Cultural Crossroads: American vs. Albanian Parenting

Edison: [00:00:00] What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Don't Count Your Calories. First off, thank you everyone for reviewing our show, rating us, and listening and watching. Because of you guys, we've ranked top 100 in both the United States and the UAE for relationship podcasts. Going from there, just a couple of topics we're going to talk about today is going to be American parenting versus Albanian slash immigrant parenting. Edison: I guess you could say Western parenting versus Edison: Non Edison: Western parenting, uh, let's say. Not coming from the Alexa: U. S., Edison: basically. Before we get to all that, we have some news, I guess, for ourselves. We just recently came back from visiting Thailand. I'm sure you guys may have seen it on our Instagram page. With our food reviews, our 7 reviews. And all that. And we also got engaged in Thailand. Yes, we did. Edison: We also found out some other news in Thailand while we were over there. Yeah, Alexa: but we'll, uh, let you guys know that in a later episode. But yeah, lots of fun [00:01:00] news that happened while we were away. It was such a beautiful trip. We were there for A little bit over a week. Yeah, almost two weeks, like 11 days. Alexa: We got to go to a lot of the different islands there. They were so beautiful. The food was amazing. Highly recommend to go to Thailand if you have not been Edison: before. Definitely one of my top destinations that we've been to so far. But, anyway for to follow more of our travels and our journey into food and all of that, just follow our Instagram and our TikTok at don'tcountyourcalories We always try to post something with our travels with different types of foods we're eating. Edison: So not only can you pay attention to our podcasts and all of our advice and what we think about relationships, you can also see where we're going So So let's go on from there. Yeah, let's get right into the American versus Albanian parenting, uh, which, you know, American can also mean British and all that stuff, because I feel like that's more of the same. Edison: Like Western Alexa: culture. I think that's what we're trying to say. Eastern. Eastern European culture, or just any other culture that isn't [00:02:00] considered like American or British. Yeah. But even so, I still think those can have differing, differing ways of parenting. Yeah, for sure. Differing experiences. Edison: The first thing that you'll notice, especially with Albanian families, is that the kids tend to stay within the home a lot longer. It's not this idea of turn 18, you gotta leave. And it's in these American families and Western families, you see that often. Edison: You're like, oh, I can't wait till my kid turns 18 so he can get the fuck out. Yeah. You know, that's usually Alexa: Every American parent, I feel like, is like that. They're just waiting until their kids 18 to be able to just be like, Alright, now you're going to college. See you. Now you get no money. Exactly. Edison: Or Exactly. I don't know. Or you do, but Or you do, but you still get an allowance. Whatever, if your parents are in that, in that place to give you the money. But I think this in itself has an underlying meaning. It's, I think it's a societal thing where now we get into like a touch of conspiracy, let's say, basically the [00:03:00] idea here is when you turn 18 and you get kicked out of the house what you're actually doing to your kid and what's happening to you as a kid at 18 is you're entering the market straight away. Edison: So what you're doing is you're immediately at 18 years old worried about paying the bills. So when you have the bills to pay that early. What you have to do is take on all these odd jobs and take on all these other ways to make income because now you're chasing bills. So the moment you turn 18, pay rent or whatever money, rent, obviously electric bills, food, everything. Edison: So now you get into the mode of, now I constantly need to chase a payment. Edison: When Edison: you start that young chasing a payment, you enter the economy and now you're providing into the economy. So for the country wise, money is circulating more because Constantly you're chasing bills and a lot of people from 18 till they die, they never stop chasing bills, you Alexa: know, you're saying in the American society, that's Edison: an American early society. Edison: It's this idea of get people in the workforce earlier [00:04:00] because the earlier they start chasing bills, the sooner we can get them into the rat race. And as we know, a lot of people never escape that. So you're constantly on the verge of chasing a bill, chasing a bill, chasing bill, where to a point where you never, yeah. Edison: Get out of that. A huge amount of people just never