Man, when do we stop this European thing? Have you tried to compare a kid in Naples with a kid in, say, Denmark? Come on, the kid in Naples will be a 24/7 hurdle, shouting in the street from when the sun rises. I even have a hard time talking about Italians since kids from North and South are very different.
It is a culture. Yes, in Copenhagen and in Naples, things are quite different, but there is also a common ground.
Compared to Americans, e.g. most Europeans don't like to go all in with some idea or project — the want some plan B. And nobody fears nudity (there are some grades, from being all ok with it [Germany] or still having some reservations [France], but still).
I lived in Russia, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Spain and the US. And I see more things in common between Russians and Americans then between Americans and the rest of Europeans. Both Russians and Americans like megaprojects, enjoy standing on moral high ground, like all-ins and risky endeavors, and long for foreign culture without really immersing in it. In Europe, none of these things are common.
>Both Russians and Americans like megaprojects, enjoy standing on moral high ground, like all-ins and risky endeavors, and long for foreign culture without really immersing in it.
Someone who has lived there will doubtless correct me, but I get the strong impression that China is similar. Must be a superpower thing.
Neither is India....or even the United States for that matter.
Also, while we're at it, can we also stop using "Cancer" as if it were a single disease that we can "cure"? "Cancer" is an umbrella term for a wide range of diseases that can affect vastly different parts of the body in different ways. It's not all the same thing.
The United States are very homogenous in comparison to Europe. The US have a strong race issue between "blacks" "whites" "asians" etc.
Europe has a discrimination issue between what the US calls "whites". For example in France, Polish people are supposedly all plumbers and Portugese are masons.
In the US there are only two languages, English and Spanish. In Europe there's too many to count with the modern revival of local dialects.
This is rather like arguing if Christianity is a homogeneous or diverse religion. The answer is "yes".
In the US, views on race are very different in Alaska or Hawaii than in Alabama or Puerto Rico.
The US also has discrimination issues between different whites. For example, in the US you can be "White non-Hispanic" vs. "White Hispanic". While less common than in my youth, the US also has slurs and stereotypes about US-born whites based on their family's historical culture. This lead to expressions like "dumb Swede", the stereotype of the Irish cop on the beat, and many ethnic slurs, including those concerning white Jews.
"Only two languages"? What do you even mean by that? San Francisco has Chinese language TV broadcasts, and of course Chinatown. There are 40,000+ Hmong in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area. A radio station I used to listen to had shows in Navajo. Hawaiian is an official language in Hawaii. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States :
> Tagalog and Vietnamese have over one million speakers each in the United States, almost entirely within recent immigrant populations. Both languages, along with the varieties of Chinese (mostly Cantonese, Taishanese, and Standard Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean, are now used in elections in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. ... The state government of Louisiana offers services and documents in French,
> The five most spoken languages in the EU are English (51%), German (32%), French (26%), Italian (16%) and Spanish (15%). At 18% of the total number of speakers, German is the most widely spoken native language, followed by Italian, English, French and Spanish.
Your comments are so noted. However, I objected to the phrase "In the US there are only two languages, English and Spanish. In Europe there's too many to count with the modern revival of local dialects."
The US has more than two languages, even in official government use. (You linked to the same source as I did, which points out both Hawaiian and French use.)
If we use the same metric, which points out the "modern revival of local dialects", then we must also accept the modern revival in the US of indigenous languages, and their use in tribal governments.
United States has 1 common language, you realize sometimes we move 200km here and we don't understand each other? But I agree, in broad terms we are more similar than not (we all agree on the same things on human rights, individualism, separation of State vs Religion. Check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede's_cultural_dimensions...). It's just that in less broad terms - say quite kids - we are very, very, different. It's a matter of understanding which layer of culture you are referring to and avoid broad simplifications.
That's the same in some parts of Germany, but there's a huge difference between a different dialect or accent and literally speaking a completely different language.
