how important is it to you that culture and ancestry should be passed down to your kids?

[Rory786]

Just that really.

What do you do to facilitate it?

Northern Irish living in NI- very important.

DH is a gaelgoir from Dublin, and we’re a mixed marriage. It’s really important to me that DD’s irishness isn’t defined by her religion or our politics- we’ve given her an Irish name, DH speaks to her in Irish and she’ll be signed up for GAA when the time comes.

I feel really responsible for balancing both sides of her heritage (Protestant NI & Catholic RoI) equally.

Very interesting...

Does anyone belong to a culture where they dress differently? My friend is white and French and married to a man from Niger. She makes an active effort to cook the traditional food, put her boys in the traditional food and go back to see the inlaws. She initiates it which is what got me thinking...they are also fluent in French!

My grandfather, father, and maternal great greats arrived in England as refugees. Remember the past but always be aware it would have killed you so integrate and embrace the culture that provided you your future. Russian, German Jewish and Irish Catholic.

I'm Scottish living in Scotland and sick to the back teeth of 'wha's like us?' nationalism so make no effort to pass any specific Scottish stuff onto the children. However, as a previous poster pointed out, we will be passing on shed loads of our culture and ancestry without knowing we are doing it, as it will just be what is the 'normal' way to live to us (both small town, working class Scots background, so v similar in what we think of us 'normal' eg education is everything, showing off is vulgar etc etc).

I think it is sad it delays children getting adopted. A safe home is more important than cultural heritage IMO.

I'm an immigrant from the UK to Canada, moved when our children were young enough not to remember that much about 'home' and have been here long enough that they are probably more Canadian than English. Because we are white we are the 'right' sort of immigrant and so we've never experienced prejudice towards us, only observed it towards others. Both children are very anti-nationalism so even if we tried to get them to embrace some sort of English culture (and I'm not totally sure what that would be) they would probably be very resistant. Of course they have picked up plenty of culture from us, our values and ideas about what is important in life, which we in turn got from our (very different) families. I think that's almost unavoidable. They've also got a chunk from the culture in the town we moved to and now will get some more from the universities they've gone to and the friends they are making. A nice diverse mix.

Ancestry wise, they have less connection than people who don't move away from their families but they have an idea about where we came from, and about the city that I still think of as being where I'm from. dd is mostly pissed off about her ancestry as she thinks we gave her bad genes (she has some chronic health problems). Probably not what the OP meant though.

Oh and we have friends and family with all sorts of heritage. Most of whom put quite a lot of effort into making sure that their children are connected to their family cultures, mainly through language. Being English in an English speaking country that was really founded on English heritage (we don't live in a French area) is very different. dd was telling me about her friend who can't really speak to his grandparents because he doesn't have enough Mandarin and they don't have enough English which seems very sad. A big contrast to our Greek American friends who sent their children to Greek school for many years and sent them back to grandparents every summer. Not a possibility for many families of course.

My children are half Scots half English. Dh has no particular English feeling/ custom.
I want them to be proud to be Scottish. Awareness of culture/ history. I want ds to wear a kilt when he's older. I'm not a nationalist though

Very important. I am born of two different cultures and now live in a third, with native-to-here DH. The kids (well, DC1, DC2 is too little for an opinion) considers herself half my culture, half DH's even though we live here. We also go back to DM's home country every couple of years and DC1 loves her family there so the connection is kept strong. I wish I could do more in terms of making the food of DM's birthplace, taking the kids along to cultural events etc, but there's no opportunity for that where we now live. And they're still quite small. I might try a bit harder as they get older.

Sort of acknowledge it but not too much.
Don't really understand people who think it's more important than the culture of the place they are born

I started another thread last year where I was worried about my daughter being the only non white in her village school...fast forward one year she is happy buy snippets of her conversation concern me.

Like, mummy I wish I looked like everyone else.

I make an active effort to compliment her silky black hair, her honey coloured skin without going overboard on looks because I want her to be more than looks but at the age of 6, she does care what she looks like.
I want her to be proud to look different, its made me realise I need to expose her more to her heritage so she can be proud of who she is.

Depends wha you mean by culture and ancestry?

We’re British and living in England. Husband from another part of the U.K. We are maintaining our culture by doing the things we are used to I suppose. We buy teabags because they’re the ones my husband grew up with. But also enjoying the culture of others around us (eg Diwali and Indian food) because we live in an area where lots of people have Indian heritage so our boys are growing up with that too.

Our younger child was conceived via egg donor. She was from another European country. I’m not sure how or whether we should try to pass on that culture and ancestry but we not making special efforts to. We’re being open with him about that part of his background though and he can explore more (and find out her name etc when he’s 18) if he was to.

Just seen your later post.

We are white. When my eldest son was at nursery I once found him trying to wash away the whiteness of his skin because all his friends had brown skin. I explained we’re all different and that seems to reassure him.

I don’t believe in denying difference (when people say they don’t see skin colour that’s a load of old bollocks as any implicit bias test shows) but that it’s ok to be different and we have more in common that we do differences. I try to phrase it positively.

I think when you’re in the minority culture it does justify more effort to help your child feel confident in who they are. Seeking out positive role models etc.

Sorry for multiple posts! I do understand your concerns and I think you’re right to give it thought in your daughter’s best interests.

Being Welsh i feel its very important. I speak Welsh, my kids speak Welsh, my friends are Welsh speakers, i work in Welsh. We have so much history and i has to be passed down. Ive looked back ar my generations and the last 6 never moved from here.

One side of my family is American, but the grandparents grew up in Russia and Eastern Europe. So in my parent's generation the eldest kid learned Russian and other language at home. Then the Cold War made it socially unacceptable to use 'commie' languages so grandparents stopped speaking Russian and only used the other language to each other, so my parent, the youngest, doesn't know any at all. My cousins have tried to learn some - it's sad that dcs have friends at school who speak these languages, even have great-grandparents from the same suburb, but I don't know them at all. Though I can cook like their families.
Food and celebrations are often a big part of culture - though my parents ditched the religions they were brought up with.

PaintBySticker

Thank you for your kind post, its really interesting to hear about your son, these issues affect everyone.

I would like my children to know about their heritage, culture but I must say it takes time and effort on the parents part.