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Tanya Mayer's book published by Individuum “Hat, grandmother, kefir. How children are brought up in Russia. Tanya long time worked in Russia, fell in love with a Russian colleague here and became a mother for the first time. Alas, she did not succeed in becoming a Russian wife: the father of the child decided not to continue the relationship and disappeared from Tanya's life. After some time, Tanya met a new love - a divorced Austrian, married him and gave birth to two more children. Today, their family lives happily between London and Vienna, but Tanya has not forgotten her “Russian period” and has written a book about what it means to be a mother in Russia. In the book, she sometimes quite strongly criticizes Western approaches to education and praises Russian ones, and therefore there is a feeling of some kind of catch: no, this is not about us, are we really that cool? In general, we are used to doubting ourselves, and there is something to argue with in the book, in any case, it is very curious to look at ourselves from the outside. The editor-in-chief of the Domashniy Ochag magazine, Natalya Rodikova (mother of three children), met with Tanya to ask a few questions.
First, why Tanya? It sounds so Russian.
Honestly? Do not know! My dad is from Yugoslavia, maybe there is such a name there? He emigrated to Canada before I was born, met my mother there, and when I was born, they called me Tanya. We immigrated to America when I was little, I grew up in Arizona,
Did your parents read the book?
No. I didn't even particularly want it. There's a lot of personal stuff in there, and not everything will be to my mom's liking.
You lived and raised your children in different countries observed different parental approaches. How do mothers and fathers in Russia differ from American or European ones?
What I found interesting in Russia is that if you are now 35 years old and have small children, you bring them up in completely different conditions than your mothers brought you up. Russian mothers love to try everything new, read everything, study everything, search for information - they cannot just copy the previous generation, because the situation is completely different. In the same America or Austria where my husband is from, not much has changed in 30 years. Well, maybe, except that there are more women working in America now. When I was growing up, half of the mothers were at home.
And now, due to the financial situation, all women in America work and after giving birth they go to work quite early, like my sister, when the child is about 3-4 months old. A nanny is a very expensive pleasure in the States, so most give small children immediately to a private nursery. Of course, in horror, I tried to explain to my sister that maybe you would still think about a nanny, so that the child would be at home, so that there would be one familiar person next to him ... But since this is not accepted in her social circle, she did the way everyone does. In Russia, it's not like that.
Does Russia have its own way of parenthood?
Yes, in many ways. For example, in relationships with grandparents. In Russia, it is considered absolutely normal that a grandmother helps a lot, participates in life with children. And she does not consider herself a victim, for her this is normal. And in the West they live for themselves. Maybe they are more independent financially, there is such a moment, of course. They are also older than Russians, because they themselves gave birth late and their daughters gave birth late. Plus, other relationships, because we in America often leave to study in another state after school, and this is absolutely normal, but it turns out that we all live in different cities. And grandmothers can come, there, once a year, to look at their grandchildren. But to help, no. These are your children, your problem. I rarely saw my grandparents myself. And now my mother, for example, is traveling from Africa to Australia on a cruise ship, she has her own life, she has a good time.
This is probably the other side of the fact that people in America can keep their social lives longer. In Russia, when women retire, they grow old morally very quickly, because they cannot find a use for themselves, they do not understand what they should do now, and if they understand, then there is no money for it. What remains is to help with the grandchildren.
Yes, and the conditions in Russia were such before that it was impossible without the help of grandmothers. And there was no separate housing, and your college marriages ...
Are we still getting married and having babies earlier than in the West?
Yes, average age women who have become a mother for the first time are much less here than in the West. In London, it’s generally terrible, I think, when you first become a mother at 40.
Why is it bad?
Well, now I'm 40 - and I'm much more nervous than at 29, when my first son was born. Thank God that I was young and did not worry so much at every step, as, for example, I am now experiencing. I'm more tired now. When you are 29, it means that you have more strength, and you still remember well how to be a child. My youngest is 6, and I hear myself from the outside and understand that I'm not trying to put myself in her place, I no longer remember what it's like to be in first grade. And it also means that your parents are not so old either, that they can also participate and help.
One of the things that struck me about the book was an observation about attitudes toward pregnancy. You write that in Russia a pregnant woman is treated more carefully. We are accustomed to believing that this is not the case at all.
