Lead With Love

If you ever want to get through the airport quickly in Bali, carry a baby. Maybe you have one, maybe borrow one. But a baby – even a toddler – will get you to the front of every line. They may even open a security scanner and metal detector for you. The same is true if you ever want to go to the head of the very slow and long post office line on Patmos.

When Emily and I took a 2.5 year-old Sennen and a six month-old Ailyn to Bali, we got ourselves in over our heads without a third adult for help. But that load was lightened significantly by the Balinese. Despite having lived in Bali for 2.5 years in my 20's, I hadn't really paid much attention to the role of babies in the culture. It turned out, they adore them. 

When we sat at restaurant, waitstaff didn't just offer to hold our baby, but asked if they could. Once nice Japanese meal, Emily, Sennen and I sat and ate while Ailyn periodically passed by in the arms of various people – each cooing at her. Nengah who had been my housekeeper and was assigned to us when we rented the house for the trip took Ailyn all the time – but especially at meals. They wandered the gardens, looked at flowers and he sniffed here – the Balinese (and Thai) version of a kiss. Made, our driver – who I had known for at least 12 years at that point picked her up anytime our hands were full or we needed to pay attention to Sennen. One time I changed Ailyn's diaper in the back of the car and Made had the wipes and fresh diaper waiting for me. 

At first it seemed like we were just getting great customer service, but it was obvious walking down the street – or anywhere we went that people melted for our kids – especially Ailyn.

Greeks are not quite as hands on with a stranger's baby, but they aren't far behind. When we brought Sennen to Patmos at age 15 months, the owner of the apartment-hotel where we stayed insisted on spoon feeding Sennen yogurt and honey each morning – even though he could operate a spoon just fine. People were always looking at him, smiling, often saying "koo-koo…." which is like the Greek version of peek-a-boo.

Greek culture is very family-centric and there are no shortage of reminders and examples I see daily of people being kind to children. I'm often impressed that for a culture with a fair amount of machismo, how many grandfathers I see pushing strollers or holding the hand of a toddler while heading to the park. No matter how rugged a guy looks, there's no shame melting for a child – and sometimes they tougher they are, the harder they fall.

Thanassis who owns the gym and as far as I know is the only personal trainer on Patmos is Coach Thanassis to my kids and couldn't be sweeter and kinder. He makes them workout and they adore one another. In fact, on their last session together Sennen came home saying how for an American (Thanassis has dual citizenship through his mom), Coach Thanassis really doesn't understand baseball and they spent time after their workout trying to explain it all to him.

Despite knowing all of this, I was impressed by how people who had been waiting a half hour or more in the Post Office line – a portion of that time out in the hot sun – all agreed without a word exchanged to get a young mother with infant in arms to the front of the line. She didn't expect it, wasn't asking. They just all insisted the way people might offer a seat on a public bus or train to an elderly person. Then while the young woman was waiting at the front of the line, nearby women began playing with the baby – using keys, fingers, voices – anything the baby would respond to. They used phrases like "my love" and "my dear one". Finally, when the young mother was collecting her packages, one woman – who I don't think was a total stranger, but also not a close friend – grabbed the baby so the mom could get the packages out front and loaded in the storage space under the stroller.

I cannot imagine that taking place at the Thousand Oaks Post Office – or any other in America. Maybe someone would hold a door. Maybe one person would allow a harried mother to go ahead. But an entire line of people who had been waiting 30 minutes? Not so likely. And communally caring for and helping with the baby to make a mother's life easier – not on your life. Although I could imagine my mom offering to hold a baby – but she's not typical that way.

To me, how people – individually and collectively – treat children tells an important truth, much the same way how people treat a server in a restaurant. It's one of the top markers of who they are. If an adult is rude to a child or a server, there's no point knowing that person.

When I first began traveling and living in Asia, I was surprised how many cultures that seemed very structured were quite lax with children. Singaporean and Hong Kong adults, for example, are expected to be put together, hard working, rule-following, considerate, controlled. Young children, however, are given a much longer leash and don't have to be perfectly behaved in restaurants and public places. That's not true as they work their way through school – but babies, toddlers and little kids have a fair amount of leeway and get plenty of affection.

Thai and Balinese children are given plenty of room throughout childhood. These cultures seem to recognize you're only young once and that childhood should be happy and fun. There's a lot of room for kids to run, play and have unstructured time outside of school. Adults may end up with a lot on their shoulders – but to whatever degree parents can give children the room to be kids, they seem to do just that.

