Adult children dating - different faiths and races

What this conversation has helped me to process is wanting to be supportive, rather than controlling. Encouraging, rather than demanding. My parents steered me towards marrying Jewish through a combination of threats and guilt. I am not going to repeat that, but I do understand their motivation. I have a very good relationship with both sons and intend to keep it that way. I also believe in the importance of passing our Jewish heritage forward to the next generation. Goal is to balance both.>>>>>>>>>

May I ask why don’t you sit down and have a heart to heart adult conversation with your son? About all of it…heritage, persecution, the whole shebang. Let him know just how seriously he should really examine it all. I feel you could do this without it being aggressive or manipulative…just so he really considers this part of himself and what it means.

@DonnalL,

Yes. It is that word he was using. But I still do not know the difference between that word and being an atheist.

In a typical believer’s opinion, which one tends to be “worse” in the sense that: which one is more likely yo be hostile to believers in general?

@mcat2, an agnostic is considered to have decided that they do not know whether or not there is a “god.” An atheist is considered to have decided that there definitely is not a “god.”

I’d say that there are probably fewer out and out atheists than there are agnostics leaning towards atheism. :slight_smile:

Could you clarify something for me? Your previous posts in other threads have led me to believe that your S’s GF and your family are all Chinese, although perhaps of different backgrounds. Now it seems that you are saying they are of a different ethnic group entirely.

@Consolation: They are indeed of a different group entirely.

I actually heard that if anyone tries to lump them together, it is very insulting to at least one of the groups.

DS once learned the “lessons” In a hard way (luckily, prior to dating with this girl.) He got lectured by someone in his lab because he hinted the cultures are not that different (not sure from where he got this wacky idea.) The fact is that DS lacked exposure to neither culture in any significant way and it was an honest mistake. (Our family has always been anti-social and he rarely has had an opportunity to socialize with anyone in our ethnic group while growing up (maybe with the exception of the few years in high school) – he lacked the ability to even join the club of his ethnic group in college. He tried and would not “fit in.”)

If one day he needs to socialize/interact with someone in either culture, he had a lot to learn before he would not have many “mis-steps” – some could even be considered as rude. (BTW, he once told me that the parents of his GF naturally prefer their daughter to date with someone in their ethnic group because they could at least communicate with each other. I think his GF had to “work hard” (not to the extent of having to rebel against her parents) before DS could be accepted – thus I think she has tried to introduce him to all of her family members whenever there is a chance – family’s and even friend’s opinions/approval/blessing count much more there, I think. The marriage is not “union between the couple” only, as I learned from someone in that background. The girl herself is very Americanized though but it is a different story for her parents.)

Ironically, we as parents have never met her personally but her parents have met DS, even though we live in the US while all of her family members now do not. (Their family members likely hold passports of more than one countries and travel frequently. Kind of living in country X, has citizenship in country Y also, etc.)

Hopefully, DS’s girlfriend would not interpret it as “we do not welcome her into our family.” (We gave her gifts to compensate the lack of the in-person interactions.) The fact is the cost of traveling to the east coast is too high for us while her parents can afford to travel as family vacations quite frequently all over the world – e.g., half a year ago attending a “destination wedding” (well, more like hometown wedding) of a classmate thousands of miles away from either the US or their country.

I should do so. It’s overdue. And truly - I want to hear more about his goals and priorities for his life.

Good luck, RVM. I’m sure that in the 6 weeks your S is visiting, there will be ample opportunity to share and have thoughtful discussions with minimal hurt feelings. Hopefully this thread has allowed you to consider perspectives you may not have previously thought of. This is indeed a touchy subject but you seem like you have given this considerable though and can express yourself without accusations, defensiveness, or other negatives that get in the way. I wish you the best, as it is clear that you are pondering this deeply and are very close to your children and would like to be close to any future grandkids as well.

A friend’s son and his GF just had a baby. Doesn’t seem they have marriage as a priority. Paternal GPs are thrilled with the little guy, and plan to have a condo close.

