大咖福利影院

It's really difficult to respond to this topic, as it varies a lot based on the socioeconomic standing of the Vietnamese family.

Having said that, even middle class and upper middle class Vietnamese people living in more modern accommodations and having more significant income still do some absolutely crazy things when raising their children.

Just one example among countless ones I've witnessed:

I was meeting The mythical creature known as V农ng T脿u Rider In a very nice upscale coffee shop in V农ng T脿u known as "Art Mio/Cafe Artmio".

The place was built around a beautiful tree that starts on the ground floor and the second floor was constructed around it, with padded seats surrounding it, and decorative plants just behind the seats.

All of that surrounding the beautiful tree which extended up through the ceiling.

From where we were sitting it was difficult not to see Two very well dressed and beautiful women sharing coffee time, and a little boy roaming around the area not getting any attention from them.

I did notice him at one point trying to get their attention about something and it seemed like they just told him to leave them alone, Maybe to go somewhere else.

I Then watched the little boy, well within their view, go over to the padded seats surrounding the tree, get up and stand on them and attempt to pee into the decorative plants behind the seat.

He was too short and so he ended up urinating on the seats themselves.

Didn't even phase the two women.

I'm not someone who's bothered much by Vietnamese people who will stop at a roadside and urinate in the bushes or even the guy who will be walking down the alley and urinate against the side of a building.

I figure that's a cultural thing that's been going on for much longer than I have been here in the country.

But I'm using this example to show just how detached I've noticed some parents to be when dealing with their children in public places.

About 2 weeks ago my wife and I were in Hanoi City and we found a very nice Thai restaurant for dinner.

We were seated in the beautiful upstairs location and there was a dinner party of about 10 people on the other side of the room, including two children who seem to be out of their chairs more often than they were in their chairs.

They were literally racing around the room and passing underneath an overhang that appeared to have a very expensive vase on it, very close to my wife's head had it fallen.

They were noisy and rambunctious and absolutely no one at their table cared.

I'd better stop writing about it now because as I write about this one I remember so many other times that the behavior of children in public has been absolutely abhorrent

To balance My previous reply, I would say that the best child rearing I have seen here in Vietnam is when one or more of the grandparents is living in the home.

There is a family living across the street from us (where both grandmothers are living with the family) that has an older boy in his late teens and a very young boy we have watched learn to walk and talk.

He is always being attended by one or the other grandmother. Always.

They take him outside on a regular basis, take him for walks, and they will sit on the front porch with him and feed him his porridge from a handheld bowl.

I have heard of a few expats who come to Vietnam with long-term visas or residence cards and they arranged to bring one of the grandparents here to live with them and help them with their children.

That's of course very difficult to do on tourist visas, but I would recommend that anyone coming here for long-term employment with very Young children, or expecting to give birth soon after arrival, might want to consider asking a grandmother or single sibling to come and live with them.

If they have an approved temporary resident card, they will have the ability to sponsor their immediate family member

What has surprised you most about raising kids in Vietnam?

My baby is only聽 3 months old so what I have experienced is only for newborns. Here are some things that shocked me to learn.

1. Every Vietnamese person we met always thinks your baby is going to freeze to death. It doesn't matter how incredibly hot it is. We have had multiple instances of my mother in law covering the baby with multiple blankets even when it is 34 degrees celcius. I have come home to find my baby covered in sweat because the AC was off and she was covered in blankets. It may come from the fact my mother in law originates from Hanoi but here in Saigon the baby has a much higher chance of overheating than being cold.
2. Mom and baby cannot leave the house for 1 month minimum. Really strict families will keep mom and baby in a room locked away from everyone else. Even the father is kept out sometimes. Not feasible in city life but I hear this is still a thing in the rural areas. I guess its a way to make sure people don't get sick.
3. Family is very strict on what the mother eats. The odd thing is its common to have the mother drink a pretty strong wine daily but at the same time cannot drink anything cold.
4. From my experience many Vietnamese have a very strong fear of indoor air or AC. The problem is that Hanoi and HCMC have some of the worst pollution in the world. Our baby was born around burning season and breathing outdoor air actually burned your throat. Knowing this I purchased an air purifier but it was a constant battle with the family who wanted all the doors and windows open saying we are going to make our baby sick. I understand there is such a thing as AC sickness due to the moisture and mildew in older AC systems but we planned ahead and had our units cleaned and also we have the air purifier running 24/7. My wife and I thought it was dangerous for our baby to breathe in the polluted air yet the family thought it was dangerous to close the doors and windows.
5. In the west you see a lot of focus on the awake time for the baby and play and development. From my experience its the opposite here. Most of our family desperately tried to put the baby to sleep even now at 3 months old any time she was awake. The focus here seems to be on the baby needing to eat, sleep and grow. We really try to give our baby time to play and learn and develop her motor skills and brain but we are constantly told this is wrong.
6. Never walk by a pagoda as ghost will follow you home and haunt the baby.
7. It is very well known in the west that newborns need to sleep on a flat surface with no pillows or extra stuff in the bed or bassinet. My family insisted that she must be packed with pillows and blankets and all sorts of stuff in the bassinet. They bought so many pillows for her. No matter how much we insisted that extra stuff can lead to SIDS due to suffocation everyone just brushed it off because its the way its always been.

@Cheryl

One thing that really surprised me is how hard the parents drive their children here. Starting in grammar school most children classes start at 7am and go to around 4 or 5 pm. After school many children will have extra classes at language centers to improve English.

The children are under a great deal of pressure.

I鈥檓 not going to judge whether this is good or bad, it鈥檚 just the way it is and, of course, it鈥檚 this way because parents want the very best for their children and sacrifices a great deal themselves (both time and financially) for their children.

@Cheryl

Surprises: (1) the large quantity of Vietnamese people who seem to think that hitting children is a good way to bring them up. (2) the focus of Vietnamese schools on ramming theory into a child's memory by rote, rather than showing them how to think creatively and solve problems. (3) the way that most Vietnamese parents do not seem to care how badly-behaved their children are in public. (4) the difference in parental attitudes to girls, who are usually expected to help their mothers from an early age, and boys who are often allowed to do whatever they like and to be as lazy and self-indulgent as they want to be - resulting, of course, in lazy self-indulgent men.

Daily routine for kids: too much time in school followed by a lot of homework.

Local habits: I do my best to endow my son with good manners, self-discipline and consideration for others but am constantly undermined by the lack of support these efforts get from my Vietnamese wife and her parents (see surprise no. 4). Noted comment by OceanBeach about grandparents being helpful but my son's are definitely not.

Hello all,

Thank you to each one of you who took the time to share your experiences, views, and opinions on this topic.

I believe that future expats reading through all these comments will already have a much better idea of how things are there compared to their home country and what to expect.

Your contributions are always greatly appreciated 馃檪

Cheryl

大咖福利影院 team

A searching of why these ways of life exist is very enlightening.

They won鈥檛 change in a hurry and are deeply rooted in the culture.

It makes very interesting reading as to why teachers are held in high esteem and are not to be questioned. Much of it involves losing face and asking questions is almost forbidden. I don鈥檛 see things changing for a few generations. Westerners should be wary of imposing their culture on the Vietnamese. ***