get out of that. Yeah. Whereas like, Alexa: No, I was gonna say, and with your family and how a lot of people even are, being in UAE, you'll see kids living with, their parents for much longer after high school. They're even still living there in college and after college. Alexa: Right. And they don't feel this stress of having to immediately get into the workforce. They can figure out what they want to do. Mm hmm. If you are a privileged American, and if you come from a privileged family that gives you the opportunity to go to college and not have to take out student loans, you're not as in debt to that you can absolutely figure out what you still want to do, but you're still conforming to the societal norm of, high school, [00:05:00] college, and then afterwards going into, generally, a corporate job, so really still binds you to that like rat race kind of society where I feel like even when we go back home your cousin who's like my age, like 26 or 27, he's still living with your parents and with his parents. Alexa: So it's normal in that way. And it wouldn't even be weird where if I was still living with my parents back in the States, it's not that it would be weird. It's just more, it's definitely not normal. Like most people are living. Alone or living with a roommate or something like that. It's just like it might just be a little bit like why are you doing that? Alexa: Yeah, Edison: yeah, yeah, but yeah, I've been in Albanian parents with Albanian parents. It's more like where are you going? Why? Why are you leaving? Yeah, why would you leave? Edison: you leave? You don't want them to Edison: Yeah, why would you leave like unless like you're basically in a relationship And then you're moving on to make your own family like a lot of people don't leave their house until it's like all right Now I'm building my [00:06:00] own family, and then that's when you leave. Edison: Yeah, like you said, it gives you more of that freedom. It's just the concept of every, let's say, your mom, your dad are working, you're working, whatever. All that money is coming to one household, and then that one household has more, just has more, so therefore, you have that extra bit of freedom to decide, alright, what steps you're going to take. Edison: You're not pressured into making a decision. You have a little bit of extra freedom. Now, granted, you do see people that overstay, the other spectrum of it, but you know, in general, I think the idea of 18 get out, it's there's no age to it, it's more of where are you in life, to Alexa: where Can you even afford to get out? Alexa: And interesting feel like something that I really want to bring up is when it comes to An American family versus a not American family is growing up. We had completely different experiences when it came to cooking. Alexa: And I know a lot of American [00:07:00] families were really big in the kitchen, and you got to see your parents really enjoy cooking and baking and going to the grocery store, all of these things. But For me, it was definitely a little bit different. I, both of my parents are just like, quintessential American parents. Alexa: And, honestly, I never really saw my mom cook. I don't think my mom dislikes cooking. I don't think she knows how to cook, or she knew how to cook. Anytime she would see me making something, even as simple as like a grilled cheese, she would be like, wow, this is crazy. Alexa: And our diets, our diets like growing up were absolutely insane. It was like boxed food, 100 calorie packs, like lean cuisine meals, Edison: briars. When you told me about lean cuisine, I was like, that's disgusting. Yeah. I was like, that's Alexa: disgusting. And after a certain while, I just remember rebelling against her food and her cooking. Yeah. Because I just couldn't [00:08:00] take it anymore, and my poor father the meals that my mom would feed him every night were just Kind of despicable. Alexa: They should, it should be considered jail food. I feel so bad saying this, but it was definitely, my parents had this dollar amount to every meal, and I don't think that they realized that, if you spend a little bit more time preparing the meals, that it would actually be the same amount as just buying a five dollar lean cuisine meal. Alexa: You know? So she would feed him, typical, Typical dinner for my father would be, those packaged, uh, salads, the plastic ones. She would, um, take that, like a romaine, and throw a few cherry tomatoes on it. She wouldn't even cut them up. And then she would do the craft, that was an island dressing. Alexa: That would be his appetizer every single night. My father never complained. Never complained. Ate it all up. Yeah, ate it all up. Every last bit. And she would serve it to him in a [00:09:00] paper bowl. Because she didn't want to do the dishes. Oh