‘Achtung’: Parenting made in Germany

America may be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but it’s Germany whose children display independence and whose parents have the courage to step back, Sara Zaske writes in Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children (Picador, 239 pp., ★★★☆).

Zaske and her husband left Oregon for Germany, toddler in tow. They welcomed a baby boy shortly after moving to Berlin, so they experienced everything from childbirth to grade school as expat parents.

Differences are notable from the get-go, from baby’s sleep (only one in five German parents stay in the room as their wee ones nod off) to government-subsidized, overwhelmingly common early child care, which Zaske says leads to less “mom guilt.”

Many of the differences Zaske points out between Germany and the USA also could be made about 1970s America and today’s. Many kids in Germany, like American kids before helicopter parenting, Zaske writes: ❚ Spend more time outdoors.

❚ Walk or bike to and from school or the playground by themselves — a move that in the U.S. can result in having the police called on you.

❚ Enjoy what is now sometimes called “free play” — formerly known as simply “play” — without direction from parents, teachers or coaches.

Zaske puts it plainly: “We raise free and responsible children by giving them freedom and responsibility.”

One German method may have you rethinking all those Christmas gifts: toy-free time. For weeks or months, many preschools and kindergartens throughout Germany (and Switzerland and Austria) remove toys from their classrooms. Children, instead, must use their imaginations. How many times has a toy proven less popular than the box in which it arrived?

Though Zaske is not an anthropologist or child psychologist, Achtung Baby is well-sourced, citing research from non-partisan heavyweights such as the Pew Research Center and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She compares German and American parents’ individual mindsets as well as the social structures that feed them.

German parents, too, have an irrational fear of their children being kidnapped. Yet they believe not only is it important for kids to learn selbständigkeit, or self-reliance, but that it’s wrong for parents to stand in the way.

It’s hardly the first time Americans have looked to other cultures for childrearing clues.

But unlike many parenting books, Zaske’s is not judgmental, prescriptive or didactic. For that, American parents may soon be saying danke and sending Achtung up the charts, too.

Author Sara Zaske