What's something valuable you've learned from your 'other culture?'

[peaceful_mama]

What I've learned from creating a family with someone whose entire life experience up to 7 years ago was nothing like my own:

An awareness of how much we waste and throw.  I grew up in what would be considered "poor" or at least "lower class" for MY area.

HE has actually brought food to children who had nothing to eat for a few days because their mother's means of providing for them was whatever she could make selling hand-rolled cigarettes on a street corner...she got sick, couldn't go, they didn't eat.

Um....we had food, a place to live, a car.  Not a new car.  but a car.  Clothing.  The occasional trip, though not every year and nothing major like Disney or anything.

Cooking.  Cooking and food are SIMPLE.  He grew up watching his mom cook.  I grew up watching my mom come home from work and run back out to a drive-thru.  Or brown some hamburger, open a box, and follow the directions.  Or I microwaved myself a frozen dinner.

I'm 34 years old, and I can finally say, after watching my husband....that I can now actually COOK.  As opposed to following directions on a box or card and having no real clue what to do without my instructions.  I still screw up sometimes, some real epic disasters.  But, more often than not, I can produce something pretty decent.

My loving husband just informed me a couple weeks ago that he had no real clue until recently that I actually did not know how to cook.  He did notice my cookbooks and stuff....he just thought we Americans had catalogs for everything!  (that's exactly what he said.  Also, until he was recently unemployed, he was not around to see how I got stuff done lol) 

It seriously never occured to him that a woman could reach adulthood and not know how to cook.  He wasn't being sexist or nasty or anything either...it's just that it never occured to him that a household could exist where a girl grew up NOT seeing her mother cook and the mother didn't have the daughter in the kitchen learning.  He doesn't shop the center of the grocery store and the frozen section.  100% never occured to him that people could survive without knowing how to cook...unless you *always* eat in a restaurant.

what have you learned?

[cappuccinosmom]

Definitely a whole new understanding of the definition of "poor" and the insanity of wastefulness in this country.  And honestly?  Even people who consider themselves socially concious and careful about consumption really have no idea.

While he would be considered a "workaholic", I have learned to value his need to work.  Understanding where he comes from helps a lot.  I hope my boys will improve on the way we live, but I wouldn't object if they worked as hard as he does.

[seawitch]

I guess I want to consider myself part of my other culture as well. I was always going back and forth from Hungary to white-suburban-America and I was floored when I met my husband, who lived all of 45 mins away from the town I grew up in, but it was total culture shock. He lived in an urban Puerto Rican neighborhood where people acted like the people I grew up around. Granted, there were some differences - I wasn't fluent in street Spanish, and there was more crime and I want to say more litter / houses falling apart from where I grew up. But there was an emphasis on family, there were clothes hanging on the line, families getting together for cookouts, women cooking from scratch, going to church on Sundays, chickens in the backyards. It wasn't identical to where I grew up, obviously, but it was a different America than the one I had taken for granted.

I think it encouraged me to re-think what it means to be American. I didn't have kids yet but it started me along the simple living (cooking from scratch, etc.) lifestyle I wanted, slowed my consumption, etc. Now I appreciate what America *does* have to offer but I tend to think outside the box more and more.

I also brought with me from my own upbringing the firm conviction that just because you're poor (by American standards) you are not doomed to a life of Jerry Springer and Wonderbread. My family was poor compared to the majority of Americans, average for the local standard, but everyone was intellectual, well-read, polite, informed about politics, cultured, etc. There was no "well we don't have a lot of money so let's spend what little we do have on expensive sneakers and big-screen TV's." My husband gets very anxious when we can't afford something and justifies big splurges with "don't I deserve it??" mentality. That's directly from his upbringing. I feel bad because he really does feel deprived when we aren't able to afford expensive things. When he was growing up, they didn't have much at all and yet they had designer clothes and electronics. On the other hand, they lived on bologna and food pantry peanut butter because they didn't have money left over for food. He said he saw his mother cook like three times in his life. And he used to say things like "we might as well not budget cos we don't have a lot of money." Um, that's exactly WHY we have to budget!!

ETA: DH was in the Army and he traveled to some really impoverished areas in Africa and Asia. When he starts to get "poor mentality" it's easy to remind him of how lucky we are, and he totally gets it, now after he saw people literally starving to death in front of him and fighting to the death practically for jugs of water.

I do say often, especially here on MDC when it's appropriate to the thread topic, that our family is poor, but it's relative. I don't feel poor, but I know that to many people on MDC we would be considered so.

[seawitch]

Oh, and I thought of something else. Choices. In America it's considered the norm to have a gajillion choices for everything. You go into the supermarket and there's like thirty brands of mustard. When I grew up, if you wanted mustard, you went to the store and bought mustard. There was one toothpaste sized tube and it just had mustard written on it. Granted it was a different world back then, and it was Communist, things are different there now too. They have supermarkets and the like there too. I like having a choice in things, but sometimes it's a little overwhelming. You feel like you have to try them all to see which one you like best. I do think choice is a great thing sometimes but I guess I don't feel the need to have a variety of things. I never saw the point of shoe shopping for example. I have a pair of everyday shoes, a pair of sandals, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of winter boots, and that's about it. But some of my friends need like six or seven pairs of sandals every summer - black, brown, white, strappy, platform, high heel, low heel, etc. (In fact, there's a shoe shopping ad in my MDC browser right now, lmao.)

I'm also a bit surprised that someone could grow up without seeing anyone cook. I'm not judging! Not at all. It's just surprising to me that it's the case. I did see everyone cook in the family, and go shopping, etc. but my mom never "taught" me to cook. She didn't even let me in the kitchen most days. I too had to teach myself as an adult, but at least I had something to aspire to. I know DH didn't see his mom cooking but I thought honestly that his family was the exception instead of the rule. But looking back I realize that even growing up a lot of my friends' moms just heated things up. I admire anyone who takes the time to learn to cook after not being around, pardon the term, "real" food while they were growing up. I'm sorry if that comes across as elitist, I promise that's not how I'm meaning it. I realize a lot of families just don't have TIME to cook and they would if they could. And some have other priorities. To each their own. I'm just such a foodie that I'm surprised not everyone else is too.