Is it better to have parents who are different from each other?

[mad_scientist]

If you are living in a multicultural/multiethnic/multiracial western society, is it preferable to be born to parents who speak the exact same languages and both come from the same country and share the same culture or is it better that they are different?

 

Children from such families who have parents who are very different from each other often have trouble finding who they are in society from their failure to belong anywhere.

 

If you could select the race/background of your parents and the languages they spoke, would you want them to be as similar to each other so you are able to maintain your parents heritage better and keep family traditions going etc.?

[zapatos]

Children from such families who have parents who are very different from each other often have trouble finding who they are in society from their failure to belong anywhere.

Citation please.

[pavelcherepan]

Well, it's generally a bad survival strategy to have parents who are very close genetically. In such a situation you're having a higher chance of having both parents with the same recessive allele and this can lead to some severe genetic disorders. This has been observed since ancient times and this is why marriage between close relatives is taboo in most cultures.

 

Not sure there's any reason you'd need to specifically choose a partner from a specific ethnicity or background. Genetic planning is still in its infancy.