I just finished reading an article on NPR about global
parenting habits that have not caught on in the USA. While reading this I was comparing it to my
experience in Kyrgyzstan and all of the things kids do here that would likely
never fly back home. Some of them are
repeats from the NPR article and some may be things we do at home, but never
being around young mothers and children that much in the states, do not know
for sure. Also a lot of these relate to
my experience with my host family and may not be true for all of
Kyrgyzstan. Here is the link for the NPR
article
1. It’s a repeat, but
kids stay up late. Too late. 10 O’clock would be perfect, but no 11 or 12
sometimes 1 am in my family. My host
family is made up of my Apa (mother), her son, his wife, and their 2 kids. Their kids are ages 4 and 1. The one year old has no regular sleep pattern,
sleeping irregularly throughout the day.
The 4 year old is often up all day starting at 8 then not going to sleep
until 11pm on most nights. This makes
for one grumpy kid by bed time. My
family also eats dinner very late around 10pm and at times 11pm contributing to
his late bed time. The worst part about
this is the crying and screaming I hear on almost a nightly basis around this
time. I miss peace and quiet. Here is a picture of my little brother taken
around 1 am at a 50th birthday party I went to with my family. The party didn’t end till 3 am and they were
up the whole time.
2. Parent’s don’t let
their babies be free. During
Syakal’s (the 1 year old) first year she was never on the ground playing or
exploring by her self until about 9 months.
Some one was always holding her, she was always in a stroller, or the
toy with wheels she sits in and can run around in. She was never able to sit on the ground by herself
and play with toys or explore. Along
these same lines parent’s don’t let their babies cry. The second a baby makes a sound someone runs,
not an exaggeration, to the baby and begins to cosset them. Maybe this is how it is in America, but I
don’t believe so. Paradoxically by the
time a child is 2 or 2 and half they are out running around in the street
completely unsupervised.
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| That is the look of a child that wants to be free |
3. Young boys have no
discipline. During my first year I
experienced a 4 year old spit, hit, kick, throw toys, throw food, throw eating
utensils, hit his mother, hit his grandmother, hit me and the list goes
on. Real discipline for these actions
was non-existent. When it did exist it
would normally be one of them playfully hitting him back in a non-violent way,
which would incite him even more.
Instead of any form of discipline they would seek to stop the antics by pacifying
him with candy or saying that what they did was wrong instead of explaining to
him what he did was wrong. Time outs
don’t happen, and apologies were a snow balls chance in hell until
recently. One day I was washing my hands
and I used the soap. Daniel asked me
which soap I used and I told him ‘the big one’ and he proceeded to yell at me
and try and hit me for using his soap. I
went to my room and about 5 minutes later he came into my room, apologized, and
told me the soap is his but we can share.
This was a changing point in my relationship with the 4 year old and was
one of my happiest moments with my host family.
I wish it would not have taken 9 months to get to that point, but better
late than never.
4. Children have
horrible diets, but so do the parents.
If you are in any way familiar with Kyrgyzstan you know they persist off
a diet of potatoes, noodles, bread, tea, fat, and small amounts of meat. In my homestay 75% of the meals are made of
that combination and nothing more. As a
result people here are always tired, always sick, and 50% of them die from
heart disease. However they don’t
associate their diet with these problems at all. Instead they tell you they need fat to be
strong and because we live in the mountains.
Their food is all natural so it is good for you unlike our food in
America. While I can’t disagree with the
last statement when you slice off chunks of pure sheep fat and eat it, it is
not good for you. It is no coincidence
then that the babies eat this way too.
Mashed up oily potatoes, bread soaked in hot water or milk covered in
sugar, sugary tea or sheep broth in a bottle, mashed up noodles and sheep fat,
or a bone to chew on are all perfectly acceptable and common baby food. They have created a vitamin and mineral
supplement for babies to combat this diet that is available for free at the
hospital, yet parents do not use it for a number of excuses. As a result the babies along with the rest of
the family are often sick and tired.
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| Photo by Bob Self |
5. Children > 3 years have freedom. After the child has began walking and no
longer is held hostage by the parents they have a ton of freedom. The kids normally stay close, but it is not
uncommon for an unsupervised 5 year old to be herding cows, a 7 year old on a
bus going across the country by themself, and a gaggle of kids outside playing
in ditches and streams. This is one of
the few parenting habits I agree with here.
