Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Reverse Culture Shock

My daddy likes to work at coffee shop. It’ called Panera.

He serves coffee, eats cookies, bakes bread, eats cookies, wipes tables, eats cookies, and meets clients.

Actually – he just eats cookies, meets clients and wipes table.

Wipes tables!?

Yup. He does that sometimes, too.

Mostly because prior customers don’t bother to clean up after themselves.

They will leave their mess with a slight of the hand and a “It’s not my job.” Or, “They’ll clean it up. That’s there job.”

Is there no sense of being thoughtful? Of pitching in? Of taking an extra step to make somebody else’s life a bit easier?

These days when a restaurant is very popular, it is increasingly popular to politely ask, even expect the customers to clean up after themselves. At least they can throw their trash out, no?

But not so for some people.

I wonder, do the people realize that when they don’t pitch in, the restaurant has to hire somebody to do it. And somebody has to pay the wage of that person. And the person/s who pays the wage of the workerbee are the customers.

This means the price of our food goes up.

Imagine if everyone did just a little how much it would benefit everyone.

Another dose of amazing grace needed here.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.