Roots of scholar's family tree
reach all the way to Finland
By Judy Taylor Cramer
Managing Editor, Florida State Times
Carol Darling now under stands why there's no word for "goodbye"
in Finnish.
When she returned home to northern Minnesota after her first visit to Finland
at 17, she was bid "näkemiin" - "till we meet again."
"I always knew I'd go back," said Darling, an FSU professor in
the Department of Child and Family Science. "I just didn't think it
would take this long."
Darling returned to Finland last fall as a Fulbright Scholar, the first
from FSU's College of Human Science and one of only 37 from FSU during the
past 15 years. She was reunited with her Finnish relatives - about 80 of
them - who welcomed her with "warmth and regard and respect."
Now Finland feels "like a second home," she said.
But Finland never was foreign to Darling, who grew up in a Finnish-American
home and spent summers at a Finnish-American camp, learning folk dances
and songs.
All four of her grandparents fled the famine of the late 1800s and early
1900s, settling into the familiar frozen north of Minnesota. But because
her grandparents never spoke English, Darling never heard them speak of
home.
"It was very special to go to the land of my heritage," she said,
recalling a moving moment when she saw the "same trees my grandmother
had planted in Minnesota.
"The mountain ash trees have been planted by three generations of my
family. My roots are attached to the roots of that tree."
Darling's roots are now forever entwined with those of her Finnish family,
who consider her the family ambassador.
"I'm the one who transports the pictures and the stories back and forth
between the relatives in Finland and the relatives in America."
Now that she's back in Tallahassee, e-mail keeps her connected to her Finnish
cousins and to the students and colleagues she met during her Fulbright
scholarship at the University of Helsinki.
Darling taught a course in human sexuality at the university, the first
on that subject, and participated in research on a major study on the sex
lives of Finns.
"We in the U.S. are much more uptight about our bodies," she said.
"Nudity is not an issue in Finland. But Finns aren't freewheeling about
sex. They don't talk about sex that much. "
As a "cultural ambassador," she spoke to different groups about
trends and issues facing families.
"They get sound bites of what's happening here, and that distorts the
picture," Darling said. "I told them that the one word that best
describes American families is 'diverse.' Not everyone in America is touched
by violence. The ordinary lives of people don't make news."
As a family scientist, Darling now has a new appreciation for her own extended
family. When she was bid "näkemiin" at the end of this trip,
she assured her Finnish friends and relatives: "It won't be as long
this time. I'll be back sooner."