Children of Russian-American marriages

"Mom, what are we having tonight, pelmeni or pizza?" asks Misha, a 13-year-old boy from St. Petersburg, known to his schoolmates in Minneapolis as Mike.
Mike's Mom, or Mama - depending which language, English or Russian, her son is in the mood for that day - is Irina, an electrical engineer from St. Petersburg. She and her American husband, Rob, together with their two children from her first marriage in Russia, Misha and 9-year-old Sasha, are a microcosm of a phenomenon that grew unexpectedly out of perestroika. As hundreds of Russians traveled to the US for business and pleasure, as Americans went to work in firms and organizations in Russia, and as Russian women, many of them with small children, sought a better future with an American husband, there has been an upsurge in Russian-American marriages.
It is difficult enough to make ago of a marriage across the deep American-Russian/Soviet cultural divide. But the difficulties are compounded when children enter the picture. For where children are concerned, passions run high.

And Baby Makes "Òðè"
When a Russian-A1nerican couple is expecting a child, the tug-of-war begins. Many Russian mothers-to-be and just as many Russian expectant fathers flinch from their American spouses' and friends' enthusiastic plunge into the old American custom of a baby shower. Russian folkways frown on any kind of celebration prior to the child's birth and any buying of baby presents until the very last moment, fearing that such overconfidence in a safe and sound delivery could bring bad luck. And so the joy of the coming event is diluted somewhat by the disappointment or misgivings of one or the other spouse, depending on which one yields on this score.
As the big day approaches, an American wife finds her Russian husband, relatives and friends ranged around her in resolute protection against that old Russian hobgoblin, the draft. Theresa Yaroshevich, an American who teaches English in Moscow, recalled how, when she was eight months pregnant, sitting on the porch at her in-laws' dacha, trying to catch a cool breeze on a stiflingly hot August day, her mother-in-law and sister-in-law descended on her with a heavy sweater and blankets. They were convinced that the ever-present skvozniak (draft) would do permanent damage to the unborn child.

"Some people," Theresa commented, "say the major religion of Russia is Russian Orthodoxy. Well, it's not. It's The Draft. The Evil Draft. And people believe in it with total fanaticism."

"Some people say the major religion of Russia is Russian Orthodoxy. Well, it's not. It's The Draft. The Evil Draft."
Then there is the American vogue for the father to be present at birth. Many Russians find this custom strange, even barbaric. When one young Russian woman's American husband said he wanted to be with her - and perhaps videotape the delivery-her Russian girlfriends warned her that he would be traumatized by the sight and rendered incapable of looking at her as a woman. The wife finally gave in to her spouse's importunings, somewhat. He was there to hold her hand, but a curtain blocked his view of the actual birth.

MAKING IT IN MOSCOW. Alexander and Theresa (crusader against "The Evil Dralt") Yaroshevich and their son Yan.

The naming of children is also rich with issues of culture and language. Many couples have solved this problem by giving the baby a name equally at home in both languages, such as Anna, Natasha, Gregory or Alexander. Elena Drozdova-Christonikos and her American husband, Nicholas, both of whom work in the library system of the United Nations, decided that, if the baby was a boy, he would name it, and if a girl, she would decide. Thus was born Charles, or Charlik to his Russian relatives.
Once the new baby arrives, parenting issues follow closely behind. While American men show an increasing willingness to play an important part in the parenting of young children, many Russian men feel that child care is "women's work."
"So many Russian women feel that their men are absolutely incompetent in dealing with children, because they are still children themselves, hopelessly spoiled by their doting mothers," said Edward, an American who lives in the US with his Russian wife, Irina. Likewise, an American woman married to a Russian is apt to reach the same conclusion, and this can develop into an enduring source of friction. On the other hand, Russian women may have difficulty accepting their American husbands' desire to participate in child care. Alyona Makeeva, a New York-based Russian artist, recalled that when her husband, David Seacrest, fed their little daughter, Adele, and changed her diapers, her Russian girlfriends accused her of "exploiting" him and letting him take over her own job. This made her feel guilty, she said, until she learned to accept it as normal.

