Having, raising and taking care of a kid, I trust, it is not an easy work. I really want to hear from you guys what differences and what do you think about it from your culture perspectives.
In Vietnam, not all, but almost parents seem to overprotect their kids, an example:
- I understand that in western countries, when a kid is 18 years old he/she goes out of the house, find a way to be independent of the parent but here in Vietnam, except a kid (i) go far from home for study; or (ii) he/she gets married in order to leave the house. Otherwise, the parent will feel "ashamed" when their kids cannot stay longer with them at the same house though "the kid" is 40 years old!!!
I have seen few times that my western bosses taught their kids which made me feel amazing. Here are some examples:
- our office was under renovation work, the boss came with his youngest kids who was 1 or 2 years old at the time. She sat alone, and "put the sand/dust into her mounth". We were all yelling loud to let our boss know about that. His reaction was something like "oh, that's good, she must do not have enough sand in her body" and he did not do anything but continue his work.
If it was a Vietnamese father/mother, he/she would say "it's dirty, it's not for eating" and rightaway take the kid to the rest-room to wash her hand and mouth. Maybe not all, but I am pretty sure almost Vietnamese parent will react like that.
- I was playing with 3 years old daughter of my boss - "running around and catching" and she stumbled the carpet and fell down and cried a lot. I stopped and intended to help her to stand up. However my boss immediately say out loud "dont help her, she can stand up by herself".
If it was a Vietnamese father/mother, he/she would immediately run to the baby, blame the carpet which makes she fall down.
- 2 of the kids of my boss were playing together. Suddenly, the younger one hit her brother hard which seemed hurt the boy. The boy cried a lot, a lot. My boss ran near by and ask "are you okay? Just feel hurt, right? You still can do things, try to show me you are okay!" - and when the boy could stand up, moved around but kept crying, what my boss did was: "okay, you can cry if it helps you feel better but remember life will hurt you more!". Then, he turned to the girl and say: "you see that's not good when hurting someone, right? And remember, if you hurt someone, there would be another one hurt you more. Now, say sorry to your brother!". The boy was about 9 and the girl was 7.
I cannot say anything when seeing this and not sure how it helps for the kids at such ages with things like "LIFE will..."? Most of the case I have seen with Vietnamese parent that the parent will shout at the girl and say something like "it's not good, you must know it's your brother and dont hurt him..."
I have tried to explain the differences by the logical thing like: in developed countries, they compete a lot, the parent just do not want their childs feel weak in such competition, so they must prepare for their childs. But here in Vietnam, the parent were growing up through the hard and poor time, they just want to make up for their children.
However, I have travelled around some neighbour Asian countries and have seen that even in Hong Kong or Singapore which more developing, the parent raise and take care of the childs not much differences from the Vietnamese parent.
Okay, I know I talked too much but can you share what do you think?