my gosh. It's a red flag if every time you go into someone's house, their sink is just always clean. Alexa: Like, do you cook? No. I never had a dirty sink in my house. And we never used the oven either. Yeah. I never, we used to just store pans and pots that we used. It was just storage. It was just storage, the oven. Oh my gosh. For dinner. She would serve him spaghetti and meatball lean cuisine. Yeah. Yeah, or like, a meatloaf lean cuisine. Alexa: That's nasty. Disgusting. That's nasty. And then Kinda Edison: like school lunch, like worse than school lunch. Worse. Worse. Worse than school lunch. Alexa: Once I started, like, I would say in high school and middle school, going out to lunch with other people and going to my friends houses for dinners and things like that. Alexa: I really started to rebel, and I basically told my mom I wouldn't be eating that food. Yeah. Because the only one that I was okay with for the microwavable meals were the pizza. So I would just [00:10:00] be like, alright, fine, you can give me like a cheese pizza, like I'll take it. Microwave cheese pizza. So bad. And then for dessert, it was usually the dull fruit cups. Edison: my god, and like in that fucking syrup. And like the nasty syrup. Yeah. Alexa: Ugh. This was, like, two people coming from a time where cholesterol and sodium were, like, the death of diets. Yeah, Edison: but lean cuisine is Alexa: filled with sodium. Exactly, but it's low calorie. Oh, my god. Yeah, so, so that was their mindset. Alexa: Reminds you, Edison: Your dad's, like, from Virginia. Yeah. So it's that, like, Virginia, white America type of cuisine. Which is essentially where people make fun of unseasoned chicken type of fucking Alexa: No, it's, like Really, really unfortunate. I sometimes feel like it's trauma, what I experienced when it came to food. Alexa: I literally had no idea how to cook until I got into college. And I started, cooking with my friends, and they would teach me how to make recipes. I, literally, I used to make jokes [00:11:00] when I was in college. People would be like, oh, can you cook? And I was like, I can make a really good cereal. you're deadass. But, the fact that they grew up not grew up, I mean, that was like their standard and like they never complained about it. I'm not sure if it was out of laziness, but, they just never cooked, I've never seen my dad cook. Alexa: I don't even think he would know what to make if he were to cook. But, yeah, it was definitely an interesting environment when it came to diets and food. It was definitely a household that was very strict about calories, calorie counting. Very Edison: unhealthy. It's simply just eating for energy. Yeah. Edison: Just to stay alive. Kind of. Not to enjoy it. Yeah. Oh my Alexa: god. I should tell the story about the bagel situation. Oh, oh god, that's fucking disgusting too. One Jewish [00:12:00] Jewish family, Edison: you know what I mean? Yeah. Not to stereotype, Alexa: but Yeah, we're an American Jewish family, grew up in, New York City, right in like midtown kind of area. Alexa: And we loved bagel sandwiches. Like bagels with the schmears, like lox bread, cream cheese. My father really liked chopped liver. Yeah, and white fish. Yeah, so did my mom. Edison: Out of all the things to put in a bagel. Out of all the things to put in a bagel. I usually look at those and I'm like, Who the fuck would ever put that? Alexa: Talk about sodium. By the way, they would also scoop out the bagel. So I never experienced, yeah, exactly, but pack on the sodium that they were so afraid of with the bagel spreads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time we would go on vacation, my mom would go to the bagel store. Essa Bagel was like right across the street from us. Alexa: We loved the people there. And she would get three bagel sandwiches with the [00:13:00] spreads in them. For me, she would get the cream cheese, my mom would get the lox spread, and my dad would usually get the chopped liver. And mind you, scooped out and not toasted. I don't think she would ever toast it. Alexa: Just very simple. And the thing is also my mom never got the spreads on the side. It was always within the sandwiches, and then she would save them throughout the week and eat those. Long story short, when we would go on the airplanes, every time we would go, she would take through TSA a big Ziploc bag of three bagels. Alexa: Doesn't matter if it was 6 a. Edison: m. Chopped liver. Yeah. You told me that they would freeze it the night before. Freeze the fucking no, they would put it in the fridge. Oh, put a chopped liver and fucking whitefish bagel in the fridge. Before getting on a flight. Yeah. Because God, God forbid you spend the money on the airport. Edison: Yeah, oh my God. On the extra, extra expensive food. If I were. But out