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How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

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Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#101

Post by watwut »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #54
watwut wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont need full time parent at home. That is really not the need. I also agree that "your child should do more chores" is just another guilt tripping of parents. If your child is lazy to wash dishes after dinner, absolutely needs to do more. But, as long as the child contributes without temper tamtrump to age-appropriate activities you all do and are needed (and still have time to learn and play), it is perfectly…

My recollection is you are not American. America has this romanticized ideal from the 1950s of a nuclear family with a full-time provider (the father), a full-time parent (the mother) and 2 or more children. This has not been reality for quite a long time. Our demographics have diverged from that in recent decades. But that mental model continues to basically poison American life, in part by dictating cultural norms…

Yes, you recall right.

I think that romanticism you talk about is inconsistent too. There is romantic memory of "playing outside alone whole day coming back only when lights are out" and criticism of todays parents who dont allow that. Simultaneously, when the kid is playing alone for an hour and half after school because parent is in work, then it is treated like a neglect.

I used to go from school to extracurricular activity alone (sport, music, whatever) and then home and then be alone for around an hour or two and it was no big deal for anyone.

And that period also spawned go-to-work kind of feminism which I fully understood only after I spent some time at home. Like, as much as everyone talks about it as luxury, I was really really unhappy and it affected a lot (including how I am with kids). For all the "most important thing in the world" rhetoric, it is just that, rhetoric and ideology designed to make you feel ashamed if you don't like it and make you shut up about it. Because it is supposed to be luxury you should be thankful about, despite that lifestyle not being actual historical norm for most of population most of time (Housework in the past was way more work then it is nowdays. Women did not played with children all the time, they washed cloth, sewed, cooked, cared about animals and what not most of time.).

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#102

Post by sudhirj »

okket wrote: post #95
sudhirj wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, misread. Only the dish washing example is a boy, but I don’t think this is inherently gender specific.

Mexicos (and many other) current culture is not exactly known to be gender neutral on most (all?) things. Sorry, but I am a little skeptical about your assumption...

Probably isn’t, neither is India where I’m from. Boys would be heavily discouraged from doing kitchen or clean chores even if they tried. But the principles and techniques in the article seem to be gender neutral, even if their application in the cultures studied isn’t.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#103

Post by wott »

theBobBob wrote: post #75

I remember when I moved away for college I was so shocked at how quite a few people basically couldn't look after themselves at all. I ended up teaching one guy I lived with how to do the most basic things. I actually had to show him how to put a duvet cover on, how to boil rice, how to use a washing machine, the fact that if a chicken fillet is 50% pink on the inside is not yet finished. He had never done any of the…

> He had never done any of these things himself before.

Not only he had never done these before, but he had never paid attention for a single minute how they were done by his parents, he did not care, things appeared, ready done, that was the natural way of things (like cargo cult in a way) and he had no interest in the process. I had a friend like that (to make things worse, he then moved straight from his parents' to his girlfriend's, so it went on like this until he was 27...)

On the other hand, I almost never had anything to at home because my folks were of the kind who like to do everything themselves and do it quick, so there was nothing to be done, but I spent all my time questioning and above all observing them. Children are curious in general, but I have always been much more than average. So, whenever I was left alone (it happened frequently) or when I was later dropped in real life, I never had any difficulty, I could just reproduce their way of doing things.

--------

I think that in a same country/culture, there is also a difference between countryside and cities. I grew up in the countryside and all my school mates were living in farms, and they were more than happy to help their parents after school (or event to miss school to help with field work sometimes). I mean, it is much more interesting (and for some of it, it gives a feeling of responsibility like an adult) to feed the poultry, bring the cattle back to the stable, drive the tractor, help fixing tools, work a bit of wood and metal, discover mechanics, move and arrange straw bales (in the times when they could still be moved and arranged) and a hundred other things; than doing house chores (laundry, dish washing, floor weeping, OK you do them once to try, but then it gets boring as soon as the second time comes...). And there is not much more to do when you live in an apartment.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#104

Post by pbhjpbhj »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58
jordigh wrote: post #27

I know this is a bit petty, but I've stared to resent a little that even though I'm Mexican, I'm not considered Western. What am I, then? Eastern? Central? Southern? I'm not just arguing about the geography, but about the culture. I feel much more like a Canadian or a USian (or a Guatemalan) than I feel like an African, Middle Easter, East Asian, or South Asian. I speak the same languages as Europe, have been mostly…

> Mayans and I are by now part of the greater western world "Western" is used as short-hand for the cultures "that have some origin or association with Europe. The term also applies beyond Europe to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence." Modern Mexican culture could be argued to be "Western". It would be difficult, on the other hand, to arg…

So to demonstrate you're from the USA, culturally, you have to be so self-obsessed as to imagine USA is the only country in the whole of the American continent?

