'For years Harmony Day has been my ethnic parents' worst nightmare.'

Every year, leading up to March 21, ethnic parents across the country wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. 

"Harmony Day..." is what they all whisper in unison as the horror and dread settles in. It's 3am but they have no choice, slowly they make their way to the kitchen to begin creating the perfect dish for their child to take to daycare or school. 

Yes, as a non-parent, this is my exaggeration interpretation of the mindset that parents have leading up to Harmony Day. 

However, having grown up in an ethnic family, I know this is pretty accurate. 

In case you're not familiar, Harmony Day was introduced in the '90s as a national day for recognising and celebrating multiculturalism in Australia. 

In 2019, it was changed to Harmony Week and is always centred around March 21 — which is the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 

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However, there's some controversy associated with the history of the day and the government has been criticised for failing to commit to the purpose of the UN day and not adequately recognising the existence of racism and microaggressions towards non-white cultures in Australia. 

In Australia, Harmony Day has historically been a day of celebration in schools. Meaning? Parents are required to make sure their children are taking part in the festivities. 

This ranges from bringing in a meal from your culture, wearing orange or dressing up in your culture's attire, preparing speeches to talk about your culture to the rest of the class, and taking part in parades. 

It's the whole shebang. 

And unluckily for parents, a lot of the work falls on their shoulders. 

If your child was like me, it usually went something like this: 

*My parents get home at 7pm after a full day at work*

Mum: "Emily, what is this leaflet I found in your bag about Harmony Day?"

10-year-old me: "Oh yeah, I'm meant to take in Indian food to school tomorrow."

Mum: "What are you taking in?"

Me: "I don't know."

Mum: "Can we buy samosas from the Indian shop and say we cooked them at home?" 

Me: "I don't know."

Variations of this conversation took place every single year when I was in school. 

And just when my parents thought their part-time jobs as Harmony Day providers were over, my 21-year-old sister told our dad that her workplace also celebrates Harmony Day and she needed to bring in an Indian dish. 

Image: Supplied.

This issue with being a first-generation child of immigrants is that we have assimilated into Western culture since birth, so my poor parents still have to guide us when it comes to sharing our heritage and culture with others. 

When I spoke to Maggie Le — a Vietnamese full-time working mum to a three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter —  she said that she had an interesting experience with Harmony Day this year. 

"I got a note from my son's daycare that said: 'We'll be celebrating Harmony Day next week and encourage you to dress your kids up and bring anything that's related to your culture for a tea party'," she tells Mamamia. 

"I completely forgot about it until the day before. No one in my family had a Vietnamese outfit for my son to wear so I went out to get supplies to make a Vietnamese hat for my son that night. I stayed up until midnight making the hat after putting my kids to bed and cleaning the house. In the morning, like every morning, I was running around getting everyone ready. My daughter who's teething, found the hat I had made and chewed the top of it off. 

"When my son saw what happened to his hat, he started to cry. It was too late to make him another hat as I had to leave the house to drop him off at daycare before work. In the daycare car park, I noticed a piece of cardboard in the boot of my car, drew the Vietnamese flag on it and got him to hold it for his parade."

I remember how stressed my parents would be every year in the lead up. Making sure they got the perfect mix of Westernised-Indian culture. 

I'd like to think we're a more respectful nation now, but growing up in the early 2000s, I was hyper-aware of coming across as "too Indian" as a child. 

My parents were the absolute best and never made me do anything that I was uncomfortable with. So for Harmony Day, they made me food that resembled my culture while also avoiding mean kids telling me that what I brought in looked "gross" or "smelled weird". 

The lengths they would go through to make sure they followed the Harmony Day brief while also not opening me up as a target to bullies was something that they shouldn't have had to do. 

Harmony Day was for us. It was a day that I should've felt safe introducing my culture to my friends and teachers and yet, in my household (and I'm sure other ethnic households), it was a day that put so much pressure on my parents to come up with something that kept both the school and their bratty daughter (me) happy. 

Speaking to Maggie made me hopeful about the acceptance of diversity in younger generations. 

She said that besides the chaos of getting her son ready for the day while also managing her work, she thought it was a great celebration. 

"I think it's nice for the kids to be aware of different cultures. Yes, as a parent, it's an extra thing for us to do for our kids but I'm happy to do it," Maggie says. 

"It's an opportunity for me to talk to [my son] about his heritage as well as explain to him about all the other cultures of his friends. It's a great opportunity to have that conversation with your kids to broaden their horizons by explaining to them that people with differences can live together and be respectful of each other." 

If you want more culture opinions by Emily Vernem, you can follow her on Instagram @emilyvernem. 

Feature image: Supplied.