American women vs Arab women raising children

[S and S 12]

Okay, there is this Syrian woman at work who I had an argument with a little while back. There is still tension between us about this and I wanted everyone's opinion since we have American and arab women here who can contribute and tell me if I overreacted.

First, I was already annoyed at this woman because I mentioned my mother's family is Pentecostal. Now, I am not, but I respect the fact my mother's family is entitled to their beliefs. My mother was never really into it and usually we went to a Babtist church, lol. Anyway, this woman tells me that the Pentacostal religion is evil and against God, and goes on and on about how horrible it is. I am thinking to myself that she complains how people don't keep an open mind about Islam and then she insults my family's religion? I try to make her see reason and that my mother's family does not intend evil or anything bad, it is just their beliefs, but this woman refuses to hear anything I say. I let it go as I don't want to argue about it further.

Then she starts in on how she has seen American women ignore their babies when they are crying for hours at night. She goes on and on about how horrible these mothers are for doing that and how could they just ignore their babies and shut them up in rooms. I mean she is really insulting women who do this and making them sound horrible. I don't say anything yet, but then she states this is "The American Way". I say no, this is not, some women do this, but certainly not all. I think I've known one woman my whole life who did this. Yet this woman keeps telling me how it is done by all Americans. I tell her no, that my family and friends never did that. They would never think to leave a baby crying for hours on end. So this woman tells me my family must be the only ones. I couldn't believe it. I tried and tried to get her to just admit this is some women and not all. Remember she said how awful women are for doing this so I am now getting extremely angry because this means she just insulted every American woman and called them bad mothers. So I start arguing with her and then she is rude and points out I don't have children so I can't say anything. This coming from a woman that knows how badly I want to have a baby. She says I can't know about raising children because I don't have any. That I can't know what women in this country do? I've been here for 28 years, I think I know more than she does about how women handle their babies in this country. I was a live-in babysitter for two summers as a teenager and had plenty of opportunities to see how these families handled their babies. Not to mention seeing how my family took care of theirs.

Finally I blow up on her and tell her how dare she insult all Americans this way. I tell her I can't listen to her anymore and that her words make me sick. I tell her she knows nothing about American mothers and has no right to say such disrespectful things. Now keep in mind I am yelling at her to her face. I stomped out of the room and refused to answer her calling my name. I knew if I turned around I would have hit her. I was told later she started crying and wailing about how rude I was to her and that no one ever talked to her like that before. I don't care. You don't insult all American women on purpose in front of an American woman and think you can get away with it. There was an Iraqi woman in the room who talked to me later and tried to say this woman didn't mean it that way, but I don't see what other way she could have meant it.

Anyway, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I honestly don't know how to deal with this woman when I see her now.

[Martiniolive 0]

well if she was talking about americans..she was talking about herself too cuz she is living in america. Unless she means "native" americans . Why do so many people hate on penticostals? Is it like what alot of people do against muslim's and other religons? Sounds like she was blowing off pent up emotions/anger and you were there so became the victim of it. I watched my son and daughter fighting once where, my daughter was PMSing and she went on a tangent about like 5 things in a row while my son just stood there in shock at the attack....when she said all she could she waited for his retaliation and he just said "wow" and no one knew what to say LOL it pretty much said everything...he did not agree and he did not defend, he just said "wow"

[S and S 12]

well if she was talking about americans..she was talking about herself too cuz she is living in america. Unless she means "native" americans . Why do so many people hate on penticostals? Is it like what alot of people do against muslim's and other religons? Sounds like she was blowing off pent up emotions/anger and you were there so became the victim of it. I watched my son and daughter fighting once where, my daughter was PMSing and she went on a tangent about like 5 things in a row while my son just stood there in shock at the attack....when she said all she could she waited for his retaliation and he just said "wow" and no one knew what to say LOL it pretty much said everything...he did not agree and he did not defend, he just said "wow"

Oh no, you know what topped it all off? The Iraqi woman told me that since the Syrian woman is older than me (by like maybe 5 or 6 years) that it is my duty to apologize to her. She said in middle eastern culture the younger person always apologizes to the older one. I said, well guess what? This is America and the person who is wrong is the one who should apologize. They seriously didn't see what the problem was. They just said basically that all American women are bad mothers and I'm supposed to not get upset?

BTW, she doesn't have citizenship yet, but I did think about the fact her little daughter is an American now. She should think about that!

No idea why they trash on Pentacostals. I don't necessarily agree with the practices, but it is harmless and has the best of intentions. If you don't like someone trashing your religion then you shouldn't trash on others, you are totally right.

