Multicultural Manners
Chapter One
Child-Rearing Practices
Lazy New Mom
Evelyn resents it when her Filipina daughter-in-law, Zen, has a
baby and assumes that everyone should wait on her, especially
Evelyn. Zen expects Evelyn to bathe and change the baby, clean
the house, and prepare all meals. Despite adoring her first grandchild,
Evelyn is offended.
Evelyn was unaware that her daughter-in-law was observing
common Asian postpartum behavior: the new mom goes to bed for
a month while everyone pampers her. Family members, and sometimes
neighbors, take over cooking and cleaning; when the baby
needs to be fed, they bring a freshly changed infant to the mother.
In China, this practice is called zuo yuezi (sitting through the
month). The woman must stay in bed behind closed windows,
cover her head, and take many precautions to insure that she not
damage her ability to produce breast milk.
Once Evelyn discovered that her daughter-in-law was behaving
in a customary postpartum manner, she relaxed her attitude.
... read full excerpt from Multicultural Manners: Essential Rules of Etiquette for the 21st Century, Revised Edition ebook
