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Dear Uncle, What’s the best way to raise a multicultural kid?
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Dear Uncle,What’s the best way to raise a multicultural kid?My girlfriend is American/Korean and as you know, I’m a mix of French/Vietnamese/Ethiopian and I grew up all over the world. Since we’ll move in the U.S, I feel some responsibility to teach the kids my culture … but here lies the problem. What culture? It’s all mixed up.
For example, I don’t feel French, nor am I an authority on the culture - but I do relate to French people and speak the language somewhat fluently.
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Dear Brice,
While I can’t exactly speak from experience, I’m sure a lot of us have thought about this future issue. And having grown up at least somewhat criticizing the way our parents brought us up, we all have a little insight.
But you ask first, “which culture”? And I think that people would agree with me when I say “Your culture.” We all create and permeate our cultures, whether we contribute to a majority, a minority, or just be ourselves. So your culture is the one you’ve become, and the one which tells you what’s normal and what you should be proud of. For a lot of us it’s that vague sense of Third Culture, and that’s not a bad thing to encourage a child to understand.
It’s vague, though, and the only real way to bring it about is to create it. And you have some of that chance in being potentially mixed culture parents. We’d all love to have more languages more fluently, and it’s not a bad skill to pass onto your kids.
One thing I would look out for though, is the fact that you’re moving to the U.S. There you have a relatively dominant culture which encourages conformity. Third Culture arises from exemption from that, and I think that if you and your future family settle down to a fairly American life, and your kids especially settle into that culture, it would be harder to make them different. When you’re young, the last thing you really want is to be different, and when you’re a teenager, you want to be different in all the ways their parents don’t want them to. It’s very possible they’ll want to be American, if they grow up American. If they grow up differently, they won’t have that comfort group that TCKs have in each other all being different from the local culture. And this only becomes more pronounced if you really do decide to stay there.
I’ve heard of families influencing their kids positively with a variety of cultures *within* a “home” culture, but it is never quite to the extent that TCKs or possibly CCKs receive. I think it’s worth mentioning not to expect too much, or to let the kid have fewer cultures.
If you were to pick just one, talk with your spouse about how you’d like it to be, then the kids might only have to deal with two cultures. If you’re not mobile and living a TCK lifestyle, I assume it’s harder to cope with multiple cultural influences when there’s a single consistent major culture around.
I mean, we can all say it’d be nice and great to let your kids be multicultural, but it’s much harder to do with a consistent surrounding culture.
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December 3rd, 2007 at 5:57 pm
My take on this is: teach your kids everything you know. Why limit to one culture when you yourselves have several?
And I agree with Dan that if you move to America, it is likely that the kids will adopt the American culture.
But I believe that can be changed. It depends on how YOU raise your kids. If you conformed to the American culture your kids will follow. But if you made it a point for them to understand the world multicultural I believe they will learn to understand that. It will be a difficult journey but it will be worth it.
Teenagers will be teenagers. They will always hate the way their parents raise them no matter what. The hormones are raging! LOL
But seriously, I think if you truly want them to be multicultural, it really doesn’t matter where you settle. Anywhere you go will be monocultural. Unless you lead a mobile life, it is important that your kids understand what TCK means and what multicultural means.
My plan is to take my kids out on a summer vacation to various places for a month so that they get to “live” in a place that’s different. Or send them to summer camps. They have those summer camps for kids in other countries. I will treat them as I have been treated growing up - make them independent and aware of the different cultures.
Of course, in the end I haven’t experienced it and won’t know if it will work - it is easier said then done. But I believe raising them that way is doable.
(I hope I made some sense here LOL)
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December 6th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I agree with what has been said.
You ARE a multicultural person, so if you teach your kids YOUR values (which are mixed), they will end up mixed.
Of course, there is the environment’s influce. And if you’re going to settle somewhere, I think the best way to show them that there are other cultures, and that things are different, is by (like Cynthia said) taking them to different places even if it’s just for a short vacation.
I think the important is to teach them to be open minded towards other people. You can start teaching them this in the “home” country, like when you see a scene of prejudice for instance, you can say “you see, that man was rude to that other man just because he’s black. That’s wrong. All people are worth the same.” and things like that. Then when you travel to a very different country, you can tell them again “you see, people are different here, but they are still just people, they want and need similar things, it doesn’t matter what their skin colour is, just like that black man that we saw back in…”
What I mean is that you can do your best to teach them to see the world the way we do.
