
Why European Children Are Quieter - ohjeez
http://acculturated.com/european-children/
======
kfk
Man, when do we stop this European thing? Have you tried to compare a kid in
Naples with a kid in, say, Denmark? Come on, the kid in Naples will be a 24/7
hurdle, shouting in the street from when the sun rises. I even have a hard
time talking about Italians since kids from North and South are very
different.

~~~
pif
Came here to reply the exact thing. I said already once on HN and I'll repeat
it: Europe is not a nation, and especially it is not _a_ culture!

~~~
askafriend
Neither is India....or even the United States for that matter.

Also, while we're at it, can we also stop using "Cancer" as if it were a
single disease that we can "cure"? "Cancer" is an umbrella term for a wide
range of diseases that can affect vastly different parts of the body in
different ways. It's not all the same thing.

~~~
erelde
The United States are very homogenous _in comparison_ to Europe. The US have a
strong race issue between "blacks" "whites" "asians" etc.

Europe has a discrimination issue between what the US calls "whites". For
example in France, Polish people are supposedly all plumbers and Portugese are
masons.

In the US there are only two languages, English and Spanish. In Europe there's
too many to count with the modern revival of local dialects.

~~~
dalke
This is rather like arguing if Christianity is a homogeneous or diverse
religion. The answer is "yes".

In the US, views on race are very different in Alaska or Hawaii than in
Alabama or Puerto Rico.

The US also has discrimination issues between different whites. For example,
in the US you can be "White non-Hispanic" vs. "White Hispanic". While less
common than in my youth, the US also has slurs and stereotypes about US-born
whites based on their family's historical culture. This lead to expressions
like "dumb Swede", the stereotype of the Irish cop on the beat, and many
ethnic slurs, including those concerning white Jews.

"Only two languages"? What do you even mean by that? San Francisco has Chinese
language TV broadcasts, and of course Chinatown. There are 40,000+ Hmong in
the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area. A radio station I used to listen to had shows
in Navajo. Hawaiian is an official language in Hawaii. Quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States)
:

> Tagalog and Vietnamese have over one million speakers each in the United
> States, almost entirely within recent immigrant populations. Both languages,
> along with the varieties of Chinese (mostly Cantonese, Taishanese, and
> Standard Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean, are now used in elections in
> Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. ...
> The state government of Louisiana offers services and documents in French,

~~~
DanBC
Obviously very many languages are spoken in the US. How many are used in the
bureaucracy? What languages are the laws written in?

Because in Europe[1] there are 24 official languages and these are used to
create the bureaucracy.

EDIT:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States)

> English 80%, Spanish 12.4%, other Indo-European 3.7%, Asian and Pacific
> island languages 3%, other languages 0.9% (2009 survey by the Census Bureau)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union)

> The five most spoken languages in the EU are English (51%), German (32%),
> French (26%), Italian (16%) and Spanish (15%). At 18% of the total number of
> speakers, German is the most widely spoken native language, followed by
> Italian, English, French and Spanish.

~~~
dalke
Your comments are so noted. However, I objected to the phrase "In the US there
are only two languages, English and Spanish. In Europe there's too many to
count with the modern revival of local dialects."

The US has more than two languages, even in official government use. (You
linked to the same source as I did, which points out both Hawaiian and French
use.)

If we use the same metric, which points out the "modern revival of local
dialects", then we must also accept the modern revival in the US of indigenous
languages, and their use in tribal governments.

------
sgdesign
It's really hard to give much credit to an article talking about "Europeans"
and "Americans" as if these were homogeneous groups.

~~~
coldtea
Here are a few hints for reading these things:

1) Nothing is homogeneous. Even a single static object is not 100% the same
now compared to how it was 10 days ago. But in order to make any observation,
one has to generalize to the point that has statistical significance.

2) Despite saying Europeans and Americans such articles don't mean ALL
Europeans and ALL Americans. For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe:
Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, etc. For
Americans they mostly mean the stereotypical middle class suburban American,
not a Manhattanite yuppie, nor some Idaho farmer, or "white trash".

3) The idea is not to see if the article's observations hold 100%, but whether
they hold more often than not.

~~~
pif
> For Europeans they mostly mean Western Europe:

Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too. As soon as I read
the title, I thought to children in my country (Italy) and I saw the enormous
gap.

~~~
coldtea
> _Western Europe includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and UK, too._

It does, but there's also the North/South division (even within a single
country, like Italy, but even more so generally).

South Europe is not really "Western" in this sense (and in other senses, e.g.
with respect to religious heritage and ethics, catholicism and orthodoxy vs
protestants, etc).