But it is so! For example, in London, mothers are given baby on board stickers, because if you just enter the subway without them, no one will give up your seat. Even when they see that you have a huge belly, they still won't get up. And you stick and wear this sticker every day on your coat to show you need to get up. In Russia, if you have a belly, everyone starts to take care of you. Neighbors see that you are walking with packages from the car, they say “let me help you”, especially men.
But there is another side to this attention: for example, in the hospital you are watched more, more often they ask you to take tests. In the West, it is believed that if the general health is normal, then everything is fine with the child, you can not be particularly observed.
In Russia I had good doctor, but she made me give blood and urine all the time, fifty thousand tests! And in America, we do this, maybe once in the entire pregnancy. I'm Rh negative, maybe that's why she was worried? But in principle, this is a very simple thing: you give an injection at the seventh month and an injection after the birth of a child - and there are no problems. When I was about to fly to America for Christmas, my doctor looked at me and said: “Well, don’t eat too much, look.” In England, for example, with my third pregnancy, I was never even asked to stand on the scales for the entire pregnancy. And here - every time a check.
And if you are in Russia with a stomach, absolutely everyone gives you advice, even strangers. And when you are already walking with a small child, it does not stop.
I left to give birth to my first son from Russia to the States, and we returned when he was two months old. It was May, and the nanny said: let me take him to the dacha for the whole summer, and you will come to us for the weekend. For me it was a shock: how can you even offer such a thing? The child must be with his mother! In general, as an American person, I was immediately offended and said: no, by no means. And the next day I go for a walk and meet my former colleague, a Russian. He congratulates me, and then he just starts yelling: “Why is the child in the city in the summer? Aren `t you ashamed? The child should be in the country! I was simply dumbfounded.
In Austria, for example, we have such a culture that you can’t say anything, you can’t interfere. There are huge boundaries, and no one gives advice to anyone, even when you see that a person is doing really bad things. We had -11 two weeks ago, and one mother stops the car near the pharmacy, enters it with her child - and I see that the child is absolutely not dressed, he is just in pajamas, without a jacket, without a hat! What do you say? You can't say anything, it's completely unacceptable. She will send you somewhere else, and other people will support her, why did you get into a personal matter.
By the way, why did our hats strike you so much that you even put them in the title of the book?
Hats surprised me by the fact that a Russian child wears them all year round, they are just different: that is, a winter hat is removed, a spring hat is put on, then in the summer it is necessary to wear a thin hat, and on the beach in a panama hat. When we arrived with my son, he was two years old, in London, to my husband, and it was such a warm day, the son stood at the door and pointed at his head (he still spoke badly then), did not want to go out without a hat. And we had to go to the store and buy him a cap, because he is so used to having something on his head before you leave the house. But it just kills me in London when I meet familiar mothers, English women, myself in a coat and hat, and the child is almost naked, in some kind of blouse that is still left from her childhood. And it's completely normal for English child!
But they say that Russian mothers wrap their children excessively. But the English children will grow up more hardened.
I don’t know… They wear coats themselves!
Russian moms want to be an authority
What about Russian dads? Were there any observations?
I wanted to write a book specifically about Russian mothers. But those mothers with whom I spoke, I asked them to describe the role of fathers in families. There were many words, but one thing surprised me - "getter". We don't have it in English language. Russian mothers have an understanding that children and the house are, as it were, their history, and “his affairs” are his affairs. And if she needs help, she will tell. And so the woman takes responsibility for all this somehow to steer. Even if she does not do everything herself, she organizes it. I realized that Russian mothers want to be an authority in the family.
Isn't it the same in the West?
In London, for example, I often hear wives say: we are the same, we are on an equal footing. And they point out to the father: now you go swimming with your child, and now go to the playground. That is, they begin to give assignments like this, and it turns out that these unfortunate fathers, they also worked full week, they are also tired, they do not have time for themselves, because they are either at work, or his wife says that they need to be with the children. And those who do not know how to say “no”, what should they do? It seems to me that this creates a kind of not-so-good moment in marriages.
However, I noticed this is a good thing. Ten years ago, when I visited Europe and returned, it was striking that we don’t have dads with children on the street ...
Yes, it wasn't, I remember it wasn't at all!