I came to say the same - this is more of a Germanic thing thing that a pan-European thing. I'm living in Spain and the kids here are anything but quiet (compared with the UK).
And being slightly xenophobes... sorry, I had to say that, I did not feel very welcomed in Denmark, maybe it was the city or the ghetto I was living in (I did like the ghetto a lot though). Italy is a bit more welcoming, Germany is very welcoming (for Italians at least).
Just because you dislike people from the next village over just as much as you dislike people from the next continent over doesn't mean you aren't xenophobic. Xenophobia isn't limited to nationalities.
Yet surveys put them in the top happiest countries in the world. I have to refrain myself from saying something overly generic here, but do notice the big contradiction between what you just said (which I believe is really true) and what I just said. Let's say that people up there tend to hide themselves from their true opinions sometimes.
Well, technically, there are few reasons for Danes to be unhappy. High salaries, low workloads, free healthcare and education, somewhat efficient government services and low bureaucratic load. I spent there about 6 months, so I don't exactly know.
But there's some dystopian feeling about all this. All Danes have social security numbers which are deeply integrated into all government services; all information (including healthcare, bank accounts, childcare services etc.) are accessible online by it (using MFA). To "fit in" and not being heroic is the general theme of Danish culture, something that they teach their children. "See these identical Lego blocks? They are essentially the same, and don't do much on their own, but you can build different things from them, to be fit for different purposes. This is how society works." — a Dane might explain. Lego is Danish invention; it is an acronym for "play well together".
I agree with your point, but Lego is not an acronym and 'together' is not part of it. From their website "The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well""
You bet! You won't make any friends in Western Europe in general overnight, the ones you do make will be few and far between, but damn it all, you will have made deep friends for life. So yes, xenophobia until you have proven yourself otherwise. Or maybe not xenophobia, but personal space, peace and quiet is valued at a premium. You'll be treated politely but with a distance, until it is determined whether you are compatible or not; otherwise, the politeness protocol has been satisfied, and now goodbye:
I introduced myself, you introduced yourself; this is a very good conversation! Goodbye!
That's really true...
as much truth as all dumb racist stereotipes that I see popping up from time to time here in HN.
I guess therefore that Iceland, which has gone bankrupt in the worst possible way, is full of screaming children.
By the way , I have been a couple of weeks ago in London, and I have seen a lot of running children mostly by coloured immigrants. I guess this will affect UK GDP seriously in the future...
1) Nothing is homogeneous. Even a single static object is not 100% the same now compared to how it was 10 days ago. But in order to make any observation, one has to generalize to the point that has statistical significance.
2) Despite saying Europeans and Americans such articles don't mean ALL Europeans and ALL Americans. For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe: Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, etc. For Americans they mostly mean the stereotypical middle class suburban American, not a Manhattanite yuppie, nor some Idaho farmer, or "white trash".
3) The idea is not to see if the article's observations hold 100%, but whether they hold more often than not.
Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too. As soon as I read the title, I thought to children in my country (Italy) and I saw the enormous gap.
>Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too.
It does, but there's also the North/South division (even within a single country, like Italy, but even more so generally).
South Europe is not really "Western" in this sense (and in other senses, e.g. with respect to religious heritage and ethics, catholicism and orthodoxy vs protestants, etc).
His definition of Western Europe would also be my definition. Western European states have a high standard of living, low levels of corruption compared to Italy, well maintained and developed infrastructure, low levels of unemployment, and discipline. Compare and contrast with Italy, Spain, or Portugal.
He does, but I don't think name calling will change his mind. Besides, let's be honest, his ideas are already there in most people's minds.
To the grandparent: Luxembourg's dirty secret is corruption. France has high unemployment. Standards of living are actually pretty nice under the sun, and outside of the high-pay but nerve-wracking shitty weather of "the north". I agree on the more discipline part, but only when it comes to public behaviour.