~~~
wowoc
What? Italy is not "Western"? Well, your definition of Western Europe is very
weird. Italy is one of the foundations of Western Europe.

What you wrote about religious heritage is also weird... Protestant Austria?
France?

What you're meaning is just Germanic countries (except France).

~~~
Annatar
His definition of Western Europe would also be my definition. Western European
states have a high standard of living, low levels of corruption compared to
Italy, well maintained and developed infrastructure, low levels of
unemployment, and discipline. Compare and contrast with Italy, Spain, or
Portugal.

~~~
Oletros
Those comments sound a little stereotypical and xenophobic

~~~
spyrosg
He does, but I don't think name calling will change his mind. Besides, let's
be honest, his ideas are already there in most people's minds.

To the grandparent: Luxembourg's dirty secret is corruption. France has high
unemployment. Standards of living are actually pretty nice under the sun, and
outside of the high-pay but nerve-wracking shitty weather of "the north". I
agree on the more discipline part, but only when it comes to public behaviour.

Where in western Europe have you lived?

~~~
Oletros
Thanks, I will rephrase it to not sound so harsh

------
jv22222
Just want to say, as a Brit used to no eye contact and downright rude and
grumpy retail service...

Man was it hard to get used to all the smiles and good service when I moved to
the USA in 2009.

I know that sounds like a joke, but it really felt like everyone was being
fake and sarcastic.

A major culture shock!

~~~
Annatar
Yep that's right, the smiles and the good service is all fake, from people
being paid a minimum or below minimum wage and no incentive to excel at
service.

In contrast, my experiences while I was in central England as far as
politeness and service have been very positive, and are a credit to your
nation.

However, that all utterly pales in comparison to Japan: I didn't know what
service really is until I visited there. Nowhere else did I feel like I was on
top of the world as a customer; I will never look at quality of service with
the same eyes again.

~~~
GordonS
Totally agree with you about Japan!

I'm from the UK, and find the massive smiles and "y'all have a nive day" in
the US to be... just so over-exaggerated that it almost becomes ridiculous.

In Japan everyone is so incredibly polite (e.g. train conductor bowing to
passengers as he moves through the train, cleaning staff waving off the train
as it leaves etc), but it feels very natural and genuine.

~~~
tudorw
I'm from the UK and often find the default dismissive, critical and
judgemental attitude that prevails as insincere as my experience of overly
nice Americans, I'd rather live among the latter, or ideally, a mix of all
from everywhere!

------
andrewtbham
It's not just the kids, the adults are quiet also. The first time I went to
Germany I couldn't believe how quiet the airport was when I landed. It's like
a library in America.

~~~
Symbiote
For those of us who grew up and live in this culture, you wouldn't believe how
loud the average American is.

It's like someone shouting in a library, whether it's my American colleague
asking sometime else in the office a question, a couple of tourists on the
metro, or an American family in a restaurant.

It's probably a large part of why Americans are often considered rude.

~~~
peteretep
We forgave the Germans for getting up early to reserve the deckchairs when the
Americans showed up. Everybody forgave the Americans when the Russians and
Chinese from the provinces started travelling.

~~~
dgaaaaaaaaaa
This is hilarious

------
jlg23
> [..] students are expected to sit with a partner and engage in quiet
> conversation. They are supposed to be able to hear each other, but not be
> heard more than one meter away. This allows other conversations to take
> place around them, creating an expectation of privacy and personal space in
> a crowded room.

The key here is: "This allows other conversations to take place around them".
I was raised (in Germany) to understand that unnecessarily loud talking or
shouting at each other is considered _rude_. As a kid I was far more often
told to speak at an adequate noise level than to shut up.

On the generalization of "Americans" and "Europeans": Yes, it is BS, but the
author reveals that she is mostly drawing from experiences in Austria and
Germany and I'm pretty sure that everybody in this thread unjustly generalizes
when (s)he does not know better due to lack of experience. Nobody complains
when somebody writes about Scottish or Welsh people even though every valley
there seems to have its own flag and slight cultural and even linguistical
variations that we are too uneducated to see.

