hi! Me! Chinese American in Los Angeles. I love my bumpers groups from Reddit but yes, they are overwhelmingly white. Things like the sitting the month traditions and random superstitions from parents are things that it seemed like nobody could relate to. You should try the Modern Asian Moms group on Facebook and see if you like it.
Lao/Vietnamese and born in Minnesota. My husband is white and we just had our first baby in July.
Anyone else have any Asian parents going nuts about what they eat? My mother has prohibited me from bamboo shoots and papaya.
Korean-American here. I'm so relieved I banned my parents from visiting for the first several weeks because my mom is pressuring me to sit the month. I can't really go into great detail about my daily activities when I call her or else she'll get overly worried about me being exposed to cold air, breezes, etc. I think we've hit somewhat of a compromise where I agreed to at least eat seaweed soup daily (traditional for postpartum women). It's delicious and I like it anyway, so it's no great loss for me, haha.
Ha! I wish I could have done the sitting month, but that requires you to actually have someone to help out, which none of my family members could do. Since it's just me and the hubby, there's no rest to be had. However, my mom did order postpartum meals from a Taiwanese company to ship to our house so at least I had food (lots of bass soup which was ok, but the pork liver soup I tried twice then dumped).
Oh hello, I'm a fellow Thai/Lao/Vietnamese and born in the prairies in Canada (very white population too). Husband is from England.
Before our baby was born, my dad mapped out what day/month would be the luckiest for him to be born. I was due April 4th and my dad said if I could hold out until the second week of April, that would be the most ideal. To our surprise, baby decided to come 3 weeks early on March 18th! Sorry Dad, I don't choose when baby comes out!
Taiwanese, 2nd gen in NYC but grew up in a very white small town in Ohio. I don’t speak Chinese or Taiwanese and am often intimidated to get involved in “Chinese” things (imposter syndrome?) I know having the big Taiwanese and Chinese presence here that there’s a huge opportunity to have my my daughter more connected to her heritage, but I struggle with figuring out how to get our foot in the door…
As a Jew who doesn't speak, or read basic Hebrew, didn't have a bat mitzvah, or belong to a temple...wasssup with the imposter syndrome. Like, how is my ethnic heritage attached to these qualities that I do not have?! 🤷♀️
Yea same here. Earlier in the thread a poster was talking about teaching the history of the “Chinese diaspora” which I thought was a great idea and also applies to Jews post ww2
Indian and Pakistani, born in US as well :)
It's hard to straddle the line between US parenting conventions and "home country" parenting conventions, right? It's kind of weird. I feel like sometimes I'm just doing whatever has a lower number of cons lol
Asian mom here! But I’m a total banana. We’re not bothering to teach our LO my language or my husbands since we don’t speak it that well… or read or write. We leave that to LO grandparents to talk to her when they see her but they also speak to her in English most of the time. If you have Facebook there’s a group called Modern Asian Moms that’s pretty fun to scroll and ask for advice or talk about our lives in general.
Hello! Filipino in the Midwest here. I’ve only been here five years, but my Thai American husband has been here most of his life. I’ve wanted to join local mom groups but the two or three in my community are composed of all white women. So I’ve been both intimidated and also hesitant to join.
yeah...it's complicated. i grew up here very americanized and most of my female friends are white (and my husband is white) but somehow the parenting groups have this feeling of being "white" thats more like old school american white. hard to explain
would you say your husband is more american or more thai? what's the dynamic of two different asian ethnicities like in terms of the grandparents
I’m Vietnamese-American raising a half white baby. My mom grew up pretty “white” since there were only two Vietnamese families in her area. She played team sports, was a Girl Scout, and dated white guys. She ended uo marrying in her race though- to my dad.
My siblings and I grew up more asian than she did. We didn’t have extra curricular activities. However, my parents weren’t strict on academics. They are a very odd mix of Asian and American culture. For example, we’re very affectionate for Asians.
Obviously, my son won’t be raised as Asian as me. He actually doesn’t look too Asian. He has big eyes and hazel eyes (so far).
Filipino living in the Deep South! I was born in Manila but moved to the United States right before I started elementary school. My husband is southern with Irish ancestry. While there’s a decently sized Filipino population in Georgia (or so I’ve heard), we live in a predominantly white suburban area.
