Hi all,

I have decided it’s time for me to end this blog. I’ve left the blog archives up and turned off the comments.

I am very appreciative to all of you who have faithfully read this blog, some of you sticking with us for more than a year and a half! I am also thankful for all of you who linked to the blog, left comments, made connections, led discussions, provoked new thoughts and ideas, gave advice, asked for advice, and shared your stories.

When I started the blog, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I feel like I accomplished something important for myself – a better understanding of what happened to me with my in-laws and why. I also feel I gained a better understanding of them and a closer relationship. Saresh remarked many times that as a result of the blog, we had many conversations that never would have occurred otherwise.

Something special also occurred that I had not anticipated. I feel like through this blog, many people discovered they were not alone in their situation, like I had to feel so many years ago. It was disheartening at first to realize so many people are still suffering through their relationships not being accepted. However, I came to feel like they finally had a place to voice all those thoughts and concerns and feelings, and hopefully were helped or at the very least comforted by something they may have read here.

I’ve also greatly enjoyed all the parenting discussions. I know that raising a mixed race child is a journey that on occasion has special concerns. I feel like I now know places to discuss these issues and have a common bond with other parents who face the same things.

Thank you again for taking this journey with me. It’s extremely gratifying knowing that someone else (anyone else!) actually wants to read something you’ve written. To have people want to continue to read is amazing. Thank you for giving me such a gift.

Best wishes to all,

CBC

[Edited to add: This is sort of two posts in one. The first half being something I liked, the 2nd half my soapbox on the school holiday program, which is just a particular beef of mine, so if you've heard it from me all before, feel free to skip my minor rant after the happy 1st half. ]

Scholastic publishes monthly, short (2-page front and back), educational flyers for teachers to use in the classroom and/or send home. They’re called “Let’s Find Out” and focus on whatever the theme is for the month to complement the teacher’s curriculum. For instance, Fire Safety month focused on fire safety tips, and in November, the flyer focused on the history of Thanksgiving and compared how the pilgrims did Thanksgiving to our modern Thanksgiving. The parents can go over the flyers at home to reinforce the lessons.

Last week DD brought home one that I loved: Let’s Find Out: Holiday Homes. On the outside, it’s an apartment building with all the shades drawn partially. If you hold it up to the light, you can see what each family is doing inside their apartment. When you open it up, it shows and tells about what each family is doing to celebrate their respective December holiday:

Christmas: This family decorates a tree.

Diwali: This family lights the dipas.

Las Posadas: This family breaks a pinata. (I was unfamiliar with this holiday.)

Kwanzaa: This family sings holiday songs.

Hanukkah: This family plays a holiday game.

Id al-Fitr: This family eats a yummy meal. (Also called Eid, which was the name I was familiar with.)

At the bottom of the page, pictures of a menorah, drum, lantern, dipa, star, and pinata are shown and the child is supposed to find the pictures in the apartments above.

The flyer reminded me of when I was a Girl Scout as a little girl. Each year we would have an International festival in the grade school gym. Each scout troop would be assigned a country from around the world and they would have an area for you to visit with traditional food, clothing, maps, musical instruments, etc. It was so much fun.

My daughter goes to our church preschool. One of our reasons for sending her there was not only the Christian education factor, but also that holidays were explained and celebrated – and not just Christian ones. In our public school, no holidays are allowed. The schools have fall, winter, and spring parties instead, which are basically just a day to have a cupcake. I don’t like this policy.

When DD came home with this flyer, I was curious whether or not the public preschool also gave out the flyer (Scholastic supplies them there as well) given their extreme aversion to any kind of holiday. I don’t know though.

My neighbor is a recently retired school principal. I was talking to her about how I didn’t like the “no holiday” rule in our district. She was principal in a neighboring district that does still allow holidays, but said they were also considering banning them. Apparently, some parents make such a stink about it that it’s not worth the trouble to the administrators. She said it doesn’t matter what the event is, someone doesn’t want their kid exposed. Even on Veteran’s Day, she had parents who did not want their kids to attend the assembly where different veterans talked about their experience or the history of Veteran’s Day. The complaint was something along the lines of, “I don’t want my precious angel heart around those killers to hear their military rhetoric!”

