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"There's a Better Way to Parent: Less Yelling, Less Praise"

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There’s a Better Way to Parent: Less Yelling, Less Praise
When Michaeleen Doucleff met parents from around the world, she encountered millennia-old methods of raising good kids that made American parenting seem bizarre and ineffective.

JOE PINSKERMARCH 2, 2021


original.jpg

Children playing in Kotzebue, Alaska, roughly 75 years agoCLASSICSTOCK / GETTY

At one point in her new book, the NPR journalist Michaeleen Doucleff suggests that parents consider throwing out most of the toys they’ve bought for their kids. It’s an extreme piece of advice, but the way Doucleff frames it, it seems entirely sensible: “Kids spent two hundred thousand years without these items,” she writes.

Her deeply researched book, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans, contains many moments like this, in which an American child-rearing strategy comes away looking at best bizarre and at worst counterproductive. “Our culture often has things backward when it comes to kids,” she writes.

Doucleff arrives at this conclusion while traveling, with her then-3-year-old daughter, to meet and learn from parents in a Maya village on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico; in an Inuit town in a northern Canadian territory; and in a community of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. During her outings, she witnesses well-adjusted, drama-free kids share generously with their siblings and do chores without being asked.

She takes care to portray her subjects not as curiosities “frozen in time,” but instead as modern-day families who have held on to invaluable child-rearing techniques that likely date back tens of thousands of years. I recently spoke with Doucleff about these techniques, and our conversation, below, has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Joe Pinsker: Many American parenting strategies, you estimate, are only about 100 years old, and some of them arose more recently than that. What about American parenting sticks out to you as distinctive and particularly strange?




Michaeleen Doucleff: One of the craziest things we do is praise children constantly. When I was first working on the book, I recorded myself to see how frequently I praised my little girl, Rosy, and I noticed that I would exaggeratedly react to even her smallest accomplishments, like drawing a flower or writing a letter, with a comment like “Good job!” or “Wow! What a beautiful flower!”

This is insane if you look around the world and throughout human history. Everywhere I went, I don’t know if I ever heard a parent praise a child. Yet these kids are incredibly self-sufficient, confident, and respectful—everything we want praise to do, these kids already have it, without the praise.

It’s hard to cut back on praise, because it’s so baked in, but later on, I decided to try. It’s not that there’s no feedback, but it’s much gentler feedback—parents will smile or nod if a child is doing something they want. I started doing that, and Rosy’s behavior really improved. A lot of the attention-seeking behavior went away.

Pinsker: You visited an Inuit town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, and spent time in households where children were almost mysteriously immune to tantrums. How did the parents you met respond when kids misbehaved?

Doucleff: One night while I was there, Rosy and I were staying with a woman named Sally who was watching three of her grandchildren—so, four kids under 6 years old in this house. Sally just approached everything they did with the most calmness and composure I have ever seen. At one point, a little toddler, maybe 18 months at the time, I think he was pulling the dog's tail or something. Sally picked him up and, when she did, he scratched her face so hard that it was bleeding. I would have been irate, but Sally, I saw her kind of clench her teeth, and just say, in the calmest voice, “We don’t do this.” Then she took him and flipped him around with this playful helicopter move, and they both started laughing. Then it was over—there was no conflict around it.

If the child's energy goes high—if they get very upset—the parent’s energy goes so low. Another time on our trip, in the grocery store, Rosy started having a tantrum, and I was getting ready to yell at her to stop. But Elizabeth, our interpreter, came over to her and addressed her in the calmest voice. Immediately, Rosy just stopped—when she was around that calmness, her whole body relaxed. I was like, Okay, I’m just doing this tantrum thing completely wrong.

Read: No spanking, no time-out, no problems

Pinsker: You write about how when Sally and Elizabeth see behavior like that, they think about the causes of it differently than many American parents do. What is the narrative they have for why young kids act out?

Doucleff: Yeah, this is huge—it single-handedly changed my life, and it’s something you hear in other parts of the Arctic. In the U.S., when a child calls you a name or smacks you, many parents think that the child is pushing your buttons, that they’re testing boundaries and want to manipulate you.

