8 ms·

How Parents Around the World Describe Their Children, in Charts

64 points by colinismyname 14y ago

switch33 14y ago
Somehow I find that "easy" attitude to mean something different. lol. Especially since there is not really any context to it. Also kind of strange how the only ones who are rebellious are US?
- StavrosK 14y ago
  I don't know, it seems pretty clear to me that it means "easy to manage/low-maintenance". We can't tell if the only ones who are rebellious are US, from the article. What we can tell is that US parents consider their children rebellious.
dmlorenzetti 14y ago
An interesting read is "Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" by Meredith Small. It touches on a lot of the ideas in this article, in much greater depth, and looking across a wider range of cultures and continents. In short, if you find this article interesting, I would highly recommend the book.
afterburner 14y ago
So, considering parent bias, does this basically show what each cultures' parents value in their kids, or perhaps in people in general?
startupfounder 14y ago
Upon first review it was quite interesting to compare how countries perceive themselves, but when trying to compare countries to each other I realized that the x-axis and y-axis are different for each country. For example the first quote says "A fascinating new study reveals that Americans are more likely to call their children 'intelligent'", but in fact a higher percentage of parents in Australia say their children are more intelligent. Parents in Spain think their kids are really really easy.
- thatthatis 14y ago
  Glad someone else saw this. The conclusions of the article don't seem to follow from the data.
- adaml_623 14y ago
  Australia gets a mention but after that I think it just gets lumped in with Europe. You don't think they got confused with Austria do you?
kijin 14y ago
When I saw the graphs, what I immediately noticed was not how much emphasis parents place on intelligence, but rather how much emphasis they place on conformity. The article talks about both, but it talks more about the former than the latter. But I find the latter a lot more interesting. Terms like "agreeable", "socially mature", and "well balanced" (versus "attention seeking", presumably a bad thing) can signify that parents place quite a bit of importance on how well their children conform to social norms and expectations. The article mentions bedtime rules, but this can also extend to long-entrenched traditions in "Old World" societies. On the other hand, the fact that American parents don't use these terms, and instead use terms like "independent" and "rebellious", shows that American culture places a high value on thinking and living outside of the box. The lack of "calm" and "happy" might make life more stressful for parents and children alike, but at the same time, the term "adaptable" implies that Americans expect the world around them to change quickly, and when it does, you gotta change, too. America is newer and changes faster. It's not surprising that Americans value qualities that make people innovative, disruptive, and not bound by any rule that they didn't make by themselves. As a person who has lived half his life in a society where being "well rounded", conformity, and obedience to authority are considered a child's primary virtues, I must confess that I am rather partial to the "American" style, tradition be damned. Edit: There also seems to be a relevant difference between Northern/Western Europe and Southern Europe, just as there is a large cultural difference between Northeastern/Western U.S. and the Southeast. So maybe the comparison should be between industrial regions and traditionally agricultural regions, or between relatively secular regions and deeply religions regions, rather than between America and Europe as a whole. Seems obvious in some ways.
- RivieraKid 14y ago
  Interesting, I find that social norms in the US are more rigid and Europe seems to be more laid back. (Two examples that come to mind: nudity and the "base" system in dating.)
  - kijin 14y ago
    Sexual norms are not necessarily representative of a society's overall openness to change. My impression is that America (modulo some parts of the South) makes much more fuss celebrating innovation than most of the rest of the world does, and even if this is not a good reflector of the status quo, it certainly has a long-term impact on how people think.
zevyoura 14y ago
Another similar and interesting set of data to look at is baby naming trends. Freakonomics Radio's most recent episode covers the subject with some depth: http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-name-matter-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-na...
radicalbyte 14y ago
From what I remember from my childhood in the UK, I'd say that Britain is very close to America. Everyone focussed on "intellect" there, and my friends there broadly use the American strategies (hyper + TV). I've noticed the difference in The Netherlands. My wife was just this afternoon planning the bedtime rooster for our first child (due in September!). I put it down to her Dutch tick for planning/organization. What is true is that the maternity/paternity system here is awesome: it's like society has accepted that yes, people do have kids. And, if we all want to keep working (and share the job of raising the nippers), then we need to make some pragmatic decisions. Like be flexible with work time, and have subsidised childcare.
- staticfish 14y ago
  After living in both countries my whole life, as a Brit, I can honestly say that Britain is not very close to America at all. Maybe on the surface, the popular culture (mostly because of Hollywood & TV) and the language are similar, but that's about where the main similarities end, and the subtitles begin. What George Bernard Shaw said was true. England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
  - ims 14y ago
    I'd be very interested to hear you expand on this.
    - staticfish 14y ago
      Because i'm not eloquent or articulate, I'll refer you to my favourite travel writer - Mr. Bill Bryson. He's lived in both countries his whole life and has made a living writing about the (mostly funny) subcultures of each. I recommend starting with "Notes from a small island".
xyproto 14y ago
To work longer hours is NOT the same as being more industrious, as suggested by the article.
ScottWhigham 14y ago
