To be offended by this comment from the HV?

[frangipani13]

I'm of Indian descent and DH is white, we have a