> I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of course, if you teach your child by that example.)
Except they do matter, unless you're going to "raise" a child by locking them in the apartment until they turn 18. Otherwise, as soon as they go to kindergarten[0], it's entirely out of your hands.
They say[1] that minimum viable reproductive unit for homo sapiens is a village. And the corollary to that is, the village will find our child, whether you want it or not, and they will have as much say in their mindset and values as you do. You can influence that, but only so much, and not everywhere all at once[2].
(Also obligatory reminder/disclaimer that group-level statistics are not indicative of any individual's character; individual variance in-group is greater than variance between groups, etc.)
EDIT:
> Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead?
No, you do you - and I respect you for passing on your interest in maths to your daughter, and I hope it'll stick. The point is, whatever the culture you're embedded in, she will be exposed to its tropes in aggregate. It doesn't mean she'll turn into a stereotype; no one ever does (see the disclaimer above); it's just that when someone doesn't like some aspects of their culture, "shopping for a village" that isn't reputed for those traits is one of the historically tried and true methods of reducing the risk.
EDIT2: To add another personal anecdote, there was a defining moment in my life early on, that I'm certain changed my entire life's trajectory. In my primary school, I ended up in a class with some rather unruly, mischievous kids, under a walking pathology of a teacher; by the time I was 12 and it was time to switch to secondary school, I already picked up on some of the bad behaviors. My mom went through some extraordinary effort to get me placed in a math-profile class[3], despite me not showing much aptitude or interest in sciences, just so I get away from the rascals. It paid off. I may have started as the dumbest kid in the group, but this group wasn't into mischief, and instead was supportive to intellectual pursuits; I ended up befriending a bunch of nerds, and quickly becoming the nerdiest of them all. I can't imagine that happening if I stayed with my primary-school crowd. In fact, they'd probably bully my fledgling interest in programming out of me, so I pretty much owe my entire career and the shape of my life to that one choice by my mom, to move me to a different "village".
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[0] - And maybe earlier, if they go to daycare, or you're socially active and they tag along; and no later than when they go to school - unless, again, zip-ties and a radiator are a major part of the upbringing approach.
[1] - Well, someone on HN says that; I think they may have even coined it. Either way, it's true.
[2] - I grew up in a Christian offshoot that's a borderline cult. I can tell first-hand that, no matter how hard they try, even a strong fundamentalist culture that works hard on staying true to its values and pretty much defines themselves in opposition to "the world", can only do so much to resist the local culture in which people are embedded. And, when they try too hard, they just end up bleeding members.
[3] - A brief moment in time in Poland where we had 3-school system and profile classes in the secondary school.
I'd have to find a copy to see if it cites its source but paraphrased I've heard it:
> People mechanically can have kids, physically, before they're mentally able to take care of them. The [village] elders would raise and teach the children while the adolescents worked at things adolescents do better than elders
So "it takes a village" used to be literal, and as we in this part of the west started to isolate and nuclear family the whole idea that the elders should have plurality input to the neuroplasticity kinda went wayside.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. They all died when I was young but my sister was younger yet. I moved all our kids to be within 15 minutes of their living grandparents. They werent teens when we got here. My youngest spends 3/7th of their time at grandma's house.
I'll let you know how all this works in like 30 years.
I think a large, maybe even the main part of why community of family and close friends raising children together works: humans are uniquely motivated by shame and pride, and having that many eyes on you leads to quick corrections before bad habits take root.
There's arguments about in groups and globalization and if it's better to amalgamate and if so, community based child raising has gotta go. Please do not ask me to spell this out as I won't be.
The way I understood the line about "minimum viable reproductive unit" I quoted is different, more straightforward: a nuclear family can't survive alone. Two people and a kid just can't survive in the wilderness; we've evolved to function in group.
From this POV, the "village" is still there, it's always there. It may not be a literal village, and you and me might both be pretty much alone except for our partners, when it comes to parental responsibilities. However, the modern "village" is the society we live in - our neighbors, our friends, co-workers, the market economy as represented by people selling good and providing services we need to survive; later, also parents of children our kids go to school with. These are all people we interact with daily, share the same material and social environment, and we all influence each other.