------
pedrosorio
I am just here to +1 what everyone else is saying: Austria/Germany/etc. !=
Europe

I have heard very similar comparisons using Portugal/Denmark instead of
America/Europe.

~~~
coldtea
> _I am just here to +1 what everyone else is saying: Austria /Germany/etc. !=
> Europe_

I'm not from Western Europe either, but it doesn't matter if they don't
include us while talking about "Europe".

Most of such articles discuss the cultural core of Western Europe, even if
they call it just "Europe". Europe might have 30+ countries, but it's mostly
those Western/Northern few that define "Europe" for such purposes.

This stems from a lot of things, but the historical divide of the "Eastern
Block" and the "North/South" also helped solidify it. Those Western/Northern
European countries were large global empires and they still have the EU power,
are big global economies, are members of the G8/G20, etc.

So other countries get the short end of the stick, even if nominally they are
"Europe" too.

Portugal or Greece or Czech Republic, etc., might not even exist in most such
treatments of "Europe" \-- those, when are mentioned, are explicitly called
"the south", "balkans", "eastern europe", etc.

~~~
pedrosorio
I guess I can't blame them for excluding the PIGS
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_\(economics\)))
when thinking about Europe.

~~~
coldtea
Well, if anything why not exclude the Swine (e.g. the countries that fostered
and collaborated with Nazis)?

What's a bad economy comparing to exterminating millions and causing global
bloodshed.

------
GordonS
As a European (UK), I laughed out loud when I read this title.

I've travelled extensively, and Americans seem to speak so much more _loudly_
than... well, anywhere!

~~~
stevoski
Yes yes, I've live in Europe for 13 years. When there is an American group in
a restaurant, you KnOW, no matter where in the restaurant they are.

I've observed this in Hungary, Germany, Spain and others.

My theory is that most Europeans, living all their life on a crowded
continent, tend to move in closer to talk, and hence talk at a lower volume.
Americans, used to grand amounts of space, sit back and project their voice.

~~~
orkoden
Spanish are the loudest Europeans.

------
andrewbinstock
Sadly, most of these comments attack everything but the fundamental thesis. In
my experience, in most countries in Europe, children are quieter and better
behaved than in the US. They're also more capable of having sustained
conversations with adults.

------
ivanhoe
When Americans say Europe they usually mean Western Europe, which is not
really how the rest of the continent is. For instance in Mediterranean or
Balkan people (and kids) are anything but quiet.

~~~
threesixandnine
I am living in the Balkans for the last four years and my personal experience
is that kids here are generally quiet. Very similar to Western Europe. (Zagreb
- Croatia, Belgrade and Novi Sad - Serbia).

Before coming here I visited and lived in many European countries and Italians
for sure are the loudest in public settings (restaurants for example) -
especially when there are many of them together. From my experience from Greek
Islands Englishmen are the loudest of all - at home in England they are quiet
and polite though . Germans are the quietest ones when traveling to other
countries but loud at home sometimes.

All this is totally my subjective point of view of course.

------
bioinformatics
I doubt most Italian mothers would be too different from mine that yelled all
the time when I was a kid.

------
analog31
I'd like to know if there are regional differences even in the US. An
analogous situation is restaurants. I live in the Midwest, and I've noticed
that restaurants are a lot louder here than what I've encountered in Europe --
even when there are no children around.

~~~
tmnvix
I know that it's an old stereotype, but in my experience it's true - Americans
talk very loudly. I'd really like to know why.

~~~
larrymcp
I'm American, and I sometimes ask myself that too: I catch myself talking
loudly and I have no earthly idea why. Probably because that's what everyone
else is doing!

~~~
tmnvix
Kind of like an arms race then. I sometimes wonder if this is the reason that
American vehicles are so much bigger than elsewhere - once a few people have
trucks and suv's, it puts pressure on others to buy bigger vehicles (maybe for
safety reasons - not because they would otherwise want to).

------
tinalumfoil
I don't think "privacy" is the right word to describe the lack of
communication you're experiencing. I can respect a culture where people's
default mode is not to socialize, especially as a more introverted American,
but I don't see how your privacy in a public place can be anything other than
zero.

~~~
jpatokal
There's a Finnish expression for this: you can _see_ , but you do not _look_.
For example, it's accepted that everybody in a sauna is naked, but you
wouldn't go ogling at somebody's genitals -- even if they're the opposite sex.

It's "wilful privacy", if you will: as long as everybody respects the privacy,
everything stays private, even though it takes only one person to break the
illusion.

~~~
Symbiote
Another example: many Nordic people don't close the curtains, so everyone
could see inside.

But the shame is on the person looking, who is violating the expectation of
privacy.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Lots of windows here, Norway, don't even have curtains that can be drawn all
the way across.

------
cronjobber
> For city dwelling Europeans, the parks and playgrounds are their backyards

This system is efficient for citizens, but it is both fragile (requires a
population of cooperators) and doesn't generate much profit for corporations.
Expect to see it go.

