German Cultural Identity

Does it really matter? When I sat down to write 'Why German Cultural Identity Still Matters', I wanted it to promise something substantial. As it happened, it was more like playing make-believe with firm boundaries. My eldest runs a shop from our living room most afternoons. Sometimes it's a train instead, depending on what he can talk the rest of us into joining. The invitations are constant, and the rules are his. Any deviation from his rules during play is wholly unforgivable. His name also carries a similar enforcement of rules. Call him a silly sausage in the middle of all this (a phrase I picked up in Wales and apparently cannot use often enough) and the game does not just pause, it ends. He then recites his full name (first, middle, and surname) to inform me precisely who I am dealing with. I have no idea what trips the switch. He will happily be a shopkeeper, a customer, a builder, a dog, and occasionally all four inside ten minutes. The roles are never the problem, but the label is. A silly sausage is apparently something that can be given to a person without his consent, and that's a game he is unavailable for. The responsible move is to sigh inwardly and agree with who he is for the sake of household peace. In fairness, he's also not wrong. There is something worth admiring in a person this small who has already worked out that his name is not up for discussion, long before he can explain why. His conviction is something I keep mulling over. He did not reason his way to it, and he certainly did not get it from me explaining identity to him over breakfast. It arrived largely on its own, and he defends it like a castle. It's also the thing I am trying to hand my kids every time I write about German heritage. The trouble is that German heritage does not arrive on its own. It has to be chosen, and then repeated until they stop noticing what you're doing. The plan was to tell you that passing down German heritage makes children tougher, or hands them some measurable advantage at school. My research didn't entirely disagree. There are calculable benefits to having a strong cultural identity (even more when having two), but it keeps returning something less grand than the grand claims other people make. I resented that for a while before admitting the more subtle version was the one worth passing on. → Why German cultural identity still matters for your kids I went looking for a different answer, and this is the one I would gladly defend now. One day, the silly sausage will be funny instead of an accusation, and he will laugh along like the rest of us. But for now, my son is sure of exactly one fact, his own name, and he defends it without any help. Something German is the fact that I would like him to be sure of next. A name comes by itself. Heritage does not. P.S. The phrase that offends him is British. I am Canadian, raising him in Wales, attempting to pass on something German. The boy is negotiating three countries before breakfast, and so far he is handling it better than I am.

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German Cultural Identity

Does it really matter?

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