Student Essay: Cultural attitudes towards parenting

By Liang

I am a mother of a four-year old girl. I am from China. I have found many differences between China and America when I came to the U.S.A. As a mother, I want to focus on cultural attitudes towards parenting. The following examples are some different in America and China what I observed.

A. Different attitude to sharing food.
I have an American friend of two kids. When we hang out we bring some food for the kids. I usually prepare more food for the kids. Before I give my daughter food I often ask her if her kids want some. In China it is good manners to share food. I think my friend is a very nice person with good manners and good education. Every time she just prepares food for her kids. My daughter asked me why she needed to share food with the other kids but they didn’t want to share with her? I think this is a culture difference between China and America. For me, as a mother, I need know the culture different and conform to cultural traditions; this is a good way to make my daughter feel better.

B. Excessive positive is the best way for grow up?
My daughter goes to preschool this year. She likes to show some papers to me. Once I found she wrote number “2” in a wrong way, like “s”. I told her it was wrong. She cried and asked me “Why does my teacher always tell me ‘good job’, but you love to say ’you are wrong ’? I believe encourage children could improve their self-confidence, but too much affirmation could causes children are difficult to face different opinions.

C. The independence of children culture.
In China, it is a common opinion” Children are dependent on adults”. Parents have a responsibility to take care of their kids. Parents decide what you eat, what you learn, who you can play with, even when you will do in the future. Usually until you go to university your parent decide everything for you. In our culture we believe: as a kid you cannot know what is good for you, as parents we try our best to avoid our kids have something wrong. In America, parents respect the child’s choices from when they are little. A child can decide and does a lot of things by himself because he knows this is his own responsibility.
For me, I agree with the independence viewpoint, but I want to give some suggestions before she make a decision.

D. Discipline is very important in the U.S.A.
Before I came here I thought there were more freedoms in this country. Now I have found there were many discipline for kids. American mothers require their kids go to bed on time, to be quiet when you eating, to close your mouth when you are chewing, keep good manners all day. American teacher tell students to be quiet during the school time, before you want to talk to teacher you need to call respectfully etc. In China, discipline is more flexible. For example, we need to have good manners when we eating, but for kids, we think highly of how much she eating than good manners.

Because raising children is very personal, compare those differences between China and the U.S.A. will help me to deal with different situations. As these comparisons just from my observation sometimes I am confused with how to distinguish between culture and personality in parenting. If it is a different culture I will help my daughter adapt to America school and America society, If it just was difference between different families I will tell my daughter to respect other people.