The Inuit parents and elders I interviewed almost laughed when I said that. One woman said something like, “She’s a kid—she doesn’t know how to manipulate like that.” Instead, what they told me is that young children are just these illogical, irrational beings who haven’t matured enough and haven’t acquired understanding or reason yet. So there’s no reason to get upset or argue back—if you do, you’re being just like the child.

This has totally shifted the way I interact with Rosy—I have so much less anger. She’s trying her best. Maybe she’s clumsy and illogical and irrational, but in her heart, she loves me, she wants to do well, and she wants to help.

Pinsker: One interesting observation in the book is that many American parents take their whole family to spaces that are expressly designed for kids, like children’s museums and indoor play places—despite the fact that these spaces are generally not very fun for parents. How do you think about these activities?

Doucleff: I think that a lot of the time, we don’t know what to do with kids. On weekends, it was sometimes like, How do we fill this time with Rosy? But the idea that parents are responsible for entertaining a child or “keeping them busy” is not present in the vast majority of cultures around the world, and definitely not throughout human history. What some of the psychologists I interviewed told me is that in these fake, childlike worlds, the child is separated from reality in some ways—they don’t learn how to behave as an adult.

There’s a lot of good scientific evidence that children have an innate instinct to cooperate and work together with their families. And child-centered activities can kind of strip away what I call their family “membership card,” the feeling that they’re a part of the family and working together as a team—not a VIP that the parents are serving. Kids want to help us and be part of our lives, and we can take that away with constant child-centered activities.

Pinsker: So if you aren’t going to the children’s museum as a family, what are you doing instead?

Doucleff: Basically, my husband and I do things that we used to do before Rosy was born, or things that we have to do, and modify them to include her. Sometimes I have to work, and she has to entertain herself. Or we go to the beach, and I sit and read for three hours, and don’t play with her—sometimes there are friends and sometimes there are not. We’ll go hiking or work in the garden or go visit friends together. And then we do chores. We do the laundry together. We clean up together. We go to the grocery store together. We just live—without a kiddie museum.

All over the world, and throughout history, parents have gone about their lives, but they’ve welcomed the kids into it. In many cultures, parents let the kids tag along, and they let the kid do what they want to do, within the boundaries of being respectful and kind. And for kids, that’s entertainment enough.

Read: The way American parents think about chores is bizarre

Pinsker: In the U.S., many parents find themselves essentially on their own when making sure their kids are being looked after. Could you talk about the more communal approach to raising children that you saw with the Hadzabe, the community of hunter-gatherers you visited in Tanzania?

Doucleff: I was with a group of about 15 to 20 adults and their kids—they live in small huts and work together all day. They spend enormous amounts of time with each other, but they're not all related. And when we first got there, it was hard for me to tell which toddlers belonged to which moms and dads, because everyone was helping to take care of them. The children were comfortable with all these different women and men.

If you look around the world, you'll see that in many cultures besides Western culture, and definitely in hunter-gatherer communities, there’s an enormous amount of what’s called “alloparenting.” Allo- is derived from a Greek word meaning “other,” so it just refers to caretakers in a child’s life other than the mom or dad.

These people are deeply involved in the child’s upbringing. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist, has done some amazing research where she shows that young children are basically designed to be raised by a group of people, not just two—meaning sometimes a mom or a dad is on their own doing the work of several people. So of course we feel worn down and exhausted.

Pinsker: American culture generally doesn’t encourage this approach to parenting, since there’s often an emphasis on individual parents. How do you think about transporting the spirit of those models over to an American context?

Doucleff: First of all, we do way more alloparenting than we give credit for, but often, we don't value the alloparents as much as we should: Nannies, day-care providers, teachers—those are all alloparents. Personally, I’ve been trying to value those people more and show my appreciation for them.

But there are opportunities aside from that. For one thing, a lot of alloparenting is done by children who are two, three, four, five years older than the child. I think we underestimate what children can do—there are children I met who were, like, 12 years old, making meals and taking care of younger children. It’s because they’re given opportunities all along to learn those skills.

Another thing is, we’ve built an “auntie-uncle network,” which is an idea I got from the psychological anthropologist Suzanne Gaskins. We have two other families who pick up the kids from school sometimes, and then I pick up the kids sometimes, and we trade off. The three kids get to have a sort of extended family. Rosy loves it, and we don’t have to pay for after-school care.

