Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader (11 page)

His words turned Fanny around. She’d always wanted to do her best, so after a good cry, she set about winning the 200 meters in 24.4 seconds. In her last event, Fanny won gold as anchor in the 4 x 100-meter team relay. A spectacular achievement, she had the honor of being the first woman to win four gold medals in a single Olympic games.

Now her former detractors lauded Fanny as the flying housewife, even daring to call her “the Flying Dutch-woman”! There was no more grumbling about Fanny staying home; now all the grumbling was about Olympic rules limiting her to three individual events. Though she held the world records in the broad jump and the high jump, Fanny hadn’t been allowed to compete in those events. Many fans thought she could have won those as well.

Fanny returned to Holland as a national hero and found well-wishers crowding the streets of Amsterdam. The city presented her with a new bicycle in honor of her achievements. After her Olympic triumph, Fanny continued her career with some success, winning European titles in 1950 and setting a world record in 1951. In 1999, she was an 80-year-old grandmother when the International Association of Athletic Federations named her the “Female Athlete of the Century.” You just can’t beat a great mom.

Need some quick tips? Here’s how moms around the world cope with the challenges of raising kids.

K
ids can be a handful no matter where you live. And even though a baby has successfully made it to kiddom, that doesn’t mean that mom’s job is done. What’s best for kids? Around the world, the question has different answers. In different societies, devoted mothers meet their children’s needs in ways that might shock or inspire you.

In Africa, you probably won’t hear a Central Bantu yelling at a child to clean up his or her room, much less help out around the house. Dwellers in thatched huts, the Bantu mom might even pull out a piece of the roof to start a campfire at night. The Bantu periodically move and build new homes, so keeping everything in its place takes a backseat. Also big fans of temporary housing, the Inuit, who live in igloos in North America, have been known to simply leave an old igloo when it’s dirty and move into a new one. (Now there’s a way to cut down on chores!)

But in Western cultures with more permanent residences, parents are keen to have kids pitch in to keep the house tidy. In the United States, parents even tie their kids’ allowances to how well they do their chores. “Chores
and jobs are important steps on the road to independence,” according to
drspock.com
. They teach children “responsibility, diligence, and new skills.”

Chores on the other side of the world can be put off in some cultures. Australian children raised in a traditional Aboriginal manner are indulged as much as possible and don’t take on many serious responsibilities until they reach puberty. In Thailand and Kahalapur, India, many mothers believe in letting their children be free from chores so they can play—life will be hard enough later.

American pediatricians recognize a child’s need to keep his or her own toys and believe that sharing should be encouraged—but not forced—in a child after she is two. Other cultures don’t see it that way. Sharing can be crucial to survival to a culture, especially those with limited food resources. West African tribes place a premium on learning to share. Mothers who are usually very permissive with their children can suddenly become quite strict as they teach their children to share all objects and their food from an early age.

Some cultures believe that allowing children to speak enhances their expressive abilities, while others feel that shushing your child won’t squash his creativity. Traditionally raised Australian Aborigine kids are free to speak their minds and express their feelings. Even a child who swears at his elders might not be punished—he’s more likely to be laughed at or ignored.

The Hopi, in the southwestern United States, have a much different view. In the Hopi tradition, a young person is considered inexperienced in life; his elders expect him to be quiet until he knows what he’s talking about. Mothers in Japan expect their children to master early the skills of self-control and politeness with adults, and kids are expected to listen to their parents and not talk back.

As everybody knows, all kids are not angels. They do get out of line from time to time, and parents have to become the enforcers. How they enforce their rules and punish misbehavior varies from culture to culture.

In the West, the jury has long been out on the benefits or detriments of corporal punishment. About a third of U.S. parents will give a pop on the behind when a child acts up, but many pediatricians advise other forms of discipline—like time-outs or deprivations such as taking away a favorite toy. In Mexico, kids are rarely spanked if they are under seven years old. Up north, the Inuit see their children as treasures and rarely rebuke them—certainly they never spank them. In farming societies where children are expected to be obedient and work hard, punishment may be physical, as with the Ngandu in the forests of the Central African Republic.

Discipline isn’t always for parents of some cultures. Sometimes the messages are mixed. In Okinawa a Tairan mom might scold her small child, then relent and apologize if her child cries. In India, a Rajput mother might nag her kid to do chores—then let the matter drop. In the United States, Dr. Spock noted that a mother might tell a child to turn off the TV set and go to bed, then back down
when the child protests that none of her friends have to go to bed so early. He advised moms to make simple rules and stick to them, no matter what the other kids are doing. Consistency is key.

In all cultures, moms work to raise their children to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. It seems there are as many routes for success as there are children. No matter what the maternal strategy, moms around the world seem to be doing just fine.

Julia Ward Howe, the author of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” motivates moms for peace.

J
ulia Ward Howe (1819–1910) was the founder of Mother’s Day for Peace, a predecessor of modern Mother’s Day. Only her day wasn’t devoted to gifts and breakfast in bed. Julia’s day was rooted in mothers’ political unity for international peace.

Actually, when it came to motherhood, Julia herself had a tough time adjusting to it. She grew up the daughter of a wealthy New England banker, had an excellent education, and was used to enjoying exclusive parties and plenty of male attention. But after she married educator Samuel Howe, life changed drastically. The couple had six children (five of whom lived) in twelve years.

Though Julia came to treasure her brood, in her first years as a mom she was depressed and miserable. Why, she wondered, had she “traded in a life of easy circumstances and brilliant surroundings” to become a harassed mother of five, isolated from fashionable society and intellectual stimulation? Samuel unintentionally made her more miserable. As a traditional husband, he wanted Julia to remain at home.

Finally, Julia decided to take a few moments every day to read and do some writing. She discovered (as the world
soon would) that she had talent, and she published a volume of poetry. Samuel tried to get her to give up writing because he thought it too revealing of their marriage problems. He is said to have even become violent, but Julia refused to give up her work. She began a lifelong battle for liberty: first for herself as a writer, then to abolish slavery, next to establish rights for women, and finally to free the world from war.

During the Civil War, Julia “gave birth” to a poem that would become a rallying cry for the Union. Unable to sleep one night in 1861, she was humming a popular tune of her day, “John Brown’s Body.” New lyrics began to come to mind, inspired by the gravity and sadness of the war. Julia sent the poem to the Atlantic Monthly and received five dollars—along with eternal fame. Julia’s poem was the fierce and rousing “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored / He hath loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.”

Set to music, the poem swept the Union. The last verse inspired Northerners (“As He died to make men holy / Let us die to make men free”) with the call to end slavery. Union troops sang the “Battle Hymn” with a vengeance as they marched to battle. When Abraham Lincoln heard the song, he gave an opinion in his usual succinct fashion. “Sing that again,” the president said. Lincoln would later claim he knew only two songs, “Listen to the Mocking Bird” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”