Not with strollers, not by the handle, only mothers and grandmothers. Look, in Spain, children are in dads' slings, or a man is walking alone, with two or three children, his mother is somewhere with her friends, or maybe she is doing laundry at this time. But dad goes with these children with an absolutely normal, not suffering face. And now in large Russian cities there are also a lot of dads with children, and it's nice to look at them, these young fathers. They feel that they are in the right place next to the children, and they enjoy parenting ...
Yes Yes Yes! Everyone now began to see a lot of dads who walk with their children. Now in Russia there are even dads who stay at home with their children, because the wife has a cool job. In Moscow, there is such a schedule and such a rhythm that it seems to me that if one person has a good job, then this is enough for the family and the second one can work at home.
And in London, do you often meet dads who sit with children?
I meet, but I feel uncomfortable when I see that, for example, dad came to the ballet with a four-year-old girl. I have seen many cases when mothers work, and father does not cope with the task at all, that is, children are not dressed, hungry, cry, behave badly. It seems to me that when they are very small, this is still not quite a man's job. Not for every day. But that's just my personal opinion. Many men simply do not have the patience.
About kefir and buckwheat on the beach
When you are going abroad with a child, on any parent forum you find questions - what to do, what should I feed my child there, there is no kefir, there is no cottage cheese, that's all. The child will die of hunger.
Yes, and it all messes with itself. I remember we were with my friend, she has a house in the south of France, we are standing in Nice with children on the so-called "Russian" beach, and listening to the company of women nearby. They are in trendy swimsuits, beautiful, elegant, beautiful weather, the sun is shining, the sea, and they are discussing where to buy buckwheat! It just killed me! Heat, 30 degrees, and they are talking about this buckwheat.
But did you feed the children with buckwheat and kefir?
I learned it here because I didn't know what to do at all, first child, I have no experience. And the Russian nannies explained to me that we needed porridge, soup, and we had it all full program. My son ate 4 times a day, and the last time, before going to bed, he ate porridge again. I don't even know why. And then I came to London - and I understand that all the other children of this age already have a normal dinner. And he has porridge. I then reorganized, but I still can make such a big bowl of porridge all in the morning before school.
What?
I add oatmeal and fruits. I often make soups, and when I have time, I make pancakes, pancakes, pies. That is, I learned to do some things here, and the soup, for example, simply saved me, because the third child, my daughter, was born with a very strong allergy to everything dairy. She was so skinny, and it was hard to get her to eat anything. I was the only mother in London who stood at the stove and cooked soups, because no one does it, they don't eat it. They already begin to give regular food at 8-10 months. And they constantly offer children these snacks, all sorts of snacks, and they ask me: does your child want it? And I'm like, no, we're like having lunch in an hour, thanks.
And in America?
In America, food is generally bad, a lot of unhealthy things. Only wealthy people eat well in the States. They can afford "natural" food, go to an expensive supermarket, where everything is bio, organic. And if you go, for example, to the supermarket where my sister buys food, it is huge, but you can’t buy anything healthy at all, only in a circle - fruits, vegetables, meat, milk, and everything else is complete garbage.
And what do they feed their children?
Anything your parents eat. I mean, baby food is at the beginning when they can't chew anything. And when the sister's child was about 8 months old, she already made him a french toast - this is when you take White bread, inside an egg, and fry like this, and more cheese ... Once I even called her in the morning, she was taking the child to the garden, and from some kind of remark I realized that the child had not had breakfast yet, that he would eat for the first time now in the garden. This cannot be compared at all with the approach here in Russia. When my son was small and I worked, a nanny came to me every morning at 8 am, and now the child is still sleeping, and she is already preparing breakfast for him. And at the same time, my child is at home, they won’t take him anywhere now, a familiar person will be with him ...
Not everyone here can afford a nanny either, and you still have to drag the unfortunate child to the kindergarten ... Tell me, you praise Russian mothers so much in the book, you can argue with a lot, but in short: what are we really the coolest in?
Oh… (laughs) Very good question. You know, it seems to me that I have not met other such mothers in the world who, from the beginning of pregnancy, think a lot, analyze how and what they do and why. That is, on the one hand, you have a very scientific approach. On the other hand, you have so much love. And this is very natural, Russian, or rather Russian, mothers are very emotional, they talk about love for children, they don’t forget to say “I love you” to the children themselves ...