Then the administrators have to find something to do with the children who are not to be exposed to the ever-so-offensive Valentine’s Day party, or whatever the parent’s find issue with that week. And apparently the parents complain about that as well, intimating that their children are being “punished” or singled out since they can’t attend whatever the event is. Nothing appeases them. And if you have kids in school, you know exactly the kind of parent I’m talking about.

Though I was a little more understanding of why the no holiday policy was enforced, I was saddened by the level to which so many parents want to insulate their child against learning about anything different than what they see at home.

DD starts Kindergarten next year in the public school, so this is our last year of holiday school celebrations. I’m keeping this flyer for us to use at home next year. She will likely join the Girl Scouts (Daisies), so maybe we can use it there or institute our own International Day again.

I laughed so hard today when I was going through the mail. Assuming it was for me, I almost tossed a marketing mailer from The Tan Company in the trash without looking at it. As I’m carrying my pile of junk mail and Christmas card envelopes to the trash can, I see “Saresh” in big, bold, red letters across the top of The Tan Company’s mailer:

Front of mailer:

Saresh, Wishing You a Happy Birthday!

Stop in today with this coupon and start looking Bronze and Beautiful! It’s our gift to you!

Back of mailer:

Saresh, Celebrate Your Birthday with 10 FREE TANS

That’s Right Saresh!

Ten tans absolutely FREE! Don’t burn outside, tan indoors with our certified skin care tanning specialists! Come in today and experience the benefits of vitamin D; as seen on NBC Nightly News! No Appointment Necessary!

Oh yes – Saresh is not nearly “bronze and beautiful” enough. That South Indian pallor is just like death warmed over. Ten free tans ought to take care of that reeeaalll nice. I’m actually curious what 10 tans would do to him. I bet his teeth and whites of his eyes would practically glow in the dark after that. That’s all you’d see – eyes and teeth.

I’m going to be chuckling over this for days. I should save it for when he has a really crappy day at work and then give it to him.

I only found this post because I started getting referrals from it and it showed up in my blog stats – God bless Google. Don’t have time to write still myself, so I thought you’d enjoy this good post from an American woman who is marrying a man from Korea. It’s about her future-MIL, acceptance, merging of the two cultures in the wedding, feelings on “taking away” the son, etc. Lots of goodies in there and much we’ve discussed here in the past, too.

Amanda Takes Off: A Different Daughter-in-law

Since I’m not able to write more this week, here’s some good readin’:

CW added some sweet love stories on her site. I especially liked this one: Pauly & Vanessa. They’ve been married for a long time and have kids. There are a few more stories after that one, too.

I saw this blog post from a young girl who is Indian, adopted by a white family (I believe she is 17): Is it Weird Being Indian in a White Family?

When LoveGenerously was posting, we used to have more discussions on adoption of children who are a different race, and the issues that arise in that situation. I definitely recommend checking out LG’s archive of posts for a mother’s perspective (she and her husband are white, kids are adopted from Guatemala).

I really enjoyed reading about feelings from the adopted child’s perspective.  Shweta’s post was insightful, funny, and heartfelt. And I wanted to give her a big hug – and as a mom I wanted to shake the stuffins out of the smarmy teenagers who made fun of her.

And I want to thank Shweta for writing that post. Being that honest, especially about your own family, is brave. And she gave me things to think about and watch out for when raising my own daughter.

___________________________________________________

Update: I read her post last night, and since then she edited it considerably. It was much longer and had other information that I refer to above, but is no longer there. I hope she changes it back to the way it was. But it’s very hard to put yourself out there like that, so I understand.

This cute Christmas ornament idea is from Family Fun magazine (see blogroll). When I was little, my mom used to make this stuff for me and my sister all the time. We called it “dough art.” Mom had a book that had the recipe and pictures of ideas to make. We would spend hours having fun with this stuff, then mom would bake our creations.

Tips:

• We found a garlic press to be perfect for making dough “hair.”
• You can store unused dough in the fridge. Make sure you keep an airtight lid on the container.

As an aside, not that everything has to be about skin color, but if you were looking for a cute way to discuss the differences in your multi-ethnic family, these dough faces would be great. You could talk about mixing the paint colors to get the right shade for each family member. That’s a good introduction as to why each person has a different skin color, especially the kids (and how it happened!). And it makes enough to include grandparents, etc.

DD and I are going to make these. We’re going to *try* and make one of the dog, too. We’ll see how that goes.

