do you think some aspects of English culture are selfish?

[lilystyles]

Does anyone else find quite a selfish English attitude when it comes to family? I was brought up on the French Spanish border by a French mum & English Dad. Elderly people were revered and respected and children were welcome in restaurants etc... breastfeeding in public was teh norm and teh overwelming majority of retired grandparents were more than happy to look after their grandkids a few days a week. I find it soooo different over here, breastfeeding in public seems to be seen as perverse by some people, people get sniffy about kids in restaurants, and elderly people seem to be an annoyance to a lot of their kids. My retired mother in law has my son for a morning a week and sees this as her being extremely generous. It is just very very different in England, has anyone else noticed this?

"I personally prefer that my ds went to a nursery to meet other kids rather than be stuck at home with my elderly mum. She would be knackered and ds would miss out on meeting other kids."

Totally agree Giveitago. One good thing about Italy (at least some parts of northern/central Italy) is that we have free nursery schools for children aged 3 to 6 (when they start school). They are very good on average... just a shame that the current govtm is cutting funding for them

Icompletely agree with lalalonglegs - kids are really not interested in eating out until late in the night. Barcelona was quite ahead compared with most of SPain but there was still a complete lack of playgroups, play parks, swimming pools, never mind the ballet/sports/tumble time/music groups etc. The Spanish don't feel the need for them as the children are in full-time childcare from a very young age or at home with hteir grandparents/

Everything we went to was organised by ex-pats. I was amazed when we moved to the UK at the range of stuff for children and so much of it is free.

Or it might also be that Spanish people are a bit more relaxed about child rearing and are happy enough for their children to play in the local playground?
Here in Italy children play a lot in our (quite horrible if compared to the ones in the UK) playgrounds without much parental interference.

Regarding grandparents looking after the children i think it also has to do with the age people have their children.
In Spain and Italy women had pressure to marry and have children in their early or mid 20s (although this has changed lately).

In uk, in London and se, more and more women have children in their late 30s or early 40s which means their own mother is not young and fit to do full time child minding (bitter experience here)

Yes Laquitar, my grandmother for instance was quite young when I was born (and she did look after me. In the 1970s there weren't many nurseries for the under 3 here and my mother wouldn't have even entertained the idea of having a baby sitter).
Also, until a few yrs ago, women could retire quite early in Italy. But not nowadays. And women have children later in their life. This is going to be a massive problem, unless the Italian govtm does something (unlikely)

I guess if the argument is that english gps are not that interested in helping out that could be an argument in some cases although the economic nature of the UK means that people move around alot. Also I've noticed that quite a few older generation women worked and so want some adventure in retirement. Got to say that my df is English and although he loves my ds to bits he's got his boundaries. My dm (not English) is very different.

I'd love it if my mum were nearer and I know she'd help out more. But she is in her '70s.

I'd never consider my dm going into a home unless there was a medical reason for it.

But I think that extended families where gps are very involved can also be selfish in that they over dedicate their lives to their kids and in so doing make their adult children fairly dependent on them. Then they expect payback. Not great for independence or, to some extent, competence in life.k I'm thinking my dh's family here - it's a classic case of 'how many people does it take to change a lightbulb'. Way too much codependency for my liking.

Yep, I agree that UK has lots to offer kids in the way of activities but I see lots of parents signing up to so many activities that their kids have very little time to just 'be', if you know what I mean.

Pros and cons in everything is my view.

But there are very few local playgrounds in Spain, that's my point. The children were very integrated with the parents' lives but only at the weekend - two working parents is the norm in the Spanish cities nowadays.

People rave about Spanish attitudes to the family but never mention that women get 16 weeks maternity leave and 9am-7pm is the typical working day. My Spanish colleagues had to keep their children up til 11pm as they would not have seen them Mon-Fri otherwise.

