We recently had an interesting thing happen here...
Stas got into a fight at school. I don't know all of the details, but apparently some kid at school and he have been at it for some time, and it finally came to a head...
Recently, they had some words in PE class, and the kid stepped on (or kicked dust on -- I'm not sure) Stas' shoes.
Stas loves his new shoes, so that was a fighting offense as far as he was concerned. He punched the kid in the chest, and when the kid decided to back off, Stas chased after him, kicking him.
It's the first time something like this has happened.
So, we get the expected call from the principal. What was a little unexpected was my wife's response:
"Stas hit him? Good! What's the big deal? Stas was doing what he had to do. He must be a man."
So, my wife and I had a very long talk about it. She was amazed that it is possible these days to even get sued, or have an assault charge filed. Crazy at it sounds, it sometimes happens.
She was really pissed about it.
"What is he supposed to do? Run to the teacher every time someone bothers him? He must be a man, not some whiney baby!"
Now, the thing is that there was a time in this country -- not so long ago -- when what she was saying was exactly how things were dealt with. When I was a kid, you never ran to the teacher. You had a problem, you met the kid on the playground and settled the problem.
But times have changed. And I tried to make my Ukrainian wife understand that the way she had raised Stas since he was a boy will not work here.
At first she was really angry about the stupid rules here.
I pointed out to her that Stas used to be afraid to go to school in Ukraine. He had a chipped front tooth from a fight at school with a much bigger kid.
"Is that better?" I asked. "A school where the strongest rules? Or is it better to have an environment where all students can learn in peace and without worrying about who is going to beat them up?"
After all, part of the reason she was so fine with this was that Stas was bigger than this other kid. If the tormentor was bigger and stronger, Stas might not have been so happy to fight it out.
Eventually, she understood.
After I got her to calm down, and agree that Stas needed to play by the rules, I pointed out that there are ways of handling things -- even still -- without running to the teacher. For instance, if Stas had left it with the punch in the chest, nothing would have happened. But when he chased after the kid, kicking him, everyone saw what happened, and he looked like the agressor. If he had simply thwapped the kid in the chest, probably it would have ended there.
(Interesting side note: This happened in PE class, which is run by the football coach. Nothing was said in class. It wasn't until this kid went crying to the office that things got escalated. I have a hunch that the coach was only to happy to let the boys settle it themselves... and from what I know of the situation, I think it was actually better handled this way... -- according to Stas, this kid is a trouble-maker in class, and pesters a lot of other kids... but in this day of Sue-Happy parents, I understand why the principal had to do something...)
Anyway... I mention all of this because if anyone else has a kid coming over as part of a "package deal" you might want to consider this interesting area of culture differences...
FWIW
