CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: MOMMY TRAINING AND MORE American women need classes in ba

CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: MOMMY TRAINING AND MORE

American women need classes in baby care and child rearing. (Really. hospitals often require it.). And pretty often in cooking. But here in Kiev, where it seems like every woman in her twenties that I know, if not teens, has a small child, they have this novel way of training: they help each other, and they help other women in their families. Sort of ‘hands on training’. Same for cooking. I mean, all the girls can cook, and they don’t think of it as a chore. It’s like breathing.

Kids get LOTS of attention. So they aren’t trying to get attention all the time. It seems that slavic children (and adults) appear to be less aggressive and impulsive. Which isn’t true of Georgians and other black haired tribes to the south and east. I need to get some data on it. Because I’m skeptical that it’s something else. But it seems pretty much the case.

Mysticism, or, I don’t know what to call it, but all the orthodox countries have it, and russians more so: this strange fatalism or belief ‘things work out this way’ as if they never heard of catallactic and self organizing processes. Or in the Russian case: the fear of not knowing something requires ignorance be replaced by confidence in pseudoscience. (I wonder how crazy this culture was before the communists just wiped out church mysticism.).

I dunno. But you know, if you have to live a lifestyle, the whole extended family thing is pretty awesome. And I think it is MUCH BETTER FOR MEN than the ANF which statistically, in a migratory industrial population, leaves you old, lonely, poor, and increasingly suicidal.