Stereotypes exist for a reason, although people try to drown them out in public because they think that makes them look better. I'm just not being a hypochrite in this particular instance, that's all. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Oh, you are right and I am so wrong: for instance, people from the South of Europe are famous throughout the world for being as hardworking as the Japanese.
If you ever meet anyone from Dalmatia, ask them what their word "fjaka" means, then ask them why they have it...
And of course, terrorist is simply nothing more than a stereotype, because there is no pattern at all which could possibly correlate the string of terror acts. Those terrorists are actually Buddhists from Tibet, that's what those are!
How could I have been so wrong??? Horrible, deplorable.
>What? Italy is not "Western"? Well, your definition of Western Europe is very weird. Italy is one of the foundations of Western Europe.
Being a foundation in 17th century doesn't mean it hasn't floundered since. But that's not the point either.
To quote WIkipedia:
"Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of the European continent. There may be differences between the geopolitical and purely geographic definitions of the term."
Most everybody does not include Italy in "Western" Europe. Italy is "South Europe", along with Spain, Portugal, Greece etc. Heck, even the European Commission divides Europe into West (fr, be, nl, uk, de), North (se, no, fi, baltics), South (es, it, pt, gr, cy) and East (the rest) in many of their policy studies. I have never been involved in any policy work where Italy was considered 'Western Europe' (part of 'the West', yes, but that's from a global perspective).
Catholic religion has been the founding religion of the medieval Europe . I hope that I don't have to remind you that , in ancient times, kings were crowned by Popes in France and UK. All other variations of Christian religions were created as a result of struggle powers. In the 14-15th centuries Italians were leading innovators and bankers from Florence were lending money to England and France kings. Back in that time the most common Language in business Europe was a derivation of Italian. Italy is one of the foundation of Western Europe, both historically and culturally. Denying this is ignoring history.
P.S: I guess that children in Italy were running and screaming quite a lot also at the time...
Western Europe is a well established geographical and historical reality, and vague, a-historical concepts like "Discipline" and "Mentality" have no value, at all. Italy, France or Spain are the cradle of Western Europe, along with a bunch of other countries.
I lived in 4 different countries in continental Europe (France, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands) and while, of course, there are differences, it is staggering the quantity of shared things, in the daily life…
But we were not discussing whether those three countries were the cradles of European civilization (undisputedly so) but what Western Europe is in contemporary times.
No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals. The root cause of that is the mentality, the way of thinking, and lack of discipline: "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw". The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?
I am sorry for you, you are just thinking along stereotypes here. That's way of thinking says much more about you than it doesn't say about reality...
> No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals.
Germany, for example, in the last years has been known for VW, Deutsche Bank and Siemens scandals, showing links between corrupt business and political power. BER international airport is another example, and there are countless of other examples. And those were huge examples of corruption. Corruption is a systemic problem, and thinking that in central Europe there is no corruption is just a very dangerous mindset.
> "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw".
...
> The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?
The reasons are complex, Spain no more than 10 years ago showed fantastic grow rates, very low public debt, very low unemployment. Essentializing the problems of Spain as a problem of "mentality" just shows ignorance.
I'm from an excluded from this definition country too.
It's not about wanting your home country to be part of "Western Europe", or whether it was its cradle, or whether it is "worth" it to be.
It's about whether it fits certain modern socio-economic criteria for a SPECIFIC definition of western europe.
To quote Wikipedia:
"Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of the European continent. There may be differences between the geopolitical and purely geographic definitions of the term."
Check: United Nations Statistics Division geoscheme for Western Europe (hint: no Italy).
It's much more accurate to divide Europe between the Northern, Germanic (Germany, UK, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Austria), the Southern, Latin (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) and the Eastern, Slavic. Of course the separations aren't so clear-cut, but I am under the impression that when I read something about "Why are the Europeans so much better" it often matches the Northern category.
Much like it's hard to give much credit to sentences that use common nouns at all; we would be better off without them, they only lead to generalizations.