Fascinating narrative but was this a true "research study" in which hundreds or thousands of families were given the same questions? I can't find it in the study text, which reads more like a book chapter than a study. I can't find it in the article, nor do I see it in the Slate interview. Can anyone else find the actual text that says, "We surveyed this many families and asked them these specific questions"?
- e2e8 14y ago
  It reads like a book chapter because it is a book chapter: "Themes and Variations: Parental Ethnotheories in Western Cultures ... to appear in: Rubin, K. (Ed.), Parental beliefs, parenting, and child development in cross-cultural perspective. New York: Psychology Press." http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundtable/Harkness.pdf http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundt...
sax 14y ago
Is there a relationship between the colors on the graphs? Every graph has different value scale. Hard to compare values between graphs, which is the whole point of the article.
adnam 14y ago
Not a single mention of "whinging sods", which makes me suspect this study is inaccurate.
davewasmer 14y ago
A fantastic example of horrible information visualization. Those bar charts are almost useless. The colors don't seem to correspond to anything, the ranking is apparently random, and the x-axis scale varies wildly, making cross-country comparisons an exercise in mental arithmetic.
- Bill_Dimm 14y ago
  I came here to say exactly that. They make a point of using the same colors in each chart (mostly), giving the illusion of some correspondence, but the colors mean something different for each chart. For example, "Difficult" and "Agreeable" are the same color in the first two charts.
maxerickson 14y ago
The language in the Atlantic blag is out of control. The free language study used 60 families from each region, so maybe 120 descriptions. So the difference between 5% and 10% is 5 or 6 or 7 of the participants, not "far more likely" and such. A reasonable conclusion from the study is that people don't particularly use common descriptions for their children.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Putting your kids on a schedule is probably the best thing you can do as a parent to ensure your sanity and to keep your kids happy. Kids really do like repetitive behavior, and a good schedule is one of those[1]. There are few things that help you cope with those really challenging parenting days like knowing your kids are going to be in bed at 8pm, with 30 minutes of relaxing parent/child time before that. Knowing you get a break is immensely empowering. I cringe for the kids when I see them walking around the grocery store with their parents at 11pm. It doesn't surprise me that so many kids are unable to concentrate[2] when they are sleep deprived, overly stimulated, and jacked up on sugar (Lucky Charms is 40% sugar. Baby formula has more sugar than Coke.). All that said, my kids are smart. ;) But what really excites me about my kids is watching them find and explore their interests. The word I would use to describe them is "unique". 1. Sorry, no academic research to back it up. Lots of anecdotal experience from my own kids and those of others who have come to my wife and I for advice. Also, just look at how many times a kid can watch the same movie over and over again. :) 2. My wife works as a pediatric nurse. I have no doubt there are many kids (and adults for that matter) who are wired very differently and need help to fit into society's notion of how a kid should behave. I also think that we are doing massive damage to kids by all the sugar we feed them, especially in liquid form, whether it's milkshake formula or Mountain Dew, and that damage is showing up as a slew of problems, from obesity and Type II diabetes to cognitive issues. However, those are going to be exceedingly difficult to prove, and powerful interests (from the USDA to food producers) will do everything they can to distract people from proving it.
- dllthomas 14y ago
  > Baby formula has more sugar than Coke. Based on the nutrition info I found with a couple minutes googling, this seems incorrect. http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/products/coca-cola http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/products/coc... http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/440/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/440/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/452/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/452/2 The second one there comes close, but they all seem to be in the same basic range as human breast milk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk#Composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk#Composition
btipling 14y ago
The study: http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundtable/Harkness.pdf http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundt... I don't see anything about controlling for variables, experiment design, confidence intervals etc. This is an ethnographic study, not a random survey. Don't treat it like one.
tnuc 14y ago
Happy doesn't even rate on the American graph. A lot of American parents I meet go on and on about how smart and fantastic their children are. They even have bumper stickers announcing that their offspring are honor students at some school. I never hear about how they are well adjusted and happy.
colmvp 14y ago
Strange that they didn't conduct any studies in parts of Asia, what with the cultural differences between East and West.
drblast 14y ago
I always wonder how much of the attitude measured among modern parents in the U.S. is due to the number of people who have an only child, and do so later in life. When you have more than one child, I think you're more realistic about their personalities and capabilities, because you can compare them. When you have just one, everything they do is extraordinary. When you have more, you see them more as a bunch of morons who get things right occasionally through random chance. Not to mention, since we in the U.S. don't typically have large broods, most people have very little experience with children at all and are shocked at what they are capable of, because it doesn't really fit with the preconceived notion of what a "child" is.
elliott34 14y ago
am I the only one bothered that these charts arn't sorted...
trhtrsh 14y ago
n = 10 per country. "Any other armchair ethnographers care to weigh in?" Indeed.

