Parenting in Germany is very laid back. Photo / Getty Images
Parenting in Germany is very laid back. Photo / Getty Images
Few people smile on the trains in Berlin. By some unwritten rule, everyone sits silent and straight-faced on the S‑Bahns and U‑Bahns that run above and below the city. If you see people who are smiling, chances are they're tourists. If they're talking and laughing loudly, chances are they're American.
One grey day in Berlin, my daughter, Sophia, and I were talking and laughing loudly on an S‑Bahn full of quiet German passengers. Sophia was 2 and a half and super-chatty. We had recently arrived in Berlin, and everything was new to her. I wasn't about to shush her as she commented on the things passing by her window: the trees, the stations, another train, the cars on the road. She saw a bus, which was her cue to launch into her favourite song, Wheels on the Bus, at top volume. The wheels really go round in Sophia's version. I glanced at the old woman across from us, trying to remember the proper way to phrase an apology, when the most amazing thing happened: she smiled.
Finally, I thought, someone appreciates how adorable my daughter is.
Then, the woman opened her purse and pulled out a small piece of candy.
She didn't even look at me. She handed it directly to Sophia.
I panicked. I hadn't yet taught Sophia not to trust strangers with candy!
In America, people just don't offer candy to children. I battled conflicting impulses: grab Sophia and storm off? Or be polite to the first stranger who had made a friendly gesture?
Sophia turned and held the candy up to me, a huge smile on her face.
I let politeness, and logic, prevail: this German grandmother was clearly not trying to kidnap my child, and there was no chance a razor blade could fit in a piece of candy that small. I took it from Sophia, unwrapped it, tried not to be too obvious about examining it, and handed it back to my daughter. She popped it into her mouth—and, amazingly, didn't die.
This experience taught me two things: first, Berliners didn't know about "stranger danger", and second, my assumption that Germans were unsmiling, unfriendly people who were harsh with children might not be entirely true.
As I would learn over the next six and a half years in Berlin, much of what I thought I knew about Germans was wrong — especially the way they approach raising children. The parents I met were almost the polar opposite of the stereotype of the overbearing, strict German parent. In fact, compared to today's American parents who constantly supervise their children, they were positively relaxed.
When my daughter turned 3, we invited a family we had met in our neighbourhood to a picnic at a local park. It was a sunny spring day, and the park was beautiful with long stretches of green lawn bordered by tall trees. We chose a spot close to an enclosed playground, which had a tall stone wall in front of it. Shortly after arriving, our friends' two children asked if they could go to the playground.
"Sure," their mother said.
"Can I go too?" Sophia asked. I agreed, and all three of them went running off, two 3-year-old girls and a 5-year-old boy. They disappeared behind the wall, out of sight. No one else moved. Their mother started arranging plates on the picnic blanket. Her husband was talking with mine as he set up the barbecue. Feeling like I was missing something, I got up. "Um ... I'll go," I said.
"Oh!" the other mother said. "They'll be fine. They play here all the time."
"It's just that ... Sophia might need help," I said and followed the kids.
I remember thinking how strange it was that this couple didn't watch their children on the playground. Then I noticed all the other unsupervised kids running around the park. Some parents were watching over babies and toddlers, but most of the adults were at picnic tables or sitting on blankets talking with each other while their children came and went.
This was normal behaviour in Berlin. Parents didn't hover over their children on playgrounds, many of which feature large structures like giant wooden boats and towering pyramids made of rope and metal — way more dangerous than the typical American playground of plastic and padded foam. In Berlin, school-age kids also walk to school, parks, and stores alone, or with only their peers as company. Adults rarely interfere in their children's play, not even their fights, preferring to let them work it out themselves.
It's part of the cultural value of selbstandigkeit, or self-reliance.
In America, we might call this "free-range" parenting, but in Germany, it's normal parenting. German parents believe that independence is good for children, that handling risk is a necessary part of growing up. This means they trust their children with more tasks as they grow older and supervise them less. Children are also assumed to be capable of making some decisions for themselves even at a young age, including whether or not to take a piece of candy from a nice lady on a train.
Whenever I tell my friends and family about how much freedom German parents give their children, they react with surprise and disbelief.
I usually end up reminding them how long it has been since the end of World War II. Because it is true that German parents were strict and authoritarian — in the 1940s. They have changed quite a bit since then.
Most Germans alive today were not born by the time World War II ended. That's not to say they haven't been affected by it — quite the opposite. Learning about the country's role in the war and the Holocaust is part of every German's education. As a result, the culture at large has undergone a major transformation.