Just the other night, I had a serious conversation with older son. It was actually about conversation and communication, and I was explaining that I have never had great communication with my parents. Disagreements never get aired out and I still feel like I am treated like a child seeking their approval in many ways. My father in particular is impossible to disagree with - he gets furious. I want a very different relationship with my sons - I do speak to them as adults - I find I confide in them more and more regarding my struggles with my elderly parents. So, I think the foundation is there.

This topic is one I have a hard time discussing because it gets very emotional for me. Some of it is not completely logical. But yes, when son is home between semesters for a few weeks, good opportunity to discuss.

@SOSConcern - another example that we as parents cannot control everything our kids do! Adventures await!

@SOSConcern I don’t know why when I read your comment I thought of that show “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
It was always interesting to see the dynamics of that family - how they all interacted with each other. The couple, the in laws, and the kids.

Rockvillemom, it is nice to know you have a close relationship with your children. Keep the door of communication always open so that you have a relationship where each of you are able to share your thoughts and concerns.

I think part of the problem that someone like myself can have when it comes to identity and heritage like the OP and others have posted, is that our identity is so different. I am literally a mutt, in that my father was Italian (he was born there, but his real allegiance I think was to the Bronx and the Yankees lol), my mom was a mix of British and German with some other bits and pieces, and my family was not the least bit religious (someone asked me what my family’s religion was, I said antagonistic, and that was pretty much close to the truth).

It is also very, very hard to understand what it is like to be Jewish and what through so much in history it meant to be a Jew, it was a history where their basic survival meant constantly having only themselves, they were the consumate outsiders, feared, hated, at times tolerated (ironically by the supposedly hostile Muslims, at a time when Catholic Europe treated Jews lower than dogs, they were living in places like Grenada and were treated at least somewhat decently, it is telling that when Isabella and Ferdinand took back Grenada from the Moors, their first act was the kick out the jews living there). People talk about the “Chosen” people as some sort of arrogant boast, when quite frankly it was one of the things that kept the Jews going through pretty horrible things. The community you see with Jews, where the whole community is supposed to be responsible for others, came of that, it is something few can really understand I think. I am sure there have been and are arrogant Jews who have an attitude of superiority, there are ultra orthodox Jews I have met who I suspect feel that way, not nice people to deal with, but that is not what Judaism is about. It is ironic that a group that has been so persecuted, mistreated, who have faced anti semitism and sadly today are facing it again in its old haunts, countries like France and Eastern Europe are once again hotbeds of it, are as a group of people often have been some of the first trying to help others, take a look at charitable foundations in this country, and groups trying to help various ills, cure them, and Jews are often over represented in numbers, and that isn’t exactly what I would expect from a group who thought they were superior. The Chosen people as a sign of arrogance has often been used by anti semites against Jews, and quite frankly it makes me sick to think there are still a-holes who think like that.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t like tribalism, I have a lot of problems with religion and its heating up of that tribalism, I don’t particularly respect the idea of ethnic purity, of clannishness and such, I think the world would be a lot better place is human beings simply identified as that, my son has dated girls of other racial and ethnic groups, and all I care about is that they be a good person and do the right thing and keep my son in line lol. However, I also understand the feelings of rockvillemom and others who have posted on here, and I respect them, these are good people who were expressing their opinions and I sense none of the arrogance or looking at others as ‘not good enough’ for their kids, rather they are expressing their feelings and fears about what a kid marrying outside the faith might mean, there was nothing mean about it, nothing arrogant about it, and from what I know of these posters from being on here a while, I doubt very much they would treat a non Jewish spouse or the kids as anything but a member of the family, and that what is important.

I just hope that the posters and others who would post their feelings on here don’t feel dissuaded because some people don’t get where they are coming from. My advice to @rockvillecentermom and others would be to talk to their kids about this and also maybe compromise a bit, that if they marry outside the faith it would be important to you that the kids know of their family’s faith and history and culture and traditions, a lot of very secular Jews I know still are careful that their kids are immersed in the culture and history so they can pass it down:).