You speak?
Well, I forget, I try to remind myself.
You know, I was sure that we in Russia learned to say “I love you” to children, to family members in general, from you, from the Americans. We often saw this in films, and at first it was very unusual that everyone there said this to each other ...
Well, no one in my house said that! And my husband, an Austrian, says the same thing: he didn't have it either. And now I’m on Instagram, on Facebook, I see how Russian mothers post pictures with their children and write: “my love”, “my sun”, “honey”, that's all. We don't have that, really. This can be heard from the outside: when Russian people talk to a child, a completely different language even begins, they even use other words. What are they called... These "shushu". We caress children too, but not as much, and then it ends abruptly when school starts. Six years, first class, everything.
mom said "should"
By the way, do you do homework with the kids?
I try not to do it, I just tell them what to do.
Do you know, yes, this problem in Russia? Homework with parents until night?
Yes, and I read that the psychologist Labkovsky wrote on this topic, it's amazing! He says: why are you all doing homework with children? Another interesting point: in Russia, all mothers teach their children to read at home, even before school, and then the children go to first grade - and they already know everything, they are not interested. In the West, it is not considered that parents should do this themselves.
Perhaps this lack of preoccupation with early reading does not turn European children away from books? I recently saw something in Oxford that surprised me greatly: in bookstores, children are alone, without mothers. In our country it is impossible to imagine, our children do not go to bookstores themselves. They can go to the supermarket, buy themselves a chocolate bar, chips. But I have never seen children alone in bookstores in Russia. And there - the children are lying, sitting on the floor, in backpacks, in bicycle helmets ... That is, it is clear that he was driving from school and stopped on the way. There were about twenty of them in the store, without parents. And they stuck each in his book and did not notice anything around. So how did they do it?
Yes, and in London it’s absolutely normal to leave a child alone in the children’s department, you go, watch something adult, while he looks at his books, and then you go to the cashier together ... I don’t know, after all, both Oxford and central London - it is considered safe, but in Moscow, children, probably, simply cannot be left alone with these considerations? By the way, in Vienna all children go to school alone. Here is my son, 10 years old, he travels through the whole city by public transport, alone. And in Moscow they tell me that many are afraid to let their children go far away like this.
Still, I think the point is that English children are less tortured by early reading...
Do not know! (laughs)
They don’t buy cubes with letters when the child is only a year old ...
No, they buy both in London and New York. It does not depend on nationality, it depends on whether you live in the capital or another large city, where everyone is obsessed with education and where everyone wants children to be just champions. Here are the stories about Asia - it's just terrible. For example, Koreans - there are many of them in the West, because Korean companies - Samsung, LG - send their employees here to work, and their children can study at an international school in English, say, for up to three hours. And then they have another school, Korean, evening. They have no childhood at all! So I was sitting at the international school in Vienna, and there one Korean mother, in all seriousness, explained to us what we need to take additional teacher in English, because here the level of English is not high enough. That is, the teachers are all native speakers, but this is not enough for her. It's terribly scary. Have you read Tiger Mother Battle Cry? (book by Chinese-American Amy Chua about Chinese method raising children, quite tough - approx. ed.)
Yes, among our parents, it produced the effect of an exploding bomb.
It was such a bomb in America too, it caused a lot of negative emotions, because Americans like everything to be fun, fun, easy, with pleasure. For a child to study well, this is not so important for most American families. Everyone, in general, does not care what your grades are. Sports, well-being of the child, relationships are more important.
And here I am talking about this book at the presentation of my book in London, where there were many Russian mothers. And I say: “Can you imagine, this Chinese woman made her children play the piano every day, and even when they were on vacation, she was looking for hotels where there is a piano ...” Here one girl, Russian, psychiatrist, lives in London, and says: “Well, yes, it’s the same with us, we work every day at the dacha with my grandmother, but what is it, of course, there should be music every day, but how else?” And I’m like this to myself: oh, dear mother ... That is, I didn’t expect that Russians are also fixated on this, on education, on grades.
It is enough to take a look in the summer on a plane in which people from Russia fly on vacation with their children: many have textbooks with them, so that during the holidays the children decide, write ...