I don't necessarily doubt it; but it's kinda hilarious.

Like if a friend said "I'm a lot like you" and you say "you can't be, I'm an arrogant asshole".

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#105

Post by johnchristopher »

cambalache wrote: post #52
jordigh wrote: post #27

I know this is a bit petty, but I've stared to resent a little that even though I'm Mexican, I'm not considered Western. What am I, then? Eastern? Central? Southern? I'm not just arguing about the geography, but about the culture. I feel much more like a Canadian or a USian (or a Guatemalan) than I feel like an African, Middle Easter, East Asian, or South Asian. I speak the same languages as Europe, have been mostly…

My friend, this was something that surprised me 15-20 years ago when thanks to the Internet I started to interact with Americans. At the end Western is a code word for White dominated places or sometimes just Anglo. This came from Huntington's Clash of Civilizations a profoundly ignorant work. As you wrote you can live in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo or Mexico City, huge cosmopolitan places, maybe you have some recent rel…

Reminds me of a quote about culture in star trek: somehow, in this utopy, they only know of Shakespeare,an edgy hard boiled detective character, Captain Proton and baseball. The vision americans had for the ST utopia was very los angeles centered.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#106

Post by Izkata »

euske wrote: post #41
jordigh wrote: post #27

I know this is a bit petty, but I've stared to resent a little that even though I'm Mexican, I'm not considered Western. What am I, then? Eastern? Central? Southern? I'm not just arguing about the geography, but about the culture. I feel much more like a Canadian or a USian (or a Guatemalan) than I feel like an African, Middle Easter, East Asian, or South Asian. I speak the same languages as Europe, have been mostly…

I think the term "Western" is often mixed up with "Westernized", which has a rather different connotation. I live in Japan that is not technically Western at all, but very well Westernized.

Pretty sure it's this above all else. The US is also not in "The West", but it is in a sense "westernized" (it just never had a period where it wasn't "westernized" because of its origins).

The two terms are holdovers from centuries ago, when "The West" really did mean Europe and "The East" meant east Asia (and The Orient was in between, the Middle East + west Asia).

There's even an XKCD about how confusing it can be from the US (or, really, the Americas in general): https://xkcd.com/503/

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#107

Post by [deleted] »

sudhirj wrote: post #102
okket wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexicos (and many other) current culture is not exactly known to be gender neutral on most (all?) things. Sorry, but I am a little skeptical about your assumption...

Probably isn’t, neither is India where I’m from. Boys would be heavily discouraged from doing kitchen or clean chores even if they tried. But the principles and techniques in the article seem to be gender neutral, even if their application in the cultures studied isn’t.

[deleted]

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#108

Post by adam-a »

unixhero wrote: post #99
michalskop wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from central-eastern Europe and I feel the same. I've spent a few years in Latin America and I'd call both the regions "new" or "satellite" or "not-core" West. Germany or the US may be the original core West, but LatAm and CEEurope are West, too. Whether to include also Russia, that would be my question.

Russia is certainly out since they don't share even the same alphabet.

Yes, and out with Greece too!

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#109

Post by J-dawg »

ggg9990 wrote: post #28
gumby wrote: post #7

Resonating with a point in the article about telling kids "you're not involved in this task", I've noticed that my American neighbors are quite reluctant to allow their kids to use knives, light candles, fill glasses, and some cooking tasks that could result in a lot of mess. As what looks like a consequence those kids are rarely able to help get dinner on the table when they come over. An uncharitable explanation wo…

Letting your toddler fill glasses, etc. is like refactoring. It costs way more time now than filling them yourselves but if you don't ever let them do anything, you'll find yourself in a mountain of technical debt with a child who is incapable of assisting with any tasks.

More than that, you might find yourself with child who lacks a sense of self-esteem and self-agency and struggles with these things even into adulthood.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#110

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

agotterer wrote: post #13

My wife and I stumbled across this thinking recently. We have an 18 month old and we started putting him to work. I rarely open or close a cabinet, microwave or dishwasher if he’s around. We plop him on the counter when we cook and he holds ingredients and utensils. Just today I was hanging something on the wall so I had him hold the screwdriver for me. We found that he’s thrilled to help and we never force him. Our…

My Dad was like this with me. As I got older I got to support bits of wood he was sawing, bleed radiators, drill holes, mix concrete, and even wire plugs (under supervision, of course). These are some of my most fond memories growing up.

Now I do all of the building and decorating work in my house myself. I was up on the roof repointing ridge tiles yesterday, for example. My friends don't understand but it's all just second nature to me. It saves a huge amount of money and is very satisfying to live in a house that you've worked on yourself.

These are definitely great skills to have, and even in this day and age of being able to Google anything, just having the confidence to handle power tools and the knowledge of what's possible makes all the difference.

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