In fact, I should take it all back, for I find in the process of communicating like a normal human I've generalized the very notion of improper nouns. Not all improper nouns are the same. And I've generalized generalizations themselves; not all of them are bad. Mea culpa.
Yep that's right, the smiles and the good service is all fake, from people being paid a minimum or below minimum wage and no incentive to excel at service.
In contrast, my experiences while I was in central England as far as politeness and service have been very positive, and are a credit to your nation.
However, that all utterly pales in comparison to Japan: I didn't know what service really is until I visited there. Nowhere else did I feel like I was on top of the world as a customer; I will never look at quality of service with the same eyes again.
I'm from the UK, and find the massive smiles and "y'all have a nive day" in the US to be... just so over-exaggerated that it almost becomes ridiculous.
In Japan everyone is so incredibly polite (e.g. train conductor bowing to passengers as he moves through the train, cleaning staff waving off the train as it leaves etc), but it feels very natural and genuine.
I'm from the UK and often find the default dismissive, critical and judgemental attitude that prevails as insincere as my experience of overly nice Americans, I'd rather live among the latter, or ideally, a mix of all from everywhere!
The one that kills me the most is when you announce your resignation from the job.
All of the sudden, everybody says "Hey, let's take you to lunch!"
Me: "Dude, I have been here for 4 years. I have taken everybody to lunch at least 8 times. Once you came. The other times you were 'busy.' Now you want to take me to lunch on my last week? Not once you invited me before!"
It's not just the kids, the adults are quiet also. The first time I went to Germany I couldn't believe how quiet the airport was when I landed. It's like a library in America.
For those of us who grew up and live in this culture, you wouldn't believe how loud the average American is.
It's like someone shouting in a library, whether it's my American colleague asking sometime else in the office a question, a couple of tourists on the metro, or an American family in a restaurant.
It's probably a large part of why Americans are often considered rude.
We forgave the Germans for getting up early to reserve the deckchairs when the Americans showed up. Everybody forgave the Americans when the Russians and Chinese from the provinces started travelling.
> [..] students are expected to sit with a partner and engage in quiet conversation. They are supposed to be able to hear each other, but not be heard more than one meter away. This allows other conversations to take place around them, creating an expectation of privacy and personal space in a crowded room.
The key here is: "This allows other conversations to take place around them". I was raised (in Germany) to understand that unnecessarily loud talking or shouting at each other is considered rude. As a kid I was far more often told to speak at an adequate noise level than to shut up.
On the generalization of "Americans" and "Europeans": Yes, it is BS, but the author reveals that she is mostly drawing from experiences in Austria and Germany and I'm pretty sure that everybody in this thread unjustly generalizes when (s)he does not know better due to lack of experience. Nobody complains when somebody writes about Scottish or Welsh people even though every valley there seems to have its own flag and slight cultural and even linguistical variations that we are too uneducated to see.
>I am just here to +1 what everyone else is saying: Austria/Germany/etc. != Europe
I'm not from Western Europe either, but it doesn't matter if they don't include us while talking about "Europe".
Most of such articles discuss the cultural core of Western Europe, even if they call it just "Europe". Europe might have 30+ countries, but it's mostly those Western/Northern few that define "Europe" for such purposes.
This stems from a lot of things, but the historical divide of the "Eastern Block" and the "North/South" also helped solidify it. Those Western/Northern European countries were large global empires and they still have the EU power, are big global economies, are members of the G8/G20, etc.
So other countries get the short end of the stick, even if nominally they are "Europe" too.
Portugal or Greece or Czech Republic, etc., might not even exist in most such treatments of "Europe" -- those, when are mentioned, are explicitly called "the south", "balkans", "eastern europe", etc.
Sure, I can see glossing over the Czech Republic or Bulgaria. I'm more surprised by articles that seem to forget the existence of France, Spain, and Italy, though, since those are solidly in the traditional conception (even the traditional American conception) of "European culture".
