World Citizen Wednesdays #20: Caring for Multicultural Kids
Welcome to World Citizen Wednesday!
Each week we pose a question to members of the fabulous Multicultural Kid Blogs group and share their answers here.
To find out more about these amazing bloggers, check out the Multicultural Kid Blogs Facebook page. And watch for our group website, coming soon!
This week we ask…
If you are part of an intercultural family, what have you had to learn (or teach others) about caring for your kids?
Daria of Making Multicultural Music: Sometimes I loved how my kids would explain things to others. I loved hearing their descriptions of why we do certain things like “t’inka” giving the first bit of food or drink to Mother Earth.
Olga of The European Mama: It came a surprise to me when children were bathed only once a week in Germany, and only washed with a cloth the other days. The German midwife told me just that- once a week, and my brother in law with his wife also do it… in other countries they do it every day or every second day. [Response from Ute of expatsincebirth: “This is new to me! For newborns, I can understand, because the skin is sensitive. And in Italy they also bath newborns only once a week. But later: no way. I know that two generations back, they used to wash less, but those were other times.”]
Ute of expatsincebirth: I have something that I did differently from my friends in Switzerland. In Italy, my midwife told me that instead of using wet wipes for your babies, you should wash them under running water before changing the diapers. It’s not something that my husband would do different, as he learned it with me in Italy. I still did it with my twingirls here in NL and the Kraamzorg was astonished but liked “my way” to do it. Even if my background is different from my husband’s one, we never had really different ways to care for our children. Our differences in taking care of our kids are more due to our different characters.
Kristen of Toddling in the Fast Lane: I learned to have her wear a red string as a baby to ward off the evil eye and “pasar el huevo” (pass the egg) if she was upset.
Cecy of Spanglish House: About the food, Bolivian diet at least from the place I come from (Altiplano), is very healthy except they do not use as many greens. My husband loves color in the food, so I learned to have a healthy diet in which I taught them to eat less sugars. About child rearing, I am more laid back and my husband is more disciplinarian. Also, in Bolivia, just poor people use midwives. If you have money you go to a Doctor and a good clinic, especially if you are high or middle class. You do not have babies at home. I married an American that encouraged me to visit a midwife when I was pregnant, and I even had a baby at home. By the way was the most beautiful experience, but my Bolivian friends still think I was crazy to have done it.
Olga of The European Mama: The vaccination schedule in Germany is slightly different. In Poland and Germany we tend to do more of them than in the Netherlands- for example nobody does chicken pox vaccinations here, but they’re the norm in Germany and Poland. Also, as a Polish citizen, I have to get my children vaccinated against Hep B- if my nationality was different, more “Western”, I wouldn’t have to.
Thanks to all the bloggers who shared their answers here! You can read answers to earlier questions in our previous installments of World Citizen Wednesday, including tips for traveling with kids!
Find out more about these wonderful bloggers by visiting our Facebook page, subscribing to our Facebook feed, following us on Twitter, or following our group Pinterest board! On Twitter, you can also find us by using the hashtag #multiculturalkids. And watch for our very own website, coming soon!
