Kids with Big Knives

I have no experience being a parent, seeing that I am not one. Regardless, this entire post is going to revolve around parenting. I have watched my parents stress, toil, and work endless hours making sure that my two siblings and I are outstanding citizens and functioning young adults.

And may I say that they have succeeded.

Simply crack open a Guide to Parenting and you'll find countless chapters of do's and do not's when raising children. The Western way of parenting is a very intense ordeal if you desire to do it well. Our culture adds the pressure.

Then there is parenting in Papua New Guinea. Driving down an unpaved road into the Sursurunga village we were welcomed by little children (as young as three) standing on the side of the road smiling, waving, and wielding large machetes.

Yes, machetes. These little children simply held on to these monstrous weapons like they were pacifiers.

My first thought was "their parents simply let them HAVE machetes?" My parents wouldn't let me watch Ninja Turtles as a kid let alone hand me a knife. But as it turned out this was just my Western bias surfacing on the subject of parenting.

Parenting in PNG is not like parenting in the States...at all. In fact, the complete opposite is true. Parents do not and feel that they cannot tell their child what to do and what not to do. Superstitious as they are, the people there feel that doing so may alter the kid's "life-force" (or destiny) and ultimately lead them down paths they were not meant to go.

So the kid doesn't want to go to school? So be it. The kid wants to go into the jungle alone? So be it. The three year old wants a machete? So be it. The parenting is so hands-off that I could hardly call it parenting. In many ways the kids ruled over the parents. It blew my mind.

And yet! Here we had little gangs of naked kids running around with large knives and causing no trouble at all. They ruled amongst themselves, raised each other, and instilled their own values and methods of living.

But wait, doesn't that violate some - if not all the rules in the Western Guide to Parenting? Yeah, if you're a Westerner. These parents aren't wrong and neither are their methods; they are simply different than ours. And how often do Americans think "different" and "wrong" are synonymous? Too many times.

I invite you to think outside your cultural norms and see things from a different (not wrong) perspective and consider what out culture may look like if we did things like other people.

Your friendly neighborhood giant,
~Alan