Edited October 6, 2008 by S and S

[Nothing1234 2]

I have to agree with you and most likely would have blown up at her too. I think its hysterical how someone can say these things and have had hardly any contact w/ an American family (other than the one their son/daughter married into) and then they pass judgment. Perhaps she watched it in a movie...typically any ignorant comment I have been confronted w/ by others not raised here has come from their watching movies, etc.

I have NEVER let our babies cry and wasn't raised this way by my family either. I also babysat as you did and the instructions I received from the family I worked for was to not let their son cry. The funny thing is what I have viewed overseas is the opposite of what she has said. I have seen children running around in the streets much younger than I'd care to admit without parent supervision.

IMHO, I think Americans spoil their children too much and we over do it with the picking them up, over feeding them, over stimulating, etc. The actual opposite of what she claimed was the American way.

[~~~water~~~ 0]

wow ! what a hard situation , I understand exactly where you are coming from, it just sounds like this woman is kinda simple minded and only can see the world through her own small lens. I think when you see her again just be honest you felt like the way she was talking really disrespectfully of your people and you don't need to talk anymore about issues of culture or religion and you wish to just move forward/ I know its so hard when people are so arrogant!! Hope it works out ok

just agree to disagree a person like this will never see shes in the wrong

Edited October 6, 2008 by ~~~water~~~

[S and S 12]

I have to agree with you and most likely would have blown up at her too. I think its hysterical how someone can say these things and have had hardly any contact w/ an American family (other than the one their son/daughter married into) and then they pass judgment. Perhaps she watched it in a movie...typically any ignorant comment I have been confronted w/ by others not raised here has come from their watching movies, etc.

I have NEVER let our babies cry and wasn't raised this way by my family either. I also babysat as you did and the instructions I received from the family I worked for was to not let their son cry. The funny thing is what I have viewed overseas is the opposite of what she has said. I have seen children running around in the streets much younger than I'd care to admit without parent supervision.

IMHO, I think Americans spoil their children too much and we over do it with the picking them up, over feeding them, over stimulating, etc. The actual opposite of what she claimed was the American way.

You are exactly right as well. My husband told me I was right and just said to avoid the woman for awhile. He also said there was a family accross the street from him when he still lived in Baghdad who would let their young son roam the streets all day long and even after it got dark. My husband being the caring man he is tried to return the kid to the house. Well, the family took the kid back in and my husband found him on the street not even an hour later. There are good and bad parents everywhere. I am sure some people may not run the moment a baby cries, or if the baby has been crying for hours they may step out just to calm down or take a break, but few people actually totally ignore their crying children.

[S and S 12]

wow ! what a hard situation , I understand exactly where you are coming from, it just sounds like this woman is kinda simple minded and only can see the world through her own small lens. I think when you see her again just be honest you felt like the way she was talking really disrespectfully of your people and you don't need to talk anymore about issues of culture or religion and you wish to just move forward/ I know its so hard when people are so arrogant!! Hope it works out ok

just agree to disagree a person like this will never see shes in the wrong

Thanks, I appreciate your input. So far we have just graduated to the most simple of conversations, like saying hello and thats it, lol.

[Donna A 4]

when i was in syria my mother in law was watching her daughters baby and she layed her in bed to sleep and when she woke up she let her cry before going in to get her. she didnt just immediatly jump up and run to her crys. so that woman is full of it also something i felt a little strange about is when my sister in law came back from work to get her baby she didnt even go straight to her baby but visited everyone else. i would have thought she would have missed her enough to go and hold her when she came in.

also we were at a small resturant and there was these two children out begging for food and money. what kind of a mother would make their child do this....shouldnt she have gotton a job if her husbands wages were not enough instead of putting a child up to it.

[Completely 3]

Okay, there is this Syrian woman at work who I had an argument with a little while back. There is still tension between us about this and I wanted everyone's opinion since we have American and arab women here who can contribute and tell me if I overreacted.

First, I was already annoyed at this woman because I mentioned my mother's family is Pentecostal. Now, I am not, but I respect the fact my mother's family is entitled to their beliefs. My mother was never really into it and usually we went to a Babtist church, lol. Anyway, this woman tells me that the Pentacostal religion is evil and against God, and goes on and on about how horrible it is. I am thinking to myself that she complains how people don't keep an open mind about Islam and then she insults my family's religion? I try to make her see reason and that my mother's family does not intend evil or anything bad, it is just their beliefs, but this woman refuses to hear anything I say. I let it go as I don't want to argue about it further.