I know, I saw such Russian families on the beach with textbooks, yes. We are given assignments for the holidays, but still this is something not entirely mandatory, and the teacher will definitely not check, and the children know this. Once, at the end of the school year, I stood with my mother from Austria and my mother from Russia, and the Austrian said: “How do you make your children do these tasks that we are given, so my daughter knows that they will not be checked, and refuses to do ". And my Russian mother, Lyudmila, my girlfriend, answers: “But I don’t understand what the question is?” Austrian: "Well, how do you force?" “I say: you have to do it. And that's it, period." These are Russian mothers! (laughs)
Not every book in our rubric is outstanding. We try to cover the simple and accessible works of contemporary sculptors, as well as literature deserving the Pulitzer Prize.
Today is an entertaining book for #households from American author Tanya Mayer. Tanya spent many years in Russia working in the Moscow office of an American bank. From the age of 18, Tanya studied Russian, received a prestigious education at Harvard. But she shone the book by no means on business processes, but on motherhood.
Motherhood is one of the most burning topics for a Russian woman, and Tanya managed to tell about it through the eyes of a foreigner. It's interesting sometimes to see yourself from the outside, isn't it? Indeed, sometimes we do not evaluate our habits and actions and take it for granted. After all, what is completely natural for a Russian person is completely alien and unusual for a foreigner. This, oddly enough, extends to motherhood and our manic love, caring for children. Tanya describes in great detail what we do “differently”.
Why a hat, why a grandmother, why yogurt?? Well, the Russian mother / woman has this comical love for hats in children for any season, including summer. Many Russian children have grandmothers who raise them instead of their mothers. And yes, there is kefir ... a remedy for many digestive ailments, which almost all the inhabitants of Russia pray for. Kefir in the West is a rarity. And one thing is still not clear: how did the Americans not die from general constipation?
And yes, there are phenomena in Russia that cause bewilderment among foreigners ... It's funny, but such a thing as "draft" is simply absent in many Western cultures. Have you ever wondered where the draft came from? That's right, from the villages. Have you ever thought about the fact that America never had villages? And they don't have a draft.
As well as they do not have such a thing as a massage for a baby, which is sometimes incomprehensible to us. How can a baby develop properly without massage?
Below are quotes from this wonderful book:
“Russian women can talk for hours scary stories about pregnancy and childbirth in the USSR. They are passed down from one generation to the next, and probably this makes modern moms more collected. ”
“Before starting to go to kindergarten, kids socialize in sandboxes. If your child is too playful and, say, starts throwing sand, biting and pushing, then everyone present will certainly look at you with reproach and the army of grandmothers will make a remark about your child’s manners.
“In Russia, a dad is such a bonus: it’s great when he is and is actively involved in family life, but there will be no tragedy when a mother raises a child alone”
About fears
The most vivid memories of pregnancy in Moscow are care and unsolicited advice. Everyone was constantly worried about how I felt; the salesgirls were surprisingly friendly (well, more friendly than usual), especially when they noticed that I didn't have a wedding ring; everyone thought it was necessary to say something. A pregnant woman will not be allowed to carry anything, men will open doors for her, they will give way to a seat in transport, etc., etc. Pregnant women in Russia are treated with care and respect.
In Russia, there is an expression “pregnancy is not a disease” and women are encouraged to enjoy this process, but in practice everything is a little different, if only because Russian doctors require an endless number of urine and blood tests during pregnancy.
In parallel with this reasonable and modern approach, there is a huge amount of superstition around pregnancy - apparently a legacy of village culture. My friend Sonya, a very modern and educated woman, a professor at Moscow State University, never cut her hair during her two pregnancies, because it is a bad omen. Oksana, a woman in her thirties, pregnant with her second child, recalled how she was raised by a housekeeper: when she saw that she stood on her tiptoes and reached for a glass standing on the top shelf, she was terribly alarmed and shouted “Don’t!” because allegedly such a movement can provoke premature birth.