Enter the Babushka
At this dramatic moment comes the entrance, with flourishes, of the Russian Babushka, whose long-term or permanent presence adds a whole new dimension to a couple's life.
What parent in America would not welcome a babushka to take care of a newborn, saving the trouble and expense of a nursery or day care if both parents work? Many mothers both in Russia and in the US cannot afford to stay home with the child. The time when American grandmothers supplied that need is long gone. Today, Grandma is quite likely to be devoting herself to a career, job, travel or hobbies. Chances are, she doesn't even live in the same town as her married son or daughter. As Edward put it, "I love my mother, but if I called her every day she'd think I was in real trouble."
With Babushka, it's different. She is not only willing to help take care of the child, or anything else, she is determined to do so. She will take the child out for a walk, she will see to it that the child gets its nap and has its bowl of mannaya kasha (wheat porridge) or a glass of milk with cookies. Her adoring presence frees the parents of worry about the child when they're at work, and it frees them of many household chores, which Babushka assumes without question. Who could ask for anything more?
Yet Babushka can get to be too much of a good thing. Quite a number of American spouses confessed that, after a while, they found her embrace of the household a bit crushing.
In Russia, children are always being wrapped up against the bitter cold of winter, even when winter is gone, and Glen Mack found himself the villain in a Russian drama when he let his child play out of doors without "proper" clothing. As he recalls the incident, "I was raised 'barefoot and naked' in Arkansas. One February day, when my Russian wife Asele's mother saw our four-year-old Dasha, barefoot and shirtless, playing with a water hose with me in the garden-and where we live in Texas it's over 70° in winter - I thought she would have a heart attack on the spot."
Strictures against the cold are accompanied by warnings against bare feet (an invitation to catching all kinds of infections) and iced drinks (a sure road to a sore throat). These apprehensions are sensible, of course, in the fierce Russian climate and the unsanitary state of many Russian public places. But an American parent who never knew those conditions may be understandably irked by the family's firm opposition to these little pleasures of an American childhood.
The older generation in Russia has its own, somewhat authoritarian ideas about raising children, ideas buttressed by decades of Marxist attempts to provide any and all theory, including that of child rearing, with a "scientific" basis--even when it came to toilet-training. Shocked by American toddlers who were still not fully toilet-trained at age two, Elena's mother had Charlik out of diapers by the time he was one and a half. This rigid schedule might have made sense in the pre- Pampers era in Russia, where bathrooms constantly reeked of damp, drying diapers, but in contemporary New York it seems unnecessarily strict.

Babbushka knows best. Tatyana Bartrum's mother--babushka to Leana, treats granddaughter to a tasty pie.

On some deep-seated level, the Russian view that "this is the way it's done," as exemplified in the writings of the venerated Russian pedagogue Anton Makarenko, runs counter to the easygoing American approach of letting developments take their course, an outlook supported by the laissez-faire precepts of Dr. Spock. In a crosscultural marriage, the consequences of this head-on clash can be devastating. "I could be wrong' is something a Russian parent is not likely to say," observed one American wife with unconcealed bitterness.
It would be a mistake, however, to deduce from a listing of these disagreements that Babushka lives to be a scold. She is, in her way, as intelligent, tactful and fun-loving as her American counterpart is apt to be. "Babushka gives candy to all the children in town and they all adore her," said Len Henrikson of his Russian wife Elena's mother, who lives with them in the small Oregon town of Roseburg.
When asked if they would have preferred Babushka to stay home in Russia, the answer from both American and Russian parents was always a resounding "No." And not just because she frees the wife from many household responsibilities. After all, if there is no grandmother available, there is always recourse to a Russian nyanya (nanny) to provide a more familiar kind of daycare. These families feel that the Russian grandmothers are playing an enormously important role in raising their children, teaching them the Russian language, culture and traditions. As one American woman put it, Babushka provides "the kind of unconditional love Russians are so skilled at giving."
"Babushka provides the kind of unconditional love Russians are so skilled at giving."

