美国小孩:有史以来最娇惯的孩子

Picture a child of 8 or so. He wakes up and carefully makes his bed before going downstairs and emptying the dishwasher. He fixes himself a bowl of cereal and calmly eats it at the table, then clears his place, rinses the bowl and spoon, and places them both in the now-empty dishwasher.

想象一个八岁左右的孩子，早上醒来后先仔细整理好自己的床铺，然后下楼将洗碗机中的碗碟拿出来，接着给自己冲上一碗麦片，坐在桌边安静地吃完，接下来清理餐桌，将碗勺洗冲干净，放进已是空着的洗碗机内。

If this seems like some sort of mythical youngster from a faraway culture or a bygone age, you may be in the market for one of the parenting books smartly reviewed by Elizabeth Kolbert in this week's New Yorker. Summing up the point of both the books and the review, she writes, 'With the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty and the dauphins of pre-Revolutionary France, contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world.'

如果在你看来，这个孩子虚幻得像一个来自远古文明或某个逝去年代的年轻人，那么伊丽莎白•科尔伯特(Elizabeth Kolbert)这周为《纽约客》(New Yorker)就育儿书撰写的精彩书评中提到的那些书籍，你很可能会乐意读上一本。她在总结这些书籍和相关书评的要点时写道：“除了中国明朝的皇子皇孙和法国大革命前的王储，现在的美国小孩有可能是有史以来最娇生惯养的年轻人。”

Kolbert describes an anthropologist's encounter with 6-year-old Yanira, part of a remote Peruvian tribe. On a leaf-gathering expedition with another family, Yanira constantly makes herself useful she sweeps the sleeping mats twice a day; she fishes for crustaceans, cooks them up and serves them to the others. 'Calm and self-possessed, Yanira 'asked for nothing,' ' Kolbert writes of the anthropologist's impressions.

在书评中，科尔伯特描述了一名人类学家遇到的秘鲁一个遥远部落的孩子雅尼拉(Yanira)。六岁的雅尼拉在和另一个家庭一起外出收集树叶时，一直尽量使自己有用武之地──每天清扫睡觉的垫子两次；捕捉甲壳类动物并将它们煮熟给同行的其他人食用。科尔伯特描述了这个女孩留给这名人类学家的印象：沉着冷静，从不主动要求任何东西。

The same anthropologist was part of a family study in Los Angeles as well, with very different results. In those families, 'no child routinely performed household chores without being instructed to. Often, the kids had to be begged to attempt the simplest tasks; often, they still refused. 瞰In [one] representative encounter, an eight-year-old girl sat down at the dining table. Finding that no silverware had been laid out for her, she demanded, 'How am I supposed to eat?' Although the girl clearly knew where the silverware was kept, her father got up to get it for her.'

这名人类学家同时也参与了一个有关洛杉矶家庭的调查研究，但这些家庭的情况与秘鲁部落的截然不同。在这些家庭中，“没有孩子会在无人吩咐的情况下主动定期做家务。经常是你不得不求着他们去尝试一些最简单的活；更经常的是，他们还会拒绝。……一个很有代表性的案例：一个八岁的女孩坐在餐桌边，发现面前没有摆好银餐具，她要求道，‘没有餐具，我怎么吃呢？’尽管这个女孩很清楚它们放在哪里，但她父亲还是起身给她取了过来。”

Madeline Levine's 'Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success' places much of the blame on parents' keen desire that their children be special in all things, Kolbert says. 'Being special takes hard work and can't be trusted to children,' writes Levine. 'Hence the exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance, which in turn makes children feel less competent and confident, so that they need even more oversight.'

科尔伯特说，玛德琳•莱文(Madeline Levine)在《教好你的小孩：真正成功的育儿之道》(Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success)一书中，将主要原因归咎于父母认为他们的孩子与众不同这样一种热望。“特殊，意味着需要更多的精力去照顾，同时你也无法信赖他们。这会形成一个让父母精疲力竭的循环：你必须一直监督他们的工作和表现，这样也会反过来使孩子们觉得自己并不怎么能干，没有什么自信，从而导致他们需要更多的监督。”

Also reviewed in the piece are Sally Koslow's 'Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest,' Hara Estroff Marano's 'A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting,' Melvin Konner's 'The Evolution of Childhood' and Pamela Druckerman's 'Bringing Up Bebe,' which was excerpted in the Journal and discussed here at the Juggle.

科尔伯特在文章中还评论了萨利•科斯洛(Sally Koslow)的《迈向成年：非空巢家庭之观察》(Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest)、哈拉•埃斯特洛夫•马拉诺(Hara Estroff Marano)的《弱者之族：入侵式家庭教育的高昂代价》(A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting)、梅尔文•康纳(Melvin Konner)《儿童的成长》(The Evolution of Childhood)、帕米拉•德拉科曼(Pamela Druckerman)的《养育孩子》(Bringing Up Bebe，此书节选曾刊登在《华尔街日报》上，并曾在“工作•家”(Juggle)栏目中讨论)。

Our 7-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter aren't at the nasty level of Miss 'How Am I Supposed to Eat?' above, but my wife and I do get frustrated at their frequent unhelpfulness. They seem to think of simple household tasks as something they'll occasionally do as a favor or even for fun our son loves assisting with big housecleaning jobs, even as he never wipes his place at the table after dinner but thoughts/statements? like 'the garbage is full; I should take the bag out' have never, ever occurred to them independently. It's hard to know how to drill it into them now, but it's definitely something on our minds. I joke every now and then that we need to start giving the kids an allowance so we'll have something to take away from them if they misbehave.

我们家有一个七岁的儿子和一个10岁的女儿。他们虽然没有那位“没有餐具，我怎么吃”小姐那么糟糕，但我和妻子的确为他们经常袖手旁观感到沮丧。他们会偶尔做做简单家务，但似乎认为那是在给我们帮忙，或是好玩──我们儿子喜欢在房屋大扫除时搭把手，但他晚饭后从不会将他自己面前的餐桌清理干净──他们从未主动想到或说到如“垃圾袋满了，我应该把它拎出去扔了”之类的话。现在我们对如何将这样的想法植入他们的脑袋束手无策，但无疑这是我们一直在思考的事情。我时不时地开玩笑说，我们应该开始给孩子零用钱了，这样当他们行为不当时，我们就有可以从他们身边拿走的东西了。