Rima Grace

For second and third generation kids, holding on to your family's culture can be difficult and expensive.

I'm Rima Grace, and this week on This is Uncomfortable, I talk with author and journalist Ayman Ismail about how passing down his Egyptian roots to his kids has become a line item in his monthly budget.

Listen to This is Uncomfortable on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Reem Ahraes, and welcome to This is Uncomfortable.

Like a lot of kids of immigrants, I grew up with parents who tried really hard to hold on to our culture.

Like, every Sunday, they drove me and my siblings to Islamic school.

And every summer, if they could afford it, they'd send us abroad to be with family to learn Arabic.

While I'm not a parent yet, I do think a lot about what kind of things I'd want to pass on someday and what it would take to actually do that, not just emotionally, but financially.

Which is what I'm talking about this week with journalist Ayman Ismail.

Ayman is a writer and podcast host at Slate, where he reports on politics, religion, and parenting.

He also came out with a memoir recently called Becoming Baba, which is about how he navigates identity and fatherhood as a Muslim American.

Ayman and his wife have two small kids, and recently they've decided that it's really important that they send them to Islamic school, even though it's going to cost them a lot more than they'd like.

Eamon agreed to sit down with me and walk through his family budget, line item by line item, and talk openly about what it costs emotionally and financially to hold on to a sense of belonging right now.

Eamon, welcome to the show.

I'm excited to talk with you, especially because we come from similar backgrounds.

You've wrestled with questions that I'm sure I will someday too.

So before we... Inshallah.

We'll see if we keep that in.

So before we get into specific numbers, I'm curious, what is driving your decision to send your kids to Islamic school?

And what kind of financial conversations has that led to?