premise: Indeed, adults in some non-Western cultures regard American parents as rather merciless in pushing their young children toward independence'for example, when they insist that infants sleep alone rather than with their parents, or when they take pleasure in the earliest possible mastery of motor skills, such as crawling and walking, long before the child has acquired the reasoning powers to avoid steep staircases and busy roadways.
hypothesis: Adults from non-Western countries think it is admirable to push young children towards independence. 