Cultural Essay Numero Uno

Chilean Children

The most common complaint among American exchange students in Chile is that our host families try to do everything for us.  They fix our beds, arrange and rearrange our stuff, want to prepare every bite of food that we eat, and insist that we leave our dishes for them to clean.  They do not expect us to do anything for ourselves inside the house.  Angela always makes a big fuss when I clean my own breakfast dishes or help clear the table and was once moved to tears when I brought some laundry in from the patio and hung it up inside.  If she sees me making toast, she offers to do it for me or apoligizes that I have to work.  She appreciates the help, but can’t seem to believe that I enjoy doing it.

Chile has a history of classicism, or discrimination between the classes.  Any respectable middle class family had a nana, or a maid, and if they had a lawn, someone to take care of the garden. When Angela was a girl, her family had a variety of household help; a cook, a gardner, a housemaid, a nanny for the children, etc.  It wasn’t uncommon that young Chileans had EVERYTHING done for them as children and young adults and when they got married and started keeping their own house, they didn’t know the first thing about anything.  Angela told me that when she and her husband, Jose, got married, that neither one knew anything about cooking, not even how to make hardboiled eggs.  And did they ask anyone?  No, she said they were too proud, so they struggled along, learning everything the hard way, by experience.

It’s a little bit different now but when they can afford it, people still hire nanas to clean their houses and help cook.  A lot of Peruvians and Bolivians come to Chile to work as domestic aids and the Chileans are unashamedly rascist towards them.  When a family doesn’t have a nana, the mother assumes the role of doing everything for the entire household.  My friend Paula has two younger Chilean brothers and her mom will heat up a plate of food for the boys and then call and cajole them to come to the table, and when they finally decide that they’re ready to eat, they’ll come down and she’ll more or less wait on them, and when they’re done, they get up and go back to their video games or TV or whatever.

I think that the cultura machista begins in the home with treatment like this, with boys being made to believe that they have no domestic responsibilities.

Most of us exchange students have not lived at home for 3-4 years and are accustomed to making our own food, fixing our own beds, washing our own clothes, etc.  The majority of Chileans live at home while they study at University, even if it means an hour or more commute every day.  In many cases, it really is the more economical thing to do, but the result is that they don’t learn how to take care of themselves without Mom until much later in life.

Thank you to all the mothers who are reading this that make your kids work in the house.  I say, make ‘em make supper tonight.  Tell them I said it will build character.