Dispatches from the sunburned wastelands

Big posting to make up for the couple of weeks that i haven't been posting a lot....

A lot of people here in Canada assume (erroneously) that just because Hannelie & I are white and English-speaking, we did not have any trouble settling into the Canadian way of life. Outwardly, we may look similar to the majority of people here in Atlantic Canada, but that is where the similarity ends. Sometimes I think that there is a huge cultural canyon between us...

One of the biggest differences is probably in the realm of child-rearing, and juvenile behaviour in general. We were both brought up in fairly strict, Calvinist households, and because of that we thought that when we had chikdern of our own one day, our own way of child-rearing would be less-strict...However, when we got here, we quickly realized that the other extreme of child-rearing can be just as dangerous...

We were treated to a nice breakfast this morning by an ex-pat South African couple, (who've been living here in Halifax for more than two decades now), when this topic of discussion came up. Children in general seem to have few boundaries set for them, both by their parents and in the schools, and the end result seem to be a generation of ill-behaved, irresponsible, and selfish children, with the amount of bullying and juvenile criminal behaviour on the rise. Of course, it may be that my perceptions are wrong, being filtered though an immigrants perspective, and that the behaviour I'm observing is in fact normal for a western, democratic society. That I am, in fact, "old-fashioned" . However, Hannelie's taught 1st year university students both in South Africa and here in Canada, and she's also noticed the difference in general behaviour and attitudes. There seems to be more respect and deference to elders back in South Africa than there is here...

I won't even begin to talk about the obnoxious behaviour that seems to be rampant in the schools here. What would have been termed juvenile delinquency in SA, seems to be the norm here - in fact, I was told that gentle, kind children are now being treated as deliquints here - because they're not assertive enough, and in today's Americanized culture, that is a Bad Thing. They won't make it in the cut-throat corporate world, poor things...You have to be obnoxious, selfish and irreverent to "fit in" here.

Then there is the youth criminal justice system (or lack thereof): people seem to believe that children can do no wrong (no matter what the evidence to the contrary) - this created a system where young murderers are walking away scot-free. Delinquent children are aware of the lack of consequences for their own actions to such an extent, that they are openly breaking the law, because they know they will get away with it. About 50 school children were caught a couple of months ago here in Nova Scotia, all happily smoking pot outside a convenience store- The best the police could do was just to wag a finger at them, and tell them not to do it again...All I can say is that there is something seriously wrong with a peace-time, democratic society when there has to be a physical police presence in schools, just to keep a semblance of order...

Posted by HannesB at 12:40 AM Comments