{Photo credit: Jennifer Burks Photography}
As parents, we yearn to pass on our culture and traditions to our children as part of parenting. I didn’t realize this until I faced this question about culture and traditions in my son’s ECFE class a couple of years ago. At that moment, I couldn’t think much about it, and I came up with some weird answer on the spot. Later when I gave some thought to it, I had some insights. Our marriage is an interfaith one, that goes against both our cultures, my husband’s and my own. So, the foundation of our family is against all the “so-called cultures” we were raised in.
Both our families are from a place where culture and traditions are given the highest priority in their respective families. So, given its importance, you shouldn’t be violating them, and if you happen to do so, you will be looked down upon. There are worse consequences among a certain community of people.
One of the first questions that came up, on confessing our love for each other was, “What about kids? How will you raise them? What religion will they follow growing up? Who will they marry when they grow up (as in which religious person)?” At that point, I couldn’t convince my people with my answers. I believe only time can answer them.
After a really huge struggle, we managed to make our marriage happen in a way which was easier for us. No one looked down on us this way, which is what we wanted. My husband and I always have a difference in opinion when it comes to parenting our kids. This is bound to happen as we were not raised the same way. On analyzing the differences, “traditions” played a major part in it. This is when all those questions popped which were asked to us prior to our marriage. I realized that this is not what I planned. You may wonder what I planned to do? The answer is that I planned to “do everything or anything or nothing” to make us live in harmony.
One of the traditions that I follow still today is getting blessings from our elders. What is really traditional about that? We get our blessings touching their feet. When we are in Temple, we touch God’s feet and some of them touch priest feet (which my parents’ family don’t necessarily follow). I don’t let my kids do that. It is not something that my husband’s family follows. They believe blessing can be received by hugging, holding hands or exchanging words. I really don’t know why they don’t do that. But according to me, respect must come out of one’s actions and not the age. I feel weird about the thought of my kids bowing to touch someone else’s feet (including ours too). It is enough as long as they have a sense of gratitude and respect for the other person.
Also, following and keeping up with the traditions is a difficult task for me. There is so much to follow and you cannot wrong in any of it. Instead of stressing myself in fulfilling and following these, I would rather spend my time with my kids.
There are hundreds of traditions in an environment I definitely do not want to raise my boys in. On the other hand, there are a few things I still love for them to learn and live with. I love Indian music, and I literally cannot go a single day without listening to songs. Hence, I make sure my boys learn and live with that kind of music. I love the way my mom and grandmother dress up. The traditional outfits are something I fell head over heels in love with. Given chance, I dress my whole family in them. We try to celebrate the festivals, but at the same time, we don’t stress ourselves out that we are unable to hold on to it.
Our decisions might not go over well with our families and close ones. We receive lots of input and criticism over our style of parenting. It is hard to make family understand in many situations. We care about their concerns about not passing on all the cultural roots to our kids, but at the end of the day, parenting decisions from others do not matter to me. This does not mean that we are ignoring them and being disrespectful. We listen to them and genuinely care about their input, but we make sure they don’t influence our decisions.
Living far away from home has made us realize we could also adopt traditions from different people who inspire us. Just because my husband and I did not experience something while we were growing up doesn’t mean our kids shouldn’t either. But I raise my kids in a foreign country, yet they listen and speak our mother tongue every day. We make sure they speak to their grandparents every week in our language. They are taught about our festivals and their importance. And I don’t plan on stopping that anytime soon.
In our Family, we believe “To be loved” is our religion and “Being happy” is our tradition.