of all the, ugh. If I were to spend. And opening it up in a plane. That's what I'm saying. So mind you, alright, so, like, let's, let's put this into a whole big picture. You're [00:14:00] buying the bagel, like, at night. Let's say the bagel place is closed, so you have to buy it probably by 7 o'clock, let's say. Edison: Yeah. 8 o'clock. So you're buying a whitefish and fucking chopped liver filled bagel at 7 o'clock. Your flight, let's say, is 6 a. m. So it has to sit in the fridge from 7 till about 3 or 4 because you have to get to the airport at least 2 hours early. Yeah. So 3, let's say 3, you take it out. So now from 3 o'clock, you get to the airport, you get through security at 4. Edison: 4. Edison: You don't get on the plane until about 5. 30. So now, they're taking off. And now it's 6. 30. Babe, this is one thing. So for 12 hours, that bagel's just sitting there. And now It's warm now. Now it's warm. And the white fish is fucking warm. And now your mom and your dad are opening up the chopped liver and white fish bagels. Edison: In economy. In the fucking economy in front of everybody. The three of us. Stank that must have happened at that fuck and not on those flights. I used to look around I'm [00:15:00] surprised nobody got Alexa: food poisoning. Yeah. No, no. No, this was by the way This was nothing one day for those sandwiches to be sitting there Usually my mom would like I said keep them throughout the week. Alexa: So she would have Three, she would maybe get like six bagels. Edison: It sounds like child abuse. Yeah, Alexa: not like for immigrant families. Could you imagine? Edison: This is like like jokes that we, that immigrant families make about American families. But we don't know 100 percent if they're real or not. We just, heard. Edison: Like we heard of the unseasoned stuff and whatever and we just think it's a joke. But this is like really the truth. Alexa: Oh, I've told you that we didn't have salt in the house. We had pepper. We didn't have salt, we didn't have garlic, we didn't have any of these seasonings that like we use now. My parents I mean they don't cook, I guess what was the use to have the salt? Alexa: But I remember asking my mom when I was in high school can we buy salt? And she said no. She said Edison: no salt. Yeah. No, you just take the chicken, she doesn't, she's not cooking the chicken, she's getting it [00:16:00] pre made anyway. Oh yeah. But that brings me to a point where I went to A barbeque once, a friend of mine, he was dating this girl. Edison: And they were like a straight up super American family, let's say. Yeah. And, he invites me to a barbeque. So I get there, I'm excited, the barbeque fucking obviously. I see the chicken coming in, the burger patties and all this shit. And I'm like fucking obviously excited, and this is the first time I'm going to their house. Edison: I take the chicken on a skewer, I bite into it. And I'm just like, what the f I'm like, what the fuck is going on? There's no flavor. Edison: at all, Edison: And it looks good because it's like chicken on the skewer. And I look at my boy and he's like, I know, bro. I'm like, yeah, why is there? He's like, they don't put any fucking season. Edison: I like I up until that moment, I thought that no seasoning was a joke. I thought it was just like this, like a stereotype joke. You know what I mean? I just thought it was a regular stereotype joke that people make. That's when I realized, oh, this joke and this stereotype comes from a real fucking place. Edison: Yeah. I was like. I was fucking disappointed. Now my plate is full of everything. I'm like, I can't fucking eat any of this. [00:17:00] There's no, I was like, if I knew, I would have at least brought some hot sauce in my pocket and fucking put it on the, it was disgusting. Alexa: Yeah. I will say a lot of, barbecues I had went to when I was a kid. Alexa: I don't have vivid memories of the food ever being good. And at least the standards weren't there for me to know whether or not if it was actually good. I didn't really grow up Edison: with flavor. It's like straight from a fucking package to a grill. Yes, like Alexa: Costco or something like that. But the thing is, is, I will say a lot of white people like that. Alexa: Maybe, like the one, the, the house that you had went to. Usually, we will not cook our own food. We will go and get the pre made food and pretend that we made it. We'll go to Cittarella, let's Edison: say. I think let's say white American population, I think in the South, they definitely season their meat. Edison: Yes, yes. But the fucking Northeast, no. No, no, Alexa: no, no. We're eating out. We're getting Edison: the lobster rolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alexa: Yeah, it's an interesting You just said lobster rolls. Yeah, we're getting, I'm