My husband and I have been married for 7 years. We dated for less than 2 years before that, and we were young (though at the time, I felt perfectly adult and ready to make life decisions). Now that I'm older, I think wow, I did a really good job picking a husband, a better job then I knew I was doing. I couldn't have articulated this then, and didn't even know I was looking for it in a mate, but my husband's hilarious, and his sense of humor gets us through a lot of tense moments. So, I'm happy- I wouldn't change a single second of my life if it meant not ending up exactly where I am- but sometime there are things in our marriage that we didn't consider as thoroughly as we should have.
My husband is first generation Indian. His parents and older brother immigrated here just a couple of years before he was born. His father was adamant that he get to be a normal American kid. He doesn't speak the mother tongue, he had pierced ears and dreadlocks in college, and he dated (and married) American girls. As he's gotten older though, he wants to be more integrated in Indian culture.
This is such a weird concept for me. When asked about my culture, I draw a blank. I'm just your average white girl from the Midwest. I'm not religious, so I don't even have that sort of cultural identifier. I can sort of think of some things that one could call American Culture, but it's just not the same as having dances that are specific to your region of India, or seeing photos of women in outfits and being able to pinpoint what city in India they are from just by the pattern of the fabric.
Recently, we visited some close family friends of my in-laws, who my husband refers to as his "godparents". While my husband and I were visiting them, we also saw some other family friends. I asked what their names were, and hubby's godfather immediately told me "Dr. and Mrs. X, to you." I laughed, thinking he was kidding, and said, no really. He looked at me quite seriously and said "It would not be right for you to call them anything other than Dr. and Mrs. X."
Maybe I just have a temper, but I immediately thought, dammit, I'm 30 years old, it is beyond patronizing to be forced to refer to these people by their last names. Then I though, ahhh, a cultural difference I can point out. Most of my friend's parents, at a certain point (jr high, maybe?) told me to call them by their first names. I think I always called my parent's friends by their first names, and I even have friends who teach elementary school and have their students call them Miss FirstName. All of these seems preferable to me- forcing someone to speak to you in respectful manner does not force someone to respect you.
As I thought more about this name issue, I remembered how in "The Namesake", about Indian newlyweds who immigrate to the US, the parents do not call each other by their names ever. The wife calls the husband something that "translates roughly as 'are you listening to me?'" And for the first time in 7 years of marriage, it dawned on my that this is why my husband never says my name. He'll call for me from a different room, but he just says "Hey, what are you doing?" Or "Hey, can you make me tea?" He has one completely unromantic pet name for me, which he uses sometimes, but never "honey" or "babe". The list of names I call him could go on forever (everything from "bud" to "angel face"). At times I've gotten mad and pointed out he never calls me anything, and he's never articulated that this is a learned behavior. He is not even aware of it, he claims it is not a conscious choice he is making.
I was hoping my YA books would back me up that it's an Americanism for children to call adults by their first names, but in "When We First Met", the older brother's fiance Mimi refers to her future inlaws as Mr. and Mrs. Pennoyer. So, maybe I can't call this a cultural identifier after all.
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