Yes yes, I've live in Europe for 13 years. When there is an American group in a restaurant, you KnOW, no matter where in the restaurant they are.
I've observed this in Hungary, Germany, Spain and others.
My theory is that most Europeans, living all their life on a crowded continent, tend to move in closer to talk, and hence talk at a lower volume. Americans, used to grand amounts of space, sit back and project their voice.
I'm from istanbul and having seen tourists from every place on the world, I think the loudest are the Germans and the Saudis. When they speak on the tram I usually just give up with the earphones :)
Sadly, most of these comments attack everything but the fundamental thesis. In my experience, in most countries in Europe, children are quieter and better behaved than in the US. They're also more capable of having sustained conversations with adults.
When Americans say Europe they usually mean Western Europe, which is not really how the rest of the continent is. For instance in Mediterranean or Balkan people (and kids) are anything but quiet.
I am living in the Balkans for the last four years and my personal experience is that kids here are generally quiet. Very similar to Western Europe. (Zagreb - Croatia, Belgrade and Novi Sad - Serbia).
Before coming here I visited and lived in many European countries and Italians for sure are the loudest in public settings (restaurants for example) - especially when there are many of them together. From my experience from Greek Islands Englishmen are the loudest of all - at home in England they are quiet and polite though . Germans are the quietest ones when traveling to other countries but loud at home sometimes.
All this is totally my subjective point of view of course.
Funny you say this, because a little over a year ago an older lady in Sarajevo came over to our table to complain how loud we were (2 Australians and an American).
I'd like to know if there are regional differences even in the US. An analogous situation is restaurants. I live in the Midwest, and I've noticed that restaurants are a lot louder here than what I've encountered in Europe -- even when there are no children around.
Oh man oh man, I'm American, and nothing can compare to a restaurant in China....70 db, 80 db? Yep. Kid playing with their iPad on full volume at the table next to you? Not a problem. Cell phone ringers are set to max volume because...everywhere is just so loud. And there seems to be no problem with jack hammer/dump truck construction outside my window at 2AM in the morning.
Ummm... China is not a third world country. It was a second world country. In fact the whole point of the definition of first/second/third world revolves around China, the USSR, and their allies being the second world.
What you mean to say is China is a developing country. Please leave the old out dated and irrelevant cold war propaganda terminology in the past where it belongs. Remember, Switzerland and Sweden are both canonical examples of third world countries: they were allied with neither the UK/US block or the China/USSR block. Likewise, just because a country is a first world country doesn't mean it's rich -- some of the poorest countries in the world are first world countries, like Namibia.
I know what you are saying, and I get "China is still a developing country" clobbered into my skull almost everyday. Third world just sounds better in contrast to first world, especially when prefixed by "problems"; there are no subreddits for developed and developing world problems, but they exist for first and third world problems (https://www.reddit.com/r/thirdworldproblems and https://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems). It seems that third-world has evolved past its old cold war meaning to just mean "developing world"; here is what Google says on its title card for a search on "third world" (https://www.google.com/search?q=third+world+problems&oq=thir...):
Third World
noun
the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
> Over the last few decades since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term Third World has been used interchangeably with the least developed countries, the Global South, and developing countries to describe poorer countries that have struggled to attain steady economic development, a term that often includes "Second World" countries like Laos. This usage, however, has become less preferred in recent years.[1]
Remember that words can change meaning over the years, even if they do not remain true to their old meanings. This is just another way our language evolves. An attachment to the old meaning of a term is usually not going to sway people's opinion of the word's definition.
Technically Switzerland and Finland are third world countries by the original definition. That's not very useful in modern conversation though, just as describing happy people as gay is not useful.
Yes, speaking in regards to the economic concept, more than half of China is still a third world country.
They have about 900 million people living on $7 or less per day. Half a billion people there are living on $3-$4 or less per day. Of the poorest two billion people on earth, more than 1/3 are in China. Their income numbers for the bottom 50% compare with the poorest nations on earth.
