to be so annoyed about comment on babys skin colour

[Lia87]

my baby is still quite jaundice. however an old woman in the doctors earlier found it necessary to say out of the blue "she's mixed race then?", with quite a condesending tone, to which i replied "no" then she felt the need to say "oh. she's got such dark hair as well though, is her dad british?" this was without any prior conversation at all

i just thought that was completely rude and nothing to do with her, for a start, why does it even matter what race she is? and to then question it again after i've said no was rediculous, i didn't bother to explain she's jaundice, as i don't think its got anything to do with her!

am i being unreasonable and over grumpy or am i right in thinking thats not the kind of question you ask people

Welcome to being a parent, a world where you will face many, many inappropriate comments. Don't take them all so seriously.

some people love a racist icebreaker with strangers. Its rude and moronic.

I got the taxi to the dentist the other day and my taxi drivers lovely icebreaker was to ask me whether my dentist was english :|

what relevence or interest that would have to any normal person, im not sure?

I have a friend who is mixed race. She has three DC with her white husband. The funiest thing is, she has a friend who keeps commenting on her middle child and how light she is. She says she could understand it if her husband were the mixed race parent, but she very clearly gave birth to her, so there is no doubt who her mother is.

Clearly you have met a random racist!! YANBU!!

It sounds a bit odd, are you sure she wasn't barking?

I dont mind nosiness, and i probably feel a tad more uncomfortable at he idea that 'thats not the kind of question you ask people'.

She could genuinely have no negative thoughts about mixed race children, hence having no qualms idly chatting about it?

I dont know, it would take more for me to think badly about some old woman making conversation.

Strumpet, maybe he was American and you have bad teeth? Sorry, just joking. :) It is a moronic question to be sure.

Skin colour or racial features shouldn't be a taboo subject. Being too hushed up about it (in a politically correct way) causes more problems than it solves. We should be able to talk about racial features in the same was we talk about hair colour or eye colour, because that's what racial features are, just superficial physical variation.

YANBU but get used to it. I hope your baby recovers quickly :)

DH is mixed race and when our Scandinavian-looking DS was born it was absolutely incredible how many people 'joked' about who the father was. I got fed up of replying politely and started saying that his colouring came from the postman :o

she wasnt american, and my teeth were better than hers ;)

It then went into a rant about foreign doctors and dentists and how hard it was to find one that she could understand :|

Wonder how many english people SHE knew that went to medical school in this country?

I think the important thing s the word 'conversation'. Just commenting in a rude way about a skin and hair colour is inappropriate.

I was in the chemist just after I had DS, he was a big baby and an elderly lady asked how much he weighed, so I told her 9lb 2oz, she then asked how many stitches I had, I was so shocked with her blatent and personal question that I answered that I had none. She said these exact words - 'Gee Whizz love, you must have a beaver made of steel' and casually sauntered away.

I'm still in shock to this day about it, but it was rather funny.

Arf at racist icebreaker. I can't believe really that people do that. What happened to talking about the weather?!

Op, there are many people out there with an opinion on your life. Don't let it get to you.

I was in town with dd1 when she was a baby. An old woman came up to me and asked what her name was. After I told her, she insisted that she would be called by . We were almost arguing about it, until I realised I could just walk away! It was bizarre.

Missymoo - that is brilliant. Totally inappropriate but brilliant at the same time.

missymoomoomee 'Gee Whizz love, you must have a beaver made of steel' ????

I too, will now never forget those exact words!

You should have looked her square in the far and said 'Did no-one ever tell you there are British people of all races?'

missy that will go down in MN history I think.

I once told someone I had no stitches after DS1 and she said 'well that's nothing to be proud of.'

YANBU op. It's not okay to ask a stranger intrusive questions.

Have just laughed out loud at that one missy...I always found the questions about the number of stitches a little strange!

There are 2 comments that have made about my DC that have truly thrown me, both about DD1;

• first, when she was about 6 weeks old, a stranger in a queue at the doctors asked if I was there to ask about having her ears pinned back (DD1's ears are on the sticky out end of the spectrum)

• second, a few weeks ago, a woman walked up to me and 3 DC in a shop and commented how 'beautiful' and 'what a lovely shape' DD1 was (she's 5 now). Then looked my other 2 DC up and down and asked 'have they got the same Dad?'. So much wrong with this I didn't know where to begin, so walked quickly away with DC.

I had an old women lean into the pram and poke her dirty long finger nail onto my PFB (2 wks old) cheek. She started scraping it saying it had a 'sparkle' on it and that was 'bad'. This came out of no where stood in the queue at M&S.

I was stood for a matter of seconds digging about for a bit of change to give to a busker, another old women came up waving her hands about saying the sound will damage 'that bairn's ears'. PFB (3 months at this point) had a cuddly hat with ear flaps on and his hood up!

I had a lady insist my baby was jaundice, I explained that he had been jaundice but it's cleared up about 4 weeks ago, she continued to tell me he is jaundice. I went onto say he is mixed race so that perhaps explains why his skin is darker than she expects. She then argued that he was definitely jaundice. Aaaaaaaghhhhhhhh!! punch I made a promise to my self that I would not try to explain anything again to idiots or strangers!

I dont see why that was racist, unless she said 'eww, your baby is mixed race'.

I'm afraid it sounds more racist to me to take that as an insult, I would have just said "no she isnt"

To take the question she asked OP as an insult I mean

OP i agree that race shouldn't be an issue, no need for it to even brought up and certainly not in the context you describe. what does it bloomin matter anyway in 21stC UK?

mamma i get comments like that all the time and whilst i'm getting better at not fuming on the spot still don't know how to process them. DH is white with dark hair, I am coffee skinned and DD has turned out blonde!!! and not living in the most cosmopolitan of places i do have to deal every week with being thought of as the nanny or whatever.

I was out once with 2 of my children and my niece (who is mixed race) when a lady said ,'you have gorgeous children but you can see she pointed to niece has a different dad' (WTF??) I replied 'actually she has a different mum too' and she just looked at me like I was mad, daft bint

next time i get a taxi, and im gonna lean in the window first and say "hi, how do you feel about black people" before even getting in. Make sure i dont have to spend the next 20 minutes wanting to die

oops sorry about the highlighted bit ,cant get used to this forum lol

My HV, no less, said that my DD, who is mixed race, was 'a funny colour'.

at hyperballad - i'm going to keep my pfb away from straying witchy fingers. the thought of some crazy lady touching my baby really freaks me out. (shudders)