Expecting first child.... I already see the problems with the inlaws starting. cultural differences, maybe also because of social issues or something else. How do you deal with it? Especially MIL??

[1horatio]

So, we're expexting :) OH is awesome. MIL is being difficult...
OH and I have many different opinions (from violence, the army, children and knives, open fires, fishing, shooting, the law [make sure it's worth it if you break it, know how to skirt it vs just follow the law]).
But OH and I talk, compromise and appreciate we're having different cultural backgrounds (OH is English, I'm not. But seeing as I'm also from Europe one might think there would be less differences. We actually enjoy these differences. Especially OH thinks they're incredibly interesting and has many fancy terms... ).

Anyhow, for example: OH's sister's DC is being bullied. Also somewhat phisically. My response: 'Hit then where it hurts'. SIL sat next to us and listened (I proceeded to explain /show a bit how to hit back). MIL comes: 'That's not how we deal with things like this. Go to a teacher.' I say that the teachers know and that it hasn't gotten better. MIL gives me nasty looks and say DC is better than that....

Said child isn't allowed around sharp knives. Ok, I'm not their parent I'd never interfere.
But I got my first dagger with around... 8? and had pocketknives before I went to school. My little brothers had their first daggers when they were much younger. We were taught how to handle them and hardly ever cut us and never somebody else. MIL would be apoplectic if she just heard about it.
Target shooting with a bow is also a perfectly normal activity in my family. Riding isn't seen as "so dangerous" either.... (guns are obviously not for children).
We've always known that meat comes from animals when we were little. Also because sometimes we were the one that killed the animal we were eating. My inlaws thought it was terribly morbid I accidentally called the beef we were eating a cow....

How do you guys deal with this? Does anybody else have similar experiences? Now that we're expecting LO MIL is trying to influence so much. She wants me to stop doing a sport I love after the birth, makes comments like:"one should never let a child do...." and glances at me meaningfully....

Plus MIL is soo concerned with appearance. Some names are 'bad', screaming children are a disgrace but dummies are ok (I'm of the opposite opinion) and she always gives me this stare. Or says: "we don't like this, do we, 1horatio?" whereas I'm just thinking: "we?!"

It seems to me the main issue at stake is not whether you agree with individual aspects of British school culture or not; the fact is that you are currently pregnant with your first child in a foreign country and that is a time when differences in opinion and culture do seem overwhelming. I remember that very well.

It gets easier as the child grows, not least because they are so obviously their own person, leading their own totally unique life, instead of somebody who is there to repeat your life.

Mine are now 19 and 16, very much their own people, not sheep unable to think for themselves or to critique the society they live in, but not putty to be moulded into shape by me either. It all feels very different - and far more fun - from the day I sobbed into dh's shoulder, heavily pregnant, because my MIL had just stated over the dinner table that walking barefoot was disgusting and I could not imagine bringing up my baby in a country where that's what people thought.

I can't deny that there have been clashes on the way, and times when I have genuinely struggled to understand how other people think, but they have been far, far fewer than I imagined, and I like to think that I have been able to help dc to straddle two cultures by modelling an open mind and a tolerant attitude. I am generally considered sensible and laidback as teenagers' parents go (so I am told by those in a position to know ), and the experience of riding the cultural rollercoaster has definitely helped with that.

^" My granddad killed my mum's and aunt's rabbits and made the fam eat it"
now that IS weird!^

My granddad did this in the 50s with my mum's "pet" rabbit. It wasn't until she had asked for seconds of the lovely stew that she realised she was eating Flopsy.

Interestingly, my grandfather was Polish/Russian, so maybe there's a theme here. He also insisted my mother and her sister pluck the chicken they were to eat for dinner: chickens which he, no doubt, acquired through one of his many bizarre and larger than life contacts in postwar Britain.

corythatwas you are vey right. This is not about British culture in general. This is basically my first 'real' culture shock (I've just never had issues. Or maybe the people around me had issues and I just did not realise it) but because it's about children and the LO it just seems sooo ginormous to me. And scary. Probably also because my stay in Britain wqs meant to last 2 years, so I did not really want to migrate permanently. But then DH happened and well... Staying in England made sense for many reasons. And ut's not like I don't like living in England.

I'm not sure Switzerland has a typical German culture... Swiss people often complain about German... Brashness etc. But it is probably maybe more direct than English culture (plus I'm reading watching the Britsh. I've found the part about loo literature, btw).

Walking barefoot on the countryside or a trainstation? I was always barefoot when walking on grass in summer, be that camping or tending to my strawberry patch (in my Swedish granny's garden).

I am happy that there is an effective protocol on bullying and teachers seem to be so able (though this amount of power is also a bit scary. Just an other way for the state to impact the lives of private citizens. But if it helps prevent bullying that's obviously positive).

I'm sure that your rabbit slaughtering grandparents are awesome. Seriously.

My granny basically did the same and she isn't mean. But my grandfather was very much an evil, meanspirited, abusive sadist. In his case I'm 100% sure it was for nasty reasons (they knew what they were eating but weren't allowed to leave the table until their plates were clean).

I'm not sure what's going ok with MIL. I am probably much more sensitive. Amd it's possible that she realised I didnt pick up om a subtle hint she may or may not have made... Or maybe she's grouchy. Or it's a combination of all these factors...

I had lived in the UK for 3 years and been spending time there on and off for over 15 years, and even so pregnancy was the time I first felt the culture shock. Suddenly it touched me in a way marriage or work couldn't do.

But it did get better. Not least because bringing up children is such an introduction into a new world anyway; you end up seeing the world through somebody else's eyes, and wherever you are, when seen through the eyes of 2 year old it is such an exciting place.

There are things I had which I have not been able to give my dc, because we are in a different country and things are different here. There are other things they have had which I didn't, because opportunities are different here. It evens out in the end.

And I have realised how much culture is changing in my old country too: they would not have had my childhood if we had stayed there either. The world moves on. As a parent you can help enormously by acting as a mediator, somebody who can see on both sides of the cultural or generational gap and take an interest in either.

My MIL, who never understood what she had down wrong re the bare feet, is now at the close of her life; we are waiting for the end to come any day. I am sure at times she has struggled to understand me, and sometimes I have struggled to understand her, but we have also loved each other and learnt from each other; she will leave a huge gap in my life.

As for teachers enforcing discipline being a sign of the power of the state over the individual, it is worth noting that you are not obliged either to send your child to a state school or to send them to school at all. Home Educating is legal and works fine for some.

If teachers have power over the children they teach, it is because as parents we hand over the power (which is very similar to the power we exercise at home: I for one expect to be able to stop my offspring from beating the shit out of each other). If you find yourself unable or unwilling to do that, nobody is forcing you.