Culture Shock

It is very rare for someone to marry and not experience a bit of culture shock.

Regardless of whether the two are next door neighbors or from different countries, culture is present in every individual's life. The way your parents do things is part of  your culture, and no two parents do things the same way.

I have several family members who have married incredible people from different countries. They are making it work, even though there have been a lot of differences to overcome and work through.

Personally, I love learning about other cultures and I like to know how other people think. My own situation isn't nearly as complicated as learning a new language or an ancient way of life.

I simply grew up on the western side of the United States while my husband grew up on the eastern side.

For the most part, things haven't been too shocking. We have really good communication, and we've been able to find compromises for most things. If you want some examples of things that have come up in our marriage though, I'll give you a few.

Grig calls his mother's sister awnt (aunt), while I refer to my mother's sister as ant (aunt). This has been a family joke for a while, but we finally decided to try to refer to the people on his side of the family his way, and my side of the family my way. That way, we figure that the kids will know who is related to whom. It's been working so far, but we'll see how things go.

Another difference that has emerged is Grig's desire to have the children call me ma'am. In his culture, that is a term of respect, and he wants to the children to respect me. From my point-of-view, that is something that you say to an older woman that you don't know very well to show respect. It seems distancing to me, but I have decided that if that is important to him, I can live with it.

These seem like tiny things, but in a lot of marriages, cultural differences like this can tear relationships apart. It is important to put the other person's desires before your own in order to make a marriage work. Like I said before, we talk a lot and we have great senses of humor. I am extremely stubborn occasionally, but with the help of the Lord we've been able to make it through every disagreement.

Grig and I don't fight and argue. We do disagree, which I think is healthy for a relationship. For a long time, we had an ongoing 'argument' (more of a fun disagreement really) about whether bears or wolves were smarter. That is, until Grig decided he likes wolverines more than bears anyway, and the joke was pretty much dropped.

Though we each came from a different parental culture, our goal all along has been to form a new, wonderful culture between the two of us. Part of the excitement in marriage is trying to figure out how WE want to do things, not how our parents did it. We may borrow heavily from our own experience, or make up new things all together, but as we decide together, it brings us a lot closer.

There is NO ONE RIGHT WAY to do things within a home. There is not one single right way to raise children, celebrate Christmas (or any other holiday), or earn a living. (There is one way to get to heaven, through following our Savior, but that journey is different for each of us.) When people tell you how to raise your children, understand that the method their teaching you worked for them, but it may not work for you. Talk to your spouse, pray, and follow your instincts. Listen to your children. Allow them to grow in their own way. No child is exactly like another, and you may need to have different forms of discipline for each.

Discover how to make your spouse feel loved, and then take time to do something special for them. As we become less involved in what we want, and more involved in making those in our lives happy, we become happier ourselves.

Don't let culture shock get in your way. Instead, try to understand and come to love that culture as much as you have come to understand and love your spouse. Their culture, history, and mistakes have turned them into who they are today. Love the whole package, and work on growing and improving together.

Please share with me your experiences of times that you have overcome culture shock in your marriage. I'd love to hear them.

Bedtime Stories

Ever since Kevin was born, Grig has been trying to read him bedtime stories every night.  Some nights we're better at it than others, but we've tried to be consistent.  At first, it was easy because Kevin couldn't move so he had to sit still to listen to the stories.  Grig is a very expressive reader and I rarely hear the same story twice, even when he's reading the same book!  Grig often changes the story to make it more entertaining.  Even though Kevin probably really didn't care at that age, we all still enjoyed the time together. 

Then came the time when Kevin would no longer sit still and really wasn't interested in the cardboard things that didn't move.  He wanted to be active, and it became harder to read to him.  Short stories were key during this stage.  The faster the pages turned, the more Kevin cared.

Finally, we reached a new level.  Kevin loves books now!  His current favorite is one that my parents gave us when he was born.  It's called Eight Silly Monkeys.  It's basically Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed but with a clever twist.  The monkeys' heads are also sticking out of the book so Kevin can touch them.  He loves the rhyme.  Every time we start, he sits down and begins to bob his head up and down, which is his version of dancing.  Then he slaps the book in time to the rhythm and likes to help turn the pages.  He also loves a Mother Goose Rhyme book that we have.  Rhymes and rhythms seem to be the current trend, but he also likes books about him.

We've made an effort to help our son enjoy reading because it is something that Grig and I enjoy very much.  Grig is a freelance Editor for beginning authors and he majored in Creative Writing.  I write books in my spare time as well.  We want our children to love to read, because it is something we love so much.

We also have a lot of books for them to read.  We wouldn't want them to go to waste.  Reading is something that our family has put a high priority on.  I have the theory that there is no one on this earth who doesn't enjoy reading.  People who think that they don't like it just haven't found the right book yet.

During my college years, I had a roommate who told me she hates reading.  That just wouldn't do!  So, every night I tried to read to her out of Percy Jackson; The Lightning Thief.  She started getting into it.  However, the semester got busy, and it didn't look like I would have time to finish it with her.  I had told her that when we finished it, I would buy us icecream and we would watch the movie, and so she took it upon herself to finish it on her own time!  That was better than anything I could have hoped for.  She liked the book, and she spent the whole movie complaining about how different it was from the book.

Ah, true success.  A budding reader in the making.  She even took the next book in the series to start reading, but I don't think she finished it before I got married and moved out with all of my books.

If you think you don't like reading, try a different book.  Harry Potter (though I do have some issues with the series) has done wonders for the youth of the next generation.  I think that series has done more to promote reading amongst children than any other book series ever!  That's quite an achievement.

If you keep exploring, you're bound to find a series you like.  Once you do, reading will cease to become a chore and will become an adventure!