Cultural issues

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Home : 2005 : May : 11

Cultural issues
By Cgreen

My kindergarten teacher threw a fit when she learned that my mom still dressed me in the morning. We had a parent conference. She bullied my mother into insisting I dress myself. Then she attached a STICKER to me, reading
"I Dressed Myself Today!" Imagine explaining that to the other kids. Erk.
This was totally a cultural issue. In general, white Protestant Americans (which this woman was), and some other large American ethnic groups, stress early self-reliance. A kid who can and does take care of him/herself from an early age is a smart, good kid to these cultures, and the parent gets points for raising

such.

This is fine. Unfortunately, because this is the U.S. dominant culture, people sometimes get very stressed and panicky when people don't comply with the pattern. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood surrounded by new immigrants from Russia. There, a mom who lets a small child do things on his own is a neglectful mom.

This is not to say that there aren't a fair number of neurotic, problematic parents out there, who do things for their kids until the kids are sick of it, and pass on all their fears and craziness to their children. Just that not every parent who's treating a child as 'younger' than you might expect is behaving inappropriately by their community or family standards.

Sometimes you've got to use a judgement call. Is the parent's behavior upsetting the kid? Disrupting the class? Causing you personal grief? If so, see if it can be changed. Otherwise, let it go.