Multicultural realtionships; how do you reconcile your differences?

[poshsinglemum]

My dds dad (my ex) is Greek/Iranian, he's a Christian and there are some cultural differences but obviously some Greek/Iranian cultural values are intrenched.
I am a complete athiest.
I never see him but considering my dd is mixed race how do I make her aware of her heritage.

Also; do you think that multicultural relationships are more difficult? Is anyone in a relationship where cultural differences is a big issue and how do you reconcile these differences for the children's sake? I am very interested in this.

I also have big issues with her Iranian heritage due to the deeply conservative Muslim goverment over there. he isn't a Muslim but he's stuck out there now. I want her to be proud of where she comes from but deep down I am a bit scared of that country. ( I don't mean to cause offence as I know that most Iranian people are the same as you and me and don't want to live in that regime)

Will lurk for answers to this myself...

Well, for us its humour.

We learned to do quite passable impersonations of each others accents. And of each others parents. Never get bored of that!

To be fair, there are a lot of differences but nothing like heavy duty religious beliefs or anything too major to get over. We have a lot in common anyway.

We realise both our cultures have plusses and minuses and no culture takes precedence. Maybe this is helped by the fact that we don't live in either country of origin? We aren't very nationalistic or dogmatic people in general.

The only real problem is that it is harder to understand what the other person means (language). We used to make more of an effort to listen to each other, sometimes now we just yell till the other person gets it

my husband is kenyan - kikuyu, I am british.

We don't do anything. The kids know where dad's from, know that side of our family. Not really sure what else there is to do. Neither of us see it as a big deal.

That said, the early years of our marriage were hard. We had some battles for control and didn't communicate our feelings well, and so misunderstood each other.

How much was personality how much was culture, who knows.

We aren't doing anything 'culture' wise for the kids. What is there to do? We both feel it's a non-issue. We won't be teaching them to be proud of where they come from because that's an accident of birth, not an achievement.