No connection to my roots - anyone else?

[HeraclesCousin]

Just wondered if anyone else had been/was in a similar situation. Basically I was born and raised in the UK by one British parent and one parent from another country. I was not raised bilingual, my parents split up when I was very young and I had limited contact with the foreign parent as a consequence (they still live in this country, they don't go back very often). I have a very foreign name and "look" non-British, yet I don't speak a word of the language in question and culturally I feel extremely British, but have never felt like I 100% belong (though I certainly feel more British than anything else). I have a huge extended family in the "other" country and have so often thought of visiting but the cost is prohibitive and I have a DC with a health condition that means they can't really fly, and I don't want to leave them.

I'm nearing 40 now and increasingly feeling really sad about it all, like a part of myself is missing. I'm interested to know if any others are in this situation, or had been, and had any words of wisdom? I know tonnes of others like me with one foreign parent, but they almost always speak the language of that parent and have a connection to the culture.

Very similar- identical really - situation. I am happy identifying as British and don't feel any disconnect really. Not sure that helps you at all, but essentially I have made my peace with it.

I did feel like that for most of my life but I suppose it's the past few years I've started to feel the loss a bit, like there's a whole great chunk of who I am that I just have no connection to at all.

Hi OP have you thought about doing some duo lingo and maybe attending some cultural events with your other ethnicity.

did your British parent involve you or help you connect with part of your other culture?

They did encourage me but I almost wanted nothing really to do with it growing up, it was almost like it was embarrassing to me. I wanted an "English" name that people knew how to pronounce.

I have thought about taking proper language lessons (I don't have the self discipline for duolingo!). It's a good idea to see if there are any local cultural events.

I think what you describe is pretty common, especially when parents split and there's less contact with the parent from elsewhere, you weren't taught the language, and the parent in question isn't that involved with their country of origin.

That doesn't make it any less discombobulating, obviously.

But I certainly also see in friends' children and in my students, even those who do speak the language and have contact with family and visit the country of one/both parents' origin, the challenges of dealing with identifying with somewhere else (in some cases because your ethnic mix codes you as 'not native' to wherever you grew up for some people) when for your family in that country, you're 'the English girl'.

I have one student who grew up in Dubai but whose parents are Indian, and will retire to India as their visa is linked to their jobs in the UAE -- they feel unproblematically Indian, having grown up there, kept a house there and always planned to return, but my student, even though she grew up speaking Hindi and spent summers in her parents' city of origin, feels 'inauthentic', her Hindi is old-fashioned, and her cousins think of her as a foreigner.

Google 'second and third culture kids' for some resources. It can be tough.

Are there any UK based community groups, either online or offline, for the country your parent is from? Joining something like that may help you build a connection with the culture. I'm thinking for example when I lived overseas I joined "British in Denmark" etc groups.

Yes, I do get how you feel and I feel the same though for different, but also complex reasons. I am non-British by birth (but now a dual citizen, so technically I'm British). I'm white and 'look' British, but I obviously have an accent so people know I'm not from here when I open my mouth.

My dad died when I was 18 and I am NC with my mum, who still lives in my birth country. I have no family in the UK other than my children and dh's family. I have no relationship with any family in my birth country, as aunt/uncles have all died or I was never close to them to begin with, so last saw them years even before I emigrated.

My sense of a loss of connection is not so much to the culture, though the culture is quite different (and frankly, fairly alien to me now as I've lived in the UK for so long), but is about the loss of family connection/stories/traditions. I have only a few sort of tangible 'things' from my childhood. I have some toys and some childhood photos, a few family heirlooms. But I don't have any of the stories anymore. Stories about my childhood or what my parents' childhoods were like or about ancestors, about places they lived, where they are buried, genealogy, health conditions, etc. all of those sorts of things that are passed down verbally in families, I don't have. My dad died suddenly and my relationship with my mum was fractured quite unexpectedly (due to something quite harmful that she did to my dc). If I had ever expected things to turn out the way they have, I would have sat her down and asked these questions and collected all these stories. But I didn't think I needed to yet, and then once everything happened, it was too painful to go back and ask for all of this information (it would have been used as a manipulation tactic, even if I had).

I would like to take my dc (and dh too) back to my birth country one day, as none of them have ever seen actually where I grew up (we've been on holiday to a more 'touristy bit' but that's it). But even doing that, it feels a bit context-less. Like I have my own memories of these places, but I am lacking a lot of the family history and the present day connections to them. There's no grandparent to say, this was where I grew up, and this is how it was different back then, and I have this memory of your mum when she was your age and she did this. If that makes sense?

Also if you do go to classes you may meet other people like yourself.

it’s never too late

• Have you looked up local groups in your area from the same country? Either via google or asking on nextdoor.com in your area.
• Ask on nextdoor.com for a speaker of X language and exchange lessons for your English lessons or some other skill you have
• Any restaurants with that cuisine you could eat at to learn about the cuisine and flavours?
• Any cooking classes in your area with the cuisine from that country? Or google common recipes from there, to feel a little more connected.
• Ask on MN for speakers of X language/ from X country to connect with