Mom and newborn
In Russia, there is a sign (perhaps coming from a Christian custom), according to which a child up to a month old is not shown to anyone. Superstition or not, but Russian mothers believe that a baby is a fragile creature and that a crowd of people should not be allowed into the house immediately after being discharged. I have always been fascinated by American reality shows in which a couple of dozen relatives and friends run to the hospital to watch a mother with a newborn or, conversely, forty people meet a happy mother at home - a barbecue in the backyard is already waiting! Probably, if I showed this to a Moscow friend, she would think that these are the Martian Chronicles.
Not so long ago I learned that in Moscow women do postnatal swaddling. This procedure is supposed to promote "return of the organs into place" and help to return the form. I was very impressed, although, in principle, nothing surprising - in Russia, women take the idea of \u200b\u200bpreserving their figure after childbirth very seriously. And they will never say that feeding is an excuse to eat an extra cake. On the contrary, many Russian mothers believe that during feeding it is necessary to sit on a strict diet so as not to “transmit” anything superfluous to the child through milk.
In Russia, mothers are ready to do anything for the sake of a child, but somehow they manage to take care of upbringing and home without losing beauty, profession and feeling like a woman.
About grandmothers and nannies
It seems to me that the main difference between Russian grandparents and American and European grandparents is the very idea that they should (sometimes even when they are not asked) to help, that grandchildren are their responsibility. Modern Western grandmothers are from the baby boomer generation. My own mother, born in 1944, is typical of this category of endlessly traveling retirees who collect photographs of their grandchildren and come to visit them a couple of times a year, give gifts and play a couple of Monopoly horses. And, perhaps, like my parents, they save money for their grandchildren for the university. But about participating in Everyday life there is no speech. Moreover, they often find themselves with their grandchildren in different parts of the country, and even in different countries.
After returning to Moscow after giving birth with a two-month-old baby and the need to work according to the usual schedule, I fell into despair. I would give my son to the first person I meet for a few hours of sleep. I was young and naive and believed that any woman who raised her children could handle mine. In the beginning, my son had two nannies. One is Lilya, a middle-aged Ossetian. The other is Tatyana, a Russian woman who worked as a teacher for many years. And, I must say, I was calmer with the Ossetian. Yes, sometimes she didn’t understand something and she couldn’t be trusted with everything, but she was much kinder. My Russian nanny frightened me, and in the end I fired her - she treated the child like a small animal that needed to be fed and walked on time, but without much love and affection. Maybe Tatyana simply did not have any tenderness for children left after so many years of work in kindergarten, but in any case, it turned out to be too “Soviet” for me.
About treatment and nutrition
It was very sad to discover how strong the anti-vaccination movement is in Russia. Apparently, many mothers have confused the healthy lifestyle with all its bio-food and other good habits and the minimum. All this is very nice, but, in my opinion, not at the level of vaccination. moms with higher education, who have seen the world, in all other respects absolutely modern, say that they do not trust Russian vaccines, and therefore generally refuse vaccinations. And they report it as calmly as their counterparts in London about buying groceries at Whole Foods. This is such a position: I do not trust and do not instill. Some of these moms even managed to somehow avoid vaccines themselves as children.
Kasha is a Russian superfood. In an ordinary Russian supermarket, you can find anything on the cereal shelf - buckwheat, rice, oatmeal, multi-grain mixture, barley, millet, semolina ... What is called porridge in Britain, and oatmeal in America, does not even come close to describing that hot, satisfying , absolutely necessary for a Russian child in the morning (and sometimes in the evening) food, which is called porridge. And it is very likely that this will be the first after breast milk baby food.
Glamorous Olga recently posted her dried fruit compote recipe along with a photo of a glass jar of liquid in a stunning deep orange color. Her two-year-old daughter and three-and-a-half-year-old son are happy to drink homemade compote from (attention!) Dried apricots, raisins, rose hips, figs, star anise and cloves! And again I thought about all those damn bags of apple juice with straws that are always lost and that I gave out to children for years. I've got ashamed. In my opinion, we all need to learn how to cook compote!
In addition to soups and cereals, Russian mothers give their babies, who have already learned to chew, fish. A mother recently described to me a lunch that consisted of fried cod with a side dish of broccoli under cream sauce. And this is for a one and a half year old child. Impressive? Me - yes. I have not met Russians who would not eat fish. I remember I told one American mother of many children that my children love sea bass. She looked at me like I was an alien. And she asked how I cook such a complex dish. "I fry for butter. And that's all." The same mother confessed to me that they have become much healthier to eat since they moved to England. It struck me. After Moscow, the usual food for English children like fish sticks and beans does not seem so healthy.
