Children
It's not necessarily a good idea to date someone 7 years older than you... Mike wants to have children, and he said that he'd love to have children after I've graduated from the university. Uh, no. I want to focus on my career after I graduate... And I haven't partied nearly enough! I have no idea when I'll want to have children, or even if I should have children at all.
I know I want to have children, but at the same time I realise I'm not ready. At the moment I can only focus on my own and my partner's genetic defects, and I'm afraid to have children because they won't be "perfect". It is so wrong to think like that. But if I'm completely honest, I want children who are beautiful, intelligent, and talented in everything possible. Which means that as long as I think like this, I can never have children. Maybe I should adopt, that way I could blame someone else's faulty genes if they turn out less than perfect... ;)
Another problem with Mike is that we can't agree on which school we should put our children in. I want to put them in a Swedish school, and Mike wants to put them in an English school. He says the children will benefit much more from learning English or another European language than from learning Swedish, because Swedish is a small language, like Finnish. But he doesn't understand that Swedish is important to me, because I went to a Swedish school. Even though I'm not Swedish speaking by birth, it's still part of my cultural identity, because I grew up bilingual. I'm going to speak Swedish with my children, but if I'm the only person they speak Swedish with, their Swedish language will be very limited. Because we live in a Finnish speaking environment, their Swedish has to be encouraged, and what better way to do that than giving them a Swedish education.
What Mike doesn't seem to understand is that it isn't always about what is the "smartest" thing to do, but what is the "right" thing to do. If we speak only Finnish in our family, I'll be burying half of me. People don't always take my Swedish identity seriously, because my parents are Finnish speaking, but it isn't so much which culture you're born into, but which culture you grow up in. I feel like crying everytime I hear immigrants speak broken English to their children, instead of their native language. I wish people would understand that their own language is valuable, and not worship English so much... Mike too seems to think English is more valuable than Swedish...
Of course, all of these problems will be solved if we break up. :P
I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts about this language issue. Is Swedish really not worth learning, because it's spoken only in Finland and Sweden? Would it be smarter to make the children Finnish-English bilingual? Or Finnish-French, Finnish-German, Finnish-Russian? Or, gasp, maybe trilingual? If I spoke Swedish to them, Mike spoke Finnish, and then we put them in a English/German/French/Russian school? Is my cultural identity enough reason to favor Swedish over other languages?
I know I want to have children, but at the same time I realise I'm not ready. At the moment I can only focus on my own and my partner's genetic defects, and I'm afraid to have children because they won't be "perfect". It is so wrong to think like that. But if I'm completely honest, I want children who are beautiful, intelligent, and talented in everything possible. Which means that as long as I think like this, I can never have children. Maybe I should adopt, that way I could blame someone else's faulty genes if they turn out less than perfect... ;)
Another problem with Mike is that we can't agree on which school we should put our children in. I want to put them in a Swedish school, and Mike wants to put them in an English school. He says the children will benefit much more from learning English or another European language than from learning Swedish, because Swedish is a small language, like Finnish. But he doesn't understand that Swedish is important to me, because I went to a Swedish school. Even though I'm not Swedish speaking by birth, it's still part of my cultural identity, because I grew up bilingual. I'm going to speak Swedish with my children, but if I'm the only person they speak Swedish with, their Swedish language will be very limited. Because we live in a Finnish speaking environment, their Swedish has to be encouraged, and what better way to do that than giving them a Swedish education.
What Mike doesn't seem to understand is that it isn't always about what is the "smartest" thing to do, but what is the "right" thing to do. If we speak only Finnish in our family, I'll be burying half of me. People don't always take my Swedish identity seriously, because my parents are Finnish speaking, but it isn't so much which culture you're born into, but which culture you grow up in. I feel like crying everytime I hear immigrants speak broken English to their children, instead of their native language. I wish people would understand that their own language is valuable, and not worship English so much... Mike too seems to think English is more valuable than Swedish...
Of course, all of these problems will be solved if we break up. :P
I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts about this language issue. Is Swedish really not worth learning, because it's spoken only in Finland and Sweden? Would it be smarter to make the children Finnish-English bilingual? Or Finnish-French, Finnish-German, Finnish-Russian? Or, gasp, maybe trilingual? If I spoke Swedish to them, Mike spoke Finnish, and then we put them in a English/German/French/Russian school? Is my cultural identity enough reason to favor Swedish over other languages?