Members of the Collective
If the married couple lives in Russia, Babushka's impact on the family is even more pronounced, especially for the American spouse. For now there is not only mother-in-law around, but all the other in-laws as well. Of course, as in the US, if grandmother is missing, the couple may hire a nyanya, who is likely to become quite devoted to her small charge and be considered a part of the family. But it's not the same. Nothing can take Babushka's place - for convenience or conflict.
"I was really alarmed that Igor's mother simply took it for granted that she would be taking care of our son, Adam," said Helen, a young American living with her family in Moscow. There was absolutely no discussion of hiring a nyanya - it was assumed that it was Babushka's God-given right and duty to raise him."
In this all-Russian environment, the Russian sense of collective and community--the feeling that your business is everyone's business--can raise the hackles of Americans raised in a spirit of independence and individualism. Much of the time, the friction is caused by the Russian tendency to hand out gratuitous advice and criticism within the family.
"I often feel like I am running against the wind," said Ellen, an administrator for a legal organization in Moscow, married to a Russian film writer. "My ideas are supported by my Russian husband but often countered by his parents. I try to have Anne, our daughter, be as independent and freethinking as she can, for I consider that these are values which will help her later. They think they know best one hundred percent of the time and feel totally free to criticize Anne's clothes, haircut, shoes--there's no respect for the choices of others. They don't take into account that we are the parents and have our own opinions on how to raise her."
Theresa's feelings on the subject were the same. "I dearly love, admire and respect my Russian in-laws, but my cultural expectation is that mothers should be given positive support. To me, a continuing stream of advice sounds a lot like criticism." Several American mothers living in Russia noted that they were belabored by critical advice not just by in-laws but by total strangers. Said Theresa: "I don't know how many times people in the street have commented that the sling in which I carry my son will make him grow up a cripple. If he's happy and comfortable and not crying, then things are fine. I feel I can make my decisions on my own about this child without comments from ten million Muscovites!
Much of the unwanted advice touches on the child's early development. Many American spouses complained that their Russian relatives insisted on observing a strict schedule for bathing, feeding and putting infants to bed, even if the child was not at all hungry and it took an hour to rock him to sleep. The American parent is far more inclined to let things take their course. "When Yan first wanted to sit up, that was fine with me," said Theresa. "But my Russian relatives were saying I shouldn't let him, that he'd grow up a hunchback. As far as I'm concerned, he should grow up at his own pace, following a natural development process."
Then there's the matter of indulging the child. With Babushka and the whole household catering to their every wish, Russian small children have always been little kings. During the Soviet period many an American visitor observed that it was the chubby little tikes bundled in their winter jumpsuits rather than the dour party bureaucrats who were really running the country. And from an American point of view, the miniature despots are overprotected. "I'd rather have my son toddling around the kitchen 'helping' me," said Helen, "while my husband wants to see him safe and sound, bundled up in a dozen layers of clothing, sitting still on the couch."
" "I'm not going to pick up Yan every time he cries," said Theresa, "because then he'll start wailing any time he wants something." His first howl, however, will bring his Russian relatives running to pick him up and hug him, with cries of "Oy, oy, the poor little boy!" And all too often, when a child begs for a candy and the American mother - concerned about nutrition or sugar consumption - says no, Babushka will surreptitiously hand him the sweet. Another case of rational versus emotional? Maybe. But who knows what ray of sunshine steals into a child's heart from a forbidden candy lovingly given, and what effect that memory may have on the child later on?
A similar cultural difference makes itself felt when the child is ill. Americans prefer to play down disease, particularly if it's nothing more than the common cold, and to get the child back to his normal activities as soon as possible. "When a kid gets to stay home from school for a week every time he has a runny nose, he naturally becomes a little domestic tyrant," said Theresa. Russians, on the other hand, believe in coddling the sick. Is that against the child's best interests? Again, maybe. Yet don't we all carry through life the memory of a shining moment when, as children, we lay playing sicker than we were, and were fussed over by everyone in the house? And can we minimize what happy childhood memories add up to in building personality and character?