About the sexuality of Russian mothers
In America and England, it often happens that, after becoming a mother, a woman devotes herself to the child one hundred percent. In Russia, mothers are also ready to do anything for the sake of a child, but somehow they manage to take care of upbringing and home without losing their beauty, profession and feeling like a woman. So what's the secret? A lot of them. Here is one: in Russia they love holidays very much. And they love to dress up. Everyone grew up in small apartments, and everyone has home clothes (training shoes, slippers) and street clothes - what you put on when you leave the house. In Moscow, it is not customary to walk around the city in whatever you have to. That is, you can wear sneakers, but only if they are combined with the overall look. Russia loves the show: here all life is a performance. So, when you walk out the door, you should think about how you look.
Best-selling author of her French upbringing, Pamela Druckerman, was recently in Moscow and later wrote in her column in The New York Times how she was surprised by her mothers who came to her autograph session in heels. From this I deduced that she spent very little time in Russia, because anyone who has been here long enough knows that Russian women look great no matter where they are going - to the supermarket, on a date or in a bookstore.
Russian popes
At venues in London and Vienna, I have repeatedly heard women complain that their husbands do not help them much or do something else wrong. Perhaps this is our mistake - we in the West want too much from dads. Russian mothers are happy to raise dads to a pedestal with a specific role and function, and are happy with any help that they bestow on them from this elevation. In the West, we often perceive the father as another participant in the educational process with the same rights and obligations, and here, of course, there is some lie. We somehow excluded masculinity from their role.
I deliberately postponed the conversation about dads to one of the last chapters, because this is how parenting works in Russia. Children are basically the responsibility of the mother. Fathers, if they exist, play an important role in providing for the family, in being an example for children and sometimes in being an authority for them. Moms lead the process from the very beginning, and dads are involved when the child grows up. When dad is at home, he is in the center of attention and often knows how to do something with the child. less mom, and sometimes more. There are also families where dad works very hard and hardly sees the children, and there he is respected for being a breadwinner. If in Russia you saw dad on the playground on the weekend, then he ended up there not because his wife forced him, but because he wanted to.
The average Russian child is far better educated than the average American or British child.
Preschool
And here, of course, we come to one of the most amazing Russian phenomena - chess. I just sat down when I found out how many mothers send their children to chess at the age of three. And this is not a show off, but the norm. Russian children really enjoy playing chess, and their mothers often play with them. I'm ashamed to admit it, but we don't have chess at home and no one, including adults, knows how to play. One mother said that since her three-year-old son began to play chess, she noticed changes in his behavior and logical thinking. Too good to be true? Maybe so. But it doesn't hurt to compare Russian three-year-olds in shorts at a chessboard with their Western peers in diapers, surrounded by brightly colored plastic toys.
At school, everything is serious from the first grade. Nobody talks about emotional maturation. Children should learn mathematics, Russian, English. Homework asked from the first day. And you need to immediately learn how to behave well in the classroom. This certainly sounds a bit old-fashioned. But apparently it works - at least the average Russian child is much better educated than the average American or British one.
Dictionary of Russian parenthood
The main item of clothing is a hat. And not only in winter. For each season, a Russian child has a separate hat. In winter, it is woolen, huge, with ties on the chin and often with a pom-pom (for both boys and girls). In spring and autumn, a smaller and lighter hat is worn, sometimes even made of cotton rather than wool. And no matter how warm or sunny it is, the hat always remains on the head, because it can “slip through” (another purely Russian concept). In the summer, of course, a hat is also absolutely necessary, but now in the form of a Panama or a bandana, so as not to “bake”. The hat is sacred. If you take your child for a walk without a headdress appropriate for the season, you will definitely be reprimanded.
Massage. Eight years ago, when my son and I lived in Moscow, I, in my opinion, was the only one who did not invite a masseuse to the child. I don’t know what massage does, except for muscle strengthening, but Russian pediatricians prescribe a course for almost every baby. In the West, this is still done mainly for medical reasons.
