married to a handsome Chinese man. My husband is the youngest of 4 and grew up in Indiana in the 1970's. Like your dh he really only knows Cantonese if it pertains to food. I've thought about having our kids learn Cantonese or Mandarin, he's ambivalent. He'd be just as interested in having them learn Spanish or Arabic or some other language. I often read books by Chinese-American authors and then point out things in the book to him that remind me of his family. Once I said "you should totally read this." His comment "I lived it. Why should I read it?" True enough. I've been thinking about the mixed-race marriage and kids thing more lately because I heard a NPR story talking about the Supreme Court case that made mixed-raced marriage legal, Loving vs. Virginia. It was in 1967. That blew me away. My dh was born in 1966 so it was amazing to me that only in his lifetime has it become legal for us to be married. (We live in Virginia.) It's amazing to me that in one generation mixed-race marriage has gone from being at the worst illegal and at the best shocking to being really kind of boring. I also read recently that the fastest growing segment of the population is mixed-race kids. Yes, still a minority but increasing dramatically. For me I think there's a fine line between helping the kids to understand both cultures....and not making too big a deal of it. With my own kids who are young I know they don't really see that there is a difference between me and Daddy. I think that's a good thing, although at the same time I want them to appreciate the Chinese part of them. It is complicated, although like you mentioned most of the time we're more worried about bedtimes and why how much nutritious value can possibly be gotten from a diet of goldfish crackers.