One Step at a Time
For many Russian-American couples the problems of bringing up their biological children are complemented by differences over rearing stepchildren from previous marriages; in other cases, it's just the stepchildren. And here the issues, at the start, are somewhat different.
Take the child of a Russian woman arriving for the first time in America. Far from home, which frequently included doting grandparents, a child who cannot understand his stepfather's English may be frightened by a strange house, strange food, a strange language, and a stranger to whom Mama is devoting more time than to him. How to help him adjust to a new country and a new family? It's particularly tough on the stepfather when the child is older, already formed as a personality and somewhat set in his ways, often resenting attempts to impose on him values and discipline foreign to his upbringing.
An important step to adjustment is school. And for Russian children who have little or no English, that is not easy. "My Alex used to cry all the time, because he had been an excellent student in Russia and here he was getting C's and D's," said Tatyana Bartrum, whose husband brought her and her son, Alexander, then 11, to Oregon. But once Alex mastered English and was transferred to a better school, the tears stopped. In fact, as is often the case with Russian children, he not only excelled in school but surpassed his American classmates in many subjects.

STEP BY STEP. Harris, Leo and Svellana Sussman are successfully charting the difficult waters of the bicultural, step-child/ step-parents relationship.

The reason - and this is something on which Russian and American parents agree - is the excellence of the Russian educational system. "Russian school was much harder," said Nadezhda, an English teacher from Yekaterinburg. There her daughter, Katya, had 16 subjects in fifth grade, piano and dancing lessons for a small fee, and music school five times a week (free). In the U.S.- and her complaint is echoed by many Russian parents - music and dance lessons cost a lot, and American schools do not emphasize the cultural activities organized by Russian schools, such as student excursions to the opera, ballet, museums and children's theater.
So even the child's education, a key to his adjustment, can be a source of problems. For example, Russian spouses, remembering their own childhood and how their parents helped them with their homework, want to do the same for their children. But they often have trouble doing this because of the marked differences in school curricula and teaching methods. They are also often disappointed to see how little time their American spouses devote to this parental duty. And the American parents, who have the American idea that "you do your own work," are bemused by how much their Russian spouses spend at it. On top of all this, many Russian parents are upset to see their children spend so much time watching television because there is so little homework to do.
The American parent, on the other hand, can often be displeased by attitudes the stepchild brings from Russia that do not go with the American way of life. Among these is the assumption among some children that they don't have to lift a finger, even when they are older, to help around the house.
This was something Harris Sussman discovered after his wife, Svetlana, arrived in the US in 1995 with her son, Leo, now 18. "In Russia," said Sussman, "Leo's grandparents were always there to cook, clean, shop and take care of everything. It took him awhile to realize who does what, and that he had to do his share in the household, too."

