Culture of Child Raising

Having our first child is an adventure in itself, but add bringing up that child in a rural Lao community as the only foreigners living there and it becomes the wildest venture we have been on yet! Some days can be overwhelming, but raising Moriah has taught us to relax, laugh more and sift through the mound of comments to find good advice to help raise her in our new Lao home.

A simple five minute walk can now turn into a half hour visit as each passerby stops to see Moriah, exclaim how big she is getting and share other advice or comments.

Did you get a C-section? 

Are you using milk formula? 

Do you have stretch marks? 

Will you get house-help?

What foods can’t you eat now that you are breastfeeding? 

Are you taking medicine so that you won’t get pregnant again?

Did you ‘sit on fire’ and drink hot water after giving birth?

Lao tradition advises a new mother to sleep and sit near fire. In some homes hot coals are placed directly under the chair or bed. A new mother should also only drink hot water and a special steamed sticky rice to promote milk production.

  
You should buy bottled water to wash your baby, then she will not have pimples. 

You are feeding the baby too long on one side…you should change more often otherwise you’ll be imbalanced. 

You should put a shirt on your baby or You should put a hat on your baby. 

Lao people are always wondering how us foreigners can be so warm. Our favorite story depicting this difference was one morning while my mother, Dori, was out walking with Moriah. Mom couldn’t understand what the Lao women were trying to communicate, but they were motioning to cover Moriah’s head and beckoning her into their bamboo home. Once inside the older Lao women took Moriah while the younger one brought out clothes. They dressed Moriah in a long-sleeved sweater and socks, returned her to Grama and sent them on their way... in the hot 90 degree sun!

And finally the most counter cultural comment I will receive on numerous occasions, that still catches me by surprise...

Oh my your baby is so white! And you are fat and so beautiful!