Multi-race children, confusion or clarity?

Today, DH was reading this link, he had gotten from a friend's facebook page. I saw the title and was instantly interested and made him pass me the link. The article talks about people who are multi-race.

I've been thinking about this for a while. Will my children be completely confused? Will they be dominated by their dad's Bengali culture? How will their Bengali culture affect their actions? How will their upbringing be? Will they be confused?

Well, in this article the subjects go on to say that they know they are Asian and proud of it.

I'm more afraid because here in India, the aunts and uncles are more specifically labelled, as per their age / line on the totem pole. Like, the oldest aunt (or uncle's wife too) is called boro maima or boro mamima. And on (I am not entirely sure of all the names, so I am not giving them all...) and in the US we call our aunts and uncles, as Aunt GivenName and Uncle GivenName...so you can see how it would be a bit confusing for the children. But, then again, given that they will be brought up with both cultures, maybe it won't be so confusing?

While DH and I were discussing this topic just earlier, we had compared our friends situation to ours. Our 2 friends live in the US, and have 3 year old twin boys. While both of them can speak and understand English perfectly, one of them can speak and understand Bengali quite well, while the other one can understand it but not speak it. I believe this is because of how they are brought up, (our children will be brought up to speak both Bengali and English from the time they are born). These kids are essentially US citizens with Indian heritage, but their exposure to English and American culture is much more than the 1 month they spend in India every year or so.

Any thoughts? I will write more about this later, its just 1am, and I'm tired :-)

How to marry under The Special Marriage Act of 1954

DH and I were married under the Special Marriage Act because we are of different nationalities, and religions (DH being atheist...).

The requirements are :

1. groom must be 21 years of age, and bride 18 years
2. should be single

You need to find out who the marriage registrar is over the area you are living in, and one of you needs to have lived in that area for at least 30 days. You go to the registrar and tell them you want to get married (hopefully they have performed foreigner's marriages before like ours did, and knew what needed to be done). You will be given 2 pages (I think, I don't remember how many there were) in multiples of 3. You fill out all the pages and give them back to the registrar, and pay some fees. I believe we paid Rs 100 the first time. The copies of the fill out pages will be displayed in other areas, in case, your significant other finds him/herself already married.

At this time you will pick a date after 30, but within 90 days. You must also give :

1. 3 copies of passport (for wife) or other form of ID for husband (voter ID, etc, if passport is not available)
2. 3 copies of husband's address proof
3. No objection certificate / proof of singleness which can be procured from your Embassy or before coming to India, provided your country will provide one with you. If your Embassy can not provide you with one, it is acceptable to get a letter drafted by a lawyer, with appropriate actions to make it notarized. Also, if you are a divorcee, your divorce papers will suffice in this area.
4. Also, if you are baby-faced or really young, proof of age may be asked for.

After you pick the date, you arrive at the registrars office on the appointed date. Here you will fill out a few more papers, sign a few things, and then repeat a phrase, something along the lines that you say in church, about taking care of one in sickness and health, three times. You will also need to bring 3 witnesses who will also sign. Then pay your fees (we paid Rs 600, not including the previous Rs 100) as the fee for the marriage.

Now its time to celebrate!

It is also possible for the registrar to come to your marriage venue, which would have cost us around Rs 1000.

Then a month later you pick up your marriage certificate!