How Long the Strings?
Russians and Americans also differ greatly in how urgently they push their children from the nest. Russians tend to cling to the child as long as possible, trying to protect it from the perceived or real dangers of the world out- side. The Russian family is a core element which displays to the full that society's deep-rooted collective spirit. And this is something Americans can recognize. "I find the Russians much more capable of being team players than most Americans could ever be," said Edward. "I see it in my wife's family and in many other Russian families. Compared to American families, they are amazingly close. Here you can go off on your own and both survive and succeed. I was out the door when I was 19 and have been ever since. The Russians all rely on each other."
"Russians are much more capable of being team players than most Americans could ever be".
The many difficulties of Russian life, such as the housing problem that often forces adult and married children to continue to live with their parents, increase this sense of mutual dependence. This can have negative consequences, such as the stereotype of the male who remains bound to the nest past 30, unable to hold his own as father or husband.
On the other hand, from the Russian point of view, American behavior in this area can often seem callous. The sometimes enormous leeway that many American parents are willing to give their teenagers, allowing them to get into trouble, can seem irresponsible to Russian parents - and with good reason, when one reads about shootings in the schools. Ellen recalled an emotional moment when her Russian father-in-law raised a birthday toast to his children. He said: "In Russia we don't throw our children out of the home when they're 18 the way people do in America."
Anyone who knows America will agree that American parents hardly live for the day when they can get rid of their kids. Yet it is true that between Americans and Russians, there is a fundamental difference on when it is time to let go of the apron strings.
American parents consciously try to raise a child who can think for him or herself. They place supreme importance on the value of independence, and they try to inculcate it in their children early on.
"The assumption is that an American child is being helped to become a functioning member of society, who will be released into a relatively safe society, in which he has a real future," said Ben, a legal and commercial translator who lived in Russia with his wife, Nika, before they moved to California. "For Russians, safety means the home, in which the family and the children are safe from a dangerous outside world. The idea is not to shove them outside the nest but to keep them there."
The American emphasis, in short, is on independence, on the achievement which a child needs to attain his or her own space, friends and lifestyle. "I do not think it is wise," said Ellen, "to try to protect a child entirely from the difficulties of life." She recounted an incident in which this belief clashed with the prevailing Russian attitude.
She had taken her five-year-old daughter, Anne, to Moscow's Detsky Mir children's store to buy a dress for a Christmas party, had picked out a few items in the child's size, and was asking Anne which one she preferred. Right then a grandmotherly Russian woman intruded, announcing that she had never seen a mother asking a child about her preferences in clothing. "In my day," she sniffed, "we had no choice. Our mothers picked out what they liked, and we wore those clothes."
Ellen explained that she was trying to teach her child to cope with choices and to develop her own sense of style. To pick out what she herself liked would be to go back to an era when ideas were routinely forced on people, who in turned imposed the same ideas on others. "Well, that's all very interesting," concluded the Russian lady after a rather lengthy discussion. "I'll have to think about that."
There is another divisive issue between East and West when little girls are involved. American parents are increasingly tending to raise girls "as equals" with boys, while Russian parents are more concerned with inculcating them with a strong sense of femininity. Having their daughters "look pretty" and teaching them to dress and cook well are important priorities for Russian mothers. One American husband complained that his Russian wife wanted to raise their daughter like a china doll rather than as a rational human being.
Mores and manners also come into play with stepchildren. As to the latter, stepchildren from the Russian spouses' earlier marriages are generally better behaved than American children. Tatyana Bartrum recalled, "My American husband, Smitty, was so surprised how, when he first met my son, Alex got up to greet him, and how Alex is so neatly groomed and keeps such good order in his room." By contrast, Elena Drozdova-Christonikos remarked that, when the family goes to Russia to visit her relatives, it is she rather than her American husband who keeps Charlie from bothering the other passengers on the plane.
What if the child misbehaves? Both American and Russian parents may give an occasional spanking. But beyond that, they part company. When a child asks why he should not do what he is doing, Russians tend to retort, "Because I said so," while Americans, whenever possible, tend to come down on the side of rational persuasion, often going into lengthy explanations. "In America, we tend to call a time out when a kid misbehaves," said Glenn Mack. And an American mother: "When my son reaches for a hot stove, the Russian grandmother slaps his hand and yells, 'Nyet, nelzya!' ['Not allowed!'] I try to explain to him that he'll hurt himself because the stove is hot ."
There is, of course, a possible compromise, and several couples said they had adopted it. A child's misbehavior draws an immediate sharp response - followed by a clear explanation why he should not do whatever he is doing. On the more usual and more modern forms of punishment, such as taking away television, computer and Nintendo privileges, Russians and Americans seem to agree.