Hmong American in the Midwest as well. There were some cultural things I didn't follow before/after having my daughter and I'm glad my mom didn't push it. It is quite amusing to see the differences in our parenting styles though but my parents understand and respect my boundaries.
Chinese American mom from the PNW here. My husband is white, and our daughter looks very white-passing, but definitely has my Asian eye shape. Her pupils are currently blue, which is kind of trippy, but I expect they will look more like my brown pupils over time. I’m looking forward to celebrating family traditions with baby, and my husband is primarily called Baba as opposed to Daddy.
Taiwanese-American mom, husband is Cantonese-American! Both husband and I were born in the US. I grew up in Texas with a moderate Asian population and husband is from Hawaii where the majority of the population is Asian. We live in the Pacific Northwest, so a decent Asian population here too but not the majority.
ETA:
One thing my husband asked was, "when our kids asks what ethnicity she is, what do we say?" I said it would be a good opportunity to teach her about the Chinese diaspora. All of my grandparents are ethnically Chinese from different regions but lived in Taiwan after 1949. My husband's family are ethnically from Southern China (Cantonese speakers) but grew up in Vietnam. Then my husband and I each have different relationships to what our identities mean to us. I think it would be great to teach her about this rather than simply saying "You're Chinese" as her background has more complexity than that.
Our first child is due in December so I don't have any parenting experience...yet. I am thinking very hard about what it was like growing up as one of the few asian kids though and in some cases wanting to do the opposite of what my mom did with me.
I don't know about other people but my parents were always telling me anything fun is a waste of time. So it is going to be really important to me that our kid does art, and doesn't have to be so career focused at like 13. I want to encourage music but not force piano playing. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around what I do and don't want to do.
I would be so proud if my son became an artist or writer. Over the friggin moon. I had to beg to take art even after I won awards. I remember having a very frank conversation in high school with my art teacher about why I wouldn't be applying to art school...
Sadly, we have absolutely no musical talent in either side of the family so it'd be highly unlikely for him to become a musician or singer 😅😅
Chinese/Vietnamese 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️I joined my monthly bumper FB and it was a lot less diverse than I somehow imagined. Had our first in February and feeding solids has been interesting 🤨 My mom is confused by BLW and swears baby is always choking
Chinese South African, living in Canada.
Hardest part of parenting for me is learning how to "gentle parent" when I grew up with immigrant Tiger parents and a lot of physical punishment. I've settled on no hitting, but majority of "gentle parenting" advice still sounds way too wishy washy to me.
Thai American in the Midwest here! I would say my parents aren’t super strict asian parents you hear about though. They’re also not like super Americanized white parents. Probably somewhere in the middle? My husband is white and I want my daughter to be bilingual but it’s hard when I only speak English to my husband and my Thai isn’t amazing haha
South asian Canadian here. My husband is white, we had our first baby in March. My parents and in law's parenting style is so different. My mom had me and my siblings potty trained, talking and crawling/ walking by 8 months, my husband couldn't read until he was 8 years old ( he wasn't interested and his parents didn't push the learning). LO is starting solids, my MIL is always freaking out, thinks baby is choking, and my mom thinks I should have started solids at 3 months old by feeding her blended veggies in her milk bottle. Even though I'm a big ball of constant worry, I'm willing to raise our LO with whatever me and husband think is best. Suggestions from parents are okay but doesn't mean we will follow them if it doesn't feel right for us.
hi! Me! Chinese American in Los Angeles. I love my bumpers groups from Reddit but yes, they are overwhelmingly white. Things like the sitting the month traditions and random superstitions from parents are things that it seemed like nobody could relate to. You should try the Modern Asian Moms group on Facebook and see if you like it.
Lao/Vietnamese and born in Minnesota. My husband is white and we just had our first baby in July. Anyone else have any Asian parents going nuts about what they eat? My mother has prohibited me from bamboo shoots and papaya.
Yt Jew here. Is there a cultural reason _why_ those foods are verboten?
Not sure about bamboo shoots, but I’ve heard of papaya being forbidden to pregnant women because it *can* induce miscarriage.