Yes, there are very few playground here in Italy too (at least here in Milan, other places are greener), but they are packed with children.
I totally agree with Staranise that Mediterranean countries are less child friendly than they are considered to be in the UK.
As I said earlier also in Italy families often need 2 incomes to get by. Part time jobs are hard to come by. Most fathers wouldn't even consider to go part time and share the child care with their partners. Many, many things need to change here, but all these issues seem to be rarely discussed in the political area (and it's rather bizarre, given that Italy prides itself to be a catholic country that has the "family" as the most important part of society ).

I also agree with Giveitago about the risk of codependency in extended families.

However, I'm much happier now, that I'm back near my "intruding" family and near friends who spontaneously ring your bell and are happy to share time together.

arena, not area

I think we should more like the Chinese who leave their children with GPs for months at a time.

Seriously you have a point, but it's all swings and round a bouts.

They don't do it out of cruelty.

Franca - better conditions for families are not going to happen anywhere in europe now.

However, all us very independent Brits are becoming more dependent because of living costs.

In my day you were considered a freak if you lived with your parents at 18 - all part of the go out have sex drugs rock'n'roll rite of passage thing. Now I see lots of young people going to their local university and living with their parents. It's changing here and families are having to pull together more out of necessity.

Where there is less state welfare/social assistance you need more family.

The uk looks like it's going down that route shortly.

It's true that granparents play a huge role in childcare.

I don't see a huge problem with that (if grandparents are happy to help out and enjoy it) but give that pretty much the majority of parents in my son's reception class are in our 40's I don't see that we will be around to help our children with their childcare when their time comes.

giveitago, I agree.

I still think that the state should support working parents with childcare arrangements, recession or not recession.

Franca - well, yes, in the long term they're going to have to have better provision as people are having kids later which means gps are not necessarily going to be an option.

Gps contribute an awful lot - their work goes unrecognised.

OMG franca - my ds has just told me not to help him tidy up! OMG.

Excellent giveitago !!!

Excellent school, definately not excellent me LOL.

I do agree, when we go on holiday to europe we really notice the difference, how dd's are treated in restaurants, etc.

Oh kslatts - nice when your kids are treated like humans in restaurants. Gosh.

My dh runs an Italian restaurant in London and children are positively welcomed. That's right and proper.

I love going to restaurants where my kids are made welcome. It always prompts me to tip generously.

I have to say, I've not been to any restaurants in England where my children haven't been made welcome and, in some ways, it's easier than in Italy (and definitely easier than in Spain where none of them seem to open properly until 10pm). Over here, except in very stuffy, "fain daining" types, there are high chairs, often crayons and colouring books for them plus children's menus (which are a blessing if you have fussy eaters). I really, really love Italy for lots of reasons and it's great being there and having my children made a fuss over and smiled at by strangers in the street but I think the English do beat themselves up a lot about how child unfriendly we are - it's simply not the case. Museums, galleries and so on bend over backwards to accommodate children; we have lots of children deals in attractions and on public transport (in Italy you tend to pay once they reach a certain age - about 6 - or a certain height in some cases and all mine are really tall); we have TV channels such as CBBC and CBeebies that have pretty high quality children's programmes with no pernicious children's advertising; there's much more for children to do.

The one thing that is genuinely better about Italy is that not everyone who likes children and talks to them is automatically labelled as having a sexual interest in them .

Totally agree with lala. England is in this sense more child friendly than Italy, where, for instance, changing facilities are virtually unheard of (unless you go to progressive regions like Emilia Romagna). On the other hand, if you are sporting a lovely baby, people will let you changing it where ever you want without batting an eyelid

God, changing facilities Franca - I'd blanked out forgotten about trying to change one of my children while balanced on my heels in one of those hole in the floor loos at our local pizzeria . Never occurred to me to just do it at the table [English].

You should have ... it'd have taught them a lesson at least!

You know, I can't really form a definitive opinion in Italy. Sometimes I am very pessimistic, and I think that in general there is a lack of respect of childhood (and all the other categories that are considered weak: the elderly, women, gay people, people with SN etc) here. No attention, especially coming from the institutions.

Other times I'm more optimistic, and really appreciate how easy going we are and how this makes human relationships easier than in other places.