Cultures!

 Welcome back, my friends!

This week we will be talking about cultures. How exciting!

I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’m from Sicily, Italy. I grew up being surrounded by the smell of pizza on the street, greeting with kisses on the checks, and going to crowded beaches. That’s Sicily culture, but if we stop and think, we may be wondering, “What’s culture?”

We can say that culture is a way of life; it is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, such as language, religion, cuisine, social habits, or music. However, culture can also be characterized by rules, traditions, and rituals that families hand down from generation to generation.

Let me talk a little bit about my family culture. I grew up in a loving and devoted Italian family, focused on working hard to ensure happiness and peace at home. My dad has always worked hard to enable my mom to stay at home and spend time with me and my brother. My mom used to have a job, but she had to resign when she became pregnant because her boss didn’t want her to work. So, at that time, my dad used to be the main provider for the family. Nevertheless, when we were in middle school, my mom started to work again, but only in the mornings while we were at school. This allows her and us to spend time together and do many family activities. When at night my dad would come home, we spent time with him playing and talking, while my mom was relaxing a little bit. As I was analyzing my family culture, I realized that my family doesn’t have well-defined gender roles, such as the women have to cook, and the men have to take out the trash. My parents have always helped each other in their responsibilities at home. For example, my dad sometimes cooks, cleans, and does the laundry, while my mom sometimes will take the trash out. It’s whatever they feel to do. This way of seeing their relationship and marriage helped me and my brother to develop a culture of equality in our family. It’s never “Oh mom decided this,” but it’s always, “My parent decided this.” This helped me to have an open relationship with both my parents, without thinking that one is better than the other or better fit to talk about specific topics. 

Another tradition that we have is to eat each meal together. Usually, our day starts around the same time. My dad goes to work ad 9 am, we have classes around that time, and my mom is awake around 8 am. I used to eat breakfast with my dad and brother while my mom was in the kitchen doing laundry or cleaning. Then when my dad had his launch break, usually from 1 to 4 pm, he would come home, and we ate lunch together. A rule that we have in my family is to wait to eat until everyone has food and is ready to eat. It’s considered so rude and unpolite to eat while others are not ready. After we are done eating, we have the rule to put our dish in the sink, and we would take turns cleaning the kitchen. 

As you can see, my culture is characterized by personal rules and traditions that my family learned in their own families. However, there are aspects of my family culture that I don’t want to pass down to my future family. Not necessarily because they lead to bad behaviors, but they are not part of who I am. 

After all that has been said, I believe that there are many cultures around the world, and we should respect all of them. There may be cultural practices that we don’t share because they lead to negative behaviors. However, respecting different cultures doesn’t mean we follow them or sustain them. It means that we learn to live with differences. This is what adds colors to our world.


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