The Other Side: Meet the Parents

Parents play different roles in our lives depending on our upbringing and culture. My boyfriend's family is wonderful and close, but his parents are no doubt different than mine. One of the biggest differences is that my parents are not keen to the idea of dating.

In Indian culture, parents do not consider their child finding a significant other until their child is at an age where they are ready to get married. Of course this aspect is slowly changing into the open idea of dating in the United States, but some families still operate in a more traditional manner. My family is certainly traditional. My parents are conservative and are not the type of parents I can go home to and say I'm dating so-and-so and then a few months down the road say I'm dating someone else. When it comes to dating, Indian culture values longevity and commitment.

Although I have dated others before my current boyfriend, I always knew I would never tell my parents about who I was dating unless I felt I could marry my boyfriend. I also knew that my boyfriend would never meet my parents until he and I felt we could get married one day. This was certainly a tough pill for my current boyfriend to swallow because his family is very open with dating. I met his parents after 3 months of dating, if I remember correctly. This was a daunting idea for me as I was not accustomed to this. On the flip side, it was hard for my boyfriend to understand that he would not be able to meet my parents, nor would then even know of his existence, until much much farther down the road. When time came to meet my parents, which happened about a year and a half into our relationship, he was certainly ready!

Aside from the timeline, the issues faced when meeting your significant other's parents are tenfold when you're in an interracial relationship. I was worried that my parents wouldn't be able to identify with my boyfriend and vice-versa. I was worried my boyfriend would feel left out when my and my family got together and he didn't understand some of our traditions. I was worried my boyfriend would feel slighted because oftentimes my family and I speak in Gujarati when we get together, and my boyfriend does not know enough of the language to understand what we are saying.

I always knew that my parents and my boyfriend would ultimately look at each other as people and see each other as good, honest people and get to know each other in that way, rather than focusing on the cultural differences. I learned that the stronger and more confident I was about my relationship with my boyfriend and his relationship with my parents, the more relaxed my parents and boyfriend became. Interracial relationships are challenging no doubt, but if everyone involved can see each other as people, rather than as a certain race or religion, beautiful things can happen!

It's not because you're white...

Early on in our relationship, during the “exclusive” talk, my girlfriend explained to me that I would not be able to meet her parents until we were on the verge of being engaged. There were two reasons for this: (1) her parents’ generation almost exclusively had arranged marriages and simply did not understand the concept of dating and (2) I’m not Indian.

This was an extremely difficult concept for me to accept; after all, as a white male I had never faced discrimination before. It was shocking to me that her parents, highly educated, contributing members of society, could really be against their daughter dating someone outside of their race.

It took time to understand that their priority wasn’t to discriminate against me, but rather to preserve their culture. One thing I’ve learned is that Indian people are often very proud of their roots: their language, their religion, food, holidays, movies, etc. and I feel like those things can be lost living in the U.S.

I certainly don’t agree with being against an interracial relationship, but her parents have valid concerns. It wouldn’t be incredibly far fetched for a person to enter their daughter’s life and not take an interest in anything Indian or to say I’m Christian, I won’t participate in anything Hindu. Like any parent, I think they want to take a piece of who they are and pass that down to the next generation of their family and I can’t fault them for that.

Should we just move in together? About that...

My girlfriend and I have been together for nearly two years and have discussed moving in together on several occasions. We both feel we’re at a point in our relationship where it makes sense.

So why not?

She insists it’s because her parents would not approve of a man and a woman living together before marriage. My knee-jerk reaction, being the male from the individualistic culture, is so what…you’re an adult just do what you want.

This brings us to one of the biggest differences between my girlfriend and I: our relationships with our parents.

When I moved out of the house, I left with the understanding that I would be supporting myself and that unless there was an emergency, I was essentially on my own. In turn, I was able to do whatever I wanted and since I’ve been an adult, I’m hard-pressed to recall a time when my parents told me what to do. I’ve also had a more casual relationship with my parents and it’s not uncommon for me to speak to them in a friend-like manner.

My girlfriend’s relationship with her parents has a much more defined power distance; they are the parents, she is the daughter. Despite the fact that my girlfriend is in her late 20s, her parents still play a role in her decision-making. Coming from a collectivist culture, her parents are more likely to provide support to her and even extended family members. Her father is incredibly generous and I admire the extent to which he has helped all of the family around him; in turn he is given a tremendous amount of respect within the family dynamic. It’s also important to note that going against your parents wishes is often seen as a disgrace in Indian culture.

When you consider all of these factors, it's easier to see why she cannot be expected to just do what she wants and not take her parents wishes into consideration.

