OmegaMom

It’s the latest thing, apparently: “To Give Children An Edge, Au Pairs From China“.  This was passed on to me by OmegaGranny via email, and also happens to be being discussed on one of my (too numerous) email lists.

I have such mixed feelings about this trend.

First off, it seems that there’s a certain amount of “Yellow Peril” feelings hiding behind it.  China is exploding as a world financial player.  If you look around, you find all sorts of articles hinting or outright stating that We Have To Watch Out, because otherwise those sneaky Chinese will steal our show.  Or those sneaky Indians.  Big populations, moving quickly forward on the economic front, jobs being farmed out there…

So you’ve got some folk who will want their kids to be able to compete in the global financial marketplace of the future.

Now, I don’t know about you, but me?  I’m too busy worrying about whether OmegaDotter’s recent ability to stay dry at nighttime will be derailed by a few accidents to worry too terribly much this early on about her competitive position vis-a-vis global domination.  Hell, I just want her to be happy, find something she loves doing as a job, find a partner who fits her like a glove (if she wants), and all that stuff.

But there are some folks who think like this, and, I guess, more power to them.

There’s one line in there about parents of kids adopted from China driving the market for Chinese au pairs.  Now this I can grasp much better.  How cool to be able to give OmegaDotter a daily caregiver who can give her a background not only in the language of her birth but also in the culture!  I had a little wist about it when I read the story–wouldn’t that be nice, I thought.  Then I thought about our checkbook, thought about how well she’s doing in her preschool, with all her buds…about how, in her preschool, she has Navajo kids, Hispanic kids, black kids, and (of course) blonde curly-haired Caucasian cherubs.  (Well, hell, they’re all cherubs, frankly, except for X. and J., who, I understand, are “mean” and get sent to TimeOut a lot.)  I like the diversity she gets at preschool, the social interaction with kids of varying backgrounds, the fact that the gals who teach there are mostly from the early childhood education program at Small Mountain University.

Now, a babysitter with that background would be cool.  And, since SMU has a rather lively exchange program developing with a coalition of Chinese universities, this might be more likely for me to accomplish.

How do my readers who are adoptive parents approach the question of finding adult Asian role models for your kids?  I have a failing:  I am a social klutz.  I do just great on my blog and on lists–it’s nice and cozy for me because I like writing.  But how does one find and make friends of a particular ethnicity without feeling like a leech?  (Let alone the difficulty of finding and making friends in general…)  There’s a Chinese church group–but we’re not churchgoers.  NOT.  We both have very dim views of organized religion of any kind.  OmegaDad and I have tried to make overtures with the couple who owns a local restaurant that we frequent a lot, but those overtures seem to have fallen flat (splat!).  Now that the dotter is past her initial rejection of all things Chinese (trust me, it was serious–she would have delayed hysterics at home after being amongst the Asian folks at the local restaurants or at any of the festivals we went to), I want to have her branch out, get some sort of connection going.

(Editor’s note:  This is a dreadfully flabby post.  It seems to dart off into a variety of tangents.  I wanted to make some cogent point, but all I can do is flail around.  Bah.  I blame my raging sinus infection, which has me stuck at home, just wanting my mommy and my hubby.)

Technorati: China, adoption, au pairs, trendiness, cultural heritage