The Secrets of Raising Children in a Vietnamese Culture

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that Western cultures may have made a mistake when they started breaking up the extended family in favor of a nuclear family. Not only does it rob older grandparents of a larger sense of purpose, but it takes away the opportunity for younger people to learn from their grandparents.

In Western cultures, parents are left to care for the children while maintaining jobs. This puts a larger burden on each family member, in the case of single mothers, an overwhelming burden. Many children find themselves in childcare being cared for by people who don’t really care about them, while grandparents spend much of their lives disconnected from their own family. When you contrast this with a Vietnamese household, grandparents take a much larger role in the family.

Of course, not all Vietnamese are the same; I am speaking only in generalities. Sometimes grandparents prefer to live alone, so they may work longer than grandparents who live with their adult children. Extended families are increasingly living apart in recent generations so families can take advantage of career opportunities in a larger city. Sometimes children don’t like their parents, so they prefer to cut ties rather than maintaining the relationship. These are really exceptions more than the rule. Generally, much of what I am talking about here is true for many Vietnamese families.

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This Substack is a bit of a riff off of John’s recent post on his Substack “An Expat’s Thoughts on Life” in his article about relationships, family and money. In that post, John wrote about the dynamic encountered when two people come from dramatically different cultures, specifically Western and Vietnamese cultures, and the conflict that can create. He did a great job of explaining how he was training his daughter not to feel the burden to take care of her parents as she grew older and to demonstrate to her the importance of independence. I want to make it very clear; I am not saying that he is wrong for doing so. It is a different perspective, and he is certainly entitled to see things that way. The perspective I want to give is a more traditional approach to family dynamics.

I am going to take a counterpoint and discuss the cases where I think the Vietnamese approach to familial relationships might be superior to the Western approach. I have been finding myself increasingly thinking that in regard to culture, there are no good or bad approaches, only tradeoffs.

Here is a link to John’s article if you wish to read that article too.

Things Expats Often Misjudge when picking a country to live in

Family Dynamics

In Vietnam (as well as much of East Asia), family members have clearly defined roles within the family. Children have the primary task of learning as much as possible to prepare them to earn high incomes when they reach maturity. Parents and adult children have the responsibility of earning income for the family. Grandparents (who often retire around age 50 if they live with their children) have the responsibility of taking care of the home and young children while the parents are at work. As the grandparents age, there is typically some relief as older siblings (around the age of five or so) will typically start helping to take care of younger siblings.

In traditional Vietnamese families, the wife would leave her family and become part of the husband's family. Nowadays, there are more options. Sometimes the process of multiple generations living together happens immediately after marriage, where the wife moves in with the husband's family. This could be a wonderful situation if the wife gets along with her in-laws. The grandparents can provide childcare and perhaps do some light chores around the house, like cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping, etcetera. This leaves the young couple free to focus on the important task of bringing home the income.

When that couple starts having children, the social dynamic changes as the older generation shifts to being a supportive force in the household, while the adult parents take on increasing responsibility of earning household income. The older generation starts to switch from giving care to receiving care, similar to the care they provided to their own children when they were young. That is to say, if they were kind while their children were growing up, their children will likely return the kindness as the older generation enter their twilight years.

Recently, family size has been shrinking as Vietnam has been developing. This has created a situation where one family may need to take care of both sets of grandparents. There has been increasing pressure to make sure the child(ren) realizes their responsibility to their parents. In Vietnam, there is no social safety net; the children are the Social Security of the parents, so there is a motivation to make sure children learn this responsibility at an early age.

Typically, care for grandparents who wish to live on their own is provided with cash payments made every month or so. This allows the grandparents to still feel independent, even though their days of self-sufficiency have passed. At some point, the day may come when even the most independent minded grandparent cannot take care of themselves anymore and they may choose to move in with their adult children.

The Role of Children

In Vietnamese culture, children are seen as much more of an investment than as little pets (as some have accused Western parents of treating their children). When I say investment, many people know the statistic; it costs roughly $250,000 USD to raise a child to adulthood in the U.S. That number may have gone up since the last time I heard it, but it conveys the point …children are expensive.

That’s not the only investment a parent makes in a child. There is the time spent educating the child, starting with teaching the child not to harm him/herself by touching all of the burning, sharp and electrical objects around the house which young toddlers are drawn to.

There are also the tasks which are taught to the child in order for them to live a comfortable life; make the bed, bathe daily, brush their teeth, etcetera. It’s possible to live a very good life without a made bed, but life seems to be a little bit easier if the house seems clean and organized.

Then there are all of the elementary skills to prepare the child to educate themselves, learning the alphabet, counting, reading, learning simple math, etcetera. These are the very basic elements which not only prepare a child for school but teach the child the first steps of ‘how to learn’ so they can learn on their own.

These teaching moments add up to many hours of time invested in the child. Vietnamese consider this when they are raising children, and they take their investment seriously. Vietnamese parents will typically spend quite a bit of their income on the education of their children. Education not only consists of school activities, but also other activities which may stimulate the brain in other ways. The child may learn a musical instrument, take an art class or learn anything which will give the child a skill to enhance the life of the child.

For all of the love they show, the countless hours of teaching, the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, they expect the child to return the love in the parent’s final days.

Old Age

Some people say, this is such a transactional way of looking at family dynamics, ‘where is the love?’ Let me ask the question, where is the love when a Western family sends their parents to a nursing home? The parents are rarely seen again until the funeral.

The senior parent is locked away to count down their remaining days until they die. If that lonely parent is lucky, they may see their children or grandchildren on the weekends or if they are unlucky, maybe once a year or less.

Most Vietnamese parents want to be a part of their child’s life and also have their children be a part of their lives. There is never a “it’s time to move out” conversation as Western parents tend to have around college time. They want their children to live at home and save some money.

The care of parents is considered an honor and a chance to thank them for bringing up their children well while the children were growing up. This is the opportunity to repay the kindness shown to the child in the final years of their parent’s lives.

When the older generation reaches their final days, they want their children to say, “thank you for giving me such a great life, let me take care of you in your final days”. That will be the final proof of raising a good child. A child who loves their parents enough to sacrifice their nice life to deal with their old parents who can’t take care of themselves anymore, rather than shipping them off to a nursing home. They will live their final days proud of the child(ren) they have raised and watch their grandchildren grow. This is not thought of at a burden for the child, but a way for the child to show their gratitude back toward the parent.

That seems like a pretty good way to end a life.