May 7th, 2008 Posted in
Culture,
Education |
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This topic gets into my head every now and then because it is so relevant to the development of a child. Another reason is that I always find myself interacting with different cultures which gives incredibly different perspectives.
I guess it’s kind of odd for me to think about how I should be raising my kids, but it isn’t for me. You have a huge responsibility as a parent to make sure your child does well in a world that is changing faster than most can adapt to.
Since I’m half Swedish and half Korean, I can really see the difference in cultures in terms how each raises children.
For example, Swedish people including any Western nation seems to be quite light on their kids. The parents still impose the proper behaviors of society upon them, but they don’t resort to a lot of beating. However this has changed as spanking was much more common back in the day, but it was still kept to a minimum or just for really bad behavior.
On the other side, eastern cultures including my Korean side are a lot more strict on their children. This of course is all in good intentions just like Westerners, but Eastern cultures take it to what Westerners would call extreme. Parents will goto extremes to make sure their kids get good grades and get into a good college. Many times the parents feel forced to do it because what college their kids get into greatly affects their quality of life.
You always see those YouTube videos sometimes of Asians who mock their parents, and it always gets all the asian viewers a laugh. Even Americans who have Asian friends get a huge kick out of it.
But what are the pros and cons to each method?
Well first of all, the Eastern repression of children leads to a strong acceptance of society and culture. They are much less likely to stray away. However, this is because they now have an extreme sense of insecurity about their world. They never were able to make their own decisions because it always forced by an authority figure (parents etc).
Westerners are quite open and are getting even more open with their kids. By open I mean they don’t tell their children what to do in life as much and give less direction. This forces many of them to figure out who they are at an earlier age. This leads to a lot more variety of personalities, which also leads to a lot of creativity.
There is a lot more I can talk about this, but one thing I want to focus on is economic growth. Hard work is very important, but creativity is also just as important. The problem is that society and culture moves a lot slower than the world. It is ALWAYS lagging behind to huge detriments. Thousands of years ago, the world moved extremely slow, which meant that culture was usually in everyone’s best interest. This lead to a reverence for the elderly who always knew all the tricks for survival such as protecting yourself from grizzly bears and tigers.
However, the world is changing fast. We are living in epic times. Computers were introduced to the masses just a few decades ago it is completely changing how the world works. This leaves HUGE divide between the young and old, which is causing a lot of problems. The Eastern idea of repressing children is becoming much more harmful by the day. However, being too open might make the children less focused which might lead to less success or well being in life.
It seems like the answer is always balance, but I think the most important key here is that the world is changing too fast for culture, and we need to start shedding ourselves of old archaic beliefs and accept a new world which in many ways can be better or worse. Since there is not stopping it, we might as well roll up our sleeves and handle it the best we can with open minds.
P.S. Thanks for all the votes guys. Keep up the voting as I’ll need all I can get. I’ve recently been a target of a automated script that pulled me down 10, so let’s make sure these unethical people don’t get their satisfaction.
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