Talk about this (multiculturalism) with them all the time.
And kids can pick up things even without us talking to them about it. I think if you just be yourselves, they will be (at least a bit) like you.
Take my example, my mother is an art teacher. So when we travelled through Europe we’d go to tons of museums. I found it interesting, but being a kid, I’d get bored eventually. Now when I travel, I ALWAYS go to museums, and I LOVE it. And I know I picked this from my mom. It’s something that was part of her life and I learned to appreciate it.
So my point is, we pick up things from our parents, even if it’s not exactly the way they wanted (my mother wanted me to work with something related to art, yet I’m a systems analyst!). And I’m sure if you live a multicultural life (maybe like celebrating different holidays than the ones of the country you are living) your kids will pick that up.
It’s all gonna work out fine! =)
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December 6th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for all those great ideas, Dan, Maira and Cynthia!
I just realized my kids will be outcasts and different from every other kid, just by the fact that they’re so multicultural/racial.
They’ll never truly feel 100% American, even if they’re born there. They’ll look and be culturally different.
That’s why I’d like raise them in a multicultural city like San Francisco. So they don’t feel like outcasts.
Anyone else have suggestions?
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December 6th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I loved San Francisco! I went there for a visit for a couple of days and I love how laid back it is and you can be anything you want to be without feeling like people are going to talk behind your backs and make you feel really bad about yourself. It’s a city that tolerates any type of race/gender orientation/social status etc. It is indeed quite “colorful”
San Fran is perhaps the only place so far in the US that I actually consider a place suitable to stay for people like me I guess.
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December 24th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Take advantage of the massive cultural richness available to you and your child. Send them to spend holidays with each side of their family - preferably without you for part of it. If you aren’t there they will be reminded less of their differences and will gain more from the experience! Put the emphasis on family traditions rather than national. That way it will feel less alien.
How old is your kid? My biggest regret is that my mother stopped speaking German to me as a child so it’s not as good as it could be. Keep up the French - if they’re small enough send them to Francophone preschool and buy DVDs of kids programmes in French. Watch french movies as a family, buy computer games in French, but don’t use French as a secret language within the family - it will alienate the other parent, so make sure you involve them - they’ll have fun learning French too! And noone says you can’t have a secret language as a family unit!
Your child will sometimes feel like a freak. That’s part of being a TCK. Don’t harp on about how lucky they are. They do know it deep down. Try to gently introduce the more accessible parts of your child’s culture to their friends and their parents - sweets and other edible goodies are a guaranteed good start!
You have a massive advantage in that from the sound of it, both of you are TCKs yourselves, so you can relate. Ask your parents, learn from their mistakes and also their successes. You’ll do fine!
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December 24th, 2007 at 5:04 am
shevaunf posted this good advice in the Ask Uncle thread http://www.tckid.com/group/ask-uncle
so I thought I’d move his comments to the appropriate one!
“Take advantage of the massive cultural richness available to you and your child. Send them to spend holidays with each side of their family - preferably without you for part of it. If you aren’t there they will be reminded less of their differences and will gain more from the experience! Put the emphasis on family traditions rather than national. That way it will feel less alien.
How old is your kid? My biggest regret is that my mother stopped speaking German to me as a child so it’s not as good as it could be. Keep up the French - if they’re small enough send them to Francophone preschool and buy DVDs of kids programmes in French. Watch french movies as a family, buy computer games in French, but don’t use French as a secret language within the family - it will alienate the other parent, so make sure you involve them - they’ll have fun learning French too! And noone says you can’t have a secret language as a family unit!
Your child will sometimes feel like a freak. That’s part of being a TCK. Don’t harp on about how lucky they are. They do know it deep down. Try to gently introduce the more accessible parts of your child’s culture to their friends and their parents - sweets and other edible goodies are a guaranteed good start!
You have a massive advantage in that from the sound of it, both of you are TCKs yourselves, so you can relate. Ask your parents, learn from their mistakes and also their successes. You’ll do fine!”
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January 9th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Kids will be outcasts??? Maybe in America but I was never an ‘outcast’ Not in the deepest jungle of Papua New Guinea or in Switzerland or Thailand.. and I certainly don’t think my children are outcasts. Different yes. Most people LIKE different. This isn’t the middle ages. Everything exotic is exciting… lets use that to the max with who we are!!
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