March 2009 Weddings
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marcy f/u Haitian husband post
Five_letter:
::Totally butting in:: I just read through all that. It's a very common conflict in third world - American mixed marriages. She's in the wrong place to get advice on that, though.
I figured it was a huge cultural issue.
Rachel can you simplify (if possible) what the expectations are for a woman to have a baby and how the husband supports it? Maybe not in Haiti but at least where Rogers is from?
I'm always intrigued by this. I'm also super impressed that you and Rogers are always successfully working through the cultural differences.
I'll try not to make it too long, but I thought it could use its own thread.
Re: Babies
Rodgers doesn't know of any Kenyan men who were present at the birth of a baby (with the exception of doctors, but most Kenyans don't have access to medical care of any kind during pregnancy and childbirth). The men are actually made to stay away by the women.
If we were to follow tradition, I would have gone home to my mother for the last few weeks of my pregnancy. No men would be allowed in the house once I went into labor. Once Nate was born, Rodgers could come visit us. Nate and I would not have left the house until he was 40 days old; Rodgers would probably not stay there with us. During that time, Rodgers and my mother could hold him if they wanted to, but no one else could touch him (besides me of course).
Rodgers would not have had a real role in Nate's life until Nate was weaned. Rodgers' Kenyan friends are amazed by some of the things he tells them about Nate, like the fact that he naps during the day. Kenyan babies nap, too, but Kenyan men don't know this because the babies are always and only with the mothers.
I am very thankful that Rodgers wanted to take an active role in Nate's life from birth. That's one cultural difference that he deferred to my culture.
Re: supporting family
We do send money to his family, though (not a lot, they can do quite well with $100/month). There's nothing like retirement funds in Kenyan for subsistence farmers like my MIL. She still grows corn and raises chickens and goats, even though she's probably old (my guess is in her 60s). She still has two daughters (one of which has a baby from an unknown father, which means he was probably married) who live at home to support, too. They are probably 13 and 16, but not yet through 8th grade. If it's not harvest season, or if the harvest isn't good, she has no way to get money to buy food.
As a son, it is Rodgers' familial duty to take care of his mother. His father abandoned them decades ago, then died in '04. Two of his brothers have essentially abandoned MIL (which is considered unacceptable, but they do it anyway). The third brother - he's about 19 or 20 - is still in high school (we pay his tuition, which is about $200 per year). So that leaves everything up to Rodgers. This is a huge burden for him, and one area that I defer to him. He has an inherent need to take care of MIL financially, so we do.
Before he got his green card, when he wasn't allowed to have a job and didn't have money to send to his family, it was all he could think about. It also bothered him that he couldn't contribute to our finances, but not quite as much because he saw me every day and knew that I was ok.
There's no division in his mind between the family he grew up with and the family we have created. We're all the same family.
Re: marcy f/u Haitian husband post
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Hi Rachel - Sorry for the delayed response, I was out of the house all dya today.
THANK YOU for all of this detail. It really amazes me how culturally different we are from other countries.
I hope the OP has some sort of support system or is in contact with peers in similar situations that she can vent to and speak with.
I didn't mean to say so much, but once I started typing, I just couldn't stop! LOL.
I hope she has some support, too.
All of this has inspired me to start a cross-cultural marriage series on my blog.
That's an awesome idea for a blog!
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