Nov 10, 2016
LISTENER’S QUESTION:
“After searching the web for answers and finding nothing
closely related to the situation at hand in our family, I thought
perhaps you could provide some great insight on the issue.
I have four adult children, one son (32), 3 daughters (26, 25,
25). The issue is the following and involves only my daughters and
their boyfriends;
Ever since my daughters have begun dating as young adult
women, their relationships have become so complex and sometimes
broken with the added element of having boyfriends in the picture.
What happens is that the boyfriends tend to get involved in sister
to sister conversations, events, disagreements, and it compounds
the issue and affects the whole family dynamic, especially affects
their sister to sister relationship, trust, and loyalty. When the
girls were little or even teenagers, they were protective of each
other, took care of each other, and had a lot of fun family times.
Now, with the boyfriends in the picture, it is seemingly tearing
their relationships apart with distrust and disrespect and creating
distance between them as sisters.
My girls sometimes come to me individually with complaints
and ask for my opinion/ insight but as hard as I try to be
impartial and objective, my input has not been fruitful. I am
hoping you could provide some suggestions.
As a Latino family, we tend to be very tight-knit versus
individualistic. My daughters’ boyfriends are Caucasian AND their
families tend to be more individualistic, where their family
involvement in the relationship has not been that much of an issue.
Not sure if the cultural element is actually that significant or
not, just thought I would mention it.
It is hard for me to believe that I could not find any
information on this topic on the web as I don’t think this dynamic
is highly unusual. I am hoping that you can provide some
suggestions on this topic as I highly respect the wise and
insightful advice that you offer on your podcasts.
Please help!
Thank you,
Concerned mother”
(Please listen to the podcast episode or
read the transcript to hear my
stories and examples to describe these points.)
Given the recent U.S. presidential election, I find it so
interesting that this topic was scheduled for today. It is fair to
say, Americans are pretty divided and feeling a whole range of
emotions this week. Cultural differences affect us nationally,
globally, and personally.
HERE ARE SOME TIPS TO NAVIGATE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES MORE
SKILLFULLY:
1. EVALUATE THE APPROACH
- Sometimes, we need to evolve our systems. This happens when we
need to incorporate new factors or the old system is no longer
working.
- One of the benefits of tradition is that it provides a sense of
structure, stability, and consistency.
- Differences or diversity often provide more dimension and
fullness, yet it can take more intention and collaboration to work
through the complexities to get there.
- It can be helpful to evaluate what is currently working about
the approach, and what is currently not working.
- This evaluation and openness to questioning can bring up a lot
of emotion (i.e. grief, fear of the unknown, etc.).
- More diversity can be stressful. In Dana I. Nixon’s paper,
“The Relationship Experience of
Latina/o-White Couples,” she discusses how interenthic couples
endure more stress due to the of lack of family and social
support. She also notes how interenthic couples have to explain and
justify their reasons for wanting to be together, whereas
monoethnic couples do not.
- When the traditional path does not work anymore, it requires us
to take more ownership of a new path.
2. ENGAGE IN COLLABORATION
Intention:
- Before engaging and addressing differences with loved ones, it
is super important to be clear on your intention.
- Are you coming from a place of love and wanting to cultivate
connection or are you wanting to be right, by trying to influence,
convince, and persuade?
- Are you interested in understanding their perspective? Are you
curious about their thinking, feelings, and experience?
- Do you truly respect and honor their position? Are you willing
to see value in their approach?
- Are you open to being patient, understanding that the process
make take more time than you would like?
Understanding:
- Human developmental stages. Young adulthood is the stage of
“intimacy versus isolation.”
- Differentiation is a normal and important part of coming into
adulthood (i.e. seeing yourself as different than your
parents).
- Racial identity development:
Ferdman and Gallegos Model
of Latino Identity Development
1. White Identified – Individuals identify as white and the
view, values and beliefs as such
2. Undifferentiated/denial – Individuals claim a color-blind
mentality and race is not important
3. Latino as other – Individuals who hold no stake in a
subgroup, often cause by the uncertainty of his or her heritage
4. Subgroup-Indentified – Individuals have strong
identification with specific subgroup within the Latino culture,
belief that all other subgroups are subordinate
5. Latino-Identified –Individuals believe race is fluid and
society is a dualistic construction of race.
6. Latino- Integrated –Individuals understands our society in
terms of race and identified with the larger Latino community
Helms’ White Racial Identity
Development Model
1. Contact Status–oblivious to and unaware of racism
2. Disintegration Status–conflicted over irresolvable racial
moral dilemmas
3. Reintegration Status–regression to White superiority and
minority inferiority
4. Pseudoindependence Status–painful or insightful encounter
or event that jars the person from the reintegration status
5. Immerion/emersion Status–an increasing willingness to
confront one’s own biases
6. Autonomy Status–values diversity, is no longer fearful,
intimidated, or uncomfortable with discussions of race, and is
active in seeking interracial experiences.
- How is their overall health? Are they thriving in their life
(i.e. career, friendships, physical health, emotional health – seem
happy)?
Dialogue:
- With good intentions and desire to understand, you will be in a
much better position to engage in a productive and collaborative
dialogue.
- You may want to meet with them each individually to learn more
about their perspective on the issues.
- You may want to meet with all three of your daughters to
discuss how you all can work together to support each other.
- If all is going well and the commitment is there, you may want
to have a meeting with your daughters and their respective
partners.
Support:
- It can be helpful to ask how each person wants to be
supported.
- Each couple will have different boundaries and ways they want
to engage in the larger family.
- How can everyone support the larger extended family?
3. CREATE A NEW APPROACH
Values:
- Family vs independence
- Gender roles
- Power
- Role of extended family
Developing a couple culture & Identity:
- “Sharing cultures is viewed as having a culture that the couple
has co-constructed, which becomes part of the everyday life of the
couple. For example, an individual teaches their partner how to
cook a traditional dish from their home country, now that dish
becomes part of their tradition and co-constructed culture and no
longer belongs to one partner (Nixon, 2015).”
- “Think of themselves as coming from different backgrounds, as
all couples do, that merged together in a positive way (Nixon,
2015).”
- Coping strategies. “Bustamante and colleagues (2011) find that
there are several coping strategies that interethnic couples use to
deal with stressors relating to culture. These include: gender role
flexibility, humor, taking the cultural perspective of one’s
spouse, recognizing similarities, developing a combined culture,
and having an overall appreciation for other cultures (Nixon,
2015).”
4. BELIEVE IN A GOOD
- Transformation often comes through challenge, struggle,
and learning.
- There is opportunity.
- One of the hardest things to do is to believe in the process
even though everything looks and feels like a mess.
MENTIONED:
TRANSCRIPT:
Click on this link to access the transcript for this
episode: ERP 085: How To Deal With Cultural
Issues In Relationship [Transcript]
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me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins”
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