People tend to think of the nuclear family as traditional or ideal, but looking at the past 200,000 or so years of human history, what’s traditional is this communal model of working together to take care of a child. For me personally, this is reassuring, because I don’t want to be with Rosy, like, every moment. Really, that’s not natural.



JOE PINSKER is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers families and relationships.
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froggyluv2

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Love this.

Honestly, a part that is left out is that the current modern way of parenting ----

the parent exists to serve the child, the child is the centerpiece of the family, service of the child consumes the parent's life

----is largely why so many who were reared in this parenting ideology now do not want children themselves.

They're opting out because they've seen how exhausting and unrewarding that style of parenting is coupled with their own resentments that their parent wasn't enough which in reality is misplaced anger because in their parent trying to rear them in modern child centered ideology, the parents failed miserably at modeling and building intimate connections with the child.

I look back at my own childhood and some of my fondest memories were the times when I tagged along with adults, when I was made a part of an adult experience with some concessions made toward my status as a child. When I was allowed to live with my grown ups in their spaces and as a necessary part of their lives rather than as a burden or a special snowflake. I remember attending various political fundraising events and galas with my mother. There were no children's activities so I mingled and occupied myself. I had a great time. I remember going on trips with my grandmother and mother everywhere----adult trips! I had a ball. I have tried to do the same with my own children.
 

debb

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I think we underestimate what children can do—there are children I met who were, like, 12 years old, making meals and taking care of younger children.
I agree with everything except this part. I don't think it's healthy to turn your 12 year old into a parent. Balance is important.

But, yeah the auntie uncle network is such a big part of my culture. I remember close family friends picking me up from school, the airport, or events when my parents were busy. And my parents would do the same for their kids.

I wish that was more popular in America.
 

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Screen Shot 2021-03-04 at 05.39.33.png


This really isn't praise worthy. Daughters/girls need a chance to be children and not petite mothers. This is all too common and yes she can take care of a home and her little siblings but that is a lot that is put on her. Many who were raised this way often don't want a lot of children or choose to do things differently when given the chance.
 
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fIverdream

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I agree with a lot of stuff in the article; my parents did all sorts of adult sh!t with us, never put us in special classes (besides swimming lessons and music lessons when they could afford it or it was free), took us to adult get-togethers and it was key to their own sanity and our development.

I wonder though, how will this work in the US once the kids go to school? Their mindsets will eventually be "polluted" in some sense by kids who are spoiled, receive constant praise from parents, given tons of child activity-specific stimulation.
 

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This really isn't praise worthy. Daughters/girls need a chance to be children and not petite mothers. This is all too common and yes she can take care of a home and her little siblings but that is a lot that is put on her. Many who were raised this way often don't want a lot of children or choose to do things differently when given the chance.

View attachment 2369653

I completely agree. I hate the idea of children having adult responsibilities. It can also give them a complex. As a child I had to make my own meals worth the exception of dinner. It’s such a small example and not a big deal, but I definitely wasn’t eating right because of that.
 

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Had she interviewed the young women she would have felt differently. I am sure they would like the freedom to just be a child and not carry so much responsibility so early on.

I am ok with everything else she wrote.
 
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BB. Blunt

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Idk if i agree with her thoughts on praise. I feel like the more praise the better the child’s self esteem.
 

beatrixkiddo1

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Idk if i agree with her thoughts on praise. I feel like the more praise the better the child’s self esteem.

See I don't know about that. Self-esteem in a vacuum doesn't make you a good person. Donald Trump has plenty of self-esteem. Imo, once a child gets used to compulsory praise they can:

1. Grow up and expect it from strangers despite not doing anything worthy of it.

2. Get bogged down by feelings of inadequacies when they aren't praised by anyone except their parents. Which could actually be a detriment to their self-esteem.

I think you should provide positive reinforcement but when it's applicable. Not just cause.

BUT I'm not a parent and all of this stuff are just opinions. There truly isn't a manual for child rearing.
 

makemeproud

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Idk if i agree with her thoughts on praise. I feel like the more praise the better the child’s self esteem.
Yeah, praise is nurturing and I think it’s great for a child’s self-esteem as long as the parents aren’t rewarding bad behavior.
 