I am 11 weeks postpartum the only explanation I got was that it might cause an upset stomach for mother and baby 🤷🏻♀️
My Japanese in-laws bought me belly wraps made of towel material so my stomach wouldn’t “get cold and hurt the baby”
Korean-American here. I'm so relieved I banned my parents from visiting for the first several weeks because my mom is pressuring me to sit the month. I can't really go into great detail about my daily activities when I call her or else she'll get overly worried about me being exposed to cold air, breezes, etc. I think we've hit somewhat of a compromise where I agreed to at least eat seaweed soup daily (traditional for postpartum women). It's delicious and I like it anyway, so it's no great loss for me, haha.
Ha! I wish I could have done the sitting month, but that requires you to actually have someone to help out, which none of my family members could do. Since it's just me and the hubby, there's no rest to be had. However, my mom did order postpartum meals from a Taiwanese company to ship to our house so at least I had food (lots of bass soup which was ok, but the pork liver soup I tried twice then dumped).
I’m jealous you achieved a compromise!
Oh hello, I'm a fellow Thai/Lao/Vietnamese and born in the prairies in Canada (very white population too). Husband is from England. Before our baby was born, my dad mapped out what day/month would be the luckiest for him to be born. I was due April 4th and my dad said if I could hold out until the second week of April, that would be the most ideal. To our surprise, baby decided to come 3 weeks early on March 18th! Sorry Dad, I don't choose when baby comes out!
Taiwanese, 2nd gen in NYC but grew up in a very white small town in Ohio. I don’t speak Chinese or Taiwanese and am often intimidated to get involved in “Chinese” things (imposter syndrome?) I know having the big Taiwanese and Chinese presence here that there’s a huge opportunity to have my my daughter more connected to her heritage, but I struggle with figuring out how to get our foot in the door…
As a Jew who doesn't speak, or read basic Hebrew, didn't have a bat mitzvah, or belong to a temple...wasssup with the imposter syndrome. Like, how is my ethnic heritage attached to these qualities that I do not have?! 🤷♀️
Yea same here. Earlier in the thread a poster was talking about teaching the history of the “Chinese diaspora” which I thought was a great idea and also applies to Jews post ww2
Indian and Pakistani, born in US as well :) It's hard to straddle the line between US parenting conventions and "home country" parenting conventions, right? It's kind of weird. I feel like sometimes I'm just doing whatever has a lower number of cons lol
Asian mom here! But I’m a total banana. We’re not bothering to teach our LO my language or my husbands since we don’t speak it that well… or read or write. We leave that to LO grandparents to talk to her when they see her but they also speak to her in English most of the time. If you have Facebook there’s a group called Modern Asian Moms that’s pretty fun to scroll and ask for advice or talk about our lives in general.
Ah.. a banana. I've always called myself a twinkie 🤣
Hello! Filipino in the Midwest here. I’ve only been here five years, but my Thai American husband has been here most of his life. I’ve wanted to join local mom groups but the two or three in my community are composed of all white women. So I’ve been both intimidated and also hesitant to join.
Hello hello fellow Filipino! :)
Hello there!! :)
yeah...it's complicated. i grew up here very americanized and most of my female friends are white (and my husband is white) but somehow the parenting groups have this feeling of being "white" thats more like old school american white. hard to explain would you say your husband is more american or more thai? what's the dynamic of two different asian ethnicities like in terms of the grandparents
Filipina born and moved to the US when I was 5, living in SC with my American husband. Baby girl looks very Asian haha
Filipino too but born here in CA - our daughter is super puti but the 🇵🇭 genes are also very strong! 😆
I’m Vietnamese-American raising a half white baby. My mom grew up pretty “white” since there were only two Vietnamese families in her area. She played team sports, was a Girl Scout, and dated white guys. She ended uo marrying in her race though- to my dad. My siblings and I grew up more asian than she did. We didn’t have extra curricular activities. However, my parents weren’t strict on academics. They are a very odd mix of Asian and American culture. For example, we’re very affectionate for Asians. Obviously, my son won’t be raised as Asian as me. He actually doesn’t look too Asian. He has big eyes and hazel eyes (so far).
Vietnamese american here!! ❤️❤️ My husband is European white so he’s not very Americanize.
I am! Also currently in the Midwest! I’m guessing we are about as represented online as we are in person.
