I have always felt a strong connection to my Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. As a young girl I was given dolls in Scandinavian outfits, had Norwegian troll figurines to play with, was read books of Swedish fairy tales while snuggled up in Scandinavian quilts, and my Grammy always baked a million-trillion-gazillion kringla, lefse and rosettes for us.
Even before I ever went to Scandinavia to visit I had a sense of it being my place, and once I was there I felt like I’d found my people. I’ve had grand dreams for our family to spend a year living in Sweden or Norway - and that’s still on my bucket list. Somehow I must have passed on my love for our roots to my daughter, who felt inspired to go on a student exchange to Norway last year.
We just got back from a family reunion - a cousin fest- in California last week. It was a grand gathering of aunties, uncles, cousins, second cousins. One night we even had a Swedish themed dinner evening in celebration of our heritage. My daughter plaited my hair and even adorned the braids with flowers to fit the occasion.
My auntie, who is in the process of doing her ‘Swedish death cleaning,’ passed along some gorgeous family heirlooms to me. Though not the most practical or lightweight items to bring home on an overseas flight, I returned home with my great grandparents’ cast iron krumkake iron (see a photo of the yummy krumkake before we rolled them), my great grandfather’s cast iron coffee grinder (see it hanging on our kitchen wall in the photo below?), and an album containing, in chronological order, love letters that my grandparents had written to each other. These are such treasures to me, and I deeply appreciate the connection that using these household objects creates between me and my ancestors.
In my Māori language class we have been working all year on building our mihimihi, which is the way one introduces oneself at a gathering. It’s a way to share with others a bit about yourself - where you come from, who your ancestors are, what your heritage is. It’s a way for others to discover what sort of connections they might share with you. We are building our vocabulary more and more and have just begun to arrive at the place where we can speak a bit about our heritage and our ancestors.
So, my ancestors have been on my mind in a few different areas of my life. And also on my mind are my descendants and what my husband and I pass on to them. Tonight my shoulder had a knot in it and my daughter lovingly offered to give it a massage and while she did that she sang Norwegian songs to me. It was such a lovely experience on many levels. For one, it felt amazing to have my sore shoulder worked on, and I also marveled at the tenderness and love that was coming through her. I’m sure our Norwegian ancestors would smile to know that although our family came through America and then on to New Zealand, something of their culture and their lives was still living through their descendants.
Do you ever think about your descendants and what you are passing on to them? In my work as a parenting coach I assist people to identify and transform familial patterns that they may have inherited from their parents, their grandparents, or even generations further back. I feel very moved when parents identify patterns that they want to shift and when I see them on the path to creating new ways of being in their families. It is possible to influence generations downstream by the way you are parenting today.
If you are keen to discover new ways of parenting, to change familial patterns that may not be serving you, if you seek deeper connection with your children and want to change the parenting track you are on, I can help you.
For those of you that live in the Top of The South Island, my husband and I are offering an 8-week parenting class, beginning next Wednesday evening, August 7 in Motueka. And for those of you that live further afield, or who want one on one support, I offer individual coaching over the phone or Skype
Some of the things I’d like to pass on as our family legacy are kindness, compassion, empathy, patience and emotional intelligence (alongside the family quilts, recipes, krumkake irons and cast iron coffee grinders). What is it that you’d like to pass on to your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren and beyond?