Kids get to be kids. They can
learn to play, share, be responsible, cry, and hurt themselves all by
themselves. I can’t imagine this in many
places in the states.
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| These guys own the block |
6. The world is your
bathroom. Most people in Kyrgyzstan
have outhouses. I think these would be challenging
for young children to use properly so I give them some slack. When a child is a baby, diapers or cloth
diapers are used. After this time they
have small porta potties that they use.
This is great until they are using it in the hall way, in the kitchen or
other public places for us all to see and smell (the 4 year old). Another common practice for younger children
is the parent holding the child for them to do their business on the side of
the road, in a ditch or wherever they happen to be at the moment. I’m okay with this if they are young but by
the time you are 4 you can do better. Just
yesterday I look outside to see my 4 year old brother taking care of business
outside my window on the ground. After
his mom wiped his butt and left the tp there along with his business. It sat there all day. Someone finally cleaned it up and disposed of
it in the evening. Public defecation is
common here especially among toddlers. However when outhouses are everywhere
and a parent is holding a child doing its business, they could just as easily
hold them over an outhouse! It is no
surprise hep a and other diarrheal diseases are so common here.
7. Mummy children. Kyrgyzstan is cold, very cold in
winter. The Kyrgyz hate the cold, even
when it’s hot. Cold drinks are
forbidden, cold yogurt and soda will be heated before they drink it, and
excessively warm clothing will be worn when it is not needed. I am from Florida, cold is not my specialty,
but ear muffs are not needed in 60 degree weather! They bundle babies up here in so many layer
of clothes they can barely move. Imagine
Ralphie’s brother from a Christmas story, but the baby version. Syakal will often have on 2 to 3 pairs of
socks in summer and she will take them off.
Instead of letting them stay off they immediately put them back on
her. Her feet feel like they belong on a
stuffed animal. 2 hats, 3-4 shirts all
completely normal even when it is not winter.
The children look miserable and when you touch them there skin is often
sweaty and hot. I am thankful I am not a
baby here because being that bundled up and sweating sounds like a nightmare.
8. Kids in the driver
seat. Most of the parenting
practices here are different, but culturally and logically make sense. The one I disagree with the most is children
in cars. The roads here are horrible and
the drivers are worse. Accidents are
common, drunk drivers are in abundance, and everyone knows someone who has been
killed in an accident. Despite this seat
belts are never used and I have never seen a child seat outside of
Bishkek. What I do see everyday are
children in the driver’s lap, children in the passengers lap, children standing
in between seats and babies being held in the front seat. I have taken part in this too. A lot of cars have seatbelts that do not work
or have been removed, I assume they were a nuisance. When there are seatbelts they rarely use
them, except when driving by police they will hold them over their chest for a
minute then return them to their resting position. Due to these factors, when there is an
accident the result are catastrophic.
Yesterday while
sitting in my office at the hospital I heard lots of screams. It is a hospital, kids don’t like hospitals
and I thought nothing more of it. The
screaming continued and it started to sound like real screaming not, I don’t
want this shot screaming. I venture out
of my office to see what is happening and see one kid, bloodied and screaming
on the hallway couch of the hospital being tended to by the nurses. There is an abnormal amount of commotion
going on and I assume something out of the normal is occurring. I go outside to make a phone call in the
quiet, and see the ambulance pull up, which I have never seen used for medical
purposes before. Then a man on a
makeshift stretcher with a blood soaked bandage on his head is carried into the
ambulance. Later I asked my counterpart
what happened and there was a car accident involving 1 car and it had flipped
back on the mountain road. There were 3
kids and one adult. The only other piece
of information I know is that on of the kids was in the drivers seat with the
adult. As the Kyrgyz say, Cudai Buirsa
(god willing) everyone survived. I know
this served as the wake up call for me to start wearing my seatbelt every time
I am in a car here and I can only hope parents start taking more responsibility
for their children when they drive.
These are just a few of my observations from being here for
a year. I am not saying the way we raise
children in the states is any better, we have lots of issues too, I just find
some things they do here to be different from our idea of normal back home. One advantage of being here is I feel more
prepared to one day be a parent having lots of ideas of what I would never let
my kids do and vice versa.
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