... or whatever the proper term is...
As some of you know I have three children: one birth child, two adopted. One child was adopted from Korea the other is Indian.
If you, too, have children of various ethnicities other than your own...
Do you feel an obligation or a desire to raise them in a place of great diversity?
Gosh I am having trouble putting this into words.... what I mean is this:
I was raised in middle income, white bread america. My town was all white. My school was all white. My church was all white. The areas that I lived in as an adult were racially mixed as far as blacks and whites go (with some middle eastern as well). But not much besides that.
If we were to move back to where we lived before, our two adopted children would stick out like a sore thumb.
Here they blend in beautifully as the island is 1/3 asian, 1/3 indian and 1/3 malay with a large expat community as well. My adopted children have lots of friends who look like they do but they have friends of other races as well. And so does my one birth child. Also, both adopted children are learning their native language (one more than the other).
BUT
We are at a crossroad. This is our third year here. My oldest will start high school next year. We would like his high school experience to have some consistency so wherever we are in August 2012 is where we need to stay for 4 more years. So we need to decide if we will stay here in Malaysia for 4 more years or go elsewhere.
Why go elsewhere? Primarily it is money. We like our life here for the most part but we don't make diddly squat and college tuition looms large. Also, we have church issues in that there are NO CHURCHES on this island that are anything close to our denomination. I feel like I am withering away spiritually.
We may stay anyways. We may go to a different country. We may go home to the U.S. All of them are attractive options but all for different reasons.
But, one thing that just keeps haunting my mind is the idea of taking my children out of a diverse area and putting them into a place where they will face a lot of racism and really just feel out of place.
So how about you? Do you feel the need to provide a diverse area for your kids to grow up? Do you think having others around that "look like they do" is important?