What I would say to some of those who are criticizing @rockvillecentermom and others that in my experience the arrogance they are talking about is not particularly endemic around Jews, that tends to be the hallmark of fundamentalist Christians and the uber Catholics, both of whom tend to believe their faith is the only true faith and at best any other faith is ‘second class’ (and before someone argues with me, official Catholic teaching is that only Catholicism is ‘perfect’, that other Christians faiths and non Christian faiths are necessarily imperfect; on the other hand, many Catholics see that for what it is and ignore it and see Catholicism as simply good for them), I have never heard from a Jew, ultra reform to ultra orthodox, that I was going to hell because I wasn’t of their faith, I certainly have heard that from a lot of Christians, what I tend to hear from Jews is that what is important is how I live my life and treat others, the rest, as H’lel said, ‘is commentary’.

In my (albeit very limited) experience, it is entirely possible for a grandparent who identifies strongly with his or her heritage to convey and transmit the strong identificarion with the heritage to grandchildren, even if the grandchildren’s parents aren’t all that interested and even if the grandchildren have other ethnicities as well.

No matter what the religion and ethnicity of your future daughter-in-law, your grandchildren will have Jewish heritage and there is no reason why that heritage cannot be a focus of your relationship with them. You can convey the history, traditions, family stories, food, etc. to your grandchildren even if they also identify to some extent with other aspects of their heritage. And, if you are the most religious of the parents and grandparents, you may turn out to be the biggest influence on their religious development as well.

My grandparents on H’s side DID convey some of their cultural heritage to our kids, even tho I was pretty clueless about it. It was important to them and H, so we did impart what we could and have them take language lessons from age 4 and 5. They are still among the more culturally aware of the cousins of that generation and we’re glad about it. The cultural heritage did not extend to going to the temple with grandparents because they never asked our kids or H to go with them–would have been fine with me and H and the kids.

Would it bother you if his spouse were not Jewish, but they raise their kids Jewish in matters relating to religion and ethnic traditions (though not necessarily exclusive in terms of the non-religious ethnic traditions)?

FYI, that’s because religious Jews have always believed that the righteous of all nations have a share in Paradise. So said the Talmud; so said Rambam (a/k/a Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, a/k/a Moses Maimonides.)

I never knew any Protestants at all until I was in college (all my friends before then were Jewish or Roman Catholic), and I never met any fundamentalist Protestants until shortly after I began my first year at Harvard Law School (Scott Turow was one of my classmates!), when one of my fellow One-L’s attempted to proselytise me. (He was from Seattle and I remember his name, which I’m tempted to disclose but won’t.) I let him give me his spiel out of curiosity – never having talked to such a person before – and after he mentioned, among other things, his belief that the unsaved all went to Hell, I asked if that included someone like my own beloved mother, a wonderful person who had survived the Holocaust but had just died two months earlier from her injuries from the car accident we were in. His response was that that was absolutely true, unless she had accepted J.C. as her personal savior before her death. I was shocked that someone would actually say that to my face, but, perhaps because I was supposed to be a guy back then and made a practice of remaining stoic in public, managed to wait until I got back to my room to get really upset. (In retrospect, I should never have started law school so soon after my mother died; I was in no mental state to do so, especially at 20, which was at least five years younger than my average classmate, and especially since I was getting no emotional support at all from my father.) I did get a slight measure of revenge later that fall, when I saw Mr. Hellfire in a local bar trying to pick up two girls by pretending that he was a French exchange student who spoke barely any English; I ratted him out. Since then – Jewish elitist that I am! – I’ve strictly avoided all conversations about religion with people who believe such things. although this incident is far from the only reason I always felt as I did about preferring Jewish children and grandchildren. I’m quite sure, by the way, that none of my cousins’ Gentile relatives believes such things – after all, all of them have been accepting of my transition.