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Article Copied from FamilyFun.com:

Bake a batch of these lovable look-alikes and present them to the crew they (sort of!) resemble. Our testers loved working with the salt dough, which is fun to sculpt and easy to paint. The best part? Since this recipe yields about 12 small ornaments, your child can make a face for everyone on his list.

Check out more ideas for easy-to-make Gifts that Celebrate Family.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
	3 cups flour
	1 cup salt
	1 cup water
	Wooden skewer
	Paintbrushes
	Acrylic paint
	Mod Podge
	Narrow ribbon
Time needed: Afternoon or Evening

1. Using an electric mixer, beat together the flour, salt, and water on medium speed until a ball forms, then remove the dough and knead it until it is smooth.

2. To make each ornament, roll the dough into a golf ball?size ball and flatten it with your palm. Use small pieces of dough to make noses, lips, hair, and the like. Affix each to the face with a drop of water and smooth away any creases. Use the skewer to make eyes and to poke a hole through the ornaments about 1/2-inch from the top.

3. Heat the oven to 275 degrees. Bake the ornaments on a foil-lined cookie sheet for 2 hours. Allow them to cool completely.

4. Paint on the skin color. When the paint is dry to the touch (about 10 minutes), paint the remaining details.

5. Once the paint is dry, seal the ornaments, front and back, with a layer of Mod Podge. Let them dry, then add a ribbon loop to each.

I’ve read a couple good posts on Indian Homemaker that have prompted me to write this article:

1) To an Anonymous DIL

2) Joint Families and Indian Daughters

Of course, I’m not living with my in-laws, nor am I Indian (or living in India!). I am, however, privvy to hearing enough details about other people’s MILs to make my hair stand on end and be ever so thankful that I got the MIL I did. Yes, she made me miserable and all kinds of angry while I was dating her son, and that took a long time (and a blog, LOL) to work through. And she can still drive me crazy sometimes (lots o’ posts on that!). But most of the time, I just feel lucky.

Here’s why MIL is a good MIL:

1. She never tells me what to do. At worst, she tries to argue with Saresh about things she thinks I should do that would be better for me (like working instead of staying at home with DD). But she never says these things to me. I like that about my mom, too. I can tell when she disagrees with something I’m doing with my life, but she keeps her mouth shut (most of the time).

2. She doesn’t look down on me or treat me like I don’t know what I’m doing.

3. She doesn’t expect me to follow her traditions. She lets us form our own family traditions and values without criticism (at least no criticism that I hear).

4. She lets us make all decisions about DD without trying to control any of it. Does she always follow what we ask her to do with DD? No – but it’s stuff like, “Don’t feed her candy, cake, juice, and yogurt raisins all in the same evening.” That, I can live with. Telling me how I’m doing things wrong with my kid, I don’t handle well. And she doesn’t do that.

5. She’ll put the smackdown on Saresh in a heartbeat if she thinks he’s not doing enough for me, or is not taking care of me the way she thinks he should, or if she just imagines that he’s done something wrong.

6. She tells other people how she thinks I’m doing such a good job raising DD.

7. She thinks the sun rises and sets on DD (and consequently do does DD, LOL).

8. She doesn’t interfere with our marriage (i.e. doesn’t get involved in fights, etc.)

9. She respects our choice of religion, even though her son chose to become a Christian and we are raising our daughter Christian.

10. Even if she’s super busy, sick, tired, etc., she’ll help us out with whatever we need, even when we don’t ask.

11. She has always helped us financially (again, even when we don’t ask) and doesn’t hold it over our heads (unlike my parents, who we make a point to NEVER ask for anything).

12. She trusts me to take care of FIL if she’s not there, or if something should happen to her.

13. I’m not the DIL she dreamed of or wanted, but she doesn’t make me feel like that. Saresh’s best friend’s brother just got married. His BF has been married to his wife for about 7-8 years I think. His wife told me recently (about the new DIL) that, “At least now his mom will have the DIL she’s always wanted. She’s never liked me.” I had no idea. She’s been hurt all these years and her husband didn’t even know.

I know neither of us got the the MIL or DIL we had imagined, but I think we both ended up getting the right one for us in the end. At least I hope she thinks the same of me.

Last week, DD had a very funny conversation with Saresh and MIL at MIL’s house. It went something like this:

DD: Daddy, why do you call Amma, “Mom”? (She knows MIL is his mother, so they were confused at first by this question).

