Vanessa published a post yesterday on Busted Halo about her Mexican culture and some difficulties she is having in exposing the girls to it. This has been a well-discussed issue in our home, so Vanessa wrote nothing groundbreaking to me. One of the comments, though, I found quite interesting. “James” writes:
Overall, I find this article offensively chauvinistic.
I assume (but am not sure) from your married name that your husband is not Mexican. If he is not, then why is it important for the kids to be Mexican? You didn’t merely talk about imparting some of Mexican culture to your kids, but of having “little Mexican kids”.
What you are worried about is not familiarizing your child with HER roots, because her roots are where she is and come from both parents. You are worried about imparting to her YOUR roots, seemingly exclusive of those of your husband.
Why not let your child develop her own identity from her environment and from whatever she gets from both sides of the family? Why is it imperative that she be a “little Mexican kid”?
My mother was raised by immigrant parents, and we learned about their culture, but there was never any attempt to make us identify with her ethnicity or my father’s. We just learned things as they came up, and they didn’t try to form us into any nationality but that of our birth.
However his mother raised him worked for him, so great. James put too much weight on V’s line of “little Mexican kids”. Why is it important to us that we expose the kids to a great amount of V’s culture? Because there is unique culture there.
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