Different cultures have different ways of raising children. We all love to work a good red, white, and blue lewk around the 4th of July, but the truth is that American parenting isn't necessarily the best way out there. While watching House Hunters International way past my bedtime at night, I saw families opting to move their kids out of the US in order to raise them a different way. Heading to the tropics or the delicious bakeries of France makes sense to me, but I was surprised to see one family packing up and heading to Russia because they liked how the Russians parent.
Curious, I asked my brother-in-law, who was born in Russia, how I'd go about raising my own 4-year-old boys the Russian way. My brother-in-law is a great guy. He's smart, kind, cultural, and athletic. He's also fairy tidy. These are all qualities I'd love to see in my own kids. So with his help, I decided to spend a week raising my boys like a Russian parent.
What does that mean exactly? According to him, there are five things all Russian parents do: make their children do chores, feed them soup, let them play outside (no matter the weather), make them take ballet lessons, and let them stay up as late as they want. I was doubtful this would work (especially the bedtime rule) but I was willing to try. So I followed these rules for a full week, and here's what happened.
1) Making Your Kids Do Chores
Even though my kids are 4, to me they still seem like babies. I'd always planned to create a chore chart to get them to make their beds, clean their toys, and put their shoes in the shoe bin, but I thought I would wait till they were in kindergarten to start that. I didn't think they were old enough or mature enough to handle responsibilities now.
But since Russian parents give their kids chores from a young age, this week I wrote down a wish list of all the things I wished the boys could do on their own without my assistance: get themselves dressed, brush their own teeth, clear the table after meals, and clean up their shoes and toys every night.
THE RUSSIAN WAY OF PARENTING IS LESS DRAMATIC AND MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD. YOU WANT YOUR KIDS TO LEARN HOW TO CLEAN? HAND THEM A RAG AND TELL THEM TO WIPE DOWN THE WINDOWS.
I was surprised both by how much they were able to do on their own and by how much they wanted to do things independently. Sure, I had to help them get their back teeth while brushing, and there were a few times when they came out of their bedroom with their shorts on backwards, but generally speaking, they were really proud of themselves for being able to take control of tasks. And I loved it because I wasn't standing over them saying, "Get your socks, no your socks, THE SOCKS THEY'RE RIGHT THERE!" every morning.
My partner shares the household chores with me, so it's important to me that my boys follow in his footsteps by viewing household chores as human work, not "women's work." I just always thought that lesson would come when they were older, in the form of a dinnertime conversation complete with a discussion about feminism. The Russian way of parenting, however, is less dramatic and more straightforward. You want your kids to learn how to clean? Hand them a rag and tell them to wipe down the windows. I realized not every life lesson has to be a big production.
2) Let Them Eat Soup.
When I asked my brother-in-law how the Russians approach mealtimes with kids, his advice struck me as a little odd. "Dinners are always soup and the main meal," he told me. "Can't have dinner without soup." It's currently June and a trillion degrees out, but in the spirit of the experiment, I decided soup was on the menu for the week.
I usually avoid giving the boys soup unless they're sick and refuse to eat. They drip it all over themselves and the slurping sounds they make hurt my soul as well as my ears. Plus I never really thought soup was all that nutritious.
I'M OFFICIALLY TEAM SOUP WITH DINNER, EVEN IN THE SUMMER.
Turns out Russian parents are totally onto something with this soup trick. My boys typically chatter non-stop during meals, which can be frustrating because I want them to eat. Plus it would be nice to get a full sentence out to my partner without being interrupted. But when I put bowls of soup in front of them, suddenly they weren't interested in telling me the plot of the latest episode of Super Wings. They were focused on getting that spoon from the bowls to their mouths. I can handle some slurping it if means having an adult conversation for a few minutes.
I fully admit that I have zero chill. I know some parents can sit back and let their kids eat as little or as much as they want at dinner, but when I make a meal, I want my kids to eat at least a decent amount of it. I worry about their growth and I hate to waste food. The beauty of feeding them soup is that I didn't have to lean over their bowls with a ruler to figure out how much they've had. Giving them soup forces me to relax about how much they're eating. Dinner was much more pleasant for all of us this way because I wasn't bargaining with them to "take three more bites." They were also, for some reason, much more willing to eat vegetables when they were in soup. So I'm officially team soup with dinner, even in the summer.
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