-Explore your roots
-Understand your family history, culture and traditions
-Learn about your shared family values
-Prompt discussion about your cultural heritage.
-Think about yourself - how do you think you reflect your family values and expectations?
-Create your own family tree. Share it with others in your family.
-Download My Family Stories. This is a ten page work book created by the Teach India Project. Fill it in to create your family history to share and treasure.
Cultural Parenting: Something Old Something New
Keywords: Cultural parenting, multicultural, intergenerational communication, balancing cultures, Indian-American, tradition, heritage, parenting, informed choices, family stories, leadership, integrity, leading by example, make your own traditions, family values, family history, western culture, western influence.
Meenal Pandya has been writing about India and its culture for more than a decade. She has written several books, hundreds of articles, and poems. Her writings have appeared in many prestigious magazines, newspapers and journals around the world. She lives in the US and is a writer, publisher and a consultant. She has raised two daughters.
Meenal wrote these essays offering invaluable advice and guidance especially for Teach India Project readers and subscribers.
Traditions are your language; you identify yourself with them,
express yourself through them and around them, and most
importantly, you feel an instant bond with people who are
familiar with them. How can we keep traditions alive? How
do we decide which traditions to keep alive?
Looking to pass on some traditions to your children?
Here are some tips:
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The word “tradition” invokes the idea of an out-dated, tedious, and
complex custom too difficult to fit into our busy lifestyle.
Actually traditions are just the opposite. Traditions are your
language; you identify yourself with them, express yourself through
them and around them, and most importantly, you feel an instant bond
with people who are familiar with them. A friend of mine who
lives in Boston tells me that, “There are two things I like to do to
make me feel Indian – make chappatis a couple of times a week and
Rangolis at festival times”.
Every family also, no matter where they are from or where they live
today has some unique identifying traditions. Traditions
create a strong bond within a family, a community or a group and
reflect what your family considers valuable. They create
memories and play a special role in looking beyond ourselves.
Migration with its related isolation and distance and time pressures
of our busy lifestyles can uproot traditions that have been a part
of the family for a very long time – often centuries in a culture
like India.
How can we keep traditions alive? How do we decide which
traditions to keep alive?
Our seasonal and religious celebrations all involve special foods,
house cleaning, new clothes and exchange of gifts with friends and
family. Find out, if you do not know already, which traditions
are in your family: your family’s special recipe for a
particular sweet or a special way to decorate the home. Recall
details from your favorite childhood celebrations and memories.
You may find this to be an interesting search in itself. As
you discuss this with your elders and your children you will see how
it helps you connect with them.
Every tradition has roots and usually begins with a story. Try to
find out what was the reason the tradition was started in the first
place. If the tradition you enjoyed as a child has religious roots,
try to find out the story behind it and share with your children.
Finding out why a certain tradition has become part of your family
may help you decide if it is worth passing on to your children.
Learn the details of what exactly is involved, and when. Tradition,
by definition is something that occurs at a regular frequency. No
matter how beautiful a tradition, if you do not observe it with
regularity, it will lose its significance. Make sure you follow the
tradition you pick with some discipline. Although obvious, this is
the hardest part of keeping a tradition in a busy family life.
One of the benefits when you transplant any tradition is that you
get a chance to reevaluate. See if this tradition is truly
bringing any joy to you and your family. A boring tradition will
not last for too long.
Making kids follow a tradition can be fun if you get them involved
in whatever capacity that they can. For example, if the tradition
involves a pooja ceremony, then make sure that the kids are helping
you decorate or take part in the aarti, or play a musical instrument
during the prayer time.
If the tradition involves food – as many of them do - see if you can
get your kids involved in cooking. Not only it will be a fun family
activity but it will also provide time together to talk about the
tradition itself – a great way to introduce other things around the
culture, religion or tradition.
Don’t get bogged down by gender roles – boys might enjoy making
rangolis as much as girls.
When you are in a different culture, improvising becomes the key.
Some traditions may not translate well in another culture but you
can always improvise to fit your family’s current needs and
circumstances. For example, as a kid I remember that every Sunday
morning our family gathered around the dining table –with a plate
that carried a small diya and incense for a prayer time. Each
family member, including young kids, offered a prayer and the last
prayer was sung together as a family. Living in America, I have
changed this tradition from every Sunday to every birthday in the
family.
If possible, consider making it open to the larger group.
Extended family, friends, community whatever works. Instead of
making it a family event, for example, invite your friends from
other cultures. Share with others. This may help children feel
proud of the tradition. For example, while celebrating Diwali, we
always included our non-Indian friends and the parents of our
children’s friends.
Keep in mind that traditions are created at some time or the other
so if you find that your family does not have any particular
tradition that is practical for you to keep in your new surrounding,
try to create a new one for your family. A certain food as a new
year celebration, a certain temple that you visit on every birthday,
a pooja that you perform on Thanksgiving day, time that you
volunteer as a family during Christmas. Be creative. Traditions do
not have to be religious. Whatever you pick, will become a
great memory for your next generation.
Although it is not important how often the traditional activity
occurs, anything less than once a year will not help a child
remember it well enough. The frequency can be daily, (such as
offering food to the deity every day before eating dinner) to every
week or once a year. Usually any tradition around holiday time is
observed with gusto and it is manageable in your busy life.
So pick a tradition and go with it. Most importantly, have fun.
Updated September 2011