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This article makes a lot of sense. It aligns with other good advice I've read on the past. One that sticks out in my memory is that parents who talk to children like babies but more like adults helps children to build their vocabulary quicker, command English quicker, etc. So exposure to more adult level interactions helps the child to develop quicker.
 

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View attachment 2369838

She sounds so daft to be honest. These girls weren't given "opportunities" to learn these skills, they were forced on them.
Had she interviewed the young women she would have felt differently. I am sure they would like the freedom to just be a child and not carry so much responsibility so early on.

I am ok with everything else she wrote.

"Forced?" No. You might be looking at things from a Western POV (even if you're not a Westerner). Westerners believe children should be free to play and have little to no responsibilities. After doing a number of research papers on Africa, I learned that non-Western cultures don't always view childhood in the same manner. Childhood is often seen as the time to prepare a child for his/her role in 'married life.' In my partner's culture, girls are trained very young in domestic duties, because it's customary for women to take care of their families. A woman who cannot cook, for example, is seen as inadequate (how will she cook for her children?), and her family will be blamed for that (why didn't they teach her how to cook when she was younger?).

Poverty isn't the reason for this either. His culture has had such roles in place for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. Women take care of the home; men provide for it.
 

Driip

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It's fine to teach the girls to take care of their families, as long as you're also teaching the boys the same things.
If you are a part of a family you need to learn all ways to take care of the family.
 

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That’s so funny. I have her book in my Amazon cart. It’s a recommended book to go along with this one that I bought a couple years ago. It’s really fascinating.



This is another good one:

 

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This really isn't praise worthy. Daughters/girls need a chance to be children and not petite mothers. This is all too common and yes she can take care of a home and her little siblings but that is a lot that is put on her. Many who were raised this way often don't want a lot of children or choose to do things differently when given the chance.

View attachment 2369653
it shouldn't just be girls, i agree - but i do think children should be reared from young ages to care for themselves and each other as part of a family unit.

there are too many children in western societies who can navigate social media and operate the latest gaming systems but give their parents a hard time when asked to do household chores.

it doesn't have to be gender-based and certainly won't be in my household. everyone is to help and do their part.
 

PlumpRump

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View attachment 2369838

She sounds so daft to be honest. These girls weren't given "opportunities" to learn these skills, they were forced on them.
Had she interviewed the young women she would have felt differently. I am sure they would like the freedom to just be a child and not carry so much responsibility so early on.

I am ok with everything else she wrote.
i've seen documentaries -- and it's not just girls who do the care-taking. it falls on the eldest sibling, no matter the gender. it seems that boys are more likely to "buck" or run off when they get to a certain age - especially if the family is impoverished - than girls.. so the girls are left holding the bag.



this women seems to have been born in such a culture/family/household, but still educated and able to enact global change.

i don't think children should be bogged down with adult responsibilities, but they should be asked to help starting from a young age. it only gets more difficult when they become teens...they become spoiled

there is balance. but i do agree, the children should have been interviewed..are they in school? what are their goals, dreams? etc
 

PlumpRump

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Idk if i agree with her thoughts on praise. I feel like the more praise the better the child’s self esteem.

i think praise is good, but encouragement is better.

like don't just tell the kid the flower they drew was beautiful, but ask them to draw more... encourage them to draw a picture everyday and you'll save the pictures for them.

same with homework and anything else children do.

these are just my opinions.. encouragement is better than praise, because praise seems to give them a dopamine hit where the children are doing things for external validation - not because they actually enjoy it?

my daughter has had artistic abilities from a young age and would always ask if i liked her art.. i told her i love anything she makes but how does she feel about her art and does she enjoy doing it? that's the most important thing but i guess both can co-exist. parenting is a balancing act - living, in general, is.
 

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"Forced?" No. You might be looking at things from a Western POV (even if you're not a Westerner). Westerners believe children should be free to play and have little to no responsibilities. After doing a number of research papers on Africa, I learned that non-Western cultures don't always view childhood in the same manner. Childhood is often seen as the time to prepare a child for his/her role in 'married life.' In my partner's culture, girls are trained very young in domestic duties, because it's customary for women to take care of their families. A woman who cannot cook, for example, is seen as inadequate (how will she cook for her children?), and her family will be blamed for that (why didn't they teach her how to cook when she was younger?).

