A mother reflects upon 1 year

I have thought about this blog posting for quite a while now and debated on putting my thoughts on the internet for all to see....but what the heck. In the last year I have learned a great deal about race and culture and how we-here in the United States--think that the two are synonomous. I have had the wonderful experience of being exposed to a new culture through my daughter. And someday hopefully she will feel the same about being plopped down into our culture.

I had the unfortunate experience of being an innocent bystander to a discussion about race. The participants were discussing about "how they didn't like that attitude" and "they think they are better than us". It was very interesting--I seem to be so aware of this now that I am a multirace/multicultural family. It was facinating to me that the people who decided they didn't like these other people were basing this purely on the people's race--they'd never even met these specifice people--they'd just had interactions with others......albeit a negative interaction.

But being biased upon one interaction is like saying--I ate one time at a restaurant and the food was bad--therefore I will never go to a restaurant again. Although most of the American public needs to live by this (due to health reasons) that will never happen :)

There is also a great deal of difference between birthing a child and parenting a child. They are two seaparate and distinct processes. In our culture they are blurred together and emotionally there is no start or stop to one or the other--but in other cultures the lines are more disctinct. The choice to birth is different than the the choice to parent....this is an interesting conversation to have with the blue haired lady at the restaurant who asks "how could someone just give up such a pretty girl" (as the daggars rip through my heart) ohhhhh lady-- the choices of survival are so different in many parts of the world. Haven't you ever watched the Learning Channel????

In closing--I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has helped me concrete my realization the differences between race and culture...It was something that I knew more on a theoretical level. Take a child of a difference race to WalMart though and quickly you will come to terms with this.

In the public speaking that I do for my job I am consistanly talking about how we are all humans and we all have the same basic needs--not just food and shelter...but love, acceptance, feeling a part of community, relationships.

So God Bless to everyone and thank you for being a part of our quirky little village --we have made it through our first year....

Love--Kindra