What things do you struggle with that are culturally acceptable?

[Amapoleon]

Yesterday I was in the dr's waiting room and watched a mother repeatedly smack her child. The child was very aggressive [I wonder why] and every time he was aggressive she whacked him.

Although illegal in Spain, smacking in some quarters is still acceptable. I am only speaking from my experience in my area and don't want to make sweeping generalisations that all Spanish people smack their kids. There were 4 or 5 other mothers and no one batted an eyelid.

Being treated with suspicion for not using plastic bags in supermarkets, while not being allowed to enter a supermarket with any other shopping.

Smoking around babies (I've even seen a breastfeeding mother smoking a faaaag).

Ear pierced babies (yuck)

The racism

The jumper/jacket thing. Sorry Spain, 15º is NOT cold and dd my children do not need hats and scarves.

Kitbit - DD was born in Gran Canaria, ante-natal system completely random - post-natal non-existent.

In France now, I think they go to the Drs for the smallest sniffle to get the value out of their health insurance.

We have just been flat hunting - rental - I was [shocked] that unfurnished really means empty - not even white goods in the kitchen.

Which reminds me in GC agents take a months rent from the tenant as a fee and the landlords just keep your deposit.

itwasme - the Spanish in the Spar shops thought I was bonkers for not using plastic bags - they would put 4 items in a bag and start a new one, I've left shopping behind because they put it in too many bags.

But where we are now plastic bags are banned in the supermarket. But I am alwasy forgetting my reuseable bag.

of course that shold be not [shocked] ah bums.

Riven
That is however something that my DH struggles with. And the strappy top for goign out in the evening with no jacket, even in winter. He looks quite bemused when we go out in Scotland.

When I look around the school playground, my DC always have the least clothes on though, so it must be heriditary.

Whenever I have gone out at night in the winter in London, I've always been to see girls in tiny dresses with summer shoes and no coats. Bare arms and legs. Walking in snow with their bare toes sticking out of the shoes.

What is that about?

I'm not sure if the clothes thing is hereditary or adaptation. I'm German and after living in NZ/US/GB now for about 15 years altogether, I'm wearing far less clothing now than Germans do.
I went outside in short sleeves this week to have lunch in the sun (at last)and the German girl who is in our lab for a few month looked at me aghast saying "are you not putting a coat on? It's freezing outside." and I looked at her equally baffled, saying "but, it's 15 degrees".

From a different point of view (I am a foreign alien): What I struggled culturally when I moved to the UK was how colleagues would go to the pub for a drink during working hours or after work, not to celebrate something but just to drink.

Also, I really struggled to understand how it is acceptable for teenagers to be sexually active from a very young age. And to be allowed to be out at all hours with no parental control.

I found it very hard and shocking to see so many young people out in the streets late completely drunk and making a fool of themselves.

I found it hard to realise how acceptable it is to take drugs.

I also have found it difficult to comprehend how so many young girls make a conscious decision to have babies early, move on to different partners, have more babies, do nothing with their lives and then end up struggling. Can't get my head round that.

TinySocks
That is interesting as I found the Brits to be much more prudish that the Germans. When I moved to Germany, fell for DH and decided to stay it was a big thing for my parents to accept that I was going to live with him. In fact, I can remember discussions when I visited with him the first time about whether he was allowed to sleep in my room at my parents house.

My PILs had no such misgivings, it was totally acceptable.

I guess things have changed a lot in the past 16 years.

On a lighter note. Once had a (short-lived) relationship with a German chap. About 4 weeks in we (a-hem) had a shower together and he insisted on turning the water pressure down to practically a dribble to conserve it! Somewhat took the romance out of the situation...

LOL Buzzybee, weren't you already preserving water by showering together?

tinysocks, your post reads like you are american. can i say that all others except no 1, the uk is about on par with the us on those social issues?

I've just completed a month's teaching placement in an Italian primary school.

I could not believe that the children were not allowed to play outside for the whole day, and they were there from 7.55am - 4.10pm.

