Culture Shock #1

Culture Shock #1

While preparing flashcards for a morning lesson at the bilingual kindergarten early last week, my boss Fumiyo approached me and said. ‘Sumire’s mother called yesterday. She has requested that we no longer give Sumire hugs, or pick her up and carry her when she comes to the kindergarten.’ I stopped filing through flashcards.
‘She asked us to stop holding her?’ I said as an image of the three year old Sumire pulling on my hand and saying ‘hold me’ flashed across my mind. Sumire is not the youngest child at the school, but she is most definitely the smallest. She can’t weigh more than 22 or 23 pounds and her clothes often hang on her like sheets. She constantly wants to be held by one of the teachers and occasionally resorts to hitting to get her way.
‘Sumire’s mother is very busy,’ continued Fumiyo. ‘She is a single mother with three kids and she runs a very large drug store. She told me she doesn’t have time to hold Sumire, and doesn’t want her to get used to it here.’
We looked at each other for a moment without saying anything. When Fumiyo speaks to me in English it is difficult to read her tone, and though I assumed she must feel as shocked and dumbfounded as I did about what she had just said, I thought for a moment that she might be prepared to defend this mother. Then she said, “That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”