Making Allowances
Many Russian-American couples are divided on the issue of that capitalist bugaboo, money. In Russia, parents simply gave the child whatever rubles he might need for transportation or expenses. "No one," said Elena Henrikson, "would ever give a child money for doing household chores." In America, however, capitalism begins at home. Initially, the transplanted Russian parents were shocked by the idea of paying their children for what they felt were normal family obligations. But eventually many of them gave in to pressure from their spouses--and from the children. "At first I thought my son should cut the grass without pay, because everyone in a family has to do his share," said Tatyana. "But it's a really big yard, and he was a small boy. So, I thought, why not?"
For Russian parents, paying children for doing chores runs counter to the basic notion of the family as a collective unit; for Americans, it's a way of teaching children the value of money. Yet the Russian spouse will often find her American mate violating with one hand the principle he defends with the other, for America has long been a "throw away" society.
"When American children break their toys," said Elena Henrikson, "they expect to get new ones." Her daughter, Sonia, took very good care of her clothes, she said, while her husband Len's daughter might throw her things around or leave her shoes on the bed. "Americans throw everything out, including food. But when your country has starved through a war, you don't do that."
Nor are Russians comfortable with the idea of children working outside the home. In Russia, kids didn't work - not, at any rate, while they were in school. If they did, it meant their parents couldn't support them, or it looked like child labor. So when Tatyana Bartrum's husband floated the idea of her son's having an after-school job - "Smitty told me that when he was my son's age, he worked every day after school and every weekend, too" - she was against it. But gradually she came around. "Now Alex has his own money. And he's a lot less shy than he used to be. Dealing with customers working at JC Penney has made him a lot more sociable."
Harris Sussman, a writer and consultant, met his wife Svetlana in 1994 in Moscow, where he was speaking at a conference on - of all things - conflict resolution. She was coordinating a team of translators; she now teaches Russian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After their marriage, Harris soon established an excellent relationship with Svetlana's son, Leo. "We told him he could take any name he wanted," said Harris, "his father's, his mother's, or mine. We were really delighted that he ultimately decided to use my name. He calls me Harris, but that doesn't bother me in the least. After all, he has a father in Russia. What's important is how he feels about me and how we get on, not what name he uses."
But one day, the question of money came up. "Svetlana seemed to think it was up to the two of us to pay for every step Leo took, and his piano and violin lessons were pretty expensive, while I thought he could be out on his own making some money to pay for part of his expenses." That, Harris came to realize, was a novel concept for his wife and stepson. "But after a while, Leo rather liked the idea of having his own money, and of not having to ask me for things all the time."

The Language Barrier
Even in the most successful Russian-American families, the problem of language and culture remains the biggest hurdle to surmount. While the issue of preserving a linguistic and cultural heritage when living abroad is common to all expatriates or immigrants, it becomes particularly acute in a crosscultural marriage. How does a Russian-American child living in America preserve his Russian heritage, and how does a child living in Russia retain his American background?
The overwhelming majority of couples decide to have each parent speak to the child in his or her native language. That's fine until the child starts going to school and is surrounded by the language of the country. In America, wanting to be "like everyone else," the child may refuse to speak Russian. And American spouses living in Russia often find that after a few years in a Russian school, their child cannot read or write English properly. The "foreign" spouse - be he a Russian in America or an American in Russia-may find himself in the painful position of being forced to speak a foreign language to his child, a child who is rejecting that parent's native language and cultural heritage. That can be a bitter pill to swallow.
JoAnn, who lives with her family in Moscow, found that, even though she always spoke English to their daughter Anna, the child was having trouble communicating with her maternal grandparents, for Anna was continually speaking Russian to her father, her nyanya, and to her school friends. Theresa and Alexander, on the other hand, feel confident that Yan's Babushka, nyanya and Russian friends will ensure his fluency in Russian, so both of them speak English to the boy. And they like bringing up their child in Moscow. "I think kids develop better here," said Alexander, "because there are fewer material temptations like the latest Nikes or electronic toys. Here kids are still reading books!"
Couples who live in the us have to work to keep up the child's Russian. Sometimes it works out naturally. Annette and her Russian husband, Iliya Zaripov, have a four-year-old daughter, Tanya. "I feel that Tanya should know her father's Russian heritage," Annette said. Yet Annette doesn't speak Russian herself, nor does Stephanie, her 15-year-old daughter from her first marriage. But Iliya works at a Florida circus as a clown, and all the Russian circus performers speak Russian to little Tanya. "Of course," says Annette, "it's pretty funny when Tanya gets mad at me because I can't read her Russian books to her, and when I try to brush her hair she howls, 'Nelzya!' Sometimes I joke that we had this child so that she could translate for us."
"I joke that we had this child so that she could translate for us."
Other solutions to the language and culture program are less serendipitous. Irina's 13-year-old Misha (Mike) and her 9-year-old Sasha are both fluent in English. She and her husband, Rob, speak English to each other, and in his presence she always speaks English to the children. She feels all right about that, because even though Sasha is more comfortable in English, and Misha still speaks good Russian, "both my boys are Russians. They root for Russian teams at the Olympics, and they prefer to be called Misha and Sasha, not Michael and Alex."
Glenn Mack met his Russian wife, Asele, in Moscow, where she was a photo editor for Novosti Press and he was working for TIME magazine. Today the couple and their daughter, Darya ("Dasha"), live in Austin, where he is director of education at the Culinary Academy of Austin, involved in exchanges with chefs from the former USSR, and she works as a translator. The couple speak only Russian to each other and to Dasha, and every summer Asele takes Dasha to visit family and friends in Russia. "Dasha's always a bit quiet the first few days after she returns to the U.S.," said Asele. "But then she says, 'Let's speak English because Barney does." Glenn's mother's fears that she would not be able to speak to her granddaughter were dispelled long ago - the happily bilingual and bicultural child is equally fond of caviar and peanut butter.

