NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

September 3, 1998

Parent Line: Why in the World Do They Do That?

Kim Bushaw, Parent Line Program Specialist
NDSU Extension Service

Our family did not take an official get-in-the car, drive-for-days, pitch-a-tent type of vacation this year. Instead we opted to invite the world to visit us. For about a month we hosted a 13-year-old girl from Japan. This experience was wonderful for several reasons, not the least of which was learning to communicate better. We became much more proficient at using a dictionary, listening closely, talking slowly, using hand signs and even, on occasion, drawing pictures to figure out what one or the other of us is trying to explain.

We have also figured out something far more important. When we visited with other host families to compare notes, we found that there truly are some similarities among the children from Japan. But just as there are similarities, as there are among our American children, there are vast differences too. Basing everything we know on one person gives us a skewed sense of what other people from that country or culture might really be like.

Our Japanese student is from a small town. Others in her group came from huge cities. Just as there are probably differences in folks who choose to live in crowded Washington, D.C., versus spacious North Dakota, there are probably differences in other rural and urban dwellers around the world as well. This girl has one older sister—and grandparents who live next door. Other Japanese students have very different family structures. These factors, and many more, help people become who they are. Even when they are representing their culture they are representing it from their point of view.

I sometimes think about sending my own two children to another country and ponder the different ways they might respond. One would be quick to try a little of everything and reject most of it just as quickly. The other would refuse most new experiences at the onset but end up diving in and enjoying most everything in time. I hope they would be as polite and helpful and pleasant as our visitor was. I am certain one child would be painfully homesick within days while the other one has never experienced those feelings.

So if my two children, close in age and from the same parents, could give two very different impressions of the same country, imagine the endless possibilities there are in every country around the world. How sad it would be to think that one of our children might be judged on someone else's behaviors. How wasteful it would be to have to spend time breaking through stereotypes to get to the real person. How harmful it is when we don't teach our children to care for others in our diverse country as people first.

In this past year our family has made friends with students from Russia, Denmark, Germany and now Japan. These children have given us glimpses of what their county is like, according to them. I now know a little about, and care a great deal more about, what is happening in each of these countries. I believe our children have a better idea about life in other places of the world too. I hope these experiences have given them empathy and knowledge to realize that other people have mothers and fathers and friends who care about them, just as they do.

The Japanese student, just like our children, loves tacos, pizza, spaghetti, talking on the phone, playing games, staying up late, sleeping in, and shopping at the mall.

One evening just before she left, I asked what she would like for her last American dinner. Many minutes and two different dictionaries later she pointed at a word I knew all two well as the all-too-typical response from my own American children. The word was "anything."

"Anything," she proclaimed proudly, "I like anything."

"Great," I grinned. "Spaghetti it will be."

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Source: Kim Bushaw (701) 231-1070

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136