Deal Breakers

Deal Breakers

I have always wanted to move my family to a foreign country for a while and imagined how that might happen.  Now it's turned out that we've kind of accidentally been in Uganda for a long time; long enough that it might be considered a temporary move, and I've thought about figuring out a way to move back again one day, perhaps when the kids are a little older and will be able to understand more and commit more to their long-term memories.  I think that's it's natural to romanticize being in a new place for the first few months, and then to become frustrated with it in the next few months, and eventually reach a greater acceptance of the true strengths and weaknesses.  So I recognize that I was idealistic about things this summer, and I'm currently in a grumpy funk that is probably more about me than about Uganda.

But emotional colors aside, I no longer have any ideals about moving back to Uganda while my children are young.

With better planning and a good project -- and children in a more stable stage of life -- I wouldn't need to be trapped in this feeling of isolation and being stuck that has made the last few months so difficult.  If I knew I were going to be here, and especially if I were involved in an organization, I could make connections and friendships that would be more fulfilling.  I've pretty much gotten over my frustration with cooking, between finding certain stores with certain ingredients and getting accustomed to the local fare.  (Although I would have to run a cheese-importing business!)  I've also gotten used to the transportation and how to get where I need to go, and if I didn't have a toddler who needs to nap, I would feel pretty flexible.  I'm getting used to the local manners and customs, and communicating and being friendly isn't nearly as stressful or tiring as it used to be. Some things are difficult, but I can make a decision to not let them bother me, or compensate in other areas of life -- being an introvert in a social society, lots of noise, different habits of friendship and expectations -- and life is never perfect anyways.

But the bottom line is, I wouldn't want to move back here because of my children.  There are too many expectations in this culture that I don't want my children to learn and internalize, and because the norm is so highly social, it is much harder to to present individual family values than it is in America.  As I see my primary goal at this point in life is giving my children a strong emotional, intellectual, and self-defining foundation, my perspective about living in a different culture is different than it would be for myself.

There's a lot that is positive about how children are treated here.  Children are very beloved, and we are praised (never censured) for being a "big family."   People don't mind kids acting like kids -- waitresses smile about the mess and other patrons laugh off my apologies for the noise.  I appreciate how babies are carried and nursed, and I like seeing daddies involved in caring for their kids, from babies in their arms to older children being lovingly taught the family jobs.  I appreciate the attitude of everyone helping out with the kids, and knowing when I am in my familiar environs, if my kids slip away from me, someone will step up and keep my kids from running out the door or wrecking disaster.  I appreciate that other adults will remind my children to listen to me, and to do their family duty -- often children listen better when hearing a new voice.  I like how easy it is for my children to make friends, and how many adults can engage children thoughtfully and lovingly; every National Forest guide has immediately directed their information at child-level, and even the dance shows have a focus for children.

On the other hand: the shaming, the lying, the threats, and the absolute expectation of conformity.  These negatives are so overwhelming that they are deal-breakers in terms of the foundation I want to give my children.

(I could also add in the beatings and physical punishment, which is highly prevalent here.  I don't include it as a top problem only because it is possible to avoid, as people seem to respect that a white woman doesn't want other people to beat her children.  We have also found a school which generally avoids physical punishment, which is rare.)

I work very hard to teach my children honesty, problem solving, personal responsibility, and kindness.  They receive dozens of examples every day of how to NOT do all these things, and I can't shield them from it.  They ask me questions that I have to answer my telling them that I think their teacher or anther respected adult is just plain wrong, which I hate doing. There is much to respect about these people, and I don't want to undermine their authority; I want my children to have role models.  But when they say "but Teacher said this; why did she lie to me?" what else can I do?  It gets to a point where the only true answer is "that is a lie, and I wish she hadn't said that."

