Ohhh! I would so love it to pass my culture to my children, I mean everything possible yet giving them space to explore other culture but deeply rooted in the basics and morals of my culture. My culture is one of the richest ever, so beautiful, respectful, loving, full of unending wisdom like ocean, proverbs like maps to guide a traveler. Yet, I grew up to see that it is not so balanced, though it is so good. Not so balanced in the sense of how it's been taught, the approach and few outdated facts, beliefs and mindset: that's why the title of this blog is having filtered with wisdom and experience
Culture, they say it's the total way of life. A certain way a group of people live and it includes what the kinds of food they eat, kind of clothes they put on, the kind of occupation they are mostly interested in, their language, how they interact, their morals, rules, general beliefs, etc.
I want my kids to have a really deep understanding of my culture and provide reasons to many of them as possible. I will tell them of ones that are no longer in practice, ones they modernization has eradicated rightly or wrongly. I want to pass on to them the ones that I perceive and believe to be important and necessary for an individual who is actually from my culture.
Cultural names will be given to my kid, names with rich cultural meaning and can be easily traced to the culture. My parents are from different ethic group and they made sure my siblings and I have a cultural name: some of us have two or three and we love them. Though my mother for best reason known to her didn't teach us her mother tongue, which I am still not happy about. We grew up with many people aournd communicating in her dialect but we can only understand 0.05%.
Presently, my third name has been getting people's attention, making them curious. That's it. It makes them automatically know that I am of a different culture. Some try to pronounce it themselves while others ask politely. I have a lady in my department that has refused to stop mispronouncing the name, though it can be funny at times. Everyone that hears or read the name and finds it strange already know I am not from the most common tribe.
I will definitely be passing on the morals and many of the beliefs of my culture to my children. The wisdom and proverbs of the culture too will be passed unto them, but I will let that be the work of my parents to pass them, they know more than I do. My cultural food also will be an important one to pass down, amongst all the varieties of delicious food around the world, my cultural food must be part of what my children will grow up to love. They might necessarily not like all the foods because individuals taste bud and choice is different. Foods like a Ala, eba, egusi soup, vegetable soup, okro soup, beans, yam, potatoes and porridges etc.
I'll be passing on the respect and greeting part of my culture, which are one the things that make my culture stand out amongst others: we are known for them. In my culture, it is believed that the young should always greet the older, give a total respect to the older ones irrespective of who is right or wrong (which I think is not so balanced but I grew up to know reasons why it is so).
I will also pass the culture to them through many old stories and histories of my culture, the likes of Moremi, Oduduwa, and many others. The history of several ancient kingdoms, historical places, names of heros and well known men till present day. Knowing the history can help them have enough information to relate to about their culture.