Photo by thatjonjackson, Flickr
As someone who grew up both in Canada and Russia, I have witnessed how children are viewed and treated in two very different societies – both as a child and now as an observant adult. I was 10 years old when I arrived to Canada from Russia, and a change seemed to have happened almost overnight.
The way a society views its children depends on many factors. New ideas, popular opinion, religion and culture all play a role. So does time. For instance, according to Patricia Demers’ From Instruction to Delight: an anthology of children’s literature to 1850, there were few books available specifically for children in England in the 1600s. And those tailored to them existed for the primary purpose of spiritual nourishment. By the end of the 17th century, this changed. Supposedly authors and book publishers realized that children loved stories, and the market began to grow with penny books, fairy tales, medieval romances and fables.
Growing up in Russia, I felt that there were strict rules about being obedient, formal and polite with adults. In school, we had to sit with our backs straight, hands crossed on the desk in front. If you wanted to answer a question in class, you would lift your hand so carefully that your elbow still touched the desk. Anything more vigorous and unruly, and you’d be sent far, far away.
Outside though, kids were virtually free to do whatever they wished in their own time. My brother and I happily roamed the streets of our city, playing with stray dogs and building tree houses. Adult supervision was unnecessary – the Soviet Union era had virtually wiped out crime, except for the political kind.
Half way through our long journey to Canada, our plane landed in Amsterdam, and our father took us aside and said that children in Canada were treated differently in our new country. The adults, he insisted, were less strict. My brother and I were ecstatic to hear this.
In two weeks, we were enrolled in an elementary school in quiet Burnaby, B.C. and quickly set about proving our dad’s theory correct. The first rules of politeness and obedience to be sacrificed were asking the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom or for a break. Why ask when you can just leave the class and wander the empty playground? Play in the mud. It was often muddy because it rained a lot here compared to Russia.
Not understanding the language also helped because, although I swear my teacher was upset with me, she kept smiling and saying something calm and reassuring. She never once raised her voice or threatened to hit me with a ruler for skipping class. Lesson unlearned.
In a total reversal from my experience in Russia, although the adults were less strict, kids enjoyed fewer freedoms in society. Suddenly, we couldn’t just do whatever we wanted to outside. We could sit on the floor at school, socialize with other kids during class activities and raise our hands as high as we wanted to, but we couldn’t walk to school by ourselves anymore or wander at night. The level of adult supervision in Vancouver surprised us.
Author Warwick Cairns has been quoted as saying that, in terms of probability, you’d have to leave a child outside for 750,000 years for them to be abducted by a stranger in North America.
Instead of telling an eight- and a nine-year-old to get some fresh air outside, the adults felt obligated to tag along to the park. We saw no ten-year-olds biking on the street without their parents. People looked at you funny if you were under the age of 12 and decided to go the store or on the bus alone. I suppose all those things can be unsafe. But still, we were surprised. The attention was nice though, funny as it was.
Teachers in Vancouver are unlike anything I’ve experienced before. They look at you and listen, and many seem to really care about you. Other adults, too, seem less stressed out. They greet you on the street, especially if one of you has a small dog or a child and you’re in a slightly quieter part of town.
I was walking with my grandmother to the store once, and a perfect stranger said hello and asked us how we were doing. He smiled and there was a friendly twinkle in his eyes. My grandmother stopped and stared at him in rising panic.
“What did he want from us?” she asked me in Russian.
“We’re fine, thanks!” I was quick to exclaim to him.
Interacting with nice, super caring adults, I had quickly learned to be polite, again.
