delayed gratification is a very important skill to learn.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I haven’t been able to learn it just yet, to be honest. 🙂

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  7. J. Avatar
    J.

    I wouldn’t stand for that kind of behavior from my 6 year old, let alone a teenager. And neither would any of my friends with children. (That’s probably why we’re friends.)

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I’m getting very reassured by all these comments.

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  8. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    I’m just shocked that a fourteen year old with properly working hands can’t figure out how to open a bottle of Pepsi on his/her own.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Many girls at this age are very undernourished by choice. 😦

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      1. Patrick Avatar
        Patrick

        Every time I read this post, I pictured a 14yr old boy. Never did I consider that it was a girl. I wonder what that says about me.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          It was, indeed, a young lady. 🙂 But I think it could have been a young gentleman just as easily. 🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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