Liberated German kids

Well, while I knew that Japan raises kids to travel around the city alone and not be afraid, I didn't know that Germany had a view to child raising that emphasised independence too.   (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - it has been brought to my attention that the Japanese have similar attitudes to the Germans on many things.)

Slate notes that there's a book out by an American women noting the stark differences between the two countries' attitudes to child raising:

In a memorable scene of Sara Zaske’s guide to German-style parenting, Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children, Zaske sends her 4-year-old daughter Sophia to her Berlin preschool with a bathing suit in her bag. It turns out, however, that the suit is unnecessary: All the tykes at Sophia’s Kita frolic in the water-play area naked. Later that year, Sophia and the rest of her Kita class take part in a gleefully parent-free sleepover. A sleepover! At school! For a 4-year-old! These two snapshots of life as a modern German child—uninhibited nudity; jaw-dropping independence—neatly encapsulate precisely why Zaske’s book is in equal turns exhilarating and devastating to an American parent. 

Zaske argues that thanks in large part to the anti-authoritarian attitudes of the postwar generation (the so-called “68ers”), contemporary German parents give their children a great deal of freedom—to do dangerous stuff; to go places alone; to make their own mistakes, most of which involve nudity, fire, or both. This freedom makes those kids better, happier, and ultimately less prone to turn into miserable sociopaths. “The biggest lesson I learned in Germany,” she writes, “is that my children are not really mine. They belong first and foremost to themselves. I already knew this intellectually, but when I saw parents in Germany put this value into practice, I saw how differently I was acting.” Yes, Zaske notes, we here in the ostensible land of the free could learn a thing or zwei from our friends in Merkel-world. It’s breathtaking to rethink so many American parenting assumptions in light of another culture’s way of doing things. But it’s devastating to consider just how unlikely it is that we’ll ever adopt any of these delightful German habits on a societal level.

The attitudes really are very, very different:

Although Zaske does end every chapter with well-meaning suggestions for how American parents and governments (ha) might deutsch-ify their approaches, the book’s many eye-popping (but fun-sounding) stories—solo foot commutes for second-graders; intentionally dangerous “adventure playgrounds”; school-sanctioned fire play; and my personal favorite, a children’s park that consists solely of an unattended marble slab and chisel—just remind me of all the reasons my American compatriots will double down on their own car-clown garbage lifestyles. I found myself frustrated into tears while reading Achtung Baby, because the adoption of any German customs stateside would require nothing less than a full armed revolution. 

For example, when Sophia starts first grade, school administrators remind parents that under no circumstances should they drop children off in an automobile. Could you imagine? I can’t. In the contemporary United States, even in larger cities (with New York being the only notable exception), school is so synonymous with the interminable “drop-off line” that its vicissitudes are the subject of bestselling mom-book rants.

I think that Australia is too closely aligned with the American views, especially in the vast over-reaction to child being in a public space alone.  

Update:  There is an odd combination in Japan, and by the sounds of it, Germany, in relation to the matter of childhood social compliance combined with greater independence.   Japanese social cohesion is emphasised from a young age, in terms of learning societal politeness, group effort and cohesion (for example, the way all school kids are engaged in cleaning the school each day), and even the acceptance of family/public nudity in onsen.   (It's probably no co-incidence that countries that are relatively casual about social nudity - the Scandinavians, Germans, Japanese - tend towards strong welfare state/socialist tendencies.    Well, perhaps describing the Japanese post war system like that is a stretch - but you certainly don't have a highly stratified income and lifestyle difference between the wealthy and middle class.) 

But within that sort of society that expects strong social compliance and contribution in certain respects, they can allow greater independence in terms of how children grow up.

On the contrary, the US right wing tendency towards complete adult autonomy and freedom from government interference leads to a society with little social cohesion and a feeling that it is simply not safe to allow children to be independent on a day to day basis.