64 points by colinismyname 14y ago

Somehow I find that "easy" attitude to mean something different. lol. Especially since there is not really any context to it. Also kind of strange how the only ones who are rebellious are US?

StavrosK 14y ago
I don't know, it seems pretty clear to me that it means "easy to manage/low-maintenance". We can't tell if the only ones who are rebellious are US, from the article. What we can tell is that US parents consider their children rebellious.

dmlorenzetti 14y ago

An interesting read is "Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" by Meredith Small. It touches on a lot of the ideas in this article, in much greater depth, and looking across a wider range of cultures and continents. In short, if you find this article interesting, I would highly recommend the book.

afterburner 14y ago

So, considering parent bias, does this basically show what each cultures' parents value in their kids, or perhaps in people in general?

startupfounder 14y ago

Upon first review it was quite interesting to compare how countries perceive themselves, but when trying to compare countries to each other I realized that the x-axis and y-axis are different for each country. For example the first quote says "A fascinating new study reveals that Americans are more likely to call their children 'intelligent'", but in fact a higher percentage of parents in Australia say their children are more intelligent. Parents in Spain think their kids are really really easy.

thatthatis 14y ago
Glad someone else saw this. The conclusions of the article don't seem to follow from the data.
adaml_623 14y ago
Australia gets a mention but after that I think it just gets lumped in with Europe. You don't think they got confused with Austria do you?

