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bringing in different cultures
I started this forum area for race and culture because I think we dads, whether we have multiracial kids or not, can learn from these types of discussions. Being intentional and thoughtful about our background/cultural/heritage, regardless of whether it's race, culture, or really anything else. Traditions and preferences get all mixed in there, so it always make for an exciting ride.
Both my wife and I are American-born Chinese, so we face very few differences "between us", but some differences between us and the American culture (and the Chinese culture) that we live in. We get the best and worst of both worlds. Best - we can interact with both cultures, speak both languages, experience food/culture/people. In some sense, we appreciate both cultures more as a result of the other. Worst - we don't exactly fit in either culture. On bad days, both cultures see us as sorta oddball sell-outs, adding to the complexity of teenage identity crises, etc. We sometimes experience the negative "stereotypes" from both ends (how did I get out of high school without getting beat up?!?).
All that being said, going forward, I'm hoping our little one can experience the richness of knowing both (and other!) cultures. I want him to be proud to be American and proud to have a Chinese heritage.
Those who married interracially or who married into families very different than your own... would love to hear how you deal with it all - the expectations, the holidays, the value clashes, the weaving in, the compromises - and how it all blends together (or how you survive it all).
storytelling & remembering our heritage
drtrey - I think you bring up a great idea - simply telling stories about their grandparents (and extended family). I think that'll go a long way in the kids' sense of background and history. I've seen some school actually assign homework similar to this.
Secondly, I think we may be able to learn the most about our own culture/values, when we hang out with others with different cultures/values. It brings our own underlying assumptions to light and personally, helps me understand that my way isn't necessarily the "best way", it's just the way I know. Living between 2 cultures helps me understand that, and honestly maybe gives us a head-start at understanding and appreciating other cultures as well.
awesome that a chinese-american, an Australian, and a Scotish-Irish Southerner can talk about this kind of stuff!
you're really making me think!
thanks guys for the thoughtful comments! Honestly, I'm still thinking through what you've said (and I'm preparing for a big presentation at work for tomorrow!). I'll have more to say later, but for now:
I'm totally on the same page as ya'll - differences between humans come in all shapes and sizes. Culture is a big one, but so are personality and values. It gets complicated because culture, personality, and values are all related and somewhat linked together.
I guess my point in bringing up these topics is this desire to have my child know "where he came from," whatever that means. Also, I do hope some values do get through (like you said, being solid) and some sense of appreciation of his heritage. I've seen too many Chinese-Americans "abandon" what's good about being Chinese, while I've seen others stay isolated in their Chinese-American communities in America. How do you do "both/and" instead of "either/or"?
both and
I hear you about keeping your pride in your Chinese heritage, I really support you in that. It gives your children a sense of pride in who their people were, where they come from. Maybe the both/and comes in by celebrating the neat stuff in the cultures around us. Not just ours, but what is in our community and nation as well. The cool thing about America is that we have been so blessed by immigration.
I let my oldest, she is 13, know about where our family came from, I tell her stories I know about her grand and greatgrandparents too. We visit the Louisiana area, and are going down there for a community reunion in May. Beyond that is taking the good parts of being southerners and celebrating that while still talking about and owning the horrible history of racism and slavery.
Some movies are so great at sharing culture, and Discovery Channel type stations do that too.
Well, let's keep on sharing and thinking, it will be good for us and our kids.
Trey
Drtrey3 Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Father of Four including 5 year old triplets
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
culture, not race
Thanks Ben, those are good thoughts and well written. I do think that race matters, not in terms of acceptability, ability, or character, but our stimulus value and how others perceive us in terms of their beliefs and attitudes on race. The times that I have been the only white guy in the room are interesting because they were so few, and the only daily prejudice I tend to deal with is that I am fat. It has to make a difference in your life when you spend a large amount of your day looking or talking differently. I am a southerner, and when I visited northern Minnesota people would come across the room just to hear me talk! But that is so different from people holding negative assumptions about me because of the way I look or talk. So I know that is important.
Yes, hanging out with people who are different from us is good for us all. It stretches and educates me and my family. I think we must share many of our moral values for it to be a good thing, but the other values are more free to vary. Does that make sense to you?
Good solid people come from all political, sexual, and other orientations as well as all cultures, races, and religions. Obviously! But the moral orientation is important for me to feel comfortable and safe. And the guys I hang with are diverse in race and religion and politics and sexuality, but they are all solid moral guys. I guess that is more important than I realized.
Thanks pal, I appreciate your thoughts and your ability to see where my heart was and where it wasn't!
Trey
Drtrey3 Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Father of Four including 5 year old triplets
clueless
I appreciate what you write here, and I am going to share some thoughts that I usually keep private for fear of offending others. This is to write them down in a hope to clarify them as well as to invite your perspective.
The entire multicultural thing baffles me. I come from a blended heritage, I am a Southern-Baptist. OK, that is a joke, but I could not help it, actually I am a white Presbyterian Southerner. Technically a Scotch-Irish white dude living in the South. My discomfort about the multiculturalism concept comes from the sociological research as well as my personal experience.
The research consistently shows that any group you can form has more variability within the group, that is between members of the group, than between group variance, that is differences between the group and another group. In orther words, Presbyterians are more different from each other than they are from Hindus. Same for race, culture, sexual orientation, same same same. Now maybe this is a statistical problem, but it is a VERY robust finding in the social sciences.
Also, I personally know and hang out with folks who should be very different from me given our cultural or racial or religious differences, but we are very similar. I am sure that this is because I like people like me, guys who love their family, who do not cheat on their wives, who want to make good moral decisions, who enjoy some kid of sport, and enjoy talking about politics. That is the culture I enjoy most in my friends. It is not racial or religious (well not specifically religious) or cultural in the general sense of the word.
I think it comes down to the microculture being so much more important than the macroculture. It is the personal and little things that matter more in my life.
The whole thing could come down to my being a white guy in a nation with lots of white guys, but I am suspicious of that because I am not like all the other white guys, some of them I cannot stand.
Well, I remain confused, the writing did not help, maybe your thoughts and experiences regarding culture can help me Tony. Thanks in advance.
Trey
Drtrey3 Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Father of Four including 5 year old triplets
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