The Families in Costa Rica
Yesterday I was talking to a Costa Rican friend of mine and he was explaining to me how traditional families work. It is quite different to what we are used to. In the rural areas of
The husband is the provider and usually older than the wife. The woman is a housewife, but ends up being more like a house manager, sort of speak. Traditional Costa Rica homes may have more than 2 or 3 kids, in some cases there may be even more than 8 kids. Everyone has to help around the house whether it is helping with the house chores or working outside and help bringing food to the table. In the Guanacaste area it is very common to teach kids to do all kinds of work: house chores, agriculture, selling the goods they grow, etc and they also go to school. Boys usually will go to work with their father when school is out and girls learn everything there is to know about house chores since they are very young.
Yet, it is quite impressive that Costa Rica customs and traditions change from location to location, for example in the main cities like San Jose, people don’t marry young anymore and usually they get university degrees before learning how to cook or clean a house. What is still very common regardless the location is the fact that kids don’t leave their parents household until they get married. However, in
Also, an interested fact is that in the rural areas of
I found all these very interesting, I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t leave my parents’ house at 18? I got married when I was almost 40 years old! This is another thing that amazes me about