Raising Children in North America
Dr. Ambika Prasad Adhikari*
“Telling a teenager the facts of life is like
giving a fish a bath.”- Anonymous
Parenting
is perhaps the hardest job on earth. Someone once captured the parent’s mixed
emotions in this statement: “Raising
kids is part picnic and part
guerilla warfare!!” For the first generation Nepali immigrants (and many other
immigrants) in North America it is even more
challenging. Trying to balance the two
cultures – Nepali and Western, is a daunting task - a virtual impossibility, as
one often gets pulled in opposite directions.
Sandwiched between two conflicting demands of instilling traditional
Nepali values while allowing the sense of western independence, parents can
quickly despair. In the midst of confusion and difficulties, only optimism and
hope and the intermittent joy of watching kids grow keeps the parents
functioning and remaining sane.
In the western culture where there
is a book on every subject, theories and advice about raising kids are plenty. When you read a book about the art of rearing
kids, you can theorize and feel like a professional until you actually try to
do it yourself. No wonder, John Wilmot
realized this long ago and said - “Before I got married I had six
theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no
theories”.
Many immigrants’ own ideas and theories were also turned
upside down in the process of raising children in North
America . Most are still
working on this task, and do not know if they have totally succeeded, so even
the views of the peers should be taken with a grain of salt. Further, I do not claim to know much on this
topic, as it is an individual learning process, very often from one’s own kids. This article is only to share my views and
experiences on this topic, and so read and follow at your own risk!
Without the benefits of having
elders help you, raising infants in North America
is quite intimidating. The frequent
fevers, crying, colic behavior and other erratic responses by the infants can
make even the Yoga practitioners nervous. For a society so much dependant on
operation manual, even here, kids do not come with users manual! We only learn
by doing.
If
you think small children are hard to look after, adolescents and teenagers are
even more difficult to handle. I used
to tell my senior parenting colleagues how much I would be relieved once
children could be more independent. They
advised me that “the problems never end, they only change”. I also learnt from O’Rourke that “children
are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to
tell you where they're going.” Tell me
about it, I know – and I have been there.
My friend coached his child about the virtue
of schooling and hard work, but the kid had his own theories and worked hard at
video games and chats! Talking to the
kids about your thinking can end up in an argument. Teenagers seem to know everything! I learnt it the hard way what Charles
Wadsworth had said long ago: “by the time a
man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks
he's wrong.” If you try to gain sympathy
by telling that you had a hard childhood in Nepal you will get a response
something like this “you decided to bring us here, so don’t’ blame anything on
us or make us feel guilty – also who wants to hear your old pitiable story one
thousand times!”
We like to
believe that we can steer kids to occupations, professions and studies, but it
is only our hope. God gives them their own life, and we think that we can
control at least some of it – there lies the fallacy and ensuing frustrations. We can’t let go, like the bears and birds and
other animals!! Only if we could accept,
“once they fly, they are gone”, life would be easier.
The first
generation Nepali immigrant parents grew up in Nepali culture with some
fundamental rules: respect for parents
and elders, responsibility to others and family and being tame and disciplined. No questions asked of parents and elders. From the shores of North
America , where questioning the authority and asserting personal
independence are the ultimate values, those simple truisms of Nepal in our
times look like facts from a make believe world. North American Culture is fed by fast foods, phones,
video games, TV and cars!! In this environment, kids always do something that
you do not want done. Monta Crane must
have been talking about kids in North America when
he said: “there are three ways to get something done: do it yourself,
hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.”
Raising kids, in my opinion, is a more
complicated project than your Ph. D. project or starting your own business in a
foreign land! But the good news is,
everyone survives and passes in these tasks!
All parents and especially the new immigrants need tons of patience and
resourcefulness and ability to laugh at themselves. A let go attitude is very helpful – in fact,
it is the best guarded secret! Follow
what Mel Lazarus advised: “The secret of dealing successfully with a child is
not to be its parent.” Whenever you are frustrated always detach yourself and remember
that the task is eventually doable, and, in fact, we all survive and do well. The
Nepali culture teaches us that children are of great help in our old age and
will take care of us when we become incapacitated. In fact, in North
America too, it is true with a small twist. Lionel Kauffman said “Children are a great
comfort in your old age--and they help you reach it faster, too”.
For many outsiders, the North American parents are a
laughing stock. The Duke of Windsor once
said: “The thing that impresses me most about Americans is the way parents obey
their children.” When under pressure, use
calming devices on yourself, you need it the most – the kids are fine as they
are – we are the one under stress! We are all children inside our mind and
heart. After all, like Dr. Seuss advised, “Adults are obsolete children.” So relax, and change that diaper, yield that phone
and TV remote or hand that car key to your teenager.
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End
* Dr. Adhikari is a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University , USA
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