Granted, the problem with China is it possesses the most inequality of any major nation between the top 50% and the bottom 50%, due to the vast rural vs east coast gap in incomes. The nation with the second most billionaires, that has half a billion people living as subsistence farmers.
First/second/third world is not an economic concept. Both Namibia and the Philippines are first world countries. Both Switzerland and Sweden (and Austria too) are third world countries. China -- by the very definition of the first/second/third world -- is a second world country.
Please use the proper terms: developed and developing.
Please accept that definitions change over time, and it doesn't help if you're complaining about your definition being stuck in the past. The global narrative moves on regardless.
In sociolinguistics there is a concept called complementary schismogenesis that describes a mechanism that can result in exaggerated differences in conversational style. There is tendency for people with different conversational styles to attempt to pull the conversation towards their style, and when multiple participants do this, the differences become increasingly exaggerated.
For instance, if an American who talks slightly louder than average converses with a European, he may start talking even louder to try to get the European to speak up a bit. The European will then talk even quieter to prompt the American to follow. Then the American will get louder, and the cycle will continue.
This is can explain how a minor difference in average actual volume can lead to a major perceived difference.
I'm American, and I sometimes ask myself that too: I catch myself talking loudly and I have no earthly idea why. Probably because that's what everyone else is doing!
Kind of like an arms race then. I sometimes wonder if this is the reason that American vehicles are so much bigger than elsewhere - once a few people have trucks and suv's, it puts pressure on others to buy bigger vehicles (maybe for safety reasons - not because they would otherwise want to).
As an immigrant who lived in south(NC), midwest(Colorado) & west(CA), each of the regions are very unique. In south most people greet you & nod at strangers while walking on streets. I got used to this habit & in midwest/west when i nod, many times it will be met with blank stares. Some of my friends who nodded out of practice in India got into hilarious situations where people became suspicious. Overall my impression is Americans of all ages/sex are very outgoing (except for young women who probably are afraid of getting unwanted attention) when compared to people in Europe/India/China.
I don't think "privacy" is the right word to describe the lack of communication you're experiencing. I can respect a culture where people's default mode is not to socialize, especially as a more introverted American, but I don't see how your privacy in a public place can be anything other than zero.
There's a Finnish expression for this: you can see, but you do not look. For example, it's accepted that everybody in a sauna is naked, but you wouldn't go ogling at somebody's genitals -- even if they're the opposite sex.
It's "wilful privacy", if you will: as long as everybody respects the privacy, everything stays private, even though it takes only one person to break the illusion.
>but I don't see how your privacy in a public place can be anything other than zero.
Privacy is a spectrum, not a binary.
Consider two women sitting on a park bench and people around minding their own business, and same two women sitting on a park bench with a few nearby men staring at them, making obvious gestures, etc.
> For city dwelling Europeans, the parks and playgrounds are their backyards
This system is efficient for citizens, but it is both fragile (requires a population of cooperators) and doesn't generate much profit for corporations. Expect to see it go.
European children are quieter because demographically there are fewer children, meaning that children will be more likely to interact with an adult than with other children.
Adults do not like unquiet children, so they become conditioned to be more quiet.
My anecdotal experience is that families, instead of having a uniform distribution, tend to concentrate in some places while avoiding others. In such places, children have an equal propensity to interact with another child as they do an adult.
Of course, I have absolutely no idea whether this is true as I have zero data. I don't even know whether European children are more quiet, let alone all the other assumptions and assertions going on here. We live near to a school (in UK, just outside London), and the kids definitely don't use their "1 metre voices" during the lunchtime break.
Children of the age we speak of are either at home, where there 0-2 other sibling children commonly, or at school, where there are many children (as many as would be in a US school). Nowhere the relative number of children in society comes into play here.
It's not like 7 year olds play out in the streets of Paris and are told to be quiet, or they suddenly learn to be quiet when they visit e.g. restaurants.
