Best wel boeiend, deze vergelijking tussen opvoedstijlen in verschillende landen: How cultures around the world think about parenting (Amy S. Choi). Uiteindelijk komt het er op neer dat we allemaal maar wat doen. Gewoon niet overdrijven: te weinig of te veel van iets is nooit goed.
In Norway, childhood is strongly institutionalized, says Norwegian sociologist and economist Margunn Bjornholt. Indeed, most children enter state-sponsored daycare at 1 year old. […] Norwegians believe that it is better for children to be in daycare as toddlers. At daycare, methods reflect the country’s fetishistic dedication to fresh air.
In Japan, where Gross-Loh lives part of the year, she lets her 4-year-old daughter run errands with her 7-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother — without parental supervision. Her kids don’t hesitate to take the Tokyo subways by themselves and walk on busy streets alone.
Dutch parents believe strongly in not pushing their children too hard. […] “You shouldn’t teach your child to read before they got to school, because then your child would be bored at school and not have any friends.”
In Spain, where families are focused on the social and interpersonal aspects of child development, parents are shocked at the idea of a child going to bed at 6:30pm and sleeping uninterrupted until the next day, instead of interacting and participating in family life in the evenings. “They were horrified at the concept,” says Harkness. “Their kids were going to bed at 10 p.m.”
In the United States, we want to be Korean and Dutch and Japanese and Jewish and Norwegian and Spanish, all at once. “What is unique to us is the desire to be happy all the time and experience no discomfort and achieve,” says Mogel. “These are competing values.”