Thanks for this read, I really enjoyed it. My children are young adults now and so the cross-cultural challenges are less, but there were so many and some still remain.
We are a Finnish/British household. Lots of midway-finding in the early years in areas like parental/adult authority, physical closeness, age-appropriate expectations, schooling. I initially couldn't believe what 5-year-olds in the UK are expected to manage, it felt very harsh for such little kids. Starting school aged 7 back home, 'skinning a boiled potato at lunch' was the one thing my parents were told I should be able to manage on my own, everything else would come. To be fair, my children learnt to read aged 5 and it was several years until they could tackle the potato (and school lunches were a tad different) so there's give and take for you...!
Now it's more about the changing parental role and remembering we need to respect our young people's growing autonomy, aiming for influence rather than impact but hopefully remaining close - again we're navigating a middle way from our own backgrounds.
It is so interesting to observe how our cultures influences our choices alongside the parenting culture of the time. So many interesting points of intersection (and sometimes points of conflict, too).
Thank you, Cynthia, for your essay!
You’re very welcome! 😊
I related so much to what Cynthia said! Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thanks for this read, I really enjoyed it. My children are young adults now and so the cross-cultural challenges are less, but there were so many and some still remain.
We are a Finnish/British household. Lots of midway-finding in the early years in areas like parental/adult authority, physical closeness, age-appropriate expectations, schooling. I initially couldn't believe what 5-year-olds in the UK are expected to manage, it felt very harsh for such little kids. Starting school aged 7 back home, 'skinning a boiled potato at lunch' was the one thing my parents were told I should be able to manage on my own, everything else would come. To be fair, my children learnt to read aged 5 and it was several years until they could tackle the potato (and school lunches were a tad different) so there's give and take for you...!
Now it's more about the changing parental role and remembering we need to respect our young people's growing autonomy, aiming for influence rather than impact but hopefully remaining close - again we're navigating a middle way from our own backgrounds.
It is so interesting to observe how our cultures influences our choices alongside the parenting culture of the time. So many interesting points of intersection (and sometimes points of conflict, too).