The Other Side: Patience Is a Virtue

I've been dating my boyfriend for almost two years now. Probably the most important lesson I have learned is patience. I have learned to have patience as he tries to learn things about my culture. He is wonderfully interested in the language, food and traditions of India, but at times I forget that he himself is not Indian. There are things I just assume he knows, such as the fact that Indians in general are not openly affectionate with their significant other. Especially at my house, husbands and wives don't kiss each other goodnight in front of the rest of others, for example. We don't hold hands or cuddle up on the couch with our significant other when we all sit down to watch a movie together as a family. My boyfriend is not used to that. At his house it's perfectly acceptable to sit on the couch together and cuddle while the rest of his family is around. Of course there are always boundaries, but the boundaries at his house are far less strict than those at my house. I often forget that he just does not know these things. But how could he? It is my job and responsibility to teach him these little nuances whether they pertain to our cultural differences or just our differences as people. Even when I teach him something, I have learned to have patience and not expect him to remember everything I tell him and learn everything right away. It is, after all, just like learning a whole new way of life. He is sensitive to the fact that me and my family are different from him and his family, and I have tried my best to remember exactly that because that is what is most important. Whether he learns the language or masters his skills at cooking Indian food are, at the end of the day, irrelevant. What is most important to me is that he recognizes we are different, and rather than try and make me be more like him, he encourages our differences and tries to share in that part of my life. This requires patience on both our parts, but more so I am reminded not to expect the world from my boyfriend and to celebrate the differences. Patience to work through our differences and build a stronger relationship because of our differences rather than in spite of our differences is my ultimate goal; from what I've seen of my boyfriend, it is his ultimate goal as well.

Religion

In my experience, religion has surprisingly been one of the easiest issues for us to overcome. Despite growing up in a small Midwestern town and attending a Catholic school for eight years, I don’t consider myself to be incredibly engulfed in organized religion. Likewise for my girlfriend, who is Hindu and also does not feel a significant attachment to her religion.

We both believe in God and our religious traditions are quite different, but I think it’s important to recognize that neither of our beliefs are right or wrong. In fact, I would make the argument that religion is largely a simple matter of geography and what part of the world your family is from; but that topic is for another blog post.

Jesus and Krishna

For the purposes of an interracial relationship, it’s absolutely vital that both people have an open mind. If you’re convinced your religion is the only right one, then you should really reconsider getting into a relationship outside of your faith. I’ll get into further detail in later posts regarding the differences we’ve come across, as a Catholic and a Hindu, but I think it’s important to introduce the topic of religion and how important it is to keep an open mind.

The Other Side: Surprise! What Did I Just Eat?

Food is a huge part of life regardless of your background. A large part of my Indian culture is being a vegetarian. Although my boyfriend and his family understand that I am a vegetarian and respect that, it still makes for a very awkward situation. For example, if I ever go out to a restaurant and they mess up my order, I tend to lose my appetite immediately. Just this past weekend I was at dinner with my boyfriend and his family and I ordered spinach ravioli. Of course as luck would have it, they gave me some sort of meat ravioli instead. A few bites later we figured out the mistake and I about threw up in my mouth. My boyfriend and his family will really never be able to understand just how I feel when mistakes like this happen. This is a huge difference between my family and his. My family is vegetarian, and they understand how disgusted I get when I eat meat by mistake. My boyfriend's family is always understanding, but it is just never enough because in my heart I know they can't completely identify with me. This is a huge gap largely due to our cultural differences. I absolutely hate being the only vegetarian when I am hanging out with my boyfriend and his family. I hate that I can't just blend in with the group, and that certain dishes have to be specially made with me in mind. It is a lonely feeling to find myself having to stick out like a sore thumb just because of food. When I find myself in such a situation, I miss my own family even more and always wish they were there with me so I would have someone there who really understands. Food is really such a simple thing, but when I'm one vegetarian in an endless group of non-vegetarians, I feel singled out. This has been a hard feeling for me to swallow. It has and still is taking a lot of time for me to adjust to just being different. I rarely think about my skin color or even religion, but food, a part of everyday life, has really hit home the fact that I am inherently different from my boyfriend and his family. Interracial relationships will have many surprises, and this is just one of the little ones that hit me like a ton of bricks. I never thought food would end up being such a big issue. Surprise!

India has different states and why that matters

Quick geography lesson: India has 28 states in the same way the U.S. has 50. But there are key differences among each state, including culture and even language. While Hindi is widely spoken, not every person knows it, the way pretty much every person born in the U.S. speaks English.

If you happen to be dating an Indian person, you can bet their family speaks the language of their state such as Punjabi, Sindhi, etc. To put that into perspective, it would be like if people in Indiana spoke a different language and ate different food than people from Ohio. Although the U.S. is often referred to as a cultural melting pot, India is also one of the world's most diverse countries. And while most American families probably wouldn't care if you married someone from a different state, it's not uncommon for Indians to have a tremendous amount of pressure on them to marry someone whose family is from the same state in India.

In my case, my girlfriend is Gujarati, which is the language her family speaks. There actually is such a thing as Gujarati food, but it's really not that popular and she seldom eats it. While she does identify with being Indian first, being Gujarati is an extremely important part of her life.