Tights. I remember how I brought my son from New York a very beautiful down overalls (the only possible clothing in Moscow winter) and found that he did not fit in jeans or corduroy pants. But my nannies easily fixed the situation by telling me to buy pantyhose, because, as it turned out, a child in a sweater and pantyhose fits perfectly in overalls. And crawling in them is also very comfortable. So all the beautiful panties were gathering dust in the closet, and the son, like all other Russian babies, flaunted in bodysuits and tights all day long.
Tanya Mayer with her son, Moscow, 2007.
“Russian moms are in between overly relaxed European and Asian tiger moms”
- Tanya, how did you end up in Russia?
- My mother is Canadian, and my father is Serbian. When I was seven, we moved to the States, and because most of my life was spent there, I feel like an American. After university, while I was working in New York at a bank, I always asked my boss if there were any vacancies in Moscow. I spoke Russian well: I studied the language from the age of eighteen. It was the summer of 1999, there was a crisis in Russia, and I felt that after it an economic recovery would begin there. At some point, I just quit my job and bought a one-way ticket. I found a job in the Moscow office of an American bank, I began to get used to it.
- In the book, you write that you met a man in Moscow, became pregnant, and he chose to leave your life. You gave birth to a child in the USA, but returned to us with a two-month-old baby. Not to say that such an experience can inspire me to write something kind about parenthood in Russia.
- Honestly, the most difficult thing in working on the book was to remember those months again. I gave birth to a wonderful son, became a single mother, then I met my husband, we had two more daughters, and the five of us settled in London for several years. Now for a year and a half we have been living in my husband's homeland in Austria.
- You lived in America, Russia, England, Austria - countries with their own culture. Why did you decide to write specifically about Russian motherhood?
- No one has ever noticed that Russian mothers do something special. I saw some of their general approaches - it’s just that the Russians themselves didn’t know about them, but I, as a foreigner, could see it. I have tried many things on my children and they have proven to be effective. The very idea of the book came to me in Vienna more than a year ago: I came across a group of Russian-speaking mothers on Facebook. I was amazed at how mothers support each other.
- How did you collect information?
- This is my personal experience. Plus, I arranged meetings with Russian mothers in Moscow: it's interesting that more people always came than planned - you really like to discuss your experience and share knowledge. The dialogues in the Facebook group were very helpful.
- How did your family react to the fact that you turned from a banker into a writer?
- I'm on maternity leave, so I haven't worked in a bank for a long time. The children were constantly curious about what I was constantly doing on the computer. And my husband supported me strongly, let me go to work in a cafe, and he himself took care of the children.
- What is so unique about Russian parenthood? Can you point out, say, 10 things that are characteristic of us?
- Russian mothers are between overly relaxed European and Asian tiger mothers who keep children in a tight grip from an early age. I can easily name ten differences: it is the enjoyment of pregnancy and respect for women in position; healthy eating(priority breastfeeding, cereals, soups, home cooking); potty training from 6-10 months; long walks with children in the open air; summer in the country; the ability to look good, get in shape after childbirth, take care of yourself; the ability to make a decision specifically for your situation, choose the best option for your child and not be tormented by guilt; grandmothers who are ready to help almost all day long, or nannies, available, including to poor people; the ability to enjoy the process of upbringing, and not planning just 10-20 years ahead; Russian mothers understand that the father has his own role in the family, they are praised and appreciated for any help.
- Is there something in the Russian approach to education that you categorically disagree with?
Many of your women are against vaccination. I don’t blame anyone, but a recent example of the measles epidemic that broke out in California is indicative (more than 100 children who visited Disneyland became infected with measles earlier this year; the US Department of Health issued a recommendation not to visit the amusement park for children who were not vaccinated against the disease. - Approx. ed.). It seems wild to me when someone tries to punish other people's children. Once in Moscow, my son was naughty, and one nanny loudly clapped him on the palm - they say, it’s impossible. I asked that woman not to do that again, to which she was surprised: “What's wrong? This is how we do it!”
- Do you think it will be interesting for Russian mothers to read about themselves?
- I think, yes, Russian mothers will be interested - somewhere they disagree with me, somewhere it’s enough to shake their heads. They might even learn something new. One reader wrote to me that it was only from my book that she first heard about Japanese diapers and special postnatal swaddling for mothers.