Then she starts in on how she has seen American women ignore their babies when they are crying for hours at night. She goes on and on about how horrible these mothers are for doing that and how could they just ignore their babies and shut them up in rooms. I mean she is really insulting women who do this and making them sound horrible. I don't say anything yet, but then she states this is "The American Way". I say no, this is not, some women do this, but certainly not all. I think I've known one woman my whole life who did this. Yet this woman keeps telling me how it is done by all Americans. I tell her no, that my family and friends never did that. They would never think to leave a baby crying for hours on end. So this woman tells me my family must be the only ones. I couldn't believe it. I tried and tried to get her to just admit this is some women and not all. Remember she said how awful women are for doing this so I am now getting extremely angry because this means she just insulted every American woman and called them bad mothers. So I start arguing with her and then she is rude and points out I don't have children so I can't say anything. This coming from a woman that knows how badly I want to have a baby. She says I can't know about raising children because I don't have any. That I can't know what women in this country do? I've been here for 28 years, I think I know more than she does about how women handle their babies in this country. I was a live-in babysitter for two summers as a teenager and had plenty of opportunities to see how these families handled their babies. Not to mention seeing how my family took care of theirs.

Finally I blow up on her and tell her how dare she insult all Americans this way. I tell her I can't listen to her anymore and that her words make me sick. I tell her she knows nothing about American mothers and has no right to say such disrespectful things. Now keep in mind I am yelling at her to her face. I stomped out of the room and refused to answer her calling my name. I knew if I turned around I would have hit her. I was told later she started crying and wailing about how rude I was to her and that no one ever talked to her like that before. I don't care. You don't insult all American women on purpose in front of an American woman and think you can get away with it. There was an Iraqi woman in the room who talked to me later and tried to say this woman didn't mean it that way, but I don't see what other way she could have meant it.

Anyway, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I honestly don't know how to deal with this woman when I see her now.

I think there are different ways of raising a child.. I am not from Arab culture but I hope it is okay for the OP if I answered her post. I personally took care of my baby in the night time.. There were times, my son got fussy but I do not let him cry too much as the gas and bloated stomach will make him more miserable.. The baby on a certain age will not cry in the middle of the night if there is no problem.. I usually put him to swing with lullabies song or rub his stomach with oil to make his stomach feel better. But there are times, he just cry and I let him for 5 mins, if he did not stop, and fall back to sleep I go pick him up and check what is the problem..

But the time is completely different now.. My son is 2 years old now, some days he has a hard time sleeping, and cry for no reason.. We let him cry, he gets tired and fall back to sleep.. Babies are different in their unique way, so we can not judge a mother on how they take care of their babies no matter country she came from.

[Aymsgirl 0]

Wow! I have a son and I will admit I let him cry himself to sleep at certain times but not all not long and not more than a few minutes. My husband once said to me, no woman in Egypt has a bed like this! Talking about a baby bed. I said it's dangerous to put a baby to bed with you. He said I have never heard of a woman in Egypt rolling over on her child it just doesn't happen. I told him it does happen here and probably has in Egypt and maybe he just hadn't heard about it. He said it does something to a child in his inside when he doesn't sleep with his mother...I said yeah, makes him insecure when he is sleeping with her and has to have her to lay down. He went on to say that all kids about 2 or so start to sleep in their own beds without problems. I just don't believe this....So I proved a point to him. I went and got our son and showed my husband how he is miserable laying in the bed with us and wakes up several more times a night. Point proven....we move on to the next issue!

He thinks that we spoil our kids way too much just as Annie had said. I don't buy my kids toys all of the time but he said we are too easy on our kids and they disrespect (meaning most kids, not just mine) people too much. He thinks they need really good butt bustings that we can't give because society is too scared of what the authority does. He isn't really talking about beatings but disciplining without the fear of the kid calling 911 or CPS getting involved. I tend to agree on this one.

With this lady and her thoughts.....I am wondering if she is speaking of the crib situation and letting the baby cry itself to sleep but maybe she got her story mixed up with you. There is no reason to say Pentecostal is evil and of Satan if you follow Islam. You shouldn't be judgeful of the other religion and try and argue about somebody with it. She was wrong in my eyes on both accounts and I will say that I probably would have taken it to offense also. I think that its best to avoid her and move on if you can. In my experience, it's hard to get an apology out of some people if you know what I mean!!

As far as I have witnessed I agree with some of the others. I have witnessed in Egypt and at my Masjid the opposite of what this lady says. I have witnessed small children playing in the roads and at the Masjid when we had the pepper spray problem, parents running rapidly trying to find their kids when they should have known exactly where they are!

