News That Will Shock My Middle Eastern Students: Obama Girls Will Do Chores In White House!

First Family Obama

I can hardly wait to share this news item with my third-grade students in the Middle East.  We have such trouble here at school (and with my own daughter at home) trying to teach children that they should learn to be responsible for taking care of themselves! 

In an interview with the the Associated Press, Michelle Obama explained that their two girls (Sasha, 7; and Malia, 10) will be expected to make their own beds, and pick up after themselves.  The girls have also been promised a dog when they move into the White House, and President Elect Obama told Barbara Walters that they will be expected to “scoop the poop” off the White House lawn.

My Middle Eastern students are just going to find this unbelieveable.  Our students (some classes more than others) regularly drop trash all over the classroom floor around their desks (kleenexes, pencil shavings, papers). 

Kleenex dropped with this attitude

With the classes having this habitual problem, we as teachers ask them to clean it up before they can go out to lunch, or home at the end of the day.  Some students get busy while others refuse to participate, and attempt to push their trash under other people’s desks, claming “It’s not my trash!”  Or they walk around the room as others are cleaning up, but don’t touch a single piece of trash themselves.  They comment loudly, “I’m not the maid!” 

Unfortuanately, we are fighting this attitude coming from the whole society.  We have the same problem at lunch time.  At our school, students eat packed lunches out on the playground (schools in our country do not have indoor lunch rooms).  Even though there are plenty of trash cans, every few meters, many students cannot be bothered to throw away their own trash.  So for those of us who are on lunch duty, about fifty percent of our job is that we are supposed to be catching all the students who are not throwing away their own trash, and to be forcing them to do it.  Since we can’t watch every student every second, we end up having a lot of students talking back, saying, “It’s not MY trash!”  To which we must then ask them, “Even if it’s not your trash, would you please pick it up and put it in the trash can.”

I believe the problem stems from the fact that by picking up their own trash (or doing any “chores”), they “lose face” in Middle Eastern society.  I’ve found that in every society status is important, but that the way of getting status varies.  In America, one way we gain status is by working harder and working longer hours.  Note that in America, heads of companies often arrive first in the morning, leave last, and work harder than anyone else.  In the Middle East, it’s the opposite.  It seems to be all about NOT working, or about how you can get OTHERS to do your work for you.  This is how you gain status.  To be seen working (especially any manual labor tasks, even for yourself) is seen to be debasing yourself, and people will laugh at you.

I have tried to raise my own daughter in our own home to pick up her clothes in her room.  She continually asks me, “Why do I have to pick up my clothes, when all my friends have their MAIDS pick up their clothes?  I am not the maid!  Why are you treating me like a maid?” And it’s true, that IS what happens even in lower-middle class homes, which also attempt to have a young girl type of maid.

In my own home, my husband brings a gardener to do our whole property about once a month.  After about two weeks, the lawn and shrubs start to look bad, and after a month they look like a disaster.  Sometimes I get really fed up with this and go out to do some work myself (such as trimming shrubs, or sweeping the front walk).  Instead of THANKING me, my Middle Eastern husband wants to die of embarrassment in front of the neighbors, who he feels will be LAUGHING at him, and saying “Can’t he even pay someone to do that??”  This is the same reason he doesn’t lift a finger himself.  When the gardeners do come, he either stands there, or sits in a chair telling them what to do (as does every other man here)!

An extreme example of this same attitude was confirmed by a boy I know who came from Saudi Arabia.  I had read on the blog American Bedu (written by a former American diplomat, now living in Saudi Arabia, and married to a Saudi) that many people there blow their noses on kleenexes, and then drop them on the floor, wherever they are, for the maid or servant to pick up! I asked the boy I know if this were true, and he confirmed to me that it was.  You can see American Bedu’s post on Issues with Tissues here.

My Middle Eastern country is not nearly as bad as Saudi Arabia with these sorts of attitudes.  But middle and upper-class women here are not used to being able to take care of a household without servants (and would see themselves as demeaned even if they tried to do so, except during times when they are unable to find a maid for some reason, in which case they are greatly pitied).  This is one of the main reasons why I have seen families move from this country to America only to return two years later–the women just can’t take living in America and having to take care of their houses and children themselves, as well as drive their children everywhere themselves.  Most women from the upper middle classes and higher have at least two maids, a gardener, a chauffer, and perhaps a private guardian as well.

So, when I get back to school on Monday (as we are off for the Thanksgiving holiday), and tell my third-graders about the president’s daughters having to “scoop poop” off the lawn and make their own beds, I can imagine it might turn into a two-hour discussion!  It might end up making a good essay topic, as well.

Comments, please!

Eileen

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