Teaching and Training a Child From Day One

My parents came to visit when our first-born (Thuli) was about 4 months old. By that time Thuli had been sleeping in her own room for many months. My mother was shocked. I myself had not been terribly conflicted since I valued the sleep that I got since our precious bundle of joy went on to sleep in her own room.

My mother struggled with this (as did my dad). In Nepal and I’m sure throughout South Asia children sleep with their parents for many years. I’m certainly no stranger to that idea and when Shreemati made plans to get the crib ready at around 11-12 weeks (we had her in a bassinet in our room until then) I was a little taken aback. However, when it’s just the two of you and not a house full of relatives raising children you need to be efficient. So, I understood what we were doing.

My parents never turned this into an argument or anything like that, but many questions did arise. My mom openly questioned whether the child was getting enough love or not. But to anyone who has been around my girls, that is a silly question with a very obvious answer. However, after a few weeks my mom started to observe that children here are very independent and are taught to do things on their own from an early age.  She started to see that perhaps our way of doing things is most definitely not the only way of doing things.

When they were here last summer my mother was again taken aback. They were surprised to see how much Maili (middle one then 17 months old) could do on her own. Maili ate on her own, was already pooping on the potty and was close to being out of diapers. Not that this is necessarily an American thing, but my mom was again surprised by how much kids can be trained to do things. I guess the bottom line is she always thought kids needed to be babied well into years 7 and 8. Something very common in South Asia. Well we have certainly shown that is not the case. And we still love our children very much.

Photo used under creative commons license Flickr account ID foliman

Why I Advised My Cousin to Not Marry Outside the Culture

I can’t really say when the regrets started to come, but we had been married about five or six years. It’s not like these feelings were overwhelming and I was carrying around a heavy burden or anything like that. In fact I wasn’t actively telling people that I was regretting the marriage or the person I was married to, but in subtle ways I was making comments to that effect.

So, when my cousin called asking about his own situation I was not at all surprised at the answer I felt compelled to give. I wanted to be honest and I didn’t want to give a pat answer. But when I mentioned my thoughts to Shreemati, her reaction was not what I had expected. At first she laughed I think, but then when we talked further it became apparent she was offended and not sure what to make of the situation. She had a look of concern on her face and I knew we needed to talk through this.

In short, I was telling people around me that inter-cultural relationships were hard and should be avoided when possible. There wasn’t any one incident that made me feel this way. However, there seemed to be things swirling in my head that was making me feel like I was mourning something. We had been married a few years already, and even had our first child by this time. But, some thoughts and some ideas of our future started to bother me. All of a sudden I wanted a more traditional setting. I wanted a Nepali wife and a lively Nepali community around me. I had been living in the US for almost 15 years and was getting tired of being here. I felt that having a white-American wife constantly kept me in the midst of American culture – both at home and work – and I was getting tired of it all. I was seeking a refuge where Nepal could be found – at least at home.

In many ways what I was feeling had very little to do with Shreemati. It was more to do with the isolation and distance I felt from Nepal, my homeland, my family and everything else that goes with it. Living where I live, there are not a lot of Nepalese families near by – and those that are close have not been very eager to get to know us or be a part of our lives. In many ways I figured it might be my married situation that was causing this. I had noticed that while it’s fun to go to Nepalese events and have some community, the ladies in these gathers tend to leave Shreemati out. Sure there is the small talk and such, but then the conversation turns to Hindi movies and clothes and husbands (all in Nepali) and she feels lonely and isolated and left alone. This happened more than once and so after a while our excitement for these events dissipated. More on this later, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Nepali people can be extremely prejudiced without overtly trying.

With all of these things going on in the background, and of course accumulating over the years, I started to have feelings of regret. Hence, without really thinking through what was going on I was all of a sudden advising people not to marry outside their cultures.

I can understand that Shreemati would be upset and one evening during this time she asked me very directly if I regretted marrying her. I was caught off guard, because I had told her many times before that “of course I didn’t regret marrying her”. But this time I knew she was asking for a heart-felt answer.

I paused and looked into her eyes and realized the lie I was starting go belive. The truth is I did not regret a moment of our marriage. I remembered our long distance courtship – the international flights – the longing to be together. I thought of the apartment we rented (we never lived together before marriage, but had apartments close by) and the dinners and parties. Then of course the wedding, the honeymoon (long story for another time) and our first house. Then of course our first daughter (and two more since then). I knew in the bottom of my heart that I never regretted marrying her, it’s just that I hadn’t taken charge of making sure Nepal remained close to me.

As a side note – my cousin ended up breaking up with his girlfriend. Not because of anything I said. They graduated from college, he moved to Italy and she went to LA to pursue acting. And before you know it they had moved on.

Photo used under Creative Commons License from Flickr account ID zensquared

My Advice: Don’t Marry Outside the Culture

A few years ago my cousin, who was finishing up his undergrad in California mentioned to me that he had been in a relationship with one of his classmates. He said the relationship had been a secret for many years but he wanted to get some advice since the woman in question was American.  We had an interesting conversation and I was very eager to listen. He described the type of person his girlfriend was, he gave me some background information about her family and also discussed their possible future together.

At one level I was kind of excited that finally another member of my family was seeking to marry outside of the culture and deal with all that goes with that adventure. But there was another part of me that was very unsure and cautious. Perhaps it was the older cousin complex kicking in, perhaps it was my own insecurities coming into play, but the whole thing left me kind of perplexed about my own reaction to this news.

A few weeks later we had another conversation around this topic and towards the end of it, he asked me for some advice on what I thought he should do. Until this point it was mostly him talking and me listening with a few comments/suggestions here and there. When he asked me my advice, I felt I had to be honest. I told him about the complexities of any marriage and adding in different cultures, customs and religions made it even more complex. I told him that adding unknown variables to an equation only makes the solution more complex (we both have math backgrounds).  I think he got the picture of where I was headed.

Later on I had a conversation about this with Shreemati and she asked me what advice I had given my cousin. I told her that I felt that he should not marry outside of the culture, it was not a good fit for him and that it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I went off about family, culture, identity etc.. As the conversation continued my position solidified even further. Now, I was against Nepali boys marrying outside of the culture and caste, full stop. No more discussion.

To be continued…