American Curt Woolhiser, his Russian-born wile Anna Rakityanskaya and their son Daniel, with whom they only speak Russian.

Anna Rakityanskaya, a Slavic bibliographer at the University of Austin, and her husband, Curt Woolhiser, a professor of Slavic linguistics at the university, also speak only Russian to their four-and-a-half-year-old son Daniel (Danila), and shower him with Russian children's books and video-tapes. "When he's telling us about things that took place at daycare," Anna said, "he sometimes answers us in English. It's taking a lot of work to keep up his Russian. As soon as we get sloppy, English starts taking over." But the child is clearly making the distinction between the languages. In response to several dogs barking outside one night as he was falling asleep, Danila calmly observed that "some dogs bark in English and other dogs bark in Russian." In the Franchi family, English has taken over completely. As Nika reported, "The dog is the only one around here who speaks nothing but Russian."
Elena Henrikson finds that her daughter, Sonia, now prefers to speak English to her even when they are alone together. Both Sonia and Elena read Russian books to little Jake (Yasha), trying to ensure his equal fluency in Russian and English. The satellite dish the family acquired to provide non-English speaking Babushka with Russian-language television programs is also very useful in helping the children keep up their Russian. As is true of other mixed families, Elena has an ironclad rule of not speaking Russian when Len is around: "It's so rude to speak another language in the presence of someone who doesn't understand."
Elena Drozdova-Christonikos speaks her native Russian to Charlik; her husband speaks English to the boy, who is comfortable in both languages. But Charlik, or Charlie, clearly feels that Russian is the language of the home and English the tongue of the outside world. When a Russian-speaking woman began talking to Elena on a New York bus, the boy, very ill at ease about speaking Russian in public, would not join in. "He'll grow up here with an American mentality," Elena said. "But we go to Russia every summer, and that is very important in keeping his ties with the land and culture."

FAMILY NIGHT. Nicholas and Elena Drozdova- Christonikos, with son Charlie, aka "Charlik."

What does it mean to be "bicultural"? Svetlana Sussman's Russian-born son, Leo, has been back in Moscow several times, and while his Russian is still excellent, his Moscow friends can catch him on slang expressions new to him, and they sometimes tease him about being "American."

"At first I didn't know what was 'American' about the way I've been behaving," he said. "Then I caught on. It's the way I walk. Standing up straight, looking straight ahead of me, facing the world."

Ellen, the American wife in Moscow who had that argument with a stranger over letting her daughter, Anne, choose her own clothes in a store, regards encounters of that sort as broadening for the child. "I think that being brought up in an atmosphere of divergent cultures will make Anne a better person in the long run," Ellen said. "She's used to people disagreeing, to seeing that each culture has good and bad points, and to taking the good from them."
"We have to face more challenges," said Theresa about the rigors of raising children in a bicultural marriage. "And that makes us stronger." As they grow to adulthood, these children are likely to discover how personally and professionally valuable and enriching their knowledge of two cultures can be.
And the existence of more and more bicultural augurs well for the relations between their nations.

By Dr. Lynn Visson