Poverty isn't the reason for this either. His culture has had such roles in place for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. Women take care of the home; men provide for it.
your comment is sexist.. that's not the direction we should be going in at all.. esp in the west. girls and boys should both be reared to care for their families and households.
 

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I completely agree. I hate the idea of children having adult responsibilities. It can also give them a complex. As a child I had to make my own meals worth the exception of dinner. It’s such a small example and not a big deal, but I definitely wasn’t eating right because of that.

I think the key is to perhaps eliminate the difference between kid and adult responsibilities when it comes to household chores. Laundry has to be done and everyone who wears clothes should know how to do laundry. Same for cooking - anyone who likes to eat should, at some point, learn how to cook. Financial responsibility should fall on the adults/parents. I don't think kids would dread leaving the nest so much if they understood at a much younger age that these are just things that you have to do for yourself/family.

For you, do you think that if you were taught how to prepare healthier meals that you would feel differently or was it just having to prepare your own meals overall that you take issue with?
 

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Idk if i agree with her thoughts on praise. I feel like the more praise the better the child’s self esteem.

Not necessarily. Children can tell when praise is genuine. Praising a child when there is no reason to praise can actually lower their self-esteem. Children know when they don't deserve praise and will start to doubt their own abilities.

I think a mixture of praise, along with responsibility and accountability is a good method of raising a child with good self esteem. The "everyone" gets a medal mentality has not worked to build healthy children.
 

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your comment is sexist.. that's not the direction we should be going in at all.. esp in the west. girls and boys should both be reared to care for their families and households.

Where did I say anything about what direction a culture should take? Did you even COMPREHEND my post...?

ETA: Sexism is subjective.
 
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HuntersWife

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Lalasizzahandsq1

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it shouldn't just be girls, i agree - but i do think children should be reared from young ages to care for themselves and each other as part of a family unit.

there are too many children in western societies who can navigate social media and operate the latest gaming systems but give their parents a hard time when asked to do household chores.

it doesn't have to be gender-based and certainly won't be in my household. everyone is to help and do their part.
Raised in an African household and it was definitely forced.

I agree chores should have no gender and kids should learn to be self sufficient early. You never know what can happen and it would be a disservice not to teach them.
 

FunSizeB

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Definitely bookmarking this for when I have kids. Reminds me of how a lot of kids in Africa are brought up like that...in terms of giving kids chores, having certain expectations of them when it comes to doing things around the house or interacts with grown ups. I really love this article
 

bonnieran

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See I don't know about that. Self-esteem in a vacuum doesn't make you a good person. Donald Trump has plenty of self-esteem. Imo, once a child gets used to compulsory praise they can:

1. Grow up and expect it from strangers despite not doing anything worthy of it.

2. Get bogged down by feelings of inadequacies when they aren't praised by anyone except their parents. Which could actually be a detriment to their self-esteem.

I think you should provide positive reinforcement but when it's applicable. Not just cause.

BUT I'm not a parent and all of this stuff are just opinions. There truly isn't a manual for child rearing.

Donald Trump comes across as someone with crippling low self-esteem trying to prop himself up. Apparently his dad was very abusive.

"Forced?" No. You might be looking at things from a Western POV (even if you're not a Westerner). Westerners believe children should be free to play and have little to no responsibilities. After doing a number of research papers on Africa, I learned that non-Western cultures don't always view childhood in the same manner. Childhood is often seen as the time to prepare a child for his/her role in 'married life.' In my partner's culture, girls are trained very young in domestic duties, because it's customary for women to take care of their families. A woman who cannot cook, for example, is seen as inadequate (how will she cook for her children?), and her family will be blamed for that (why didn't they teach her how to cook when she was younger?).

Poverty isn't the reason for this either. His culture has had such roles in place for hundreds, if not, thousands of years. Women take care of the home; men provide for it.

I grew up in a family like this. I think some of it was positive, but in other ways I realize I was just parenting my parents. I really want to avoid leaning on my children if I have any.
 

PlumpRump

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Where did I say anything about what direction a culture should take? Did you even COMPREHEND my post...?

ETA: Sexism is subjective.
this article was written, i assume, for parents living in western society.

