does anyone have 2 children with 2 different cultures?

[MamitaM]

I'm a new single mama and my little man is a mixed baby. Maybe I'll have another baby someday and he or she may be of another culture as well. I worry a little that there may be problems between by children b/c of this. Anyone have experienced this?

[MadiMamacita]

I strongly believe that "family culture" supersedes "ethnic culture" so in that way, your children will share a culture, no matter what their biology. You can include traditions, foods, games, songs, etc from each child's culture together if you want!

[BubbleMa]

I think it's only a big if the parents makes it a big deal.  I don't see your children having a problem with each other naturally.  They're just children.  They don't know anything about stereotypes or cultural issues. 

My mom's best friend (who is white) adopted a little girl from China about 10 years ago, she was single at the time.  A few years ago she married a black man and he has a little girl who is biracial (white and black).  The oldest DD calls them the "rainbow family".  :)  They look at it as something that makes them special and unique, not odd or weird.  :)

[BunnySlippers]

I was at a workshop and the man giving the presentation started off by showing a picture of his family- all five of them are a different 'mix'. He said it was great growing up with such a variety of siblings. His presentation was on diversity and opportunity.

I personally do not see why your scenario would be an issue.

[mambera]

US President Obama grew up in a family like that (his sister is half Indonesian I think?).  Doesn't seem to have hurt him any. :)

[Lakeeffectsnow]

We are a very multicultural family.  I'm of Filipino and Cuacasian descent.  DH's is half Hispanic and half Jewish.  The biological father of my oldest daughter is African American.  My oldest son's (stepson) biological mother is of Korean descent.  My MIL jokingly refers to our kids a mini United Nations.  We are comfortable within ourselves with who we are.  The truth is we mostly see ourselves as a family.

But, it's naive to think that is how most of the outside world sees us.  Depending on where we have lived, sometimes how diverse we are as a family has been an issue for other people.  Sometimes, it's even an issue for us.  My oldest daughter gets tired of saying "No, I'm not adopted.  No, my siblings aren't adopted.  Yes, they are my "real" parents.  Aren't adopted families real?"  My stepson and daughter are 12 and 13 and they've been hassled at the mall for 'dating" outside their own race.  Which aside for squick factor for them, they see themselves as siblings, it is a crappy thing to deal with when you are Christmas shopping.  

DH was once stopped by a security guard while carrying our youngest son (four years old at the time) of the grocery store.  Our son has very different coloring from DH and was having a melt down, DH was taking him to the car to calm down while I finished shopping.  He was detained until I could come and vouch that he was in fact my husband and DS's father.  Meanwhile, DS was clinging to my husband and calling him "Papa". 

We chose to move to ethnically diverse crunchy area when DH retired from the military.  Within our neighborhood, town, social circle, church, and home school community, our family's mutliculturalism isn't an issue.  It isn't even an issue for most of the outside world.  But, sometimes we have to venture our comfort zone.  While there isn't an issue every day or even every year, it is something I'm always aware of . 

[heatherdeg]

Originally Posted by MadiMamacita 

I strongly believe that "family culture" supersedes "ethnic culture" so in that way, your children will share a culture, no matter what their biology. You can include traditions, foods, games, songs, etc from each child's culture together if you want!

I agree with this.  Me and one brother are fully Caucasian and another brother (a half-brother) is half-Cauc, 1/4 AA and 1/4 Native American (although his father clearly identifies with AA culture and so does my brother).  We weren't raised in even the most remotely stable household, but yeah--it didn't really matter.  We were raised that we were siblings.  Period.  And so we were.

Now, dh, ds & I are fully Caucasian and dd is a Latina (possibly mixed with AA--we don't know for sure).  And it's the same thing: we just all live like a family.  She is 2yo & ds is 7yo.

Maybe it would help if we knew what kinds of issues you imagine might happen?  Then we could kind of speak to how it works/worked for us...?

[Logan]

I do, my children are both biracial, with very different ethnic heritages. They are just who they are, so it doesn't cause any issues within our family. However, they are still very young so I dont know what may come up. Only issue I fret about is that people assume they are different because I slept around  which isn't the situation at all. But I have grown a pretty thick skin over the years- it would take a lot for strangers to bother me these days. We do seem to draw attention in public, but I have no idea if this is because of my children's ethnicities, because people just naturally gravitate towards looking at babies, because they are trying to work out why the children look different to each other, because I appear young to have two kids (Im not) or just because my kids are too cute 

[MamitaM]

Yeah I don't want people thinking I slept around either. I'm not that type of girl and I'm sure you aren't either Logan. My son gets a lot of attention when we go out, maybe it's b/c he wears a boobie on his head though!

[betmina]

We're not a birracial family really but multicultural at that. My SO is Ukranian and my DSS's were born in Ukraine. I'm Mexican born but my parents are Czech and Slovak. My DD was born in Mexico and her bio dad is Mexican, we live in England. If you mummies ever go to my house you will listen to a variety of languages, English, Spanish, Czech, Ukranian and some Russian here and there. We all look similar though.

[Smurfette2]

Originally Posted by MamitaM 

I'm a new single mama and my little man is a mixed baby. Maybe I'll have another baby someday and he or she may be of another culture as well. I worry a little that there may be problems between by children b/c of this. Anyone have experienced this?

I wouldn't sweat it. My 1st kid is Hawaiian (dad) and Dominican (me, afro-latina). She has green eyes and blond hair! My 2nd marriage is to an Italian. He was born in the US but grew up in Italy. Our twins have blue eyes and black/brown hair. And they're fairly olive skinned. My entire family is a mixed bag of nuts. My Cuban aunts married black men, one of my Cuban uncles married a Filipina and the other married a guy from Guam. My Dominican aunt married an Irish guy, and my Dominican uncle married a Japanese woman. So our family reunions are full of international dishes and about 15 different kinds of hooch. My dad had green eyes and a huge afro, my mom is black with straight hair. At home we speak English, Italian and Spanish... sometimes all three mixed up. LOL!

Prejudice is learned - don't teach it and everything will be A-OK! 

[BubbleMa]

Originally Posted by Smurfette2 

I wouldn't sweat it. My 1st kid is Hawaiian (dad) and Dominican (me, afro-latina). She has green eyes and blond hair! My 2nd marriage is to an Italian. He was born in the US but grew up in Italy. Our twins have blue eyes and black/brown hair. And they're fairly olive skinned. My entire family is a mixed bag of nuts. My Cuban aunts married black men, one of my Cuban uncles married a Filipina and the other married a guy from Guam. My Dominican aunt married an Irish guy, and my Dominican uncle married a Japanese woman. So our family reunions are full of international dishes and about 15 different kinds of hooch. My dad had green eyes and a huge afro, my mom is black with straight hair. At home we speak English, Italian and Spanish... sometimes all three mixed up. LOL!

Prejudice is learned - don't teach it and everything will be A-OK! 

Your family get-togethers sound amazing!  :)