To me, the worst is probably the shaming, because it is so prevalent.  Any kind of undesired behavior is quickly shamed, from jokingly to very publicly.  My children are probably each made fun of at least half a dozen times a day.  When Emerson wants to hold my hand and is afraid of leaving me to get on the bus in the morning, even if he is actually getting on the bus properly, if he shows any emotion about it, the bus driver says things like "you promised me you would be a good boy today," "why are you being so naughty this morning again," "big boys don't cry, are you a little baby?", while the children on the bus eagerly look out to see if they have a victim for their favorite taunts: "is Emerson crying again?", "look at little baby Emerson," "Emerson is being like a girl!" and so forth.  Meanwhile, little Buttercup gets told by the helpful cleaning lady, "you are a bad girl" when she drops something or makes a mess, or if she tries to climb up something and slips down, she is warned to not do it again.  At school, most of the formal discipline strategy is shaming: sitting on a high stool or having to eat with your back to the rest of the class, or otherwise being isolated in a very public way.  In this way, the children are naturally taught to shame each other and make this isolation painful.  It fits in very well with the natural meanness, selfishness, and fearfulness of childhood, and in every case I have seen, the children gleefully take the punishment several steps farther than the adults would have, which is silently condoned by the adult authority.

To my older children, the lying is the worst, probably because they are in a very literal phase of life.    The constant little betrayals and infinitely painful to them, and I see how they work back to make the shamings (and the beatings) more powerful.  Some lies are small and seem insignificant; for instance, for a while we happened to be leaving the school at the same time as the two junior teachers, and we followed the same route for part of the way.  The children were delighted at this special time with their teachers, and the teachers indulged them by holding their hands and admiring their little stories (see above, where I appreciate the natural attention that adults bestow on children).  The children invited their teachers home with them and the teachers agreed, but when our paths diverged they went their own way, to my children's shock and disappointment.  On succeeding days, they still insisted they would come home with us, and even when Hibiscus asked "for real? are you lying me?" they replied "I am not lying you! I visit you today!"  Why, why, why bother?  Why make such a big deal out of saying things that aren't true?

Adults also lie to children to get them to stop crying or calm down.  Apparently there is no cultural tolerance for crying here.  I guess that many Americans don't like to hear a child cry either, and maybe I have an unusual attitude towards it; I find that in most cases, a child whose tantrum is ignored will get over it more quickly than a child who gets a lot of fuss.  After I take normal measures to comfort the child, I leave them alone... but if anyone else is around, they will take over for my "lazy" parenting.  When Emerson was upset about not getting something that he couldn't have, our neighbor offered to take him out for ice cream, or go on a special ice cream outing the next day, and would go into details about the outing until he started to pay attention to her instead of his fuss.  When I took her aside and mentioned quietly that we had plans for the next day or something, she waved me off and said she hadn't the slightest intention of actually taking him to get ice cream.  The first day that the older children went to school, Buttercup became very distressed and wanted to put on her shoes and find them, and started to cry when I let her put on her shoes but said we weren't going to get them, and offered alternate activities.  She wasn't ready to think about doing something else, but as soon as I left her alone, the cleaning lady offered to take her for a walk to go get her baabas.  Buttercup quickly stopped crying and allowed Miss S to pick her up and carry her around.  Miss S took her around for a few minutes, distracting her with looking at pretty flowers and fruit, and then brought her back inside.  The distracting walk was a good idea, but in my opinion it didn't need to start with the several-times repeated promise to go to her baabas' school.

But lying takes a much more sinister turn, as well: lying threats are often used for punishment.  When Hibiscus was acting up around a family friend, he turned on her and said very seriously, "your mama may not beat you, but I will.  Stop that, or I will beat you."  I am quite sure he was bluffing and never would have beaten my child.  One day at school, Emerson had gotten seriously dirty in the sand box -- which I don't mind at all, but I sent him to wash hands at the tap before going home.  One of the teachers saw him, and told him if he got that dirty again, she would take off all his clothes and give him a shower in front of all the other children.  He told me after school the next day that he hadn't played in the sand, because he didn't want to be naked in front of the other children.  When children misbehave at school, they are told that they won't be allowed to come back, or that they will be sent home immediately, by themselves.  Once Emerson was taken outside of the school gates and they closed the gates and locked it on him, telling him that he had to go home by himself.  After he screamed and cried, they "forgave" him and let him back in.  It is apparently a common threat that a bogeyman is going to come get a naughty child and take her away, and parents will put a child outside and call the bogeyman.