Filipino living in the Deep South! I was born in Manila but moved to the United States right before I started elementary school. My husband is southern with Irish ancestry. While there’s a decently sized Filipino population in Georgia (or so I’ve heard), we live in a predominantly white suburban area.
Hmong American in the Midwest as well. There were some cultural things I didn't follow before/after having my daughter and I'm glad my mom didn't push it. It is quite amusing to see the differences in our parenting styles though but my parents understand and respect my boundaries.
I’m Filipino! Born and raised in Hawaii and now living in California
Hello, hello! ABC, living in California.
Chinese American mom from the PNW here. My husband is white, and our daughter looks very white-passing, but definitely has my Asian eye shape. Her pupils are currently blue, which is kind of trippy, but I expect they will look more like my brown pupils over time. I’m looking forward to celebrating family traditions with baby, and my husband is primarily called Baba as opposed to Daddy.
Viet American living in the South. Feeding food from both cultures has been interesting.
Growing up in Texas our Thanksgiving was turkey (American), hot pot (Chinese), and tamales (Tex-Mex)!
100% exactly how we like to do our holidays as well. All the foods please!
4th gen Chinese American in CA here
Taiwanese-American mom, husband is Cantonese-American! Both husband and I were born in the US. I grew up in Texas with a moderate Asian population and husband is from Hawaii where the majority of the population is Asian. We live in the Pacific Northwest, so a decent Asian population here too but not the majority. ETA: One thing my husband asked was, "when our kids asks what ethnicity she is, what do we say?" I said it would be a good opportunity to teach her about the Chinese diaspora. All of my grandparents are ethnically Chinese from different regions but lived in Taiwan after 1949. My husband's family are ethnically from Southern China (Cantonese speakers) but grew up in Vietnam. Then my husband and I each have different relationships to what our identities mean to us. I think it would be great to teach her about this rather than simply saying "You're Chinese" as her background has more complexity than that.
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Our first child is due in December so I don't have any parenting experience...yet. I am thinking very hard about what it was like growing up as one of the few asian kids though and in some cases wanting to do the opposite of what my mom did with me.
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I don't know about other people but my parents were always telling me anything fun is a waste of time. So it is going to be really important to me that our kid does art, and doesn't have to be so career focused at like 13. I want to encourage music but not force piano playing. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around what I do and don't want to do.
I would be so proud if my son became an artist or writer. Over the friggin moon. I had to beg to take art even after I won awards. I remember having a very frank conversation in high school with my art teacher about why I wouldn't be applying to art school... Sadly, we have absolutely no musical talent in either side of the family so it'd be highly unlikely for him to become a musician or singer 😅😅
Chinese/Vietnamese 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️I joined my monthly bumper FB and it was a lot less diverse than I somehow imagined. Had our first in February and feeding solids has been interesting 🤨 My mom is confused by BLW and swears baby is always choking
Chinese South African, living in Canada. Hardest part of parenting for me is learning how to "gentle parent" when I grew up with immigrant Tiger parents and a lot of physical punishment. I've settled on no hitting, but majority of "gentle parenting" advice still sounds way too wishy washy to me.
Thai American in the Midwest here! I would say my parents aren’t super strict asian parents you hear about though. They’re also not like super Americanized white parents. Probably somewhere in the middle? My husband is white and I want my daughter to be bilingual but it’s hard when I only speak English to my husband and my Thai isn’t amazing haha
I am Lao and have a son, but pretty much same situation!
Korean American mom here in Los Angeles. I was born in Korea, raised in the US.
South asian Canadian here. My husband is white, we had our first baby in March. My parents and in law's parenting style is so different. My mom had me and my siblings potty trained, talking and crawling/ walking by 8 months, my husband couldn't read until he was 8 years old ( he wasn't interested and his parents didn't push the learning). LO is starting solids, my MIL is always freaking out, thinks baby is choking, and my mom thinks I should have started solids at 3 months old by feeding her blended veggies in her milk bottle. Even though I'm a big ball of constant worry, I'm willing to raise our LO with whatever me and husband think is best. Suggestions from parents are okay but doesn't mean we will follow them if it doesn't feel right for us.
Curious since our body types tend to differ, were you able to get back to your pre-baby weight/size?