Cultural absolutism and child welfare services

There is a Bollywood movie set to be released in a few weeks - based on the true story of an Indian mother who lost custody of her children during an ex-pat assignment in Norway. The story sent shockwaves through India back in 2011 when it happened; the cultural absolutism and "rigidity" of living in a western country at the forefront of the discussion.

Reading the story afresh sent chills down my spine, realizing this is something that could happen to the best of parents if cultural differences in parenting styles are ignored.

For those who are not familiar with the story of Sagarika Bhattacharya, she was a young ex-pat mother in Norway in 2011, moving for the first time outside of her city of Kolkata. As Indian marriages go, she would have probably been in her early twenties, with two children - a two-year-old and a newborn. Imagine moving from a society where you are surrounded by a support system (family, friends, neighbours, maids, all taking part in raising the children and supporting the young family) to a cold, grey, and "isolated" place where the young mother had to rely on just herself to handle household work, raising her kids and supporting her husband all at the same time (Indian husbands at that time were not known to support much with household tasks - focusing merely on their work).

Sagarika was seen in her new home country as someone who was disorganized - she seemed to be struggling (naturally), brought her two-year-old son to daycare late on most days (god forbid because daycare is so important!), and worst of all, her son threw tantrums in school (maybe Scandinavians learn to keep their emotions in check quite early on in life). All these, perfectly normal occurrences for a new, young mother in India - not signs of dysfunctionality, as the Norwegians saw it.

Pretty soon, she had a visit from the Barnevernet (also known as Norwegian Child Welfare Services), who had been tipped off by her son's daycare as a potentially problematic mother. The well-intentioned visits became a nightmare for Sagarika - the social workers were stern (early emotion control, remember?), spoke only Norwegian to one another, visited the home at random times, and sat watching her through that period of time. (If you know Indian hospitality, you will know that a visitor in the house is akin to god - whenever a visitor is expected, we go out of our way to keep the house tidy and make them feel welcome. I can only imagine Sagarika's plight at strangers visiting her house at odd times of the day, when the house was messy and she felt unprepared!) They also brought a camera along to record her every move, including while she breastfed her newborn (a nightmare for any self-respecting Indian woman). On one occasion, the story goes, not having slept well for nights after caring for her sick kids, she lost her temper at her son when he threw a tantrum, raising a palm indicating that she would smack him.

As an Indian mother, I can confirm that it is culturally perfectly normal to raise your hand against your child and probably even land a smack on his arm or buttock. We do not have an overly sensitive approach to child-raising - and "abusive" behavior is something that entails intentionally harming your child in a way that he/she sustains permanent physical or emotional damage. Every Indian child has probably gotten smacked by his/her parent at some point in time and talks fondly about it in his/her later years. (My dear friend was only recently recalling with amusement, her father slapping her in the face at 18 years of age because she uttered an expletive in his presence). We all remember and we all have a giggle about it - the day we angered our parents to the extent to which they lost their cool.

Now, as the story of Sagarika goes, just the gesture of raising her hand as a threat was seen as abusive by the Norwegian Child Welfare Services, and her two children (just over two and 5-months old) were taken away from her. She went on to fight a long, emotionally draining, two-year battle in Norway and India, and was finally reunited with her children in 2013. Her marriage broke apart in the meanwhile and she now lives with her children in India.

As an ex-pat coach, I see very different parenting styles all the time, and being a parent myself, I know enough not to judge someone's style or attribute any cultural absolutism to parental behavior. I can only hope that these kinds of well-intentioned child welfare services get themselves acquainted with the cultures of ex-pats and immigrants they deal with and avoid these nightmarish scenarios in the future.

#mondaymorningmusing #interculturalliving