Culture Shock #57: Germans are pro child injury

I was sitting in a team meeting at the youth center I work at, and we were discussing the new loft my colleague recently built with some kiddos. It's cute, a little two-story wooden structure in one of our playrooms draped with blankets. Kids can play underneath it or climb up a ladder to play on the raised platform. 

I spoke up in the meeting to mention something I'd noticed since the loft had been built - I'd seen three different kids smack their foreheads on the upper platform while trying to climb under it. I brought this up in the team meeting and expected the reaction I would've gotten in the U.S.. The worried looks (the liability! the potential lawsuits!), the gratitude for bringing my acute observations to the team meeting (we must protect our children from fatal head injuries!), the immediate problem-solving response (caution tape? a foam strip? sand down the wooden edges? tear the whole thing down and build a new loft out of rubber?). 

Needless to say my observation was not met with the responses I anticipated. In reality, I was met with blank stares. I actually felt a bit stupid. Did they understand what I had just said? Why were they treating children smacking their heads on wooden beams like something benign? The silence was mildly excruciating. 

Finally, one of my colleagues said, "Yes? And have these particular children smacked their heads on the wooden beams again since?"

I was gobsmacked. Because no, it had been three different children. I mean, there hadn't been enough injury cases for me to start running statistics, but my colleague had a point. The pain I watched these three children endure would probably serve as a decent reminder to duck the next time they wanted to play under the loft. 

I find this moment in this team meeting such a brilliant and illustrative example of how the U.S. American  approach to risk differs from the German one. While U.S. American parents spend hundreds of dollars and multiple hours child-proofing their entire homes, German parents endure watching their child hit their head on the glass table. Once. While U.S. American parents don't let their children anywhere near sharp knives until they're in middle school (at least), six-year-old German children are slicing their own carrot sticks, their older sibling correcting their form, band-aids ready on the kitchen counter if necessary. While U.S. American parents forbid their children from climbing the tree in the backyard for fear of a sprained limb, German parents help their kid strategize how to reach the first branch without their help.

Maybe the willingness of Germans to watch their youth get injured makes you deeply uncomfortable and squeamish. Maybe this blog post is confirming your stereotypes of Germans being a callous and unempathetic people. Or maybe you're like me, and you're thinking...What are German teenagers capable of doing because they were entrusted to carry out important daily tasks as children? How does radically investing in a child's autonomy and independence influence teenage anxiety? What kind of citizens do German children grow up to be if they are taught at a young age to pay attention to their surroundings? If we treat our children like they cannot survive in this world without our constant vigilant protection, how could we possibly expect them to?

The limitations of my U.S. American/German comparison are not lost on me. I know that U.S. is a much more dangerous country for children to grow up in. Poverty, racism, gun violence, the school to prison pipeline, car-centric cities, a disastrous healthcare system, inhumane immigration policies, ableist architecture...in a country where the government cares so little for its people, it makes sense that parents want to protect their children from harm in the limited ways they can. 

I suppose there are ways in which exposing children to danger and risk can be deeply educational and empowering. And. There are ways in which exposing children to danger and risk can be deeply traumatizing and disempowering. 

How's that for a nuanced take for you?!