For me the question might be how inclusive is the other religion my child is marrying into, meaning including the child and including the child’s family -ME! From what I’ve read here, there are some congregations that would not include my non-Jewish born children even if they wanted to convert. No, I would not like that. There are some religions that would want to take over my child and exclude her family, like Scientology. No, I would not like that at all. In my case it is most likely that one of my daughter’s could mary a Mormon, and that would be hard for me because I’d be excluded from some events - like her wedding! It is the exclusion that bothers me. I’ve been to many Jewish holiday parties and recited the prayers. No, i was not allowed to be one of the participants at the bat mitzvah but that’s okay, neither was her grandfather who isn’t Jewish. I felt included and that the family wanted me at the event. This family came to my daughter’s baptism and gave her a blessing, just didn’t use the sign of the cross. We try to include, not exclude, each other.

Most catholic churches/priests do now allow non catholics to do readings at weddings and funerals, to be bridesmaids, to even be godparents as long as one godparents is catholic. Include, not exclude.

Being inclusive is the important part. I think RVM will change her mind when the actual baptism time comes. My grandmother did after missing the first few. She wasn’t struck by lightening when she attended a first communion mass for my sister, she stopped commenting on us attending mass from her house every week, she took me to her church most Sundays, she even bought all our Easter clothes every year. I think she really regretted missing the first few ceremonies. We were her only grandchildren and my grandparents doted on us. She didn’t feel included, but that was her own perception, as she really was welcome.

My own parents had prejudices, and really really really didn’t want us to marry Italians, or even worse, Porteguis fishermen! Even though these future spouse would most likely have been catholic, they would have considered this a mixed marriage. The customs, the traditions so different than what we knew. It is so different 50 plus years later that that would no longer be a concern.

If they did convert in accordance with the standards of the branch of Judaism to which the congregation belonged, there would be no basis for that congregation to exclude them. There are Reform congregations, I believe, that allow family members to join (at least to a limited extent) even without converting.

I grew up in a bi-religious household, and my big takeaway is that religions pretty much share the same essential message: practise compassion. What would you say is the essential message of the (Orthodox?) Judaism that you grew up with? Apply that to this situation. Religion is kind of like a jacket worn by God - it is “extra,” communicates a certain style - but is not God itself.

Now, I understand that what you are mourning is the prospect of loss of culture. This is hard to deal with, but it could happen. However, what is your very first priority? Love between you and your family members? Try to keep your first priority in primary focus.

For keeping the culture alive in some way, shape, or form, communication is your best bet. Hopefully these possible non-Jewish spouses will be open to learning about and honoring the religion of your family (although, from personal experience, that will, in very large part, be up to your sons - do they value and love their religion? If so, any spouse would probably embrace it to some extent - maybe not converting though).

You never know what will happen. My grandmother would be thrilled to see that my daughter has taken the religion from that side of the family as her own, and it really is a beautiful, vibrant, spiritual tool in her life.

I haven’t read this whole thread --but I’m a semi-observant reform Jew. My son’s ex-wife was a non-observant Catholic, also from a different ethnic background, and DG (dear grandson) is being raised exposed to the full range of his heritage. He was baptized in a ceremony at the grandparent’s house. I didn’t see any problem with that: since I don’t believe in baptism, I’m at a total loss to figure out what harm it could do to my grandson to have a little bit of water sprinkled on him and a whole slew of very nice people show up with gifts. The religious difference eliminated one point of contention in their custody agreement – DG’s mom can always have him on Christmas day and Easter because those holidays have no significance to use. DG does Chanukah with his Dad on whatever days he happens to be with him. He’s growing up with two cultures with different family and religious traditions and I think his life will be enriched by that. I would be sad if he weren’t being exposed to Judaism, but I don’t think it’s my business how he is “raised.” He’ll figure things out as he grows older.

My DD is engaged to a wonderful guy who is a lapsed Catholic, also with observant parents. I think that kids are still in the distant future for them, but I’d assume that they will also raise their offspring to be exposed to both religious traditions, without any expectation of formal religious education.

I don’t see any benefit in trying to force a religion on anyone, of any age. I do want my grandkids to be exposed to the different traditions of all their relatives and in the communities they grow up in. I hope that my grandkids are healthy and I trust that they will make their own decisions as to how to live their lives in adulthood. I want them to take pride in their own heritage and be raised in an environment of respect and tolerance.