On the other hand, in my experience(and I welcome German people to chime in and dispel this notion), German child raising is very hands-off and devoid of any warmth. Yes, kids are given a lot of freedom, but are also expected to keep to their own devices vast majority of the time. When the parent comes back home, they don't think about doing activities with the child - quick chat about how is school, and then don't bother me for the rest of the evening. And it's not bad parenting or parents not caring - the people I met genuienly expect kids to be able to occupy their own time and the notion that they need family support apart from the material one is almost slightly weird to them. From my observations, it results in people who are fantastically independent and confident, but who can also be emotionally distant to everything.
Again, this is just an anecdote of my own experience.
Yes, as a rule of thumb, we live through emotionally starved childhoods which causes us to become emotionally detached automatons whose only joy in live is producing cars and occasionally waging war against France, which is always good clean fun until you guys decide to show up.
Kidding aside, I think there are two problems with your interpretation: For once, if you rank acceptance of emotional display on a scale going from Russia to America, you will find us somewhere close to Russia. Here, typical American displays of friendliness ("I'm so happy to see you!", "you guys should totally come over to our place sometimes") are grossly inappropriate, and in some areas (customer servic[1]) they border on being sociopathic, as long as isn't meant literally. But this is just a cultural difference, not something that hints at emotional damage. Russians can laugh, Germans can be friendly and Americans can be reserved or grumpy. It's just that there are huge differences in terms of the social setting in which those things are deemed acceptable.
As a second note, there are obviously very diverse approaches to parenting in Germany as well as very differently skilled parents. There are caring and loving parents as well as emotionally distant narcissists. I'm very uncomfortable with you attributing such things to a culturally determined approach to parenting instead of looking at individual factors. What you can actually do is looking at how things like independence, discipline, athleticism and so forth as well as individual practices like spanking are valued. Some of the results might be very surprising.
[1] The story about German customers calling the police because they were feeling stalked by wal-mart employees trying to help them with bringing their groceries to their cars is legendary.
>I'm very uncomfortable with you attributing such things to a culturally determined approach to parenting instead of looking at individual factors.
You should thank God you aren't American...it seems everyone else thinks they know exactly what makes us tick, and (as in this thread?) aren't shy at all about making sweeping generalizations about us.
Germany doesn't export it's culture, it exports mostly its products. Contrary to the USA that exports its culture wherever it can. So it should not be a surprise that 'everyone else' thinks that they know what makes Americans tick, it's just that their picture is going to be centered on whatever Hollywood wants to radiate rather than actual reality.
That said - and having spent a good bit of time in the US - there are quite a few things that Hollywood unfortunately portrays quite accurately.
I am not American, so I don't understand the American approach either :P As for the rest - hence me pointing out twice that this is my personal experience with german parenting.
Parents not spending a lot of time with their children does not mean they are distant or emotionally unavailable.
I have always felt this hands-off approach does not mean my parents do not care or that it annoys them to spend time with me. If I had a problem or question, they were always there for me. But it felt like they respected my privacy and boundaries and trusted me enough not to get into trouble.
In my experience, the hands-off approach takes a back seat very quickly when you break the rules or get into trouble.
Yes. TBH, it takes quite a lot of restraint sometimes :-)
> and devoid of any warmth.
No. Anecdotal, of course, as I can really only speak about my family and close friends.
Our parenting is full of warmth, in two ways.
1. we interact a lot with the kids: I don't usually go out in the evening, because when I come home from work, I belong to my kids. We'll build Lego, or play with cars, or fire up Spotify and dance like loonies. I also haven't watched TV in... IDK, 2 years maybe? (Nothing philosophical about it, I just have better things to do, like playing Lego)
but 2. we give warmth also in the form of trust and safety. We show them that we trust and rely on them to figure their own stuff out. This may seem standoffish, but it's the opposite: we prove to them that we trust them, but provide a safety net if they get in over their heads.
E.g. if I work around the house, I'm busy, and my sons know that now is a bad time to disturb me. On the other hand, I encourage them to steal my tools (say, a saw) and do their own "work", and teach tehm how to use the tools if they can't figure it out by themselves. I'll of course watch them from the corner of my eye, but I trust them to learn by themselves, and not to saw their heads off or ruin anything of value in the process.
> the people I met genuienly expect kids to be able to occupy their own time and the notion that they need family support apart from the material one is almost slightly weird to them.
Well, yes, I expect my children to be self-sufficient (to an age-appropriate degree). And they are happy to be, because they know they get the attention they need, just perhaps not right now (see: all my evenings, or fun weekend outings).
If you visit German friends and observe them interacting with their kids (or not), I assume there's an agreement within the family that this is a time to not disturb the parents while they entertain their guests. So you don't get to see that other side, it happens after you leave.
> From my observations, it results in people who are fantastically independent and confident, but who can also be emotionally distant to everything.
I suspect this is an American misinterpretation of social interaction (I'm guessing you're American). You see, Americans feel over-the-top to me. A meal isn't "good", it's "fantastic", a holiday isn't "pleasant", it's "amazing". There's nothing wrong with either style, of course, it's just different. So if you're used to the more exuberant American style, perhaps the German way feels cold to you, even though in reality the same sense of warmth is conveyed to those who know to interpret it.
As a rule of thumb, the parents of our baby boomers were a generation of repressed, damaged, emotionally and/or physically violent wrecks who demanded absolute respect and obedience for suffering through a war they themselves started. All that without being aware of the irony in the slightest.
You would like to look up which the years of baby boomers were and how old their parents must have been. They certainly did not start the war; they suffered from it. I am of the baby boomer generation, my father was 17 at the end of the war.
My parents demanded respect. That's a good thing, imho. Otherwise, I enjoyed a freedom kids nowadays can only dream of. I never felt any lack of love from my parents.
Well, it's a failed attempt at translation. "Baby Boomers" is not really a term that is used very often. I was referring to the generation that was born during the war or in the immediate aftermath.
> My parents demanded respect. That's a good thing, imho. Otherwise, I enjoyed a freedom kids nowadays can only dream of. I never felt any lack of love from my parents.
Well, that's the problem with painting a whole generation with one brush: For a lot of individuals, it's not representative. 0
To be honest the parents of the baby boomers would have been old enough to suffer through and fight the war, but wars tend to be started by the older generation who hold the political power.
This might be unrelated, but your description reminded me a lot of the music video for Winter, a song by German goth/rock band Unheilig. The distant family is a standard trope, but I thought there was something particularly Germanic about it in this video.
This isn’t just a German thing. I think Americans are in the minority expecting adults to play with children. I’m south asian, and growing up, my parents were warm and loved me, but they never played with me. As I tell my daughter: “grown ups don’t play with children.”
I don't think that's generally the case. In Germany the number of children in a family is relatively low and parents tend to have a lot more attention to this child. Quite often one parent doesn't work full time. Grandparents also like to be involved.
Again, this is just an anecdote of my own experience.