family culture
March 3, 2016 § 5 Comments
It began with a sixth grade social studies assignment; innocent questions intended to create an intimate classroom discussion on culture. An exercise familiar across generations for the interpersonal research – facts shaped by stories. A heritage of self in family interviews.
Faith that infers belief, foods that speak to nationalities, traditions that honor sentiment. Easy questions tugged at difficult subjects. Not all family traditions are kind, some truths are more telling.
When I met my husband I imagined our children would inherit his family’s traditions. My childhood holidays were only consistent in their predictable inconsistencies. My mother was poor and my father was unburdened by an obligation to nurture superficial normalcies.
I was honored to accommodate my husband’s experiences; advent chocolates and Saint Nicholas day, an eccentric Easter tradition and a few family recipes. It was a more uncomfortable truth my children remember from the years before we found peace.
For my children there are only hints of heritage in holiday customs or hand-me-down stories. It was a history of substance abuse and greed that were written into the space of traditions. These are the markers that inform my children’s understanding of an entire ancestry of instability.
They are not the answers a teacher would expect and so this week I helped my daughter research a culture she never knew for a more predictable character of diversity. Learning pieces of a past that were impersonal for their irrelevance to our experiences.
Still, I am grateful for the innocent honesty of children. There is no shame to truth-telling; we are not bound to the choices of others. The geography of our experience is not a culture mapped by lines of latitude or longitude.
As a family I hope our faith is one of kindness; there is no denomination that informs the intentions behind our actions. Our food speaks less of heritage and more of health and community around the table. Our traditions are small, artifacts of a culture of playfulness and mindfulness – my favorite the intentional hugs at each goodbye.
These are the answers I hope echo in stories untold years from now when my children’s children fill in the spaces of self.
A legacy of love.
scribblechic 
I am sure your efforts are taken in their hearts and kept with love, to be pulled out when they are adults with children of their own. My son had to write a poem for school about what he was “from”–and when I realized my influence, couldn’t help but cry tears of joy . . .
I used to worry that setting boundaries miscommunicated judgement or conditional love, but my daughter’s understanding spoke more of self-love and honesty. It wasn’t the assignment her teacher envisioned, but we learned something invaluable all the same. Sounds like your son is a wise soul, too.
And a more beautiful legacy you could not want. The love truly given from loving ourselves is an unconditional legacy. One which you do in spades Marie 🙂
May your heart be that legacy to your children.
Initially I felt guilty that there weren’t easier answers – the expected information, but in the end I’m grateful the exercise stretched our definitions to accommodate our values.
A legacy without value has no meaning.
I think you have taught a valuable lesson to your children as well as the teacher.
We even learn from the journey Marie, as always 🙂