What are the greatest practical application lessons someone can learn from reading "The Kite Runner" about the Afghan/Muslim culture?

I can’t help with anything about the book, because I haven’t read it, but I’ve worked with pregnnat women from other cultures for more than 30 years, so I can answer to that.

Families from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America often sought out female care providers and were especially appreciative of midwifery care. It was often important to to them to avoid hands on care from male providers as much as possible. One of the most important things for us to do was ask how things would normally be done in their culture and see what we could do to accomodate where possible. Maybe they wanted to wear their own clothing while in the hospital. Some would not have their male family members around in labor, even their husbands. Making the pregnant woman’s mother and mother-in-law informed and comfortable tended to be very important. We kept checking in with them as we went along, gave a lot of anticipatory guidance and asked them to let us know if something didn’t feel comfortable so we could consider whether there was another way to do what we needed to do for safety.

Ummm… no matter what culture you’re from, brotherhood is a pretty intense relationship? Children born out of wedlock make people of all cultures feel really uncomfortable and ashamed of themselves? Whatever background a person has, he must make sacrifices to uphold the dignity of his fellows?

I don’t really think that any of those are good answers, but I can’t see how the book and the subject you’re asking about are all that related. Good luck.

@wildpotato Its about relating the culture portrayed in the book to care for people from that culture. They’re related, its pretty clear in the question.

@avvooooooo I wasn’t foggy on the question you are asking – I just think it has no great answer. Come on, trying to relate a book about SPOILER

two brothers who didn’t know they were brothers until after the one who was conscripted to be the servant of the other one gets raped and the other guy allows it to happen in order to win the affection of their father who really loves the unacknowledged servant child, and then years later the main guy gets to have his ass kicked by the rapist in order to save his now dead brother’s son, to anything having to do with labor and delivery, is kind of a messed up project. I’m just sayin.

@wildpotato

I’ve read the book. Twice. You aren’t spoiling anything or giving me any revelations. You also are not, at all, answering my question.

Great answers are possible. MagsRags posted one, even without relating it to the book that she hadn’t read.

Its a CULTURE thing. How CULTURES are different. How someone who comes from a different CULTURE would see something differently than other people from another. This is a book that is revealing about the CULTURE of Afghanistan and also the CULTURE of people from Afghanistan who have moved to the U.S. The CULTURE aspect was what I was asking about.

It appears you are very foggy on the question I was asking.

@avvooooooo This site is used by people other than you and me. Some of whom will not have read the book, and who might want to in the future. Those people were who the spoiler warning was for.

I did, in fact, give you 3 answers in my first post.

Two problems I see here: The Kite Runner does give you a window into Afghan culture. However, it’s not a very large window, and doesn’t look out on anything having to do with labor and delivery. Other than the presence of living children and adults. Second, since the plot does have to do with family relationships, at the very least, it’s where I would think to draw out material for an essay on labor and delivery. But your question did not make it clear that you are not trying to connect that theme with the plot, but only with the CULTURE one is able to see from around the sides of the plot.

I guess I am kind of foggy on what you’re asking. Especially considering that “Its about relating the culture portrayed in the book to care for people from that culture.” is a sentence I cannot make head nor tail of. Relating a culture to care for people from that culture? I know all those words, but they don’t make sense when you put them together that way. You’re really not being terribly clear about what you want. But it’s obviously not answers from me, so I’m done.

@wildpotato

Seriously? If you hate the question, leave it the hell alone. If all you can do is come on here and say that it makes no sense, then don’t bother to post on it. Its a pretty simple concept to grasp. I didn’t make up the assignment (which does indeed make sense) and its useless railing at me about how you can’t make sense of it. Its not going to change.

Again, this is about CULTURE. CULTURE in general. Not the specific situation. But had you actually read the book in even a quasi-academic way you would know that there is indeed a part of the book that goes into the struggle to have children. There is a lot about the CULTURE, the familial relationships, the expectations for the sexes in that CULTURE, and many other things that make this an assignment that does indeed make sense. The other books that were listed as possible readings for this assignment are also windows into cultures that differ from those of the people in the class. This book was chosen for a variety of reasons, mostly because it was critically acclaimed, other people had read it and above all, it was on of the ones on the shelf in the library when my friend went.

The assignment, which I grasped as you seem to be incapable of doing, is done, turned in, and will receive (I’m sure) an excellent grade. No thanks to your bickering about whether the assignment made sense instead of posting anything at all helpful. Despite the lack of anything constructive from you, @wildpotato, we were able to find things to write about. @MagsRags was very helpful (a “great answer” was entirely possible) and we were able to pull from her answer the kind of points for consideration that we were looking for, making sure that we hit the points we needed to hit. The question, as you also seem unable to grasp, was about the main things that people can learn from the book about the CULTURE. It was asked in order to make sure that nothing was being overlooked. It was not posted with the intention that someone would come on and bitch on and on about how they can’t make sense of things that do make sense.

If you can’t get the question, if you can’t say ANYTHING helpful, why say anything at all? Seriously? Why the hell even bother to harass me about things I can’t change and you’re incapable of understanding? Just leave the question the hell alone.

Its that simple.

She got an A on the paper, in case anyone is interested.