How to Raise a Child to Feel Part of Two Cultures

Looking at my two year old son always causes all sorts of hopes and concerns to arise in my mind. We live so far away from all those things that were part of my childhood; I grew up in Ireland, while my son is growing up in Thailand. One day he will likely enjoy snatches of memory from these early years; his childhood will be full of sights and sounds that would have sounded impossibly exotic to me. We now live in a city that has real live monkeys running wild, and only last week we had an elephant walk down our street. This would have been the stuff of fairy story for me growing up.

Despite the wonderful sights and sounds that my son is treated to on a regular basis there are still many things from my childhood that I worry he will miss out on. I want to be part of his world completely and for this to happen it seem important for him to fully part of mine. My childhood didn't have monkeys and elephants, but it did have lots of special things which made me who I am. I want my son to feel connected to Ireland and my culture; this may be only half of who he is, but I want it to be fully realised. When we visit Ireland I want him to feel that it is his country as much as Thailand is his country. An impossible ambition you might think. I worry that if my son does not feel connected to where I come from then he will not feel close to me. As much as I sometimes dislike to admit it, where I grew up is an important part of who I am. I have grown so much since then of course, but so much of my development occurred in that place.

It will not be possible for my son to share all the things that were once so important to me growing up; all those things that made me happy and shaped me. Even if we lived in Ireland this would not be possible; those days are gone and they are never to be repeated. He can never meet my childhood friend who took my on adventures where we became pirates and sang, " ho ho ho and a bottle of rum". He will probably never quite know what it was like to stand outside Cleary's as a young boy eagerly waiting in the cold to meet Santa Clause. He will not be bowled away by Funderland which once seemed the most exotic place on the planet; being flung through the air by fun machines while listening to Wham telling the to wake them up before they go-go and pretending that I didn't like it. My son will never understand the excitement of summer because he always has sunshine; an exotic climate to him is a cold one. My son's childhood reminds me of how much I miss me own.

I am sure that this is a challenge facing all of us ex-pats in Thailand and elsewhere. When you raise a child who has two cultures there will always be one that takes precedence; I will do all I can to make sure that he gets to feel part of both.