Multicultural

One of the more difficult things to expose the babies to are multicultural experiences. Most of our time is spent at home. When we do go out to the zoo, science (children's) museum, mommy and me classes, football games, etc the kids have limited exposure to cultures and most of the people attending look/act just like us. We made a point of living in a neighborhood that is diverse, which will be great when the kids are older, but I didn't want to wait to introduce such important concepts.

Mommy and Me class

At home we have books with photos of many different cultures - race, non-traditional gender roles, people of varying ages, abilities, etc. We have puppets that also encompass many of these things. We let both of our kids play with all toys equally - trucks, kitchen, dolls, dress up clothes, tool box, and on and on. They do play with the toys differently, but that is because of their personalities, not their genders. These things are all normal and taken for granted. We don't see them as multicultural, we just see toys. However, with my kids growing up seeing the Hispanic Daddy in the book cooking, the African female soldier puppet, the child wearing glasses, and the Asian male teacher puppet, they grow up seeing all of this as normal. It should be normal, but it's difficult for me to show that to my children in my house. Let's face it - we are white. My husband works while I stay at home with the kids. We need to think about making sure our kids know there are many different types of people, many different types of families, jobs, abilities and they are all normal.

He's reading Brown Bear. She's reading Samolot Karola.

We also listen to a lot of different types of music. I can listen to typical children's music for a couple of hours a day maximum. Then I just become annoyed. We love Putumayo cds. I think we have about 1/2 of the children's cds they have produced. We also have a few of the adult ones. We sing along and dance and I don't become annoyed. Some are definitely better than others. We can even check some out from the library to see if we like them before buying. Other than our huge selection of Putumayo, we also have cds that are bilingual in French, Spanish, and Italian. We also have a cd that is entirely in  Polish. Because we sing along, my kids are getting the benefit of hearing the languages from a live speaker (remember the importance of this from my language post). I am certainly not fluent, but I can sing along with almost anything. The way our brains develop if you don't hear certain sounds before the age of 3, you will never be able to distinguish them. I'm trying my best to expose my children to most of the sounds in a variety of languages, which should help them learn those languages when they are older if they are interested.

Multicultural Books (no photos of music)

We also go to some cultural events, though I wish there were more closer to where we live. Hopefully this will get easier as the kids get older. While we don't eat out often, the two places we take the kids most of the time are the only Polish restaurant and the closest Mexican restaurant. Both involve native speakers and cultural food. Though we eat those two cuisines at least once a week at home, so I'm not sure we get credit for that!

 Traditional Polish dancers

Christmas Eve dinner for 2

As our kids get older we plan to do more, but this is what we accomplished from the beginning.