How to teach children about their father's culture, even though father isn't connected to culture

[Anonymous]

Start a yahoo group in the area and find other parents who want to learn about your husband's culture and get together and do it together.

[Anonymous]

I agree with, go visit the country. If the culture is hispanic, surely there are cousins etc. there you could visit?

My Dh is much like yours - his mom is from latin america, bu DH refused to learn spanish, looks white, just relates more to his dad's euro-american culture. I read to my kids in spanish and am sending them to the country of mil's origin with her this summer for a long visit with extended family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here -- for what it's worth he does not support Aung San Suu Kyi since she's from a different ethnic group within Burma and not necessarily the best option for total democracy.

[Anonymous]

Well, culture will depend a lot on what country your husband's family is from. Mexicans are very different than Salvadoreans than Brazilians. But, you're lucky that you live in DC. Go to ethnic restaurants. Go to the Latino Festival that's usually in early Fall in Mt. Pleasant. You can find a billingual preschool or elementary school. If he's Catholic and religion is important to him, there are plenty of churches that offer Masses in Spanish.

Does he have any Latino friends with kids? It would be great to get the kids together so they can "know" people of the same ethnicity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:if your husband is disappointed that he didn't learn about his heritage as a child and doesn't know anything now, maybe he and your children could learn about their shared heritage together.

This is a good idea, it would be a nice bonding experience.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

[Anonymous]

I think it's great that you want to respect your husband's heritage but I do think your husband needs to take a more active part in this, or at least support you more substantially.

I can relate to your situation. My husband is Arab and we are determined to immerse our child in all three cultures (I am Russian) but it's pretty clear that each parent will be responsible for his/her edge of the pool in the immersion process It does help to be somewhat familiar with the culture, of course. For instance, I speak Arabic so I am able to understand and relate to the things he will do with the child, but it's pretty obvious who will be the main Arab in the house. Likewise with Russian, my husband supports the immersion idea 100% but he can't do what I will able to do in this department.