trevster2k
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2001
- Messages
- 4,330
sulawesigirl4 said:I really appreciate your contributions to this discussion, trevster and redhotswami. I've been giving a lot of thought to the very real possibility that I will be raising children of mixed race. If my boyfriend and I ever do have kids, not only will they be half black-half white, but also from two completely different cultures (Malian and pseudo-American...more about that later), and speak three languages. I've been thinking about where I would want to raise them. In some ways, I think I'd prefer to bring them back to Africa because from what I've seen the people there are laid back about the whole thing. Even if we don't live in Mali, I could see myself working somewhere in the developing world as part of the expat community. A lot of the people I've met in that world have partners of various ethnicities...you see a lot of kids of different racial mixes. Still, I can't help but wonder how to be a good parent and to give one's child the support structure they would need to develop a really good sense of self and of belonging if you yourself can't really identify with them.
I myself was raised as a white kid in an Asian country and to this day I've never felt like I "fit" anywhere. Even when I am in the States and racially in the majority, I don't feel culturally like I really understand or accept what is going on around me. My parents are mono-cultural and as much as they understand the idea of "third-culture kids" (which is apparently what they call us these days), they can't really relate. I think that in the end, I've accepted that I'll never be truly at home anywhere, and therefore I'm free to travel and live anywhere.
My two cents about having your kids. I am envious of kids who learned two languages growing up in their multi-ethnic families. They have a link to both worlds. I only speak english and cannot even enter the world of the Chinese. I just sit there like an idiot during family gatherings on my father's side, it sucks.
I don't think you should force them or anything but immersion in both cultures would be a beautiful thing especially as little kids when they are still sponges.
Btw, yolland, it's not all bad. My life experiences have given me a unique perspective of the world. I would rather have lived in a larger centre where people had more exposure to people of different cultures and didn't stare at a Chinese man (my father) in the mall like he was a martian. Well, such is life. I don't think the discrimination I encountered most of my life is through malice but mostly ignorance. And yes some it is acquired through a negative experience with an individual too. Although, the effects of it for whatever reason are the same regardless.
Oh, I don't hang out with people of my "race". 95% of my friends in my life have been white. But that could be due to my environment. And it's not a rule that people of the same race are drawn to each other but we used to get treated pretty good at Chinese restaurants back home.
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