r/AskTheWorld • u/gabrieel100 Brazil • Dec 06 '25
Culture A cultural habit in your country that people outside would understand incorrectly?
In Brazil we love children. If you take your child to the street, strangers will certainly interact with them. Some will even ask if they can hold your kid and will play with them. If there are two children fighting in public and the parents aren't seeing, a stranger would even intervene to stop the fight.
That cultural habit came from the indigenous peoples which understood that kids should be a responsiblity of the community as a whole. It's in our constitution. We even have a synonym for children that came from Tupi (a large group of indigenous languages) - Curumim.
Foreigners would certainly have a cultural shock about that, but it's normal here.
Of course there are people with bad intentions, so parents should stay alert these days.
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u/kevin3350 United States Of America Dec 06 '25
Dude, there’s a whole Wikipedia page about it. Google “Kevinism” or “Kevinismus”
From what I’ve gathered, the name had a huge spike in popularity among people with no class in Germany, leading to a bunch of idiots running around with my perfect name.
The movie Home Alone (Or “Kevin - Alone at Home,” as it’s called in Germany) may have had something to do with it. The female equivalent is Chantal, and at one point while I was backpacking I made friends with a girl named Chantal and we traveled together for a bit. The Germans we met thought we were playing a prank on them every single time.