[~Jess~ 0]

Really Arab women care so much more about there children?? Thats why ive seen living in Lebanon AND Saudi Arabia that MOST all families have a NANNY that is out with them taking care of the children, NOT the mothers. The mothers will leave the children with the nanny and go SHOP while the child is screaming for his mommy. Yea SOO much better! So u have to figure that if this is the case outside, what it must be like INSIDE the home!

Also during Eid my husband and i walked down the street to a big supermarket and there were countless children and BABIES on the street begging-and this is in Saudi. In Lebanon we would see countless little kids in TRAFFIC begging and trying to sell little packets of gum to get money to take home to their parents...Yes but Arab women care so much more about their kids! NOT......

just a disclaimer im not saying ALL Arab women are like this, im saying the majority ive encountered.

I would never let my kids cry and scream. Yes i let Josh WHINE because he is teething and if ive put gel on his gums and rocked him for hours just for him to whine in my arms, then yea its okay to lay him down because he isnt crying, he is whinning there is a difference and i believe that all mothers that are intune and pay attention can learn the difference in their own childs cries.

ok rant over.

im sorry you have to deal with this nonsense!

[caybee 21]

Some people stand ready to criticize anything and everything. It sounds like this woman is one of those. There may be something going on in her own life that she doesn't like or can't control, or she just has the need to get somebody's goat and yours seemed available. I would have been offended too. I don't think you can reason anything out with her though. I think the only thing you could hope to do is, once things have settled, approach her peacefully and ask her how she would feel if you generalized about everyone in her country in some way. Either she'll get it or she won't. One thing I learned early in my relationship is that my husband can criticize Morocco all he wants to, but he will feel defensive if I or anyone else here does it. But he will occasionally generalize about "you Americans" without realizing he's doing it until I point it out.

On a slightly different topic, my husband has told me that slapping a child's face (even a teenager's) is pretty standard discipline in Morocco. I told him it is considered abuse here, but I've had some trouble backing up my assertion. I spent some time Googling it a couple of years ago, and we haven't discussed it since, but I'm curious both about whether that's an accepted MENA practice in general and whether it is legally considered abuse here. Regardless, I do not support the idea of slapping another person's face, regardless of their age, for any reason.

[ginny20 0]

Slapping a child in the face or hitting a child on the head in any way, at least in Illinois, is considered a reportable offense for mandated child-abuse reporters. This does not necessarily mean that it can be prosecuted--the laws are not this specific--just that it needs to be reported to child protective services by those who are required to do so by law so that they can investigate whether or not the child is actually being abused. It takes a lot more than a slap in the face to have a child removed from a home, though, in my experience working in the field of mental health.

I've been doing research on children in Morocco for the last four years and slapping children in the face and hitting them on the head seems to be fairly common (although many people are also very against hitting children in this way), along with hitting them with all kinds of objects--a lot of which would be considered abuse in the U.S. (any hitting with objects is also reportable in the US). It depends on the family, though, corporal punishment varies greatly here. Most people that I've workedwith seem to think it is a lot kinder to the child to hit them, than to put them in 'time out' or to ignore them when they behave badly. It's interesting because I really have observed very little emotional withdrawal as a punishment technique here, which seems more common in the US.

People also raise their children differently according to how their children are going to need to function when they grow up. So, the argument for not responding immediately to a crying baby has often been that children need to learn early on to be independent and rely on themselves for emotional soothing. This doesn't necessarily make sense in a Moroccan village, for example, where kids will never be expected to be 'on their own' in the future. In this rural Moroccan context, where there is very little police presence and children have to learn to fight and withstand pain--it makes sense that people use corporal punishment. The emotional effects of 'co-sleeping' have been studied, as have the effects of spanking, and it neither seem to make much difference in the long run to the emotional health of a child (measured by American standards, of course). In the psychological literature what seems to matter is consistency over almost anything else.

That Syrian woman sounds 'mismooma' (poisonous), as they say in Morocco. I would stay away from her!

[britty 1]

that woman sounds like a complete pain in the a$$. My approach to this would be never acknowledge her existence again. So many decent people to speak to in this world so just completely ignore her if you can.

[*JG* 2]

My husband told me he thinks it is terrible that Americans put children in their own rooms. He says in Jamaica, the women sleep with the children. I found that horrid......not only because you lose all privacy in your own bedroom and have more issues seperating later; but also because I'm an active sleeper and so is he. The child would be crushed.

Everyone has their opinions. I think you need to stand up for what you believe in. Once you get the point(s) across, it's time to walk away and stay away from the fools.