by Eva Christiansen

I have always had the impression since moving here four years ago that Czechs tend to prefer it when people mind their own business. One doesn’t strike up random friendly conversations with strangers (excluding the obligatory “Dobry den” and “Na schledano” in elevators and waiting rooms, of course). One doesn’t offer more information than requested, and shouldn’t expect elaborate answers to questions beyond the particulars of what was asked.

Most importantly, while you might throw a sidelong, disapproving glance, you avoid conflict at all cost and don’t tell others what to do. In many ways I find this ideal, because I hate being judged or told what to do – especially by a stranger who doesn’t know anything about me. It’s hard to mind my own business when someone is mercilessly tugging at their dog or yelling at their kids for no good reason. But I mind my own business. For one thing I’m not fluent enough to chastise someone without sounding like a fool, but also I’m keen to support this libertarian culture.

Recently I became the lucky mother of a very cool baby. As we bop around Prague, seeing it with new eyes, I also notice something new in the locals. When it comes to kids, the tendency to mind one's own business goes out the window. And it’s gotten me thinking about culture and the enculturation of children. Sometimes the unsolicited advice is valid and well meant, but sometimes it’s just a matter of conforming to the status quo, because that’s just the way things are done. Either way, the pointers are given by well intentioned people, and they don’t recognize the difference. So do I want to be a hero to my child and raise a strong and free-spirited creature? Do I risk having a  child who will not function well in their society and always be eyed with suspicion?

I’ve seen mothers whack their kids in the supermarket; I don’t say anything but always think I failed and should have said something. What am I going to say “Nech toho?” Who the hell am I, they will ask. In the US, people generally only say something if it looks like abuse, but nobody comments on how a kid is dressed or how you discipline (or fail to) unless it’s either directly bothering everyone or the person is a presumptuous meddler. One day I sat next to a Novy Prostor merchant on a bench in Staromestske Namesti, and he told me stories of sleeping in a trashbag on the sidewalk and his grief stricken life in former Yugoslavia. I listening with interest and sympathy. Then the man went on to inform me I really should put a hat on my baby’s head, because the wind was blowing. How sweet that he should care, of course. But it wasn’t even cold. The whole “covered ears thing” is not something I subscribe to – and in her eight months of life, my baby has never even had a cold. Yet this homeless man had advice for how better to take care of my baby. It’s not the only time a man has offered advise, and that’s significant because usually it’s women who take it upon themselves to enforce manners, child rearing, and other fashions of the day. But I’ve even had male cashiers point out to me that my baby wasn’t wearing shoes. “Yes – thank you! She’s not exactly walking yet – but thanks a lot!”

Another time I was headed home with baby in stroller and two enormous art boards that had been wrapped in some brown paper to protect them during transit. As we wait for our tram at Narodni Trida, baby starts pulling at the paper and chewing it. Babies do this – they are forever putting things in their mouth. I am not about to interfere with a natural curiosity, but I always evaluate the situation to see if it’s coming apart or has chemicals on it. I saw no harm – the paper was new, seemed clean enough and had a shiny coating that kept it from disintegrating. And it amused her to no end to munch this paper. At which point (after glaring a bit) a woman next to me pointed out that she had the paper in her mouth. I smiled sweetly and nodded. The glaring escalated and she told me once more that my BABY had that PAPER in her MOUTH. My smile faded and I looked right into her and asked “No, a co?” (Yeah, so what?) Which she, of course, reacted to her as though it’s the rudest thing anyone’s ever said to her. That intake of breath – that looking around to see if anyone else caught this impertinence. Others did – I know because I saw them trying to hide their smiles. But to this day I don’t know – what exactly was the problem? Sure, if it were the wrong kind of paper it might come apart in her mouth and there could be some choking risk, but I was right there, and more importantly, I had deemed the situation ok. Another mother might snatch the paper away. Cue baby screaming, mother feeling like a bad parent, self-righteous babicka feeling like a hero. But not me – heretic that I am. I let her chew it.

In public, a mother’s main task is to be forever shushing her children. On trams, in stores, museums - if a Czech kid comes running excitedly, the mother’s first reaction is not to listen to what new and thrilling discovery the child has made but to shush them and tell them “Ne křič”. Now, no one wants to hear a kid “křič”. But I thought “křičing” meant shouting – you know, screaming or being rude and generally intolerable. But to just excitedly say “Mommy, look at this!” What’s the harm in just being a kid? Must we all shuffle along with eyes downcast, touching nothing, moved by nothing, expressing nothing? It’s bad enough that the older generation behaves that way, but I’m always told “It’s just because of Communism”- the broken spirit of the repressed people and all that. But it’s not. This very same mentality is being put on the newest generation of people and it’s taking effect. Ever try to smile at a little kid on the street? They either look down as if they don’t see you, look up at their parent’s for help or stare back at you – without smiling. I don’t think that’s normal or good. Not that I ever presumed to correct another mother by pointing out “I’m smiling at your kid and she’s not smiling back. I find it rather rude.” I don’t see it happening in, say, Germany or France. To be fair, it happens less outside of Prague, but it’s still there – whether kids are just shy, or have been trained not to interact with strangers by their nervous parents, I don’t know. But I want people to smile at my kid and her to smile back, it’s important for proper social development, I think. But that’s just heretic talk.

So I have a baby girl with no earrings. “Is she a boy or girl?” Who cares. It shouldn’t matter. She’s no breeding yet! OK, here, you kind of have to know because you can’t address her or say anything about her without knowing the gender because the whole language is set up that way! “No, she doesn’t have her ears pierces but she is, in fact, a girl” I’ll say for the 12th time that day. Why no earrings? “Well, we think it’s cruel and barbaric,” I’ll sometimes say. “We think it’s like putting a bone through her nose or tattooing her face, it’s just not done in the civilized world”. That always gets them. But the truth is I don’t want to “get them”. I try to open-minded and just wish for the same in return – but here I am, a guest in this culture, not the other way around – and so I am a heretic. Maybe to my child I will be a hero – my child, if I succeed, will move freely around in the world, without fear or low self-esteem. Maybe other little children will look to me as some kind of hero, because I’m not forever wiping dirt off my kid’s face and letting her ride around in the stroller with no shoes on. But to their parents I’m a heretic, who should be made to conform. Because otherwise all the other little kids will be asking their parents “Why do I have to wear shoes and be quiet and hold your hand if she doesn’t?” And that’s it, right there.You can’t have a heretic in your midst because it threatens the make up of the whole society, where before people went along unquestioningly - but now suddenly, they realize there’s more than one way. There might even be a better way.

Average user rating

   (0 vote)