getting the main lobster rolls, [00:18:00] loving it. But that's another thing is like, taste is like really subjective. Alexa: Because something that would be really delicious to like my mom or my dad, to me, would just be like, how on earth do you like this? Yeah. Chopped Edison: liver? But I think it's subjective if you don't try. You know what I'm saying? Once you take yourself out of the box and you try all these different things. Edison: Then you understand what's really untasty. Like, granted, like, obviously some things are, like, cultural and whatever. But once you try different cuisines, but, like, going back to that, going back to the American Albanian thing. Like, in my family my brother is cooking since he's eight. Edison: You know, he's at least making eggs. He was making eggs for my sister who was three, four, and he was eight years old, and he was cooking her eggs and whatnot. And he would hide it oh, no, no, I didn't make that. Like someone else made it. Using seasonings and all that. So cute. My mom, my sister now, she's like 13, she can cook you a whole meal from beginning to end. Edison: Yeah. Another thing, though, in regards to Edison: Immigrant Edison: and non immigrant parents is [00:19:00] allowances. Ah. You know. So, like, the one thing that was, like, when I had went to school, I think it was like high school. No, it was before high school. I go in and my friends are telling me like, Oh yeah, I get an allowance, like 100 a week, or whatever the case. Edison: I'm like, really? They're like, yeah, yeah, just basically, they get a standard. For me, it was like every dollar I had to ask, you know? Every dollar, can I have a dollar? Can I have 5? And she was like, this one girl, she was like, Oh yeah, I get 50, 70 a week. I was like, fuck, I should ask my dad, let me go ask my dad for an allowance. So I was just like, hey, dad, like, kids in my school are like getting allowances. I feel like I should get an allowances. He's like, you should get an allowance. Oh, really? He said, well, I allow you to live in my house. Oh, I allow you to eat my food. I, guess what? Edison: I also allow you to sleep. He's like Allowance! There you go! I'm like, that's when I was like, Ah, okay, this is not happening for me. This is not gonna happen for me. I'm like, damn those [00:20:00] lucky bastards. Yeah, Edison: is so Alexa: funny. No, it was not like that. I don't know, it depends on what kind of an American you are too. Alexa: I definitely got an allowance growing up. I never had to like, worry about that. Honestly, I got an allowance even throughout college. Damn. I got a, I got Edison: something called a job. Yeah. Alexa: Yeah. No, Edison: I didn't get a job. I got an allowance. It was like, you want money, you gotta get a job. Alexa: Well, the thing is, is like, I was, I obviously realized that was a very lucky situation that I was in. Alexa: But, that's the thing. I was having unpaid internships and stuff like that. I was able to have the luxury, also, to have unpaid internships going through college, which I think is such bullshit. Like, how do you expect There should no longer be unpaid internships. That's absolutely crazy to me. Edison: Anyway, let's not deviate to the unpaid internships Alexa: part. Anyway, anyway, yeah. So I was doing the unpaid internships and obviously my mom would always really advocate for me. So I was probably getting like 100 a week. And if I wanted more, I would text [00:21:00] her and figure out some sort of a way they could put a little 20, let me go out tonight. Alexa: I would always Edison: do odd things to make money, but at around 13 it was the moment, the breaking point, where I was like, yeah, I'm gonna get a job. And at that moment in time, I lied about, like, my age, and I got a job at a pizza place, getting paid cash. Yeah. But it was because my friends were going out to the movies, and I'm asking my dad for 30 or something like that, or 40 to go. Edison: And, man, it must have took an hour to get this fucking money. He was like, Uh, why do you need it? Where are you going? Who are you going with? Alright, yeah, cool, all this. He's like, do you know how much it costs in this country to raise a kid? And I was like, oh, for fuck's sake, like I'm just trying to go to the movies, you know? Edison: And he's like, he made me sign, I think he has it to this day, he made me sign a contract. That was like, he had saw a documentary where it was like, it takes in America at this time, 200, 000 or something to raise a kid up to like age 16 or something. So he made me sign a contract that I would pay him back.