Blind spot

Recently I've been listening to a class on cultural literacy as I clean the barn. It's been interesting, but I wasn't expecting to be be blindsided by it. I like to think of myself as somewhat culturally literate. I read widely, I've had friends who come from myriad different places (though this was significantly easier in Evanston), and I have done some travelling which requires longer stays in a place and not just a few days. 

This morning totally knocked me on my heels. The discussion was about cultures with collectivist outlooks verses cultures with individualistic outlooks. (The US is strongly individualistic while China is strongly collectivist, if you were wondering.) The teacher told a story tone of his children while they were living in Singapore and her reaction to some of the rules regarding dog ownership. Her reaction at four-ish years of age was extremely individualistic and he was surprised at the degree to which that outlook had been communicated to her even though they had been splitting their time between Singapore and the US for her whole life. 

The instructor continues with his lecture about the differences between the two cultural outlooks. As he is listing things that people from one cultural outlook can do things that make people from the other side of the spectrum uncomfortable, he mentions one that has had me thinking all day. 

People from collectivist cultures can be extremely uncomfortable giving a personal opinion about something because they are far more concerned with an option that is best for the whole. Even when pressed, individual opinion matters very little. 

One thing that has been challenging for me with one of our children is a seeming inability to offer a personal opinion or to choose which option that child desires. This is so atypical from my extremely individualistic outlook that I had assumed that it was an affect of past trauma and that we still had not reached a place of feeling secure enough that choosing option A or B was comfortable. 

But what if I have been looking at the issue from the wrong side of the lens? The instructor's daughter, at a very young age, was highly influenced by her main culture. What if my child, who had been in their culture of origin for at least twice as long has been just as influenced by a collectivist culture? What if this isn't trauma or developing or safety but just a cultural mismatch? 

You can see why I've been chewing on it all day. And this is just one example. It also makes me wonder what other disparate I cultural outlooks have been at play over the years. And if I, whom am fairly culturally literate about Asian cultures has so completely missed something pretty huge, how much more does it play into parenting and family challenges for parents who have less experience? There's a lot to think about here.