Culture Clash Parenting - Middle Eastern/American

[Angrywoodchucksblog]

I was at my in-laws for Thanksgiving today. My MIL is Middle Eastern, my FIL (also M.E.) recently passed away. My two BIL's (Brother In Law's) were there as well. I've been married for over ten years and have known this family for 15 and we all get along very well. I'm white, which is to say Irish/Italian/Scottish and my wife was born in Afghanistan. I grew up in CT, she grew up in SoCal. We both work, have professional careers and I would say we have a solid marriage. We have one daughter. Four years old.

 

I've attended countless Middle Eastern weddings, engagements, birthday parties, went inside a Mosque for a funeral (out of respect for my FIL as the person who died was close to him). I believe I have been very respectful of our cultural differences and have acclimatized to their culture very well - which is not very hard. They are non-practicing (and those who are, are non-vocal about it), and I am an Atheist, so religion is not a factor. They are almost all Democrats and I am a Libertarian, but most do not discuss politics as they are very polite, so this too is not a factor. The extended family is very respectful, polite, is and always has been very nice to me. I have returned in kind. The BIL's and I have gone camping, hiking, road tripping together - we get along very well.

 

Prior to Freedomain Radio, I was in the "spanking is necessary" camp because I was spanked. Not very often, in fact, I can probably count the times on one hand. My wife was not in this camp. We discussed it some before we had kids and the most I would agree to is to try not to, but there may come a time when it is necessary and we will revisit at that time. With that we had our first child, but by then I had been listening to Stefan for awhile and had adopted his peaceful parenting mindset. As such, my daughter has never been spanked, etc. I don't even like doing Time Outs, although I do admit to three so far when I had reached the end of my tolerance level.

 

My daughter is very well behaved, and polite, and listens to instructions and responds to even the slightest elevation in my voice if she is beginning to cause a problem. It is very easy for me to keep her on the right path, and I smother her with love and kisses and tell her I love her every day. She loves to sit next to me, and talk to me and show me things, she makes me laugh like crazy. I teach her things all the time, show her science, read her books before bed, take her everywhere I can. I think we have a great relationship.

 

Her and my wife also have a great relationship, but my wife does not really engage in behavior control, or what I might call - growing up. I am the one that got my daughter to stop using her pacifier, to go to the bathroom on a regular basis, to stop using a baby bottle and then to stop using a cup with a straw. I got her to start eating toast without it being cut into little bite size pieces and to stop waiting for someone to spoon feed her, to go to bed at 9:30pm regularly instead of 1am, to stop crying when it was time to poop and to stop whining and crying when it was time to leave the playground or <insert fun place here>. It is me that achieved this because my wife, for whatever reason, prefers not to force these issues and relies on me too. Instead, she waits until my daughter breaks the last straw and then my wife has a meltdown and just starts yelling - thankfully that has only been a handful of times. I am fine with being the enforcer because if not me, who will? And I think it is necessary. I don't use force. I use reason and rational arguments, and I have used the threat of lost privileges only a couple times, and followed through, and that seems to have stuck so I almost never have to do it anymore. I don't really have any issues with my daughter's behavior, and what little there is I can correct in seconds or a few minutes peacefully - she's an awesome kid.

 

But my MIL is notorious for being worse than my wife. My daughter abuses my MIL like there is no tomorrow (orders her around, makes her play with her endlessly, makes her do everything for her) and my MIL does nothing about it. Okay, well, if that is how THEY are going to be together - I can live with that. But what is worse, is that when I try to correct my daughters abysmal behavior at my MIL's house, my MIL immediately steps in and agrees to whatever my daughter's demands are, or intercedes between me and her to protect her from what is clearly me getting frustrated. For example, if I say to my daughter, "It's time to go now." She will say, "But I want to play Kingdom more." And I will say, "I know, and I told you that you could play it for 5 more minutes before we leave, and it's been 5 minutes so it's time to go," My daughter will get upset and my MIL will immediately grab the kingdom came and sit down with my daughter and say, "It's okay, it's okay...we will play Kingdom. Let's play." And my daughter plops down and I am standing there like an idiot. Don't get me wrong, my MIL is a "nice woman" and has always been extremely friendly with me, and cooks food I like, and tries to make sure I am not uncomfortable, etc... But I cannot express how infuriating this behavior from her is.