[00:22:00] Edison: 200, 000. And 40, because that 40 I needed for the movie. So he's like, this is another 40 on top of the 200, 000 I'm going to spend. My dad's accent is not that rough, but maybe it is. It sounds like that, for sure. So, he's like, so he made me, he wrote a contract. I will pay my father, and then he wrote his name. Edison: And then a back 200,000 plus the $40 for the movies, and then I had to sign it at the bottom in order to get my $40. I'm pretty sure he still has that paper saved to this day. He, and he's waiting for two, his $200,040 payback. Yeah. He's like, for sure. He's just chilling right now. He's like, one day, one day I'm gonna put his ass to court. Edison: Yeah. For real, Alexa: for real. But it, but it's different because if you were to say but when, like, you're going out with a girl or something like that, I'm sure he would just hand you the money. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Facts. Edison: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like that's As an Albanian guy, like, when Albanians have a boy as a kid, he gets everything. Edison: Everybody knows that. The boys, usually, they get everything. The girls, usually the parents are more strict with the girls than they are with the boys. But yeah, [00:23:00] with my dad, it was like, if I'm going out with this girl, here you go, my son. Yeah. My son is going out. Yes. Here you go. Take the money. That is so funny. Edison: But no. Yeah, if it was just to do something, it would, it's, it would be a problem. But yeah, that, at that time around like 13, I worked at the pizza place. I was making cash, and I was like, all right, don't have to fucking ask this guy for money anymore. Thank God, you know? Yeah. Thank God I don't have to ask him for money. Edison: I'd Alexa: feel the same way if I were you too, at a certain point. You gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta make some money, gotta do something, you know? Edison: Yeah. So any, any other things that we can talk about in regards to American versus Albanian parenting? I wanted to Alexa: mention that besides being a kid. Yeah. Edison: that too. Edison: that, that too for foreigners definitely beat their kids. Alexa: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely didn't have to deal with that. Yeah. You were Edison: definitely yelling at your parents, weren't you? For sure. Yeah. If I yelled, yeah. So bad if I yelled. Whew. Yeah. Wasn't yelling again a second Alexa: time. Let me tell you. I was definitely talking back for sure, but it was not good. Alexa: Like I look back on those and like I really regret it, but that's the thing is like [00:24:00] there was no like, it was, there wasn't like that kind of parenting, like it was very like. go to school, get good grades, and then we'll be a little lenient, uh, with you. But another thing that maybe is American and not, foreign is tutoring. Alexa: I don't know if you ever had tutors when you were, like, growing up, but Yeah, Edison: yeah, I had tutors. It was my mom. Yeah. And my dad. And then my mom, uh, she had a special form of tutoring. It was like, if she told you for example, when I was learning the times tables, I think I was five or six, it was like let's say she said eight times, eight multiple times and I was like, kept forgetting. Edison: Yeah. By the third time, are you an idiot? Yeah. You, you said this three times, 64. 64. You're like, oh my God, it's 64 to this day, I remember it eight times 8 64 because I remember, remember learning the, remember that smack back in the Alexa: day, . Yeah. See I never experienced that. I think like immediately when I started doing bad or anything in school, my mom just went straight to the tutors. Alexa: I was [00:25:00] getting tutors, especially in high school. I mean, I was getting throughout like my childhood education. If I wasn't doing well in a class, my mom would get me a tutor. Yeah. It would be like a hundred dollars a day. Crazy. It could be like for two hours, a hundred dollars easily. Like the amount of money that she spent, like they were putting me in private school, like then having tutors basically every single day just to get me to do my homework. Alexa: I Edison: don't know. Usually like the tutors for homework is wild to me because usually when the reports cards came out, especially like in the schools that I went to, like Queens and whatnot, it was I had a lot of foreign kids in my I had like a lot of foreigners like in my classes. So everyone that knew was like, not did not do good this market period. Edison: It was like, holy shit, we got to run home. And get the mail before our parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if my dad got the mail, and that shit said a bad grade, Aw man, it was like hell was coming. Hell was coming. Yeah, I Alexa: remember that too. But the, also the issue I think is [00:26:00] my parents were paying for private school, so maybe my mom was like I would rather pay her to get the tutors so she can get an A on her