Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
My husband was raised by his Polish parents they basically brainwashed him with ideas that he had to marry a Polish girl. His parents are very traditional.
I met my husband 7 years ago and we married in November 2001. We have a 5 year-old daughter. When we decided to get married, his parents told him that he was making a mistake. But finally they got to know me and now they like me a lot.
But they are still pressuring me and my daughter to speak Polish, go to Polish church, etc. My problem is that even though they have told my husband that they like me a lot, he still feels pain and dissatisfaction that he didn’t marry a Polish girl.
He loves me and cares about us and he said that I have all the qualities he wants for a wife. But he cannot live with the idea that I’m not Polish. I love him so much and don’t know what to do. Please, what do you say to a person like this? Can you help?
From Danucha
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Wow… This has got to be confusing and painful for you.
The first thing I’m going to suggest is marriage counseling, with someone who has experience with interethnic couples.
The second thing I’m going to suggest is that you find out obliquely what your 5 YO knows already, how she’s feeling about anything she’s heard, been told, or picked up on, and talk with your spouse as to how he speaks around his daughter. She probably knows a lot more that you want her to know. No matter where this goes, she should not be made to feel like she’s in the middle. You can’t shield her from everything, but she should know that it’s nothing she’s doing wrong, and that her parents still love her.
The questions that pop immediately to mind are the following:
1. Are your inlaws accepting of your non-Polishness now? Or are they putting ideas in his head about what a “Polish” wife would be like? Could they be saying one thing to you and another to your spouse?
2. If your inlaws are being honest, then does your husband KNOW that his parents like you? He’s acting as if he doesn’t. And why is this coming to a head NOW?
3. What does “Polish” culture mean to him? What does he think he’s losing with not having a Polish spouse? What does he think the differences would be? My hunch is that he has a fantasy/stereotype about the “perfect” Polish spouse, which of course doesn’t exist for any ethnic group.
4. Is it possible that he has problems or thinks he has problems with YOUR ethnic group, and he’s using his Polish background as an excuse? Again, I wonder if he is holding negative sterotypes about your ethnic group, even if he thinks you’re the exception to the rule.
5. Is he worried that his child is not “Polish” enough? Again, what does “Polish” mean to him? Learning Polish, celebrating cultural holidays and traditions, etc. can be incorporated into your family life, if they aren’t already. 5 years old is still a good age to learn a language. What would be enough for him?
6. And finally, what else is going on in your marriage? Have you always had struggles and doubts, or is this new? Is it possible that the ethnicity debate is a cover for other issues?
This sounds like something that has been brewing for a while and is just now becoming a life-changing issue. Good luck and best wishes.
Would you be against learning the Polish language and customs? Your husband should be able to help you and your daughter with that. Would that satisfy him?
Remind him that he could have easily married a Polish woman who had no interest in maintaining her culture or who even didn’t know her culture well (take me….I’m Polish but know very little about being Polish). What should be important to him is if you are willing to learn, not what your blood is.
Hmmm… there’s alot of advice up there – I agree counseling is great. What they may end up suggesting is both of you meeting somewhere in the middle. Maybe you can make a bigger effort to support the Polish traditions & language, and maybe he can accept that that you aren’t polish and can only do so much.
My Mom married (Irish) into a strict Italian household – to make things worse – they lived with my Grandmother who refused to speak anything but Italian around my Mom. I’m sure you can imagine the rest.
As a child of this “situation” I wish my Mom had learned a bit of italian so I’d have another language. However, my Mom gave us the best of both – she learned how to follow the Italian customs while exposing us to our Irish side – far more laid back and close knit. I feel like I had tradition and family experiences that have enriched my life.
I believe the bottom line is respecting both sides. If you can have respect for the Polish side, then your husband needs to respect your side as well.
And it can’t hurt to discover new traditions that will be special to the three of you.
Good luck – I’m sure with the holidays approaching things are getting thick!
Wow this is a sensitive issue, and one that could easily feel negative on both sides. I think one thing to keep in mind is that supporting one element of your family’s cultural mix does not mean being “against” the other element(s).
Many parents from other cultures and parents of color fear losing their culture in a cross-cultural marriage, where they live outside their cultural community. I don’t know where you live or what your community is like (I’m assuming you live in the States, sorry if that’s not correct), but maybe your husband fears that your daughter will just be assimilated into general white/American “culture”, and will therefore lose touch with her Polish culture. Your husband wanting her to learn Polish and attend Polish church may be his way of providing some balance to everything else your daughter will be exposed to throughout her life.
Assuming you live in the States, and the language at home/school/community is English, there is no danger of your daughter NOT picking up your language/culture; your husband most likely realizes that unless he makes a concerted conscious effort to make sure your daughter experiences her Polish connections, there IS a danger she will lose that. She won’t get that from anywhere else, so he may feel that he has the responsibility to make sure she has that in her life.
If he (and his parents) see you as being resistant to that, this could cause them to assume you are “against” your daughter having that Polish influence, and cause them to feel they have to fight for it. If you then feel outnumbered, as though they’re forming an alliance “against” you, then it could start a vicious circle of each side digging in — with your daughter in the middle.
Maybe your they feel outnumbered within society in a similar way? If you feel outnumbered in your family group, is it possible that he (and his parents) are feeling outnumbered on a larger scale, as far as what your daughter will be exposed to throughout her life?
Is there a reason you wouldn’t want your daughter to learn Polish or attend Polish church? It is her heritage and background after all, and I’m wondering if the family saw you as supporting those things, maybe you not being Polish wouldn’t be the issue it is to them now. I’d imagine that the reason his parents were reticent about him marrying a non-Polish person may have been exactly that fear that the culture would be lost. If you could show them that isn’t the case, it might go a long way toward them relaxing their ideas and fears.
One last thought — when your daughter is an adult, if she’s had the influence of the Polish culture and a strong connection to that, she’ll probably be thankful that you made the effort to support her in that, even though it’s not always easy to do that here. If she misses out on that, how might she feel about it then? She might regret not having that language, knowledge and connection. She could feel resentful or sad about it.
Good luck to you — this isn’t an easy situation for anyone. I hope things go well for you, your family, and especially your daughter.
Holy cow, I didn’t realize my comment got that long – didn’t mean to bogart the comment section. Sheesh.