The amount of homework they take home is quite shocking too, compared to how much some English children's parents over here complain about.

Going into a new class, the teacher would often introduce the children by their parents' nationality, rather than their name- 'her parents are from Chile, but don't worry, she was born in Italy.' Equally, children with SEN were casually pushed forward and presented as the 'disabled child'. There was no differentiation of work for pupils with varying levels of ability, and I saw SEN children pulled by their hair when they were unable to complete a task

All of that said though, the children seemed a lot more intelligent and capable than their British peers... Also, the teachers were perfectly lovely people, they are just trained in a (very) different way to British teachers.

The thing was MmeLindt he couldn't understand why I might want a decent spray it was so ingrained in him to keep turned low! And after all when there's 2 of you in a shower one of you tends to get a bit cold even with it on full bore

Having lived in Switzerland the only thing that I found really funny was the not using water after 11pm - no flushing toilet, having a shower etc. Very considerate when you think about it but also oh so swiss!

I must own up to be a kiwi too, although have lived in the UK. All the childcare centres in NZ have minimum 1:5 ratios for babies under 2 by law and many have 1:4 or occasionally even 1:3. Also know at least 6 centres in Wellington that employ a cook to cook mid-day meals for the kids so think that must be a more peculiarly Auckland thing that Sibble refers to (but it is true that packed lunches are the norm at kindergarten and school here).

hi all
Love the way Americans speak of aliens Tiny, I really do. (Not sure are you American?) Makes you sound so much more interesting than a foreigner, as if you'd landed in a UFO somehow.

I agree ML , in Germany I was pretty much gobsmacked to hear that teenage boys and girls can generally have someone over to sleep (with them) the night and then this lad or girl just traipses in to eat breakfast with the family in the morming, no one raises an eyebrow and then the two kids head off to school together. Eye-opener for me.

Now my dp were well-travelled and a lot of fun etc but there is NO WAY we could have done this in my dp's house. Even at the age of 25 without being married. No way at all

Not that I'm saying it is really the worse way of doing it, at least you know what the dc are doing and it is not going on in a bush in the park I suppose. It just is a bit strange to me still.

Isn't it interesting how totally different the approach to primary education is even just in different European countries? I don't know what I expected when dd started school in Germany. I just assumed it would be fine and pretty much what I knew from my own experience. The whole concept was totally different though.

Wondering if I should tell dd what you said about the primary school experience in Italy. At the moment she thinks Italy is paradise on earth.

ZZZen - oh gosh, the approach to primary education and the raising of small children is THE cultural clash that is the hardest to get to grips with. I think that most of us make largely unconscious choices about the way to treat small children based on what we experienced ourselves and when faced with a wildly different scenario we first have to raise our own assumptions to a conscious level, and analyse them, and decide rationally what we really think of them, before being able to analyse and dissect the choices of the culture we are living in. And then we are faced with defending our own choices to people who have never changed culture and who are not conscious of their own prejudices...

In France they are so against stretching children according to their individual strengths and talents; and, conversely, so preoccupied with ensuring that all children reach the same milestones at the same age (which amounts to holding a lot of them back!).

I agree Anna spot on. We are also naturally so protective of small dc that this is a really tricky part of living overseas.

PMSL at buzzybee and the shower! Bet you sent him packing pronto. I need a decent warm shower.

Message withdrawn

as a foreigner living in England for most of my adult live I am often shocked at what my fellow country folk think is normal
the racism, the sexism the way children are ignored the wife beating, the way doctors are god, women in childbirth are seen as medical cases to be cut open at the earliest convenience

compared to that my bafflement at the round about way the English make requests and just generally conduct random social conversations is a small price to pay

sfxmum - where are you from?

Portugal but I clearly have problems with the that mostly the way men get away with murder almost literally
still to see any men taking any sort of active role in the home

The gardienne in my apartment block is Portuguese, as is her husband, and he is a very hands on father! They have a five year old and a baby and her DH is always to be seen looking after the children.