~~~
Symbiote
No? You can charge more in rent or resale value for an apartment close to a
park or playground.

~~~
cronjobber
That's true as soon as good public spaces are getting scarce, and is part of
_why it will happen._

------
partycoder
European children are quieter because demographically there are fewer
children, meaning that children will be more likely to interact with an adult
than with other children.

Adults do not like unquiet children, so they become conditioned to be more
quiet.

~~~
blowski
My anecdotal experience is that families, instead of having a uniform
distribution, tend to concentrate in some places while avoiding others. In
such places, children have an equal propensity to interact with another child
as they do an adult.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea whether this is true as I have zero data.
I don't even know whether European children are more quiet, let alone all the
other assumptions and assertions going on here. We live near to a school (in
UK, just outside London), and the kids definitely don't use their "1 metre
voices" during the lunchtime break.

~~~
partycoder
How about age difference with their parents? In developed countries people
take more to get married and old people might not be all playful.

~~~
blowski
We can play at batting 'truthy' statements back to each other all day, but
without evidence it's kind of pointless.

------
dmh2000
"Americans find it jarring when they are sitting at a European café or
restaurant and someone takes the empty seat at their table"

I've experienced this and I had to exert will power not to get up and move. It
was very unnerving. In the US I would have thought the guy was a creeper of
some sort, or needed to be shot or stabbed quickly before he got me. I also
was in a hotel restaurant once and there was only one other person at a table.
The hostess wanted to seat me at his table, even though there were a dozen or
more empty tables. Ack.

------
MrDosu
Now a single city in germany is ~europe~...

------
cechmaster
She has obviously never been to a European football game. Those people are
louder than any American.

------
known
"You are a product of your environment." \--Clement Stone

~~~
abdulhaq
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. Winston Churchill

------
Oletros
I suppose then that Spain is not Europe because here, children are not so
quiet :)

------
carsongross
I had always assumed it was the beatings

[http://lizgarrigan.tumblr.com/post/17712385923/french-
childr...](http://lizgarrigan.tumblr.com/post/17712385923/french-children-
dont-throw-food-when-people-are)

~~~
jpatokal
Physical beatings, not so much, but difference in attitude, definitely. To
boldly caricature, in America it's all about how every child is a special
snowflake whose antics must not just be tolerated but encouraged; while in
"Europe" (France), children in adult spaces like restaurants must conform to
adult rules or be punished.

Edit: Hmm, that came off snarkier than I intended. I didn't intend to imply
that either approach is necessarily superior, just that surely there's a happy
medium somewhere between the two extremes.

~~~
threesixandnine
It's getting like this in Europe as well. Little snowflakes. Now at least one
adult has to take to and pick up kids from school until 11 or 12 years old
where I am from. When I was 7 years old and started first grade we went to
school which was 2km away and came home alone from the first day.

Currently we are all raising kids that will not be ready for the world in
10-20 years. I am sure of that. Kids from other parts of the world will have
the advantage in pretty much all fields.

~~~
Pinatubo
Oh yeah? Back in MY day we walked 10 miles to school! Uphill! Both ways!

Back then a "little snowflake" was what we called our classmates who froze to
death walking home from school in a blizzard!

~~~
coldtea
In actual parts of Europe, kids DID walk 10 (or close) km to school, often
uphill, both ways, and not that far back ago. That's not some BS folklore.

Here's a fifties school to get an idea: [http://aromalefkadas.gr/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/68.jpg](http://aromalefkadas.gr/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/68.jpg)

This is from around the fifties. The kids aren't doing yoga or something --
they really don't have shoes -- they usually had just an incredibly warn-out
pair at most, which they wore as part of their "good outfit" (for going to
important events, church, etc).

No school buses -- actually no highways between lots of rural villages until
late 60s, and a single school (in the central/bigger village) catering also
for 3-4 nearby villages in what could be a 10-20 km radius.

And yes, they also did that with snow.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Yes, you don't need to go more than 60 years back before even the socialist
democracy utopia Norway was radically different from today. My grandfather
grew up in the 40's and 50's, having eight siblings. At thirteen, his father
died, so the three oldest boys (aged 11, 13 and 15) had to stop going to
school and start working on fishing boats to provide for the family. He lost
four of his cousins when they were trying to salvage scrap iron from a naval
mine left after the war and it exploded.

The stories of our grandparents are stories that we would associate with a
war-torn country in the third world if they happened today.