Plus Asian children are equally or more quite, even when there are tons of them.
It's mostly about spoiling them and/or indulging them to whatever whim, rather than sssh them.
"Americans find it jarring when they are sitting at a European café or restaurant and someone takes the empty seat at their table"
I've experienced this and I had to exert will power not to get up and move. It was very unnerving. In the US I would have thought the guy was a creeper of some sort, or needed to be shot or stabbed quickly before he got me. I also was in a hotel restaurant once and there was only one other person at a table. The hostess wanted to seat me at his table, even though there were a dozen or more empty tables. Ack.
Physical beatings, not so much, but difference in attitude, definitely. To boldly caricature, in America it's all about how every child is a special snowflake whose antics must not just be tolerated but encouraged; while in "Europe" (France), children in adult spaces like restaurants must conform to adult rules or be punished.
Edit: Hmm, that came off snarkier than I intended. I didn't intend to imply that either approach is necessarily superior, just that surely there's a happy medium somewhere between the two extremes.
It's getting like this in Europe as well. Little snowflakes. Now at least one adult has to take to and pick up kids from school until 11 or 12 years old where I am from. When I was 7 years old and started first grade we went to school which was 2km away and came home alone from the first day.
Currently we are all raising kids that will not be ready for the world in 10-20 years. I am sure of that. Kids from other parts of the world will have the advantage in pretty much all fields.
This is from around the fifties. The kids aren't doing yoga or something -- they really don't have shoes -- they usually had just an incredibly warn-out pair at most, which they wore as part of their "good outfit" (for going to important events, church, etc).
No school buses -- actually no highways between lots of rural villages until late 60s, and a single school (in the central/bigger village) catering also for 3-4 nearby villages in what could be a 10-20 km radius.
Yes, you don't need to go more than 60 years back before even the socialist democracy utopia Norway was radically different from today. My grandfather grew up in the 40's and 50's, having eight siblings. At thirteen, his father died, so the three oldest boys (aged 11, 13 and 15) had to stop going to school and start working on fishing boats to provide for the family. He lost four of his cousins when they were trying to salvage scrap iron from a naval mine left after the war and it exploded.
The stories of our grandparents are stories that we would associate with a war-torn country in the third world if they happened today.
My father walked one and a half hour to school and back (big city in the netherlands). I walked for 20 mins until I went to high school where I used the bike. I think these days most kids bike to school my estimate is at least 80%.
Don't know about other European countries but dropping your kids off is not the norm after the age of 8.
My parents and aunts/uncles did indeed do this to get to school in the 50's in Eastern Europe. The school was in a different town so they had no choice.
> at least one adult has to take to and pick up kids from school until 11 or 12 years old where I am from
Where is this? Do you mean by law, or is this just some social expectation? I find it hard to imagine how one would go about enforcing this, and it seems pretty silly for schools in cities and urban areas where kids are often living ~5-10 minutes walk from their school...
> in America it's all about how every child is a special snowflake whose antics must not just be tolerated but encouraged
America has a sizable population who think that beating your children is okay. That's not limited to the home - 31 states have abolished corporal punishment in schools but it's still permitted in 19 other states. Corporal punishment is widespread in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi schools. Corporal punishment is routine in some schools in Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.
It's only in 2011 that parents had the right to prevent their children being hit at school.
(This is all public schools. Hitting children in private schools is legal in all but 2 states.)
Attempts to ban hitting children in US schools usually fail, although attempts to reintroduce hitting children in schools also fail.
In the places where hitting children is legal the rates of violence against children is possibly rising, partly because of efforts to reduce use of suspension and expulsion.
And this isn't just children: 18 and 19 year olds attending school are sometimes hit.
Ah yes. Someone small and very easy to shape and to scar, that looks up to you and loves you in the only way someone totally independent does = the only one you are allowed hit.
Not only is that totally effed up, but there is hardly anything that speaks in favour of it.
