Trey,
what i get from tony's comments is not the racial difference but more of trying to blend the cultural differences. I am about as white as it gets myself, a 100% dutch heritage Australian who now lives in the US. What resonates with me is the alienation that you can sometinmes feel. Mostly it's a great time to have you child influenced by 2 cultures, believe me there are a lot of differences between australian and american cultures. My son really takes after me in his speech patterns, so far, and i love that but as a family it's sometimes hard, like celebrating MLK day. I mean, what a great guy, but he didn't influence me at all as a kid or teenager, where as someone like Peter Garrett the lead singer of Midnight Oil and now Minister for the Environment in the Australian government is a great leader and example for me and hopefully my son, but how do you convey that in a different country and culture. It's hard.
My second point is also one that Tony brought up briefly and that is values. For Tony i can definately see some parallels with my life. I mean that as an Australian I have a, work very hard in work time and play hard in play time, attitude. In the US it seems that people work all the time and at about 60 - 70% (sorry for the gross generalisation, i also know alot of people that work at 100% all the time). My point is, i don't want my son to grow up being controlled by his job. I want him to have my attitude of working to live not living to work. People in the area where i live are mostly blue collar workers and they grind out their 70hr weeks to make ends meet, i respect that, i just don't want to do it. So how do you pass that on to your child with out making them an outcast?
You are right Trey, race and ethnicity do not matter, it only matters that we tolerate and accept others for their differences and pass that down to our children. We always hang out with others like us but shouldn't we also try to hang out with people that aren't like us? I have learnt alot from people that i don't even share a common language with.
I guess thats why we are all checking out this site; because we want to expand on our knowledge and understanding of something we hold very dear, Fatherhood.
It's about culture not race
Trey,
what i get from tony's comments is not the racial difference but more of trying to blend the cultural differences. I am about as white as it gets myself, a 100% dutch heritage Australian who now lives in the US. What resonates with me is the alienation that you can sometinmes feel. Mostly it's a great time to have you child influenced by 2 cultures, believe me there are a lot of differences between australian and american cultures. My son really takes after me in his speech patterns, so far, and i love that but as a family it's sometimes hard, like celebrating MLK day. I mean, what a great guy, but he didn't influence me at all as a kid or teenager, where as someone like Peter Garrett the lead singer of Midnight Oil and now Minister for the Environment in the Australian government is a great leader and example for me and hopefully my son, but how do you convey that in a different country and culture. It's hard.
My second point is also one that Tony brought up briefly and that is values. For Tony i can definately see some parallels with my life. I mean that as an Australian I have a, work very hard in work time and play hard in play time, attitude. In the US it seems that people work all the time and at about 60 - 70% (sorry for the gross generalisation, i also know alot of people that work at 100% all the time). My point is, i don't want my son to grow up being controlled by his job. I want him to have my attitude of working to live not living to work. People in the area where i live are mostly blue collar workers and they grind out their 70hr weeks to make ends meet, i respect that, i just don't want to do it. So how do you pass that on to your child with out making them an outcast?
You are right Trey, race and ethnicity do not matter, it only matters that we tolerate and accept others for their differences and pass that down to our children. We always hang out with others like us but shouldn't we also try to hang out with people that aren't like us? I have learnt alot from people that i don't even share a common language with.
I guess thats why we are all checking out this site; because we want to expand on our knowledge and understanding of something we hold very dear, Fatherhood.
Cheers,
Ben