 

So I told my wife, I cannot stay here, we need to leave (this was after three or four of these "intercessions" from my MIL, not just one). She knew I was doing all I could to keep a lid on my frustration, and I was only doing that because this was the first Thanksgiving for both of them without my FIL. We left my daughter with my MIL and went home (we only live a few miles away). In the end, we got into an argument on the way home. She agrees with me, and that my daughter was acting poorly and my corrections were not excessive or unwarranted, but that it is simply a cultural difference. She explained to me that in M.E. culture, when children need to be corrected in public, they are taken aside, and the problem is explained to them quietly in private, and they are released back into the environment, OR, they get corrected after they get home. As my wife said, "You know what I mean, the 'eye' your parents would give you and you knew you were going to get it when you got back home."

 

The only problem I have with this is the level of correction I was doing was almost nonexistent. If my daughter started talking back to my MIL, I would say, "Michelle, be nice. That's not a  polite way to talk to someone else." Or when my daughter started whining at the table because she was "done eating" which in her world works like this; take two bites, say your full, then go play while everyone else eats, then make grandma hand feed her for 30 minutes. Since I already know this is her plan, I simply asked her to stay at the table, be polite, let everyone else finish eating, then she can go play  - and since she has to stay here anyway, she should probably eat. Basically, my corrections sound like this, "Don't do that, "Be polite," "Don't be bossy," "Lower your voice" and "Time to go."

 

Apparently this causes a culture clash. I am correcting my daughter in "public" (a nuclear family gathering is public?) the "American Way" and somehow this conflicts with the "Middle Eastern Way." The way my wife explained it, since my MIL and BIL's have only ever known me to be a happy-go-lucky guy that always laughs and has fun, it is very "uncomfortable" for all of them to hear me use a stern voice to correct my daughter's behavior. My counter argument was that if my MIL did not enable my daughter to ignore my first correction, there would never need to be a second, third and fourth - so really, it is their passivity and disregard for MY culture that causes the problem to escalate to the "uncomfortable" level - for them anyway. As I never felt uncomfortable about it, until now.

 

So that is where I am at. Waiting for my wife to go pick up my daughter so two hours after it happened, I can correct the bad behavior "in private."

 

Anyway, any opinions or insights would be useful. If I am wrong, I am wrong. I'm not looking for confirmation of my position. I am not averse to change, I already abandoned spanking, so if I am jacking this up I have no problem looking at it from another point of view.

 

 

[Mister Mister]

It sounds like you have made some great improvements, as far as not spanking, and establishing boundaries, and encouraging more mature habits and choices.  However, this telling her what to do "be polite", "don't do X", "Lower your voice", etc., is not great in my opinion.  First of all, you want her to respond to reason and negotiation, not demands for obedience, even if they are gentle.  Part of this is distinguishing between ethics, aesthetics, and preferences (see UPB for more).  But it's important that you don't use the same language for a moral rule that is universal, which you enforce on everyone: yourself, your wife, your extended family, other people, other kids, etc., things that are nice like not making a mess, and things you prefer.  I would suggest, don't be afraid to say "it makes me angry when X", or "I'd really like if you did Y," etc.  And be prepared for a counter-offer rather than immediate compliance.  On the other hand, if you frame it as a moral rule, or a family aesthetic, make sure you are holding others in the family accountable to these same rules.  You mentioned that your wife sometimes screams, which I'm sure you know is bad, but then you tell your daughter "lower your voice".  How do you deal with your wife when she screams?  If you go easy on an adult, but hold a child to a higher standard, they will unconsciously lose respect for you, and the moral rule itself.

 

  As far as the family issues, it sounds like you need to take time to get people on the same page.  As the easy-going guy, I imagine you have a hard time planting your flag on the hill and saying, "on this, I cannot waiver".  But I think you need to be more firm about how it is you wish your daughter to be parented, and come to some conclusion as a family.  Because these differing standards, and criticism of your parenting by extended family, is really not good.

  Those are just some of my initial thoughts.  What do you think?

[jimmo100]

Wow. Always interesting to hear personal accounts of cross-cultural relationships.

Especially M.E. and Western.

It did occur to me to ask what the M.E. cultural history is on the subject of child abuse. Every country deals with it in a different way. Among the worst offenders might reasonably be anticipated to over-correct.... which might mean you hide any sternness towards children.

Just speculation on my part. I mean no offense. As I said every culture deals with the problem in their own way. And again... it may have zero to do with your scenario, culturally.

[Jsbrads]

In my family corporeal punishment was regularly dispensed. You MIL behavior seems much like those times my mother realized the punishment was too excessive and she tried to intercede (rarely successfully). 

Did your FIL punish you BILs when younger?

start by getting on the same page with your wife and strategize with her as to best way to speak with your MIL...

best of luck, and have another one, best way to mature your girl.