Today I found myself saying to my daughter, who was trying to get her friend to do what she was doing: "You want this and he wants that. It's OK. You are different people, so you can like different things. You can still be friends even if you do not do exactly the same thing."
I caught my husband giving me a look. A total "political correctness" look. I knew that I sounded like Sesame Street.
But I turned to him and said, in Russian: "You know how this would have gone were we culturally Russian. (Elevated tone). Look at you! Why can't you be like everyone else? All the other kids are like normal people and you are sticking out. Look at ____. He is always doing this neatly. And you? You are always a mess. Can't you be like ___?"
I will take my American Sesame Street politically-correct earnest voice over traditional Russian shaming message of conformity any day.
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