All this is made worse, because absolute conformity is expected.  There are not alternate ways to do things; individual expression is not appreciated; emotional expression is not allowed.  Any deviation from the norm is immediately rewarding with shaming and threats.  Because the "rules" are so clear, even little children learn them and are quick to pounce on their peers -- even for behavior that they can't manage properly themselves.  Because everyone is unsuccessful at being perfect, they all have been shamed, and they are all quick to jump on the bandwagon to shame and punish someone else.  Little children might be able to reflect the face of God, but they also have an awful lot of intrinsic selfishness!  In my American society, we are generally of a consensus that children shouldn't hit each other, and we teach them this value very strongly in their first toddler playdates, so by school age it is only very out-of-control children who use violence.  But children naturally want to use their bodies to get what they want, so around here middle-sized children are constantly slapping and kicking the younger ones, and physical altercations are common in play.  They also use all kinds of insults, rude noises, and whatever they instinctively feel will get the biggest reaction.

Thus, crying is unacceptable.  Being clumsy is unacceptable.  Being loud is unacceptable.  Getting dirty is inappropriate.  Feeling shy is inappropriate.  Getting hurt and being upset about it is not allowed.  Disobedience is not allowed, nor is getting out of line or talking in class or dozens of other things.  I don't disagree with all these values -- I don't appreciate disobedience or talking in class, either.  But all the ways of being an object of shame also add up to not wanting to be different in any other way, and I can see that is difficult to be more-than-average smart or more-than-average creative, even those are actually values that are strongly appreciated in this society.



In America, pundits say we have "the mommy wars," with parents diverging strongly and sometimes negatively about issues such as stay-at-home-mothers, homeschooling, cry-it-out, co-sleeping, organic food... the list goes on and on.  Whatever you choose, you can find books and bloggers who argue that it's a terrible choice, and a community of mothers who thinks your way is the only reasonable option.  Here, there are no Mommy Wars.  It's more like Mommy Annihilation.  There is exactly one right way to parent, and if you are trying something else, you are either met with stone-cold silence... or of course the old tactics still work well, and the divergent mommy can be publicly shamed.

The school our children attend is trying to incorporate some more modern methods of teaching and ideas about child development into their curriculum and philosophy.  (I think defining "modern" as somewhere in the last hundred years or so... but when was Maria Montessori? it might be 150.)  So they have some elements of child-directed learning and exploration, the idea of children working at their own pace on what they need to know, and some, um, less painfully out-dated methods of discipline.  And they are trying to involve middle-class parents in their children's education, instead of the parents just turning the children over to nannies and television for the whole day.  I am constantly amazed at how most of the parents, who are paying a high price to send their children to this specialized school, and obviously dote on their children, totally ignore all their advice and outreach.  For instance, the teachers are hoping that the children will have some kind of educational toys as home, such as blocks or coloring books.  They were selling toys like this at the Family Day, to make it easier for parents to get them.  I overheard a teacher warmly and gently trying to convince a parent to get a coloring book along with a toy car she had selected, talking about how it is good for their future writing skills, and fine motor, and so forth.  The parents just shrugged and said their child didn't want to hold a crayon, so why have one in the house, and walked away.  Despite all the special activities and personal calls to become more involved, at the special Student-Led Parent Student Conferences yesterday, probably only a quarter of the children actually had a parent show up over the course of the day.