The youth movement of the 1960s sought to make a dramatic break with the Nazi past. West German students took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War, but their rebellion against their parents' generation went even further. The German youth saw their elders as responsible for the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust. They rejected almost everything their parents represented: their authority, their government, and their values, including how they raised their children.
The youth protest movement of the 1960s brought anti-authoritarian ideas to childcare. In Frankfurt, Monika Seifert started kinderladen, daycare centres, which emphasised "repression-free" education, a philosophy that deliberately set itself against the old "German virtues of obedience, diligence, modesty, and cleanliness". Seifert's anti-authoritarian theory basically held that children should rule themselves — or run wild, depending on your perspective.
The anti-authoritarian kinderladen movement had its share of critics, and today, the parenting norm has moved more to the middle. Regardless, super strict, authoritarian parenting is widely rejected in today's Germany.
Getting our apartment was one of the first lessons I learned about how things were done in Germany. It was important to have the right piece of paper. Our adventure was going to require a lot of paperwork.
Another key document was the permission for me to work in Germany.
Sara Zaske learned a lot about the different approach to teaching children independence and responsibility in Germany.
I always knew I wasn't cut out to be a stay-at-home mum, and the months in the country had confirmed that. Plus, any extra income I brought in definitely wouldn't hurt. So, early one morning, Sophia and I bravely set off for the auslanderbehorde, the immigration office located on the opposite side of Berlin.
Even from the outside, the auslanderbehorde seemed to confirm the negative stereotype of Germany's socialist bureaucracy. The building itself was a massive, intimidating block of grey stone, with long lines of people waiting in front of it.
When I finally made it to the front of the line and handed over my documents, I quickly realized I had another big hurdle to face.
"Frau Tsah-skuh?"
"Ja?" I said, smiling. She didn't smile back. She launched into a rapid string of German. "Um ... Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I asked.
She looked at me over her glasses. "Nein." Then, slowly: "Sie sind in Deutschland. Wir sprechen Deutsch hier."
I knew enough to understand that I was in trouble. My toddler daughter yanked at my hand impatiently. A long line of people stood behind us. I could feel the weight of their eyes. Like me, they were foreigners from all over the world. Surely, these bureaucrats didn't expect all of them to speak German? But, yes, they did. Even though most Germans know some English, I would soon learn that official business is always conducted auf Deutsch at all government offices, even at the agency in charge of immigrants.
I had travelled about an hour by train and foot across Berlin with my 2-and-a‑half-year- old in tow and waited another half hour in line before I had made it to this point. I didn't know much German yet, but I had to try.
"Wiederholen Sie bitte?" I asked, using a phrase I'd learned from a language CD that was supposed to mean "Please say that again?"
The woman sighed. She repeated what she'd said slowly and loudly. I caught the word for number and room. She gestured behind her and handed my papers back to me. "Danke," I said and backed away from the counter. I wandered down the hall and found a pair of waiting rooms. In each room, people were seated on plastic chairs, staring at a screen displaying different numbers. This was the DMV, I thought, on steroids.
This was just one of many experiences I had visiting government agencies, or amter. At another office, I sat outside a door for 45 minutes to get a kita-gutschein, a magical document that would allow me to enrol my daughter in childcare for a fraction of what I had paid in Oregon. I waited for a long time as other parents went in and out, only to learn upon my turn that I had been waiting outside the door for the wrong part of the alphabet. When I found the right door and handed over my application, the official asked for another document that I did not have with me.
"Next time bring a whole binder," a German friend told me later. "That way they can't come up with something that you don't have ready to hand to them. Plus, you look prepared."
In the meantime, I tried to master the task of grocery shopping. Our new apartment, which may have been a classic from 1910, was across the street from a shopping mall that was more of a classic from 1990. In the basement of the mall was a grocery store, which looked pretty much like any grocery store you'd find in the United States, only smaller. It had shopping carts, aisles, and even old American pop music playing over the intercom. No problem, I thought. I know this kind of place. I plopped Sophia into the cart seat and started down the aisles, singing along to Maneater by Hall and Oates. Sophia laughed and helped me pick out fruit and yogurt.
