Q2.Do you agree or disagree with the statement: "Eighteen-year-olds in Paris have more in common with eighteen-year-olds in New York than with their own parents." would strongly disagree with this statement. Although teenagers around the world may be in a similar life stage, getting an education or beginning work, they still have the same cultural values about what is the correct relationship between parents and children, and what is meaningful in life as their parents. Their parents and society influenced them more than New York culture. Observers have noticed that there is a great difference between American parenting and parenting among the French. One woman noted that: "The French are certainly stricter. They shout more. They slap more. And they enforce manners....as a result, you find beautifully brought up children, and many of my French friends who are parents will argue endlessly that instilling discipline and setting boundaries is the way of showing the utmost love"(Giovanni 2007).

Although French adolescents may rebel, they are less likely to be rude and discourteous to their parents. This shows how the effects of early childhood discipline create a culture that is carried over into adolescence, and beyond. The educational system of a nation also affects adolescent culture. For example, in France the education system is much more regimented than in America. Children are more often placed in the state-run daycare systems at an early age. This teaches them to be responsible for themselves early in life, which makes French children less emotionally dependent on their parents, even though they may be more likely to live near their parents and come home for family dinners than New York teenagers. Of course, the fact that France is a smaller country with strong regional identities and less mobility of populations affects this as well, and French adolescents are more likely to know their grandparents.

French parents often look down on American culture, which they see as excessively individualistic. French parents do not make children the centre of the universe....

A parent is likely to blame a child who gets a bad grade, not call up a teacher and blame the teacher for hurting their child's chance of getting into a good college.
Because of the labor market, French teenagers do not have part-time jobs as frequently as American teenagers do. They are dependent upon their parents for money, even if they may be more independent and more reliant upon their school for a social life than they are likely to see their parents as friends or equals (Giovanni 2007). The division between parent and child, with children being the less privileged of the two, may make French children more eager to grow up. There is something called l'heure de l'adulte, or the adult's hour in France (Giovanni 2007). French children do not usually accompany their parents into the finest restaurants, growing up is a privilege that must be earned with responsibility, and even a French teenager that listens to American popular music and wears American clothing he or she saw on American television does not forget his or her upbringing so easily. A French teenager is likely to want to grow up, and still respects his or her parents; a New York teenager is more likely to enjoy the careless life of being young, with few responsibilities.

Works Cited

Bestore, Theodore & Helen Hardcore. "Contemporary Japan: Culture & Society." Columbia University. 2004. 17 Dec 2007. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at_japan_soc/

Di Giovanni, Janine. "Is Maman mean or magnifique?" The Daily Telegraph.

15 Jun 2007. 17 Dec 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/06/15/nosplit/ftmaman115.xml

Yoon, Hyunsun Catherine. Cultural Values in contemporary Korean advertising: with special reference to the images of the elderly." Volume 1. Number 2. 2003. The Asian Research Center. 17 Dec 2007. http://www.stjohn.ac.th/arc/Cultural%20Values%20in%20contemporary%20Korean%20advertising.pdf