Gori Girl

Oh, I completely relate to any post that describes a mother-daughter relationship as "We get along fine but are very unalike."

So, hmm, first my experience with telling the parents… well, it was sort of forced on my side too. As I describe at the bottom of my post on meeting Aditya's parents, his parents first became aware that the two of us were dating when I was hospitalized about a month into the relationship. Well, that's when my parents found out as well – since my mother flew out to see me at the hospital, and Aditya was there too, it was pretty obvious that they'd find out about the relationship. What made it about a million times worse was that my hospitalization was due to a major clot in my leg, which was partially caused by my starting to take hormonal birth control (and genetic issues, as we found out later). And I sorta broke that news to my father when I first called him from the hospital while a bit panicked about the whole hospitalization thing. Yeah… that's not my recommended way of telling your parents that you're in a serious, intimate relationship, intercultural or otherwise.

Anyways, I doubt that my experience, as odd as the circumstances were, is particularly helpful to you. So, what particular worries do you have about your parents' reactions to your relationship? I'm lucky in that my parents aren't particularly religious – and Aditya is Hindu, which I think is generally seen as less threatening than Islam – so religion has never been an issue of concern for the ol' parental units. If you think it'll be an issue for your mom and/or dad, you might try checking out The Interfaith Marriage Network Site, which has a great guide to dealing with all sorts of interfaith issues, including family disapproval. They also have a page with links to other resources specifically dealing with family & community.

Race & culture were, I think, an issue for my parents. It helped that by the point I was dating Aditya, I'd already made it pretty clear to my parents that, basically, I was going to live my life my way (running off to Germany when you're 17 tends to do that…). So, I told them that I'd welcome questions and what-have-you about my dating Aditya, but was very matter-of-fact about the fact that I was dating him, and that that was just that.

With my mom, the issues were that, well, she had the typical stereotypical beliefs about India (poor, oppressed women, holy cows) – I think at one point she was worried that he'd take me off to India and keep me there, or something. That was dealt with by listening to her concerns, pointing out the reasons why they weren't reasonable/relevant, and then giving her books to read (she's a big reader) about Indian culture.

With my dad, well, I've never communicated well with my father, but I knew that, at the very least, the different race was going to be an issue (he'd made comments while I was growing up about dating "your own kind" and about how specifically, white-black dating was not "right"). But, luckily for our relationship (I think), he never really said anything against Aditya – I knew he was uncomfortable with the situation, but nothing was said, you know? That worked out okay, actually, since Aditya and my father are more alike than not – so once they got to know each other & hung out a bit, they got along just fine. In fact, this Christmas, after opening up gifts, Aditya exclaimed that my father always gets him the best presents. And it's true – my dad is much better at figuring out what Aditya would like than what I would.

Hmmmm – I'm not sure how helpful that is, but thost were my experiences.