Bhutan - Family

There are no child care centers in Bhutan. ( I cant verify but was told this and it surely appeared to be so ). One of the things that struck me over and over in Bhutan was that the children were out in the fields or in shops or at the market with one or both of their parents as the parents worked. The children that I saw were never demanding attention, pouting or whining. I imagine this sounds like some sort of blind eyed vision on my part but, truly, I only saw contented children. They were not ignored by their parents, not at all, but never seemed to interfere with the work at hand either.

It occurs to me that, while the educational system of Bhutan being in its very early stages cannot be compared to that of developed countries, there is a kind of familial learning in Bhutan that is lacking in the western world. Bhutanese children are with their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles much more than than American children are. I think of the skills being learned in the pictures above as hard, perhaps, to measure - no As or Fs or pass, fail - but as equally life enhancing as,say, geometry and french.