kijin 14y ago

When I saw the graphs, what I immediately noticed was not how much emphasis parents place on intelligence, but rather how much emphasis they place on conformity. The article talks about both, but it talks more about the former than the latter. But I find the latter a lot more interesting. Terms like "agreeable", "socially mature", and "well balanced" (versus "attention seeking", presumably a bad thing) can signify that parents place quite a bit of importance on how well their children conform to social norms and expectations. The article mentions bedtime rules, but this can also extend to long-entrenched traditions in "Old World" societies. On the other hand, the fact that American parents don't use these terms, and instead use terms like "independent" and "rebellious", shows that American culture places a high value on thinking and living outside of the box. The lack of "calm" and "happy" might make life more stressful for parents and children alike, but at the same time, the term "adaptable" implies that Americans expect the world around them to change quickly, and when it does, you gotta change, too. America is newer and changes faster. It's not surprising that Americans value qualities that make people innovative, disruptive, and not bound by any rule that they didn't make by themselves. As a person who has lived half his life in a society where being "well rounded", conformity, and obedience to authority are considered a child's primary virtues, I must confess that I am rather partial to the "American" style, tradition be damned. Edit: There also seems to be a relevant difference between Northern/Western Europe and Southern Europe, just as there is a large cultural difference between Northeastern/Western U.S. and the Southeast. So maybe the comparison should be between industrial regions and traditionally agricultural regions, or between relatively secular regions and deeply religions regions, rather than between America and Europe as a whole. Seems obvious in some ways.

RivieraKid 14y ago
Interesting, I find that social norms in the US are more rigid and Europe seems to be more laid back. (Two examples that come to mind: nudity and the "base" system in dating.)
- kijin 14y ago
  Sexual norms are not necessarily representative of a society's overall openness to change. My impression is that America (modulo some parts of the South) makes much more fuss celebrating innovation than most of the rest of the world does, and even if this is not a good reflector of the status quo, it certainly has a long-term impact on how people think.

zevyoura 14y ago

Another similar and interesting set of data to look at is baby naming trends. Freakonomics Radio's most recent episode covers the subject with some depth: http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-name-matter-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-na...

radicalbyte 14y ago

From what I remember from my childhood in the UK, I'd say that Britain is very close to America. Everyone focussed on "intellect" there, and my friends there broadly use the American strategies (hyper + TV). I've noticed the difference in The Netherlands. My wife was just this afternoon planning the bedtime rooster for our first child (due in September!). I put it down to her Dutch tick for planning/organization. What is true is that the maternity/paternity system here is awesome: it's like society has accepted that yes, people do have kids. And, if we all want to keep working (and share the job of raising the nippers), then we need to make some pragmatic decisions. Like be flexible with work time, and have subsidised childcare.

staticfish 14y ago
After living in both countries my whole life, as a Brit, I can honestly say that Britain is not very close to America at all. Maybe on the surface, the popular culture (mostly because of Hollywood & TV) and the language are similar, but that's about where the main similarities end, and the subtitles begin. What George Bernard Shaw said was true. England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
- ims 14y ago
  I'd be very interested to hear you expand on this.
  - staticfish 14y ago
    Because i'm not eloquent or articulate, I'll refer you to my favourite travel writer - Mr. Bill Bryson. He's lived in both countries his whole life and has made a living writing about the (mostly funny) subcultures of each. I recommend starting with "Notes from a small island".

xyproto 14y ago

To work longer hours is NOT the same as being more industrious, as suggested by the article.

ScottWhigham 14y ago

Fascinating narrative but was this a true "research study" in which hundreds or thousands of families were given the same questions? I can't find it in the study text, which reads more like a book chapter than a study. I can't find it in the article, nor do I see it in the Slate interview. Can anyone else find the actual text that says, "We surveyed this many families and asked them these specific questions"?

e2e8 14y ago
It reads like a book chapter because it is a book chapter: "Themes and Variations: Parental Ethnotheories in Western Cultures ... to appear in: Rubin, K. (Ed.), Parental beliefs, parenting, and child development in cross-cultural perspective. New York: Psychology Press." http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundtable/Harkness.pdf http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundt...

sax 14y ago

Is there a relationship between the colors on the graphs? Every graph has different value scale. Hard to compare values between graphs, which is the whole point of the article.

adnam 14y ago

Not a single mention of "whinging sods", which makes me suspect this study is inaccurate.

davewasmer 14y ago

A fantastic example of horrible information visualization. Those bar charts are almost useless. The colors don't seem to correspond to anything, the ranking is apparently random, and the x-axis scale varies wildly, making cross-country comparisons an exercise in mental arithmetic.

