Sweeping Generalizations from the play group

Christina wondered aloud in comments about my words post:

On a different note, I entirely related to your post about words--I too am talkative, and I notice Bean is in reply. He babbles a lot, always has. I know exactly what you meant by having entire conversations with your son. I do that too. I wonder if its a cultural thing or a personality thing to NOT talk with your small child? What do you think?

I think about this a lot. I'm sure there is sociological/anthropological literature that actually addresses this in a systematic way, but I'm not in the position, or in possession of the time, to go looking for it. If anybody has any insights on this (Mausi?) I'd love to hear them. What I've got are lots of scatter-shot observations based on a really small n. The social scientist in me knows how completely meaningless these observations are in terms of how much I can actually rely on my conclusions, but the expat in me says hey, this is what people do. We live our lives making small-n observations about ourselves and our host countries. That's what's fun about being an expat, that's what's interesting, that's what's irritating and frustrating.

So here are some sweeping generalizations from the play group, based on my very small n.

I am the most talkative parent - in terms of chattering with my child - I have ever seen, fellow English speakers included. I actually go to play group primarily to play with my son and only secondarily to meet new people. (But don't get me wrong, this is very much on my agenda.)

Swiss mothers tend to be less talkative with their children than US moms and a lot less silly. They might talk to their children while putting their shoes on, but they tend to keep it to a straightforward "okay, time to put on your boots." I do things like chant:
Put your booties on your footies!
Put your hat on your head!
The booties they are navy blue!
The hat it is red!
(I'm aware that this probably says more about me - and what, I don't want to know - than the Swiss moms.)

Russian-speaking mothers tend to be quiet with their children. This observation is complicated, however, by the language situation in which the Russian speakers find themselves. Whereas I've found a lot of the other mothers, from whichever country, know at least some English, none of them knows any Russian. When another Russian-speaking mother shows up S., a mother who I though was quiet/shy, turns into a chatterbox. Of course! She's shy in German, just like I am, and has a whole other personality in her mother tongue.

There is a cluster of Japanese families, but most of their children are in a different class than Small Boy; I see them only in passing or in the common area where food and drink are allowed. I have noticed that they seem to switch back and forth between Japanese and German with their children more than other parents switch between languages. This tends to happen in a discipline situation and I think they do it for the benefit of the other parent involved so that the second parent understands, yes I did notice my daughter try to take your daughter's doll and see how I told her not to?

In non-play group situations - taking a walk, lunch with Small Boy and my friends, in a coffee shop - I am without a doubt more interactive with Small Boy than Swiss parents. (R. excepted, but R. is, from a social science standpoint, bad data because he has been totally contaminated by extended contact with me.)

What I can't really say is what any of this - this being my totally unreliable Sweeping Generalizations - means or if any of this really matters. Obviously all these children go on to acquire their native language perfectly well. And consider this: the average Swiss mom may chatter with her child less than the average US mom*, but the average Swiss-German child will grow up to speak Dialket, German, English and some (though often worse than they like to let on) French, and the average US child will grow up to speak English, and...um, and...um, yeah. English.

And here's an easier messier point. It's the interesting point, because all the interesting things are messy and most of the messy things are interesting. Christina asked I wonder if its a cultural thing or a personality thing to NOT talk with your small child? To the degree that our culture shapes our personality, isn't this often the same thing? Doesn't our culture let us know every day what is acceptable behavior and what is not? Russian men kiss one another in greeting. US men do not. But raise a US boy in Russian culture, and he'll probably be a kisser. Doesn't the culture around us give us a dirty look when we're too loud on the subway, when we hold hands with a girlfriend while shopping, yell at our child in a grocery store or don't yell when they misbehave? Sure our own true selves tinker with personality traits at the margins - I am more verbal than many of my US friends, but not by much - but don't we pick up a lot of this stuff from our culture at large? I babble with my child, in part, because that's what I've been taught to do. That's what upper middle-class US parents do.

In my personal case, however, there is something else going on. I am very aware of the fact that I am my son's English language world. He is growing up in Switzerland and will, I assume, go through the Swiss school system. His social life will be conducted in Swiss, his schooling in German (if we're lucky; if we're unlucky his teachers will lapse constantly into Swiss-German, which they are not supposed to do but which of course happens all the time). Small Boy will be a native English speaker because I speak it to him, because I read him English language books, because I will give him that world. I'm not unmindful of that. Parents raising bi-lingual children do think about these things, especially the parent speaking the minority language. (In my case English in the minority language and Swiss-German, the language of the culture around us, is the majority language. Go read this post of Mausi's for more on raising bilingual children.) I know a couple, she's from the States, he's French, they live in the States. He is not a verbal person, not by any stretch of the imagination, and he's worried already about how he will pass French on to their child. They're considering French-language schools and planning how often to visit the family in France. Those of us trying to pass on the minority language are very aware of the fact that we're it for our children. School and friends and social world and television and background conversations on the train happen in Swiss. I happen in English. And so, for Small Boy's sake, I have to happen a lot.

And I do. Oh, I do.

* I resist calling myself "American" because once you have introduced yourself in a German class as "J from America" and there is a Venezuelan woman in that class, you will never, ever do that again. Once bitten, twice shy. I'm from the US, or the States, and I'm a US-American.