Interracial Relationships Support Group

I'm sure you will do a great job in keeping your culture alive in your son. If you continue to take him to Indian events, it will be as much a part of his upbringing as his other half.

I myself work hard to celebrate all of the mixtures inside me and my husband for our children. I am AA. He is W. Even though I am AA I have been raise to recognize all of my ancestors. So I remind my children that they are African, Native American, Scottish, and Irish. On St. Patrick's Day I was able to excite my youngest son about his Irish blood on both sides. My oldest son is going through a phase where he doesn't want to be white only black. Oddly this year he is as pale as a ghost. He is whiter than my white husband. It all boils down to issues at school. He wants to be blacker. Summer is around the corner and he will have some pigmentation soon that I'm sure will make him happy. While he is going through this phase, I remind him that both his parents love him and decided to identify him as multiracial so we could both be apart of him.

I'm sure you are doing a fine job in introducing your son to both cultures. Yes, I understand your need to expose him to his Indian culture as much as possible because he will most likely only learn about it through you. He will be exposed to your husband's culture in so many other areas through life.

I'm sure your child or children will be fine.

You might want to mention to your husband that you would really like for him to attend also. If you ask him, you might find he has a reason. I'm not sure what that would be but maybe he doesn't feel like he fits in or people are saying welcome but he doesn't feel it is sincere.

I know my husband's family tell me they love me, but issues arise where I doubt their sincerity.

Good Luck

Hi karunadivya!

I'm a white American woman married to an Indian guy (born & raised in India), so I sort of understand what you're going through, albeit from the other side.

It sounds like you have two distinct issues here to me. First is the way your husband and you share (or don't) your Indian culture, and the second is the culture & heritage the two of you are giving to your son.

I can't give you much advice on the second, since we don't yet have any children, but there are a few good blogs & forums out there discussing this issue. You can find a few of them on the resource page of my blog (http://gorigirl.com/intercultural-relationship-resources). I also highly recommend Anti-Racist Parent (http://www.antiracistparent.com/) - there's a strong community there of parents of mixed-race children.

On the first issue, well, I guess my first question would be what be the ideal amount of involvement your husband could have with your Indian heritage? Do you want him to participate more in community events? Learn some of your family's native language so you can converse in that at home? Learn more about your religious beliefs? Travel with you to India?

Once you get that completely figured out, I think you can start communicating your needs to him, while recognizing, of course, that you both need to be involved with American culture as well to satisfy his needs. He'll never be an Indian guy, of course, and living in America will mean your family will be very influenced by the culture surrounding you. But I do think that you can reach a suitable compromise between your and his heritages.

If you are dedicated to making sure your son knows your language and culture then I have no doubts he will grow up appreciating and participating in them, he does have grandparents and other family he can spend time with when he is older too doesn't he? That way the burden of teaching him about his Indian half would not all fall on you.

I do think it is sad that your husband is not willing to participate in events wiht you and your son. I do have to wonder though why money would be an issue? What does that have to do with taking part in festivals or what ever events are going on. Surely people do not gather to celebrate just to show off how rich they are.

I don't have kids, but my feeling on this is that your son will grow up with an appreciation of Indian culture if he is close to you.

Coming from Chinese parents and being born and raised in Canada, my parents didn't go too far out of their way to expose me to my Chinese roots. But I'm very connected to my roots anyway, out of respect for my parents and just my own curiousity.

As for the differences between you and your husband, try to focus on the positives rather than the negatives. Instead of thinking about how you're missing out, think about what you're gaining and how that is valuable too. :)