Bill_Dimm 14y ago
I came here to say exactly that. They make a point of using the same colors in each chart (mostly), giving the illusion of some correspondence, but the colors mean something different for each chart. For example, "Difficult" and "Agreeable" are the same color in the first two charts.

maxerickson 14y ago

The language in the Atlantic blag is out of control. The free language study used 60 families from each region, so maybe 120 descriptions. So the difference between 5% and 10% is 5 or 6 or 7 of the participants, not "far more likely" and such. A reasonable conclusion from the study is that people don't particularly use common descriptions for their children.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

Putting your kids on a schedule is probably the best thing you can do as a parent to ensure your sanity and to keep your kids happy. Kids really do like repetitive behavior, and a good schedule is one of those[1]. There are few things that help you cope with those really challenging parenting days like knowing your kids are going to be in bed at 8pm, with 30 minutes of relaxing parent/child time before that. Knowing you get a break is immensely empowering. I cringe for the kids when I see them walking around the grocery store with their parents at 11pm. It doesn't surprise me that so many kids are unable to concentrate[2] when they are sleep deprived, overly stimulated, and jacked up on sugar (Lucky Charms is 40% sugar. Baby formula has more sugar than Coke.). All that said, my kids are smart. ;) But what really excites me about my kids is watching them find and explore their interests. The word I would use to describe them is "unique". 1. Sorry, no academic research to back it up. Lots of anecdotal experience from my own kids and those of others who have come to my wife and I for advice. Also, just look at how many times a kid can watch the same movie over and over again. :) 2. My wife works as a pediatric nurse. I have no doubt there are many kids (and adults for that matter) who are wired very differently and need help to fit into society's notion of how a kid should behave. I also think that we are doing massive damage to kids by all the sugar we feed them, especially in liquid form, whether it's milkshake formula or Mountain Dew, and that damage is showing up as a slew of problems, from obesity and Type II diabetes to cognitive issues. However, those are going to be exceedingly difficult to prove, and powerful interests (from the USDA to food producers) will do everything they can to distract people from proving it.

dllthomas 14y ago
> Baby formula has more sugar than Coke. Based on the nutrition info I found with a couple minutes googling, this seems incorrect. http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/products/coca-cola http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/products/coc... http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/440/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/440/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/452/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baby-foods/452/2 The second one there comes close, but they all seem to be in the same basic range as human breast milk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk#Composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk#Composition

btipling 14y ago

The study: http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundtable/Harkness.pdf http://brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundt... I don't see anything about controlling for variables, experiment design, confidence intervals etc. This is an ethnographic study, not a random survey. Don't treat it like one.

tnuc 14y ago

Happy doesn't even rate on the American graph. A lot of American parents I meet go on and on about how smart and fantastic their children are. They even have bumper stickers announcing that their offspring are honor students at some school. I never hear about how they are well adjusted and happy.

colmvp 14y ago

Strange that they didn't conduct any studies in parts of Asia, what with the cultural differences between East and West.

drblast 14y ago

I always wonder how much of the attitude measured among modern parents in the U.S. is due to the number of people who have an only child, and do so later in life. When you have more than one child, I think you're more realistic about their personalities and capabilities, because you can compare them. When you have just one, everything they do is extraordinary. When you have more, you see them more as a bunch of morons who get things right occasionally through random chance. Not to mention, since we in the U.S. don't typically have large broods, most people have very little experience with children at all and are shocked at what they are capable of, because it doesn't really fit with the preconceived notion of what a "child" is.

elliott34 14y ago

am I the only one bothered that these charts arn't sorted...

trhtrsh 14y ago

n = 10 per country. "Any other armchair ethnographers care to weigh in?" Indeed.