"In my partner's culture, girls are trained very young in domestic duties, because it's customary for women to take care of their families. A woman who cannot cook, for example, is seen as inadequate (how will she cook for her children?), and her family will be blamed for that (why didn't they teach her how to cook when she was younger?)."

this part stuck out to me, and i consider it to be very sexist -- this article is not just about raising daughters but children in general. why did you make it about girls? what do boys learn in your partner's culture and why did you not mention it in your previous post?
 

Magnolia45

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this article was written, i assume, for parents living in western society.

"In my partner's culture, girls are trained very young in domestic duties, because it's customary for women to take care of their families. A woman who cannot cook, for example, is seen as inadequate (how will she cook for her children?), and her family will be blamed for that (why didn't they teach her how to cook when she was younger?)."

this part stuck out to me, and i consider it to be very sexist -- this article is not just about raising daughters but children in general. why did you make it about girls? what do boys learn in your partner's culture and why did you not mention it in your previous post?

... Because you said, "these girls weren't given opportunities...; these young women ...."

If you want to know what boys do, feel free to ask instead of making stupid assumptions. ETA: And stop missing the point of my post. I don't care about your feelings - I was stating a simple observation that every culture doesn't necessarily abide by Western notions of childhood.
 

Metaphysique

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it shouldn't just be girls, i agree - but i do think children should be reared from young ages to care for themselves and each other as part of a family unit.

there are too many children in western societies who can navigate social media and operate the latest gaming systems but give their parents a hard time when asked to do household chores.

it doesn't have to be gender-based and certainly won't be in my household. everyone is to help and do their part.

We have five kids: 16, 14, 11, 6, and 3. They all have a role in the functioning of the household. None of our kids have ever changed a diaper. I haven’t even asked them to. Our older two have watched their younger siblings while I took a shower alone or made dinner or had to talk on the phone. Sometimes they’ll fill a sippy cup and give them snacks, but they’re not hands on when it comes to child care. My oldest baby sat once for 30 minutes while I had to get blood work done a few weeks ago. That was the first time she was ever alone with her younger siblings.

Meanwhile, I watched my sister overnight at 14. I was also a latchkey kid. My kids are not.

But they all have to do their part when it comes to housework. They clean up, tidy, do the dishes, vacuum, make meals, take out the trash, do the laundry (older two), clean out the litter boxes, etc., and they don’t fuss about it. They just do it because it needs to be done. This isn’t “women’s work.” It’s just housework that everyone contributes to and gives them the experience and routines they’ll have to use when they leave home.
 

AfroGoddess

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great article. i'm only having a hard time wrapping my head around praise. i can definitely see how it can be problematic or manipulative but i couldn't imagine not telling my son i'm proud of him or not telling him he did a great job. if he comes home and tells me he's going to graduate at the top of his class, i just smile and nod?
 

Magnolia45

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No offense or disrespect to you or your partner,but if your partner really valued the women of his culture and the way they were brought up, then he would have married one. Its always the men, outsiders and those who weren't brought up that manner that praise it. Some of the actual women that were raised like this would beg to differ. Its rough and not all roses. That is why some of the women when they are able delay marriage, child bearing, have limited children and often do not want to copy this behavior with their daughters, when they have them

Do you, in fact, know whether we're NOT married or engaged? Do you know whether he was born in his "home" country and can speak the language, or was he raised on the periphery of his culture in another country? Do you know whether he and I don't share similar values, i.e., perhaps I was also brought up in a similar manner, or is he not even interested in women having "traditional" roles?

After all, I was only mentioning how non-Western cultures may view childhood differently from the West. How would you know anything about us based on me sharing what his culture does with children?

Another equally STUPID, equally presumptuous comment.
 

PlumpRump

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great article. i'm only having a hard time wrapping my head around praise. i can definitely see how it can be problematic or manipulative but i couldn't imagine not telling my son i'm proud of him or not telling him he did a great job. if he comes home and tells me he's going to graduate at the top of his class, i just smile and nod?
making a big deal about small accomplishment -- i think thats the point the writer was making. not things that ppl should obviously be proud about and celebrate.

although i definitely hype my children, i don't want them to depend on praise or compliments for validation.
 

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