homework. Alexa: So then the private school will then be worth it paying all of this much to get her into a good school. But I didn't, I mean, I went to a good school, but I definitely didn't get into the best school. But you know what I'm saying. Another thing I wanted to mention was remember that time that we had asked my dad if he wanted to get like Albanian food or something like that. Alexa: And he like didn't even know what it was. He like googled it. Oh my god. He googled the food like Interesting. Yeah, Edison: he started looking at pictures of the food. Yeah Like never seen the funniest part was like when my mom met up with like your dad and whatnot And they're like, oh, we figured we'd pick an Italian spot because it's closer to where they're from. Edison: They just pick the closest country, close to Alameda. They're like, oh yeah, it must be all the same shit. Like, they don't Alexa: even know. They think everything that isn't American food or sushi is exotic. That's so interesting. Like, [00:27:00] or they're just not interested in it at all. It's really weird. Edison: spices, the parenting techniques. That's for sure. Yeah. Definitely like the daughter versus son thing is definitely a thing in foreign parents and, and yeah, like usually it's just much more connected, like family wise, it stays connected for a lot longer. That's definitely one thing, especially with Albanians, Albanians, like they will, like you already know my aunts, my uncles, everybody is so close to each other, like in, in Albanian families, we stay close to like our second cousins and whatever the case, like our families are so huge because we're not, It's not just like our unit, me, my parents and my siblings, like me, my parents, my siblings, my parents, brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, their kids my parents, cousins and their kids. Edison: And so you, you're constantly around all different families. I don't even know how to like call in English, how to call certain cousins. Like I don't know if it's like first cousin twice removed or some bullshit. I don't know how to say it in English, but there's so [00:28:00] many cousins you've met. Edison: I mean, you've met how many of my cousins and you're like. A good amount. You can't even keep track, you know. No, there's a lot. I have cousins all over the world, and I'm like, Oh, my cousin which cousin, you know? Yeah. It's like a hundred Alexa: cousins. That's, it's also very different for a born and bred American family, like, we just don't have or you're very lucky if you have connections like that with family I grew up in a very small family, and we would see our cousins, every once in a while, maybe two, three times a year. Alexa: It just wasn't connected like that, and even for you, like we were talking about earlier, like your mom would, fly you to Kosovo every single summer to stay with your aunt and your uncle. Yeah, Edison: I would stay with my family all summer, two months, three months. Edison: You're like in high Edison: school or not even. Edison: Yeah. And you just go to Kosovo and you stay in multiple different families houses. Like, never. And then you call and you kind of have to You'd have to strategically stay at every uncle's or aunt's place a certain amount of time, otherwise they'd get offended. Like, why didn't you stay at ours, you know? Edison: Versus like American families, you're like, what the fuck are you doing here? Get out. Exactly, Alexa: like coming [00:29:00] unannounced or just I could never imagine my mom having me stay with my cousins in Massachusetts for two months. I couldn't even imagine the idea of that. After two days, it would be enough for them. Alexa: There's just not a connection like that. It's really, really interesting. That's why Edison: Albanian weddings, you know, it's like minimum 500 people that you know and then the other 400 that you had to invite that you have no idea and they're like, oh, I remember you since you were this small and you're like, pfft. Edison: The amount of times you get that around the place is, as well. But with that being said, everyone that's our episode on American vs. Foreign Parenting and just Americans Edison: or foreigners in Edison: general. In general, yeah. Again, give us five stars on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on all your favorite platforms. Edison: Give us a nice review, that helps us with our analytics and with our algorithm type of shit. And also, uh, TikTok and Instagram, don't count your calories. Follow us everywhere, comment. We love to have a back and forth conversation about any of these topics that we're talking about. I love [00:30:00] that we're seeing some of our friends commenting talking to us about it. Edison: Yeah. It's nice. So, thank you, and see you on the next episode.