{"id":834,"date":"2023-12-12T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lena-writes.com\/?p=834"},"modified":"2024-02-15T11:23:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T11:23:59","slug":"on-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lena-writes.com\/en\/bilingual-children\/on-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"ON IDENTITY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So far I\u2019ve written a few blog posts on the topic of raising a bilingual child, but I haven\u2019t yet talked about identity. For me, being bilingual means speaking both languages well, but equally having a sense of belonging to both cultures your genes originate from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half and half<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Allow me to make a reference to my first blog post<\/a> where I talked about bilingualism and used the term Serbish <\/em>to describe the IDENTITY of our child (Serbian + English). While she is growing up in London and developing her sense of English identity, I am trying to create an environment where she will also be surrounded by the values and behaviours that I grew up with in Serbia. My hope is that she will consequently develop an equally strong sense of connection and belonging to the place where the other 50% of her genes come from. Below is the list of some of those values and behaviours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The importance of the family, family background and family relations are at the top of the list. This is why it is so important to me she spends a decent amount of time in Belgrade and builds relationships with my mum, my brother and wider family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience so far, English family relations and interactions are often quieter and less passionate than among Serbian families. In my family at least, when we love each other we like to express it clearly: hugs, kisses, loud verbalisation of love; but when we disagree we argue, we cry, we shout, we say hurtful things (honest but hurtful), then we make up with hugs and kisses and so on. I would like Klara to grow up knowing that arguing is fine and that if I shout at you it doesn\u2019t mean I hate you or I want to divorce you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Christmases (as one wasn\u2019t enough)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Then, there is tradition. English people make so much noise about their Christmas on the 25th December and buy many presents for this occasion. I obviously want Klara to be well aware of its Orthodox counterpart on the 7th January. In my family, we don\u2019t buy presents for Christmas, but we celebrate materice<\/em>, o\u010devi<\/em> and detinjci <\/em>instead. These take place on the last three Sundays of the year: on the first Sunday, kids \u2018detinjci\u2019 give presents to parents; on the second Sunday mums \u2018materice\u2019 give presents to kids and on the third Sunday, dads \u2018o\u010devi\u2019 give presents to kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Easters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Easter traditions are also different in the two countries. In England, kids usually go on chocolate egg hunts around gardens, while in Serbia we colour the actual eggs and play Easter egg cracking game on Easter Sunday. I cannot wait to get messy and creative with Klara this year when painting and decorating eggs as we do it in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gibanica,\u00a0\u0107evapi and yoghurt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Food is next. In our London home we eat very diverse food from all parts of the world and Serbian food is by no means foreign to Klara or to my husband. I already talked about satara\u0161<\/em> (Serbian dish made of peppers, tomato and onion), I make gibanca<\/em> quite often (Serbian cheese pie), but there is something extremely sweet about Klara eating \u0107evapi<\/em> (sausage shaped minced meat) in Belgrade and my brother teaching her how to dip bread or any other sort of carbohydrate into yoghurt. Not just any yoghurt, but the unique, divine & drinkable<\/em> yoghurt from Serbia (sadly, I haven\u2019t found yoghurt like that here in London)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toilet humour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll close off the list with a sense of humour. I love the English sense of humour, it\u2019s one of the things that attracted me to my husband: carefully worded irony and sarcasm. But I find he struggles to understand a certain aspect of my humour. Some of my dear Serbian people and I love to joke about farts, burps and poos and I think it is important for Klara to also understand this toilet humour for the true development of her Serbian identity. Tom recently made an apple tart, and I found it really funny to refer to it as apple fart<\/em>. Klara participated in the joke and laughed a lot, but Tom didn\u2019t find anything laughable about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two different ways of looking at the world<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A friend of mine recently sent me an article<\/a> where an English dad tells a funny story of his 3-year-old bilingual son unexpectedly showing off his Englishness. The part of the article that stuck with me was when he said that by knowing at least two words (in our case English and Serbian) for everything, his kids grew up knowing that there are always at least \u2018two different ways of looking at the world\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By growing up in an environment where the two languages and the two traditions complement each other and make life experiences richer, I hope Klara will learn to recognise that there are two sides to every coin and grow into a happy and open-minded Serbish<\/em> individual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So far I\u2019ve written a few blog posts on the topic of raising a bilingual child, but I haven\u2019t yet talked about identity. For me, being bilingual means speaking both languages well, but equally having a sense of belonging to both cultures your genes originate from. Half and half Allow me to make a reference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37,24,22,26,40,21,11,34,13,25,39,41],"class_list":{"0":"post-834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bilingual-children","8":"tag-bilingual-child","9":"tag-bilingual-family","10":"tag-bilinguals","11":"tag-english","12":"tag-family","13":"tag-lifestyle","14":"tag-motherhood","15":"tag-nostalgia","16":"tag-parenting","17":"tag-serbian","18":"tag-serbish","19":"tag-tradition"},"yoast_head":"\nON IDENTITY<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lena writes about culture and identity and how helpful they can be in raising not only a bilingual, but also a bicultural child.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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