S: Because she’s my mom.

DD: No. She can’t be your mom.

S: Why?

DD: Because she’s Indian.

S: (laughing) I’m Indian, too, sweetie.

DD: (a bit puzzled) Oh.

We’ve discussed many times with her how Saresh is Indian. I’ve heard her say it, so I thought it had sunk in. But later at home, Saresh is relaying this story to me and I was curious as to why she apparently thought he was not Indian:

CBC: If you didn’t think Daddy was Indian, what did you think he was?

DD: Well… I thought he was German. (Mind you, she doesn’t fully understand what “German” is.)

CBC and Saresh (trying hard not to laugh): And what are you?

DD: I’m German, too. We’re all German.

It’s interesting to me that she’s trying to reconcile why Saresh seems SO different from his parents. I had not anticipated her thoughts in this way, taking for granted that she’d just take our word for it that they’re his parents. I can imagine the confusion that must cause her (Daddy looks different, talks different, eats different, etc.), and I’m glad I’m aware now, because I imagine questions will continue to come up for her. I want her to feel comfortable asking us these things.

This time we had to explain to her again that Daddy was Indian and that’s she’s half of Daddy and half of me. We’ve never told her I was white, and I realized she still doesn’t get the idea of race – just culture and languages, to an extent. Saresh is always saying stuff jokingly about me being German and she must have picked up on it. I’m still not going to try to explain about race yet either. I swear if I told her I was “white” she’d just say, “No you’re not. Your kind of peach colored.” She still just thinks people look different colors because that’s the way it’s supposed to be – everybody’s supposed to be different looking. She doesn’t care about that. And I’m not telling her otherwise because that’s the way it should be. She makes me wonder what would happen in the world if parents never said a word about race to their children.

Sometimes in making sure DD doesn’t miss out on her Indian heritage, I think I forget I have my own rich heritage that should be passed on to her as well. Or maybe it just seems less important because it’s not front and center anymore. But it’s not less important. I was reminded of this all in the same week by someone asking me about Oktoberfest (they didn’t know what it was, which I couldn’t believe was possible in this city!), and then reading about it on a blog Jassi suggested (white couple in India went to Oktoberfest at the U.S. Embassy).

My mom’s side of the family has been in America so long we’re not sure when and who originally immigrated (or where from). However, my dad’s side is primarily German and was a dominate presence in my upbringing. I was shocked if I ever attended a wedding where a polka wasn’t played. I thought every family ate sauerkraut, potato pancakes, spätzle (spaetzle), and dumplings. Our dogs obeyed commands given in German. I was quite old before I realized most people said “Bless you,” instead of “Gesundheit,” when someone sneezed. We held our own sauerkraut-fest each year, growing our own cabbage and spending all day outside making and canning the kraut. Then all the extended family would divide it all up and we’d have kraut for the whole year.

When my family moved away and I was a young adult living on my own, most of this German influence just faded away. But as I’ve grown older and started a family of my own, so many good memories keep coming back to me. I want my daughter to know this part of her heritage, too. I don’t know how much of what we did is common in today’s German culture since this all came from turn of the century immigrants, but it was my family’s traditions and I don’t want it to be lost entirely.

I’ve been thinking of ways to get back into my German roots, but make it part of our family traditions, too. Luckily, we live in a predominately German-influenced city. Most of the old architecture is German and I’d estimate the largest part of the population is of German heritage. Oktoberfest is huge in our city – an easy thing to make a tradition for our family. We have quite a few German restaurants, some of them very traditional. I think going out to eat a few times per year for German food would be a fun experience as well. Our church is a predominately German church, so we get some of it there – German bands, Totenfest, etc.

I remember when I was growing up how my dad’s aunts and uncles would all have German flash cards lying around their houses so they didn’t forget their parents’ language. I’m thinking I might institute something like that as well. They would just pick one up when they were in a room just to practice. My dad already teaches DD some German words. When he’s around she crows, “lecht stuff” (I have no idea how it’s spelled in German) for things she likes or thinks taste good.

And I’m going to start cooking a few of my favorite dishes from growing up. My grandmother is coming from Atlanta to stay with us for most of the month of December. She knows all the traditional recipes, so I’m going to have her show me some of her best German dishes. I promised Saresh I wouldn’t make him eat the sauerkraut though – more for me!