No one has gone to the trouble of paying me for my advice, so instead of just getting ignored, I am told how to behave properly -- told with varying degrees of overbearingness.  I need to put Buttercup in school.  I shouldn't carry Buttercup, she is old enough to walk.  I should beat Emerson when he runs too far, and I should beat Hibiscus when she throws a fit.  I should do everything for Buttercup if she finds it too hard on the first try.  I should feed them this and not that.  They don't need to go to bed that early.  There is no reason to make them nap or do chores if they don't want to.  Buttercup isn't uncomfortable because black children don't mind being squashed like that.

Sometimes I receive this unending stream of instruction in a polite undertone, such as "if it were mine, I would give that child a good beating" or "here in Uganda, we don't carry our children when they are that age."  These are usually delivered with the head respectfully turned away to avoid potentially negative eye contact, but with clear censure and no possibility of an alternate acceptable opinion.  Sometimes the active public shaming is called into play, such as the woman who followed me around the grocery store.  She declared that if a child could request an apple she was too old to walk, and I didn't immediately unwrap Buttercup; so she followed us around, loudly telling me to "put that child down" repeatedly, so even if I didn't obey, she brought an appropriate amount of attention to my poor parenting practices.  With smaller issues, other adults just "fix" the problems I am not addressing properly; they carry Buttercup over stairs I think she can learn to walk, they give the children the things they are fussing for, they threaten or bribe the children into better behavior, they shame them for getting dirty, they tell them what they can eat for dinner or a treat, they give them candy to silence them, they clean up their messes, they carry their backpacks or fix their shoes or give them extras.  The neighbors, strangers on the street, vendors and storekeepers, the children's teachers, the cleaning lady, family friends... unless we stayed in our house and locked the door, there is no way to avoid all the people who are eager and willing to do the "right" thing for my children, and hopefully teach me how to behave as well.

My practice of helping children to learn to be responsible for themselves in an age-appropriate manner, and take consequences for their actions, is totally unimaginable.  One morning I was sitting across the room from Buttercup, who was trying to put a "blanket" over her dolly because she had chosen a large wrap.  She was getting frustrated, so I showed her how to hold the wrap from the edge, but then gave it back to her and sat back down.  She started yelling at me to come do it, and I calmly told her that she could do it herself and reminded her how.  So she told Miss S to come do it for her, and Miss S promptly obliged.  I stopped her, and told her specifically how I thought Buttercup could learn to do this skill on her own, and I wanted her to be able to figure it out.  Miss S seemed to kind of understand, and she obeyed my direct instruction to not do it for Buttercup.  I would have to repeat this a hundred times a day to be allowed to make my own parenting choices -- except most adults anticipate the confrontation, and work behind my back.


With young children, it matters very little what you say, it matters what you do.  Children learn by imitation, and they are always watching.  So I can talk myself blue about being honest, but they see adults lying over and over again.  I can make an inarguable family policy of "no hurting," but as soon as they leave the house they see people hurting each other and getting their way.  I can read them books and tell stories about children being true to themselves and standing up for each other, but they come home and tell me definitely that boys don't get sad, everyone likes the same things, only babies get scared, and their friends deserved getting punished.  I can set it up so my children figure out what the consequences for their own choices are, but someone will come along and save them from getting cold or having to carry a heavy backpack.  Even the choices I am allowed to make -- like not putting Buttercup in school yet -- my children get to see me ridiculed and scolded for.


Every culture, including our own, has positives and negatives.  I wanted Emerson to get to learn about another culture and go to school with local children; I'm not going to put up a fuss that he is picking up values I don't condone as well as becoming less stuck in his American-thinking.  I wanted to know more about my adopted children's birth culture; I'm not going to be aghast that it's different from mine.  I didn't expect my parenting style to be mirrored or even respected while in a foreign country.  Nor do I think that everything about America is perfect -- far from it!  But Mommy Wars or not, at home I have a lot more freedom to parent my children in the way I think best.

And I think it's about time to be getting home.  And when we come back, it will be for a visit, not another stay of months and months... until my children are old enough to discern their own right from wrong, and stand strong in the face of criticism.

Or at least, not scream "you look like a mon-key!!" when they see a little boy crying.