Now I know why my husband loves Mexico. And I thought it was the tequila…
That construct has just always tickled me because it attributes carelessness, misjudgment, or even bad intent to inanimate objects such as place setting items. “Wasn’t me! The dish did it!”
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I have a Mexican friend who I always ask about cultural differences. She has travelled extensively and lived in Canada and the US, doesn’t take offense, and is very forthcoming in her answers.
I asked her several years ago if this shrugging off of responsibility reflected in the language is only prevalent in the area where we live, or is cultural. She said it is cultural and crosses all socio-economic levels.
Then she went on to say,
“And I’ll tell you exactly where it starts. When a child is little and learning to walk and falls and knocks itself on a chair and starts to cry, the Mexican mothers go over and hit the chair, saying ‘You bad chair, you hurt my baby’. So instead of understanding that when you are learning to walk, it’s natural to fall down a lot and maybe get hurt a little, they are taught that it’s the chair’s fault that the child got hurt.”
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Must be a dream come true for trauma therapists there. Geez.
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