Not long ago, a German friend gave me a stern warning that I was in danger of teaching my children that all things German are bad. I was perplexed at this perspective, for it certainly doesn’t reflect how I feel.
“If you tell them negative things about Germany, you will eventually build a mindset in them which is negative to their own culture,” she explained.
My only response was to laugh, because not two weeks prior to this conversation, my mother had accused me of having an anti-American household.
“I feel as though you are rejecting your culture, and your family along with it,” she had said.
Almost the entirety of my adulthood has been spent abroad. It may well be that I have rejected parts of my own, American, culture and it may also well be that I am occasionally critical of my host culture. In fact, I’m sure both of those are the case. How is a bi-cultural, bilingual family expected to deal with cultural differences? With humor! READ MORE »
Recent Comments