There's no way to avoid that influence (in fact, if you try, the "village" will start getting worried, possibly to the point social services might get involved). It's always there, and once your kids start education, they'll be interacting with other members of society unsupervised - this is what I mean by "village finding your child".
> I think a large, maybe even the main part of why community of family and close friends raising children together works: humans are uniquely motivated by shame and pride, and having that many eyes on you leads to quick corrections before bad habits take root.
I 100% agree with that. I think it's fundamental. But it works only up to certain size; it's not that globalization is in opposition to that, it's just that to form societies larger than ~150, you need replacements for "shame and pride" as behavioral regulators to keep a group from self-destructing. Hence leaders and rules - and applied recursively a couple times, you end up with presidents and districts and rule of law and bureaucracy and all the staples of modern life, existing next to and on top of groups of families and friends.
I was lending some support to the "it takes a village" thing - i understand that you inferred that non-relations and even "non-friend" can and do supplant/supplement the "village" in "modern times".
to reiterate, i wasn't arguing or debating anything you said. More of a tangent, because i've read a few books that talk about this exact thing, albeit a quarter century ago and things are hazy.
I think the main potential benefit for a child, and the future community it will be part of, with secondary caretakers, is if the primary caretakers are insane.
It is like abit of good influence outweights alot of bad influence.
I think you have a really important point. There are these philosophical or political individualists that don't get this.
You could make an analogy with dogs. There you have plenty of examples of what can happen in isolation. A functional collective will in most cases manouver you out of parenting in part or fully with soft or hard means if you are bad enough since you will indirectly wreck havoc otherwise.
Except they do matter, unless you're going to "raise" a child by locking them in the apartment until they turn 18. Otherwise, as soon as they go to kindergarten[0], it's entirely out of your hands.
They say[1] that minimum viable reproductive unit for homo sapiens is a village. And the corollary to that is, the village will find our child, whether you want it or not, and they will have as much say in their mindset and values as you do. You can influence that, but only so much, and not everywhere all at once[2].
(Also obligatory reminder/disclaimer that group-level statistics are not indicative of any individual's character; individual variance in-group is greater than variance between groups, etc.)
EDIT:
> Should she instead be bad at math because the Chinese value that more? Should I have stuck to teaching her big macs and bald eagles instead?
No, you do you - and I respect you for passing on your interest in maths to your daughter, and I hope it'll stick. The point is, whatever the culture you're embedded in, she will be exposed to its tropes in aggregate. It doesn't mean she'll turn into a stereotype; no one ever does (see the disclaimer above); it's just that when someone doesn't like some aspects of their culture, "shopping for a village" that isn't reputed for those traits is one of the historically tried and true methods of reducing the risk.
EDIT2: To add another personal anecdote, there was a defining moment in my life early on, that I'm certain changed my entire life's trajectory. In my primary school, I ended up in a class with some rather unruly, mischievous kids, under a walking pathology of a teacher; by the time I was 12 and it was time to switch to secondary school, I already picked up on some of the bad behaviors. My mom went through some extraordinary effort to get me placed in a math-profile class[3], despite me not showing much aptitude or interest in sciences, just so I get away from the rascals. It paid off. I may have started as the dumbest kid in the group, but this group wasn't into mischief, and instead was supportive to intellectual pursuits; I ended up befriending a bunch of nerds, and quickly becoming the nerdiest of them all. I can't imagine that happening if I stayed with my primary-school crowd. In fact, they'd probably bully my fledgling interest in programming out of me, so I pretty much owe my entire career and the shape of my life to that one choice by my mom, to move me to a different "village".
--
[0] - And maybe earlier, if they go to daycare, or you're socially active and they tag along; and no later than when they go to school - unless, again, zip-ties and a radiator are a major part of the upbringing approach.
[1] - Well, someone on HN says that; I think they may have even coined it. Either way, it's true.
[2] - I grew up in a Christian offshoot that's a borderline cult. I can tell first-hand that, no matter how hard they try, even a strong fundamentalist culture that works hard on staying true to its values and pretty much defines themselves in opposition to "the world", can only do so much to resist the local culture in which people are embedded. And, when they try too hard, they just end up bleeding members.
[3] - A brief moment in time in Poland where we had 3-school system and profile classes in the secondary school.