This isn't the first time I've mused about what children's lives in other cultures must be like. I wondered about in Bali in 2011 when I saw a little kid in a furry tiger outfit. Children are raised under such different circumstances in so many places – with widely varying cultural norms, approaches to socialization, resource constraints, levels of parental education, family support and more. It's easy to find fault and judge when you don't understand the whole picture. Most parents love their kids and are doing their best – that can look like a lot of different things. And certainly, there are more ideal situations than others. There's no doubt I would rather be a Greek kid than one growing up in much of India.

Correlations in what makes a culture more or less child-friendly have eluded me. I want to chalk it up to higher degrees of collectivism – because clearly in situations like the Post Office this morning or the airport in Bali, you can see the community orientation. Families and cultures coalesce around their children. Bali and Greece have high degrees of Collectivism on the Hofestede scale. But that child-friendly orientation doesn't hold true across Collectivist cultures. As a rule, I would rather be a child in the United States than Taiwan where love and care is often shown through strictness, discipline and pressure to perform – and people are not busy passing babies and saying "koo koo…" or a koo koo equivalent. 

Certainly, there's a cluster of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures that have this kind of child-loving warmth. My best-friend Mazyar's large, Persian family dotes on children and the youngest is always especially adored. Armenians have a similar vibe and emphasis. Italians are famously very warm and family-oriented. But my theory doesn't hold true. Greece and Italy have much higher Individualism quotients on the Hofestede scale than do Iran, Armenia or Indonesia – which is EXCEPTIONALLY Collectivist, more so than Japan.

So what makes some cultures kiss strangers' babies and help mothers while others don't? Google doesn't seem to know and neither do I. In fact, as if to disprove my theory further, Google mentioned the Netherlands is very child-centric and known for easy-going kids – in part because children are given lots of room to be and to express themselves. The Netherlands scores high on the Hofestede Individuality scale – 80 out of 100. So there's that….

All I can say definitively is something feels right about valuing children and showing them warmth.

I'm saddened for adults, kids and society when I see people give their children devices in restaurants – for so many reasons. Among them, it tells the kids they are problems to be managed and subdued. They are excluded from social interaction. That of course has a dramatically negative effect on their socialization – going out to eat with kids is a major opportunity for socializing them. Of course it requires active parenting. Then the other tragedy is what that screen time is doing to kids' brains. Being present and sharing a meal together is – in the words of Martha Stewart – a Good Thing. 

For many people, raising kids is about how we love ourselves. Some people raise kids how they were raised because that's their model of love – whether or not they enjoyed how they were loved. Others raise kids in a way that corrects for what they didn't like in their own upbringing and do things that might have helped them – made them feel better loved. Or some combination of the two. Others look to a model or a method of parenting – perhaps knowing that they didn't have a great model to work from, so they'll take the best science, pop-psychology or the wellness universe has to offer. 

It's challenging no matter how you do it. 

In couples therapy, our therapist said over and over again, "Yes, but your spouse is a different person. He (or she) is not you." So it goes with children. Even if they look like you, even if they share some of your traits or emotional space – they are in fact different people from you. I'm no perfect parent, but I try to read the person I have in front of me. Sometimes their needs are similar to what mine were as a child. Sometimes they're quite different. Sometimes I relate to my kids – and sometimes they're doing life differently. It's on me – fail as I might – to try to meet them where they are and use whatever tools I have in doing so.

With that in mind, I think Greeks and one of my favorite yoga teachers, Ross, have it right. Ross always says (usually around standing bow, but sometimes during triangle series), "Lead with love." That seems to be what Greeks do with their children.

When Sennen was about a year old, he went through a phase of a few weeks where he woke up at about 5 am, stood up in his crib and threw his beloved Monkey – who he couldn't sleep without – on the floor. Then he cried for Monkey. Emily or I would get up, give him back Monkey only for the cycle to repeat within two minutes. Being not quite time to wake up, but too late to go back to sleep was maddening.

Should we stop getting Monkey so he would learn? Should we get Monkey because he needed it? What did this strange Monkey-throwing behavior mean? It seemed important we get it right.

At work I told one of my bosses about it because I really valued his perspectives. Mike told me about a similar situation he and his wife faced. He said they went nuts discussing the problem, trying different interventions and in the end, he wasn't sure anything they did made a difference – the problem probably just went away in the course of child development. At a year-old, you have a new kid every few weeks – so be patient and the problem will probably resolve itself. Mike was right. The Monkey dropping crisis went away as inexplicably as it came.

Sometimes all you can do is grin, bear it and fill in the cracks and spaces with love. Lots of love.