Navigating Mothering and Cultural Minefields

So I had myself a ‘moment’ this week and it has taken me a few days to get my head around it. I’ve been trying to figure out if the cause is being a mother or being a stranger in a strange land so to speak. I’ve decided it’s both, and would appreciate some feedback from anyone with an opinion on this.

After almost 8 years living in the US I still find that there are small ways in which cultural confusion impacts my interactions from time to time. For example, forgetting that the first floor is the one at the bottom of the building (a.k.a. the ground floor in Ireland), forgetting that a jumper is a dress here, not a nice wooly sweater, forgetting to swipe my debit card in the supermarket instead of standing there looking silly as I try to hand it to the clerk, sometimes walking around to the driver’s side of the car when riding shotgun (only this is nicely disguised as just forgetting I’m not the driver on this trip ).

Nowhere is the cultural confusion more obvious to me than in entering the realm of motherhood. All my vocabulary is Hiberno-English and I struggle at times to make myself understood or adopt the American English counterparts. I say nappy (diaper), buggy (stroller), wellies (rain boots), trousers (pants), pants (underwear), vest (undershirt?), jumper (sweater), dress (jumper)…the list goes on. And oh my goodness, I’ve just about given up on hair accessories and have seriously thought about shaving the girls’ hair so I don’t have to utter a word about how to adorn it. Clips, slides, barrettes, pins, bobbins, bands, elastics, hair bands, headbands….aaaaaaaghh, I no longer know which words are from my culture and which are from the culture that I’ve chosen to live in. I only know that if I attempt to talk about girls and their hair I mess up every single time, confuse the person I’m talking with and end the conversation with my brain in a knot (with all those hair accessories holding it tightly in place!).

So, the ‘moment’ I experienced this week shouldn’t have taken me so much by surprise, but it did. It not only took me by surprise, it left me reeling for a couple of days. It all started with a playdate invite for Ashley. A nice woman that I’m getting to know suggested a playdate with her daughter whom Ashley has befriended through kindergarten. The girls are not in the same class together but they seemed to have clicked and from early on Ashley counted this lovely little girl as among her best friends at school. So far no confusion.

Trying to finalize the details over email the day before the playdate, I realized that I had been confused over the invitation. I had mistakenly thought that Caitlin and I would be joining Ashley at her little friend’s house. Not so. This is where the ‘moment’, and many successive moments thereafter, took place. I was faced with the prospect of my recently turned 5yr old daughter going to play alone for a couple of hours in a home I’ve never visited with people whom I really don’t know. Up to this point Ashley and Caitlin have pretty much socialized with children whose mothers I’ve gotten to know well. They’ve played alone at their houses after many interactions amongst our families and time spent in each others’ homes. The sudden idea of my daughter going alone into the relatively unknown for the first time scared me.

James and I spoke about it and to be honest everything J had to say helped enormously, but really only afterwards. At the time I was in the emotional realm, and finding it hard to hold on to the rational one. Fortunately, a brief but timely, phonecall with a friend who knows the family and the home where Ashley was invited to play, helped me get a grip on my self. Firstly, my friend admitted that she had been freaked out the first time she was in the same situation and secondly, she gave a glowing report of the family. I felt a bit better. In the end, Ashley went to play with her friend straight after school, had a lovely time and when I went to pick her up I found her calm, content and playing in a beautifully comfortable and orderly home, obviously echoing the wonderful family that I found inside.

Part of the discomfort of the whole situation was that I do find myself struggling culturally with the practice of children making friends with other children who don’t live in their immediate neighborhood and then commuting to play alone without the family visiting too.  I’ve been preparing myself for this happening in the teenage years and suddenly having it presented at the age of 5 just found me unprepared. I remember in Dublin playing with the kids on my street. Our families knew each other, our mothers often chatted over tea while we played, whether in the house or out in the neighborhood. Our fathers often knew each other from having a pint together in the local pub. I was a teenager before I hung out with friends further away from home, or friends whom our families didn’t know each other (or at least, didn't know each other well).

Trying to get my head around this issue this week I had ill defined concerns and questions. I found myself wondering if I was overacting and being ridiculous. For example, I want to know if the homes my children are visiting have adult supervision at all times. Are there guns in the house? I know that the statistics are low for gun fatalities but I don’t want my child being one of the few. I also know that I don’t know what else I should ask. I have created a safe environment for my children and some of that is so subtle that I don’t have a way to articulate what my ground rules are for when my girls are off on these solo visits.

So I have some starter questions to help me navigate this parenting/cultural minefield that I have entered. If anyone has some feedback on these I would be very grateful.

What sort of checklist or rules of thumb do you use before allowing your child to visit someone’s home that you either know or don’t know well (even if you suspect they are a great family)?

If you live in Ireland, or any other country, are children going on playdates like this now? I’d like to know if this is a cultural issue or a generational issue. Have patterns of play and interaction changed since I was a kid?

Ashley’s little friend is coming to visit our home next week. Having an older child than this little one, her mother may have been through all this already. I now feel more able to ask her how she deals with it. Thanks to my friend, at least I know I’m not the only one who freaked out when faced with this for the first time.