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In this article @jpinsk explores why American parents have started looking abroad for guidance. I can tell you some good reasons why... (I feel a thread coming on) 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/11/american-parents-international-advice/602329/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
#1 In America, the cultural demands around parenting, and in particular motherhood, are unreasonable and impossible.
It's partly the lack of societal support (no paid childcare, no after school care, poor or no paid maternity leave), but it's also what I call the culture of control that demands moms and dads oversee every detail of their child's existence 3/
When I moved to Germany, I found that wasn't the case, that in fact they thought it was harmful to not let your kid do or decide anything by herself, it tilted my whole perspective 4/
It reminded me what many U.S parents seem to have forgotten: our job is ultimately to let our kids go -- and that requires letting go of some control at different stages 5/
But other Americans will fight parents on this. They make unnecessary drop off rules, even arrest parents for letting kids have some freedom. Germans, for one, are big on not reporting on each other, learned some lessons from the past... 6/
Germans also have a respect for privacy that we lack. They believe even children have the right to some privacy and not to be constantly supervised and monitored. Can you imagine what that feels like? 7/
I could go on and on, but I did write a whole book about it. /8 https://www.amazon.com/Achtung-Baby-American-Self-Reliant-Children/dp/1250160170