Everything was going well until I reached the checkout line. I stood at the counter as the checkout clerk rang up my purchases. She said something to me. I smiled. She said it again and jabbed her chin in the direction of the piling-up groceries. I noticed there was no packer, so I started to fill my own bags. The clerk looked at me like I'd lost my mind. She said something that sounded angry and made a sweeping gesture with her arm. I turned and saw how the other customers were quickly refilling their carts with unpacked groceries then pushing them over to the side where they packed their bags out of the way. Rushed and embarrassed, I threw my groceries back into the cart, while my daughter did her best to "help" by picking up items off the counter and randomly dropping them again.
I paid and pushed my cart off to the side to pack my bags. It felt crazy, but after several trips to stores, I realised that I never waited more than a few minutes in line because everyone moved out of the way and packed their bags themselves.
When my appointment came again for the auslanderbehorde, Zac went with me. We left early, but we had a difficult trip. It was snowing, and the trains were delayed. The sidewalks were icy, making it hard to rush without slipping. By the time we got to the office, our assigned bureaucrat was already meeting with someone else.
"Es ist vorbei," he said, waving us away. The appointment has passed!
Zac looked at his phone. "It's only 15 minutes after."
The official repeated that the appointment had passed, more loudly.
It was no use. He sent us home. Late was late, which apparently was unforgivable in Germany. I soon learned this was true for almost any appointment, even social ones.
I was starting to get the message about how things were done in Germany: Show up on time. Pack your own bags. Get your paperwork in order. Be prepared. In short, be responsible.
When a German wants to know if everything is all right with you, they say, "Alles in Ordnung?" meaning, literally, "Everything in order?" After a few months in Germany, I could say our life was finally getting in order.
We were delighted to discover that our own kiez ("neighbourhood") had several excellent playgrounds within walking distance of our apartment. We gave them names according to their inventive play structures: "spider park," which had a circular web-like swing made of rope for groups of kids to swing in; "shady park," which had nothing but trees, some wooden huts, and a sandpit (Zac also called it "boring park," but Sophia liked it); and "tyre park," which had a large circle of tyre swings. Sophia enjoyed all these playgrounds, but they were nothing compared to "Dragon Park".
Sandwiched between blocks of apartment houses, Dragon Park featured a huge green wooden dragon about 6m high, with big teeth and a gullet made of rope mesh that kids could sit in. Two giant slides extended off its side. In front of the dragon, wooden poles were driven into the sand with ropes slung between them about six feet off the ground, which children used to walk precariously between the poles. Some of the other structures were obviously meant for smaller children, like an easy obstacle course that snaked around the dragon's feet. It ended in a long dark tunnel made of wood, too small for parents to crawl into with their kids.
Children were almost always swarming over this park. On one of our early visits, some older kids had climbed on to the top of the dragon's head, and one boy had gone to the edge of the dragon's jaw and started dangling from it with both hands. It was a long drop to the sand below. "Achtung! (Danger!)"
I called out to him. He didn't even glance in my direction. I looked around wildly. Where were his parents? Aside from a few parents playing with toddlers in the sand, all the adults were hanging out on the edges of the park, sitting on benches and drinking coffee. No one seemed bothered by the dangling boy but me.
By the time I looked back, he had dropped to the ground and run off.
In the meantime, my own daughter was taking off toward the tunnel. Sophia crouched down, peered into the dim interior for a moment, then crawled through. I stood outside, wondering what I would do if she suddenly freaked out and started crying in the middle. I needn't have worried because she popped out the other end and ran across a wooden bridge and slid down the short slide at the end.
I did go with Sophia up the back of the dragon, though. Once at the top, she wouldn't go down the slide or sit in the dragon's mouth. It was too scary. However, after climbing down its back, she went up again, this time with her father — then she came down again. It was like she was working up her courage to face the rest of the dragon.
Watching Sophia run around the Dragon Park, I felt a mixture of worry and pride — along with a twinge of jealousy. The playgrounds of my childhood had all followed the same formula: slide, swing, teeter-totter, sandbox. They were nothing like this. This was real fun.
It also wasn't immediately clear to me how this freewheeling, slightly dangerous playground fit into a society that requires you to have all your forms in order, insists you show up on time, and expects you to pack your own bags. But it makes an odd sort of sense when viewed as part of the value Germans place on responsibility.
Each child at the playground was expected to judge for herself what she could or could not do. Parents did not run around after their children telling them this slide was too fast or that climbing structure was too high.
The children learned to manage the risk on their own and prepared themselves for each new challenge, like Sophia was starting to do with the dragon.
Edited extract from Achtung Baby, by Sara Zaske (Hachette, $38).
