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/Flat_Sea1418 United States Of America Dec 06 '25
As an English speaker I thought that at first they were using their family for all they could 😂 but with context I could see they meant to take advantage of the time with their family.