How a clash in culture, background or beliefs can lead to a clash in relationships
By Cheryne Fourdrigniez
When Claire Hansen was forced into an arranged marriage with her now ex-husband, their cultural backgrounds simply did not complement each other – nor their children. Claire is originally from Morocco while her ex comes from Mauritius.
Three languages were spoken in the house: Creole, French and Moroccan. Her son only started speaking English when he was placed in nursery at the age of three.
Their second eldest son didn’t speak until he was three years old because “there was so much confusion in the house”, says Claire, who asked that her real name not be used. “My poor son,” she says with no emotion.
Claire grew up with the freedom to do whatever she pleases so when she was raising her children, she wanted her three sons to have the same freedom that she had. This is where she and her husband clashed. He was a strict Muslim but “I wanted them to know about all religions because we don’t live in a Muslim country”.
She continues, “I didn’t want them to be different from their friends, I wanted them to enjoy their lives.”
While their father wanted his sons to go to the mosque, Claire wanted them to go out and have fun with their friends. “It’s okay to take them to the mosque once a week, but not every single day,” she says angrily.
It’s no surprise that no relationship is perfect. But intercultural couples have it more difficult than mono-cultural couples because of the unique cultural differences that they might face.
Intercultural parenting comes with a host of challenges. It can cause family dysfunction and result in children who grow up with identity issues.
“There’s an extra richness of experience that’s possible with bicultural families that ‘monocultural’ families don’t have. but it’s not without its challenges as a trade-off, ” says Graham Frize, a clinical psychologist at Imperial College Healthcare.
He believes that raising bicultural children can be “enriching if it goes well but can add extra or additional problems to the child’s upbringing if it doesn’t”. He explains that it’s “really down to basic family functionality in the end”.
“Loving, caring, well adapted and resourced families of any combination is a better start,” says Frize.
Establishing an identity as a bicultural child
According to the Encyclopaedia of Family Studies, a bicultural household is usually defined based on one’s religious beliefs, ethnic background, nationality, or race.
Research by the Family Journal shows that intercultural couples often abstain from conflict but when children come along, this is when cultural differences start to creep up.
A Holloway Express survey which investigates whether bicultural children have problems establishing an identity in intercultural households reveals that 40% indeed have identity problems while 60% don’t.
Digital Communication, Cultural and Media student Sophia Shim, who is half Korean and half Moroccan, admits that she’s had a lot of confusion growing up. Shim’s father, who converted to Islam when he married her mother, “would always clash based on religion because his views weren’t as strict as my mother’s”.
The 21-year-old admits that she’s always felt conflicted about living a certain way. “Because I’m half Korean, I have that pressure to conform to the unrealistic Korean beauty standard, be a workaholic and be the smartest in every aspect of my life.”
On the other hand, she continues, “the other half was always the pressure of being a housewife, meeting a good husband, and settling down”.
Shim adds that even the beauty norms in Korea and Morocco are completely different. “One was the curvier the better – and the other was the thinner the better!”
Despite confusion growing up, Shim explains that she’s blessed to biracial. “It’s integral to who I am today, and it allowed me to connect to so many people of various backgrounds,” she says.
A bicultural family with a perfectly normal life
Disagreements based on the way children should be brought up, and cultural differences are amongst some of the issue’s parents face when raising bicultural children. But can intercultural parents truly construct healthy family systems within culturally diverse households?
Indeed, having parents of opposite religions doesn’t always mean a clash in relationships. Philosophy and Sociology student at Bristol University, Josie Knowles, whose mother is Jewish American, and father is “non-religious and of Christian background,” says her British side of the family isn’t so used to the American side.
This is because she says, “Americans are more blunt and they don’t have stiff upper lips like British people.”
Knowles admits that she’s felt conflicted about following one parent’s advice and not the other. But that’s not necessarily based on religion or background. She explains that if, for example, “I have arguments about friendship groups, my mum is more cold-hearted and blunt about it”.
The 20-year-old adds that she’s always considered herself Jewish. “It’s all I know, it’s like someone asking me how I feel to have ten toes.”
Although Knowles’ parents come from different continents, they both speak the same language – although they often joke about each other’s accents – which takes a lot of the pressure off.
Strategies to cope
The Speech language and therapy for kids clinic suggests that if a child finds it difficult to speak in any of the languages utilised in the home, there is a possibility that the child might have a language problem.
It is therefore advised that three strategies should be imposed in raising bilingual children but with some modifications for trilingual children.
Three strategies are discussed: the ‘one person – one language strategy,’ – when one parent only speaks to a child in a specific language; the ‘minority language at home strategy,’ – when one language is spoken at home and another outside the home, and finally the ‘time and place (T&P) strategy’ – when specific languages are spoken according to the event.
D. Bhugun, the author of Intercultural Parenting and Relationships recommends that apart from language, specific strategies should be enforced when raising bicultural children.
For example, it is advised that neither of the parent’s culture should be forced onto the child, multiculturalism should be embraced in the household, and most importantly, there should be consistency in not only parenting, but also teaching values.
For Claire Hansen, that advice came a little too late. She says the cultural conflicts at home made one of her sons become aggressive and depressed. But as soon as she and her husband finally got a divorce after 10 years of marriage, everything calmed down and her son became happier and more stable.
“He recently told me ‘Mum, I remember how sad you were. When you’re sad, we’re sad, when you’re happy, we’re happy.’”
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