Raising a child in England being from abroad

[Octuscactus]

Well I've been living in a England for some years and my daughter just turned 12.

I'm trying to use the common sense but I'm fiding a little hard to raise my daughter to the standards I was raised.

So mothers from abroad, what's the main difference or the most difficult part for you to raise your children in England?
For me is the amount of freedom/choice you give to a young kid even if it is related to sex (pornography and sexting), or drugs.

Please let me know your thoughts I would love to hear from "protective" mothers

I could have written RubyWinterstorm's post. Also from a more liberal country but find it vital to respect English attitudes as well.

Ruby you and I might be from the same place!!! 😀
I also tend to be a bit more liberal, natural consequences rather than punishments, and fairly open with my kids about most topics. I also differ from my English friends, who do everything for their DCS, where mine (ages 10 and 9) are expected to help a fair bit around the house. All my close parent friends are British, and I have to say, though each of us have our own parenting styles, not one is relaxed about porn or drugs!
She's 12, OP...pushing boundaries with dress, for example, isn't a cultural thing, necessarily, it's just growing up.

Kids these days, eh?

You can't compare your childhood with your child's - what 20-30 years difference? Talking about 'standards' does sound a bit sneery.

I find some people do come up with some very odd generalisations about living in the UK. People who have lived here most of their lives too...

We all get pissed every weekend, fight and drive drunk. Kids run around wild and hang our with the paedophiles on evert street corner. Grannies frequently get mugged and none of the above happens 'home' (even though I have heard first hand of absolute horrors and shitty behaviour of people).

Most parents try to do their best for their kids. If you don't want your child to wear short skirts at 12, say no. So they like the popular pop stars of the day - take them to a Gallery and show them art, or a recital or the theatre to see other aspects of culture (popular and not so). Can't be bothered with Nicki Minaj myself as she is plastic pop. Bare bums? Publicity and for effect. Discuss that with your children. Why does she do this and what does it say about her and women's place in the music industry? She chooses to do this. Also discuss that.

And no, my DS (who is 12) doesn't have a phone, doesn't watch porn, drink, nor does he treat anyone who isn't like him (girls, people from different backgrounds, etc) as if they aren't up to his standards.

Are you basing your op on a newspaper article, your 12 year old wanting a mini skirt and that some kids take their phone to bed.

Dd has a mini skirt and takes her phone to bed. She doesn't drink smoke or look at porn so the 2 I can say are not mutually exclusive

Be careful not to slide into judgmental generalisation about British parents, OP. In my experience, what the media says about teenagers, or parenting (usually in a shock!horror! sort of way), is very different from the teenagers I meet and the parents I know.

If the media is to be believed I would have spent my teen years sniffing glue, having sex, on the pill, popping pills, jabbing safety pins through my nose and swigging thunderbird. None of which I did btw.

Ruby, are you a Fin?

I'm fiding this thread became a criticism against me. I asked for opinions from other mothers and what came was a load of ironic and denying point of views like we are not living the same era.

Thanks everyone X

Where do the drugs come in though? I'd be surprised if parents here were casual about that.

I wouldn't take a teenager's phone off them and check the history, I'd have been mortified if my parents had read through my texts and call history (just young enough to have had a mobile as a teenager) but I'm not a parent of a teen so my opinion may not be valid.

It's still opinions from other mothers.

I remember being very miffed with an interview Steffi Graf did when she won Wimbledon for the first time, aged 17. No, she didn't feel she was missing out on her teen years, all other girls her age did was talk about boys and clothes.

How very dare you! The very day it was published I went to my 'A' Level German class where we discussed our latest set book, Fruhlings Erwachen by Frank Wedekind. We'd finished Woyzzeck the week before.

We were all about CND, Greenham Common (some pro, some anti) and things like that. On Saturdays I did a shop job then blew my wages on expensive import jazz albums. Only after that did I think about boys (why are all the ones in this town so dreadful?) and clothes (Mum, will you make me this asymmetrical nonsense from Vogue Patterns?).

It is really important not to get lured into the whole morality/sex/respectability panic thing about teenage girls. They've been wearing mini-skirts for the last 45 years, on and off, without the world ending.

Octuscactus Tue 24-Jan-17 18:16:06
"I'm fiding this thread became a criticism against me."

If I were a British parent, I would rather think you had started this thread as a criticism of us.

"I asked for opinions from other mothers and what came was a load of ironic and denying point of views like we are not living the same era."

I don't know what era you are living in but in 30 years in this country I have not come across a single British parent who thought it was ok for her 12yo to access drugs and porn. Or indeed a child of any age. Not one.

You do seem to be conflating a few things though. It is possible to wear short skirts and still be completely against porn. In fact, I'd say that's pretty normal. Ditto to take your phone to bed and be completely anti-drug.

It is a different era - my DCs cousins didn't have smartphones. (Actually one of my Dc doesn't either.)
Short skirts does not = sex! A basic feminist point.
The Telegraph and most other papers from time to time publish "shock" stories which doesn't mean its true.

For my middle DC, there were kids at her school by 14+ who were doing all kinds of drugs and off the rails. There were almost certainly parents who had a "well what can you do attitude". But that wasn't true of all. Lots of that group are big on campaigning for equality for all, human rights - others give up a lot of time to help a disabled children's youth group - others are studying very hard - or spend hours a week on sport or... And some are doing several of these things.
You can't judge by appearances.

Most parents are concerned, and do have private chats about pornography etc. with their kids. This could be why the underage pregnancy rate is falling. Lots try very hard to keep lines of communication open because they see the dangers that were around when they were younger (eg. pretty much any TV star from the 1980s).

The thing to do is to talk to your children, and try to keep talking. To also give them the tools if they can't talk to you (Childline and Samaritans phone numbers).
At 12 my DC didn't take their phones to bed - it doesn't help sleep, but as they get older you have to give them more freedom.

Hi OP, I'm from abroad.. When my friends raised their older kids and when I raised their kids, no, smart phones didn't exist there either , so obviously that's different… given that it's not the past… and where are you from that the kids there nowadays don't have access to the internet?

To be fair if you're going to throw around statements about "standards" and "I don't give up like most mothers" you can't really complain about people criticising you.

I don't think it's down to where you're from, I'm fairly sure that letting 12 year olds watch porn would be widely regarded as bad parenting worldwide. Obviously some people do it but they're very much in the minority.

oh and p.s. I see teens of friends/family on social media from my home country where I was raised in a very conservative way in the exact same bodycon/pout type pics that kids here do.

Have you checked your head for those rose tinted glasses you were looking for?

(and it wasn't that great in a lot of otherways back then anyway)

Octuscactus Tue 24-Jan-17 17:40:59
"www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12194857/Lad-culture-How-British-teenage-girls-outdo-boys-for-sex-and-drunkenness.html

Yeah I see what the majority of people are talking about. No way I would find this acceptable."

I think you need to learn how to read a newspaper article before you use it to support an argument.

Nowhere does this article say that the majority of British teens are having underage sex or getting drunk or taking drugs. The figures mentioned for underage sex are 23% for English girls and 18% for boys- how do you make that a majority?

It reports a dramatic improvement in teen smoking, drinking and under age sex: UK teens are much less likely to be doing any of those things than they were a few years ago.

It also points out that the low figures of some other countries may be due to under-reporting.

I guess ruby is either dutch or scandanavian.

Sensei, interesting that you mention Fruhlingserwachen, not met many people who read it.

Isn't it about teens discovering their sexuality in world of very puritanical adults? With heartbreaking consequences?

It starts with a teenage girl bring berated for the length of her skirt.

Written late 19th century

Still current?!

denying point of views like we are not living the same era

You just complained about the length of your DD's skirt. That could have been from any of the last few era's.

Honestly, what reaction did you expect?

Taken at face value your post essentially says 'Oi foreign mums, its shit standards here innit. How do you manage with all these shit English parents setting shit standards?'

It was never going to end well was it op?

How does one get hold of drugs if your 12yo doesn't buy them for you?

I've lived in Britain, mainland Europe and the West Indies and have family who I visit regularly in Scandinavia and America/Canada.
Unless you are living in strongly religious area or a wartorn or very much impoverished country, young people are all acting similar and are having a similar upbringing.
Would be hard find a place without Internet and smartphones and alcohol/drugs. I think most parents in most cultures would frown upon porn and drugs usage by their children.
I think perhaps you are comparing the time you were raised, rather than the country you were raised in (unless it was one of the countries I stated above). My childhood 20 years ago (in Britain) is very different to the childhood my children are experiencing.

OP, you remind me a bit of my mum who was also born and raised abroad and came here when I was primary-school-age. I'm in my 30s now and she still reminds me that when she was growing up she was expected to be home by the time it got dark, there was no talking back to her dad etc! She shares your assumption that a lot of British parents are lacksadaisical in their approach, and I think compared to how she was raised (i.e. a different time and place), they probably are. But it's easy to slide into an unfounded moral panic about it.
Yes, your DD might have already been exposed to porn or even sought it out. She'll likely be offered drugs at some point. She may well wear things or get piercings in places that you might not have done when you were growing up. But that doesn't mean she's going to turn into a sex-addicted junkie. Just talk to her about these things and try to cultivate a relationship where she trusts you enough to talk to you too.
I do think it's really difficult to bring a child up in a totally different culture from your own - we all learn to parent from our own parents, and when you move to another country you lose your frame of reference a little. You can't necessarily think back to how your parents reacted when you dressed in a provocative way if you never actually did that. Her experience of growing up is going to be really different to yours, and I promise that's as difficult for her at times as it is for you. My mum was constantly disappointed in me because by her standards I was a total rebel, but compared to my friends I was so conservative that I was a bit of a laughing stock. It's as difficult for children to move between the two worlds as it is for parents.
Are you familiar with the term "third culture kid"( i.e. a child who spends their formative years in a culture that's different to their parents' home culture)? If you search using that term there are a lot of resources out there for families in your situation, that you might find helpful.
Sorry for the lengthy post!

I first saw "proper" porn at age 11.

It was a fairly hardcore magazine being passed around the back of the school bus in a very conservative community abroad.

Pretty sure none of the parents ever had a clue that went on.

Yes phone/internet porn is in many ways "worse" than what we had access to, doesn't mean that kids weren't seeking it out and sharing porn though

At first I put your rudeness about British parents (as if there were such a thing) down to the fact I'm presuming English isn't your first language, and that some of the nuances don't come over when you have learned a language rather than grown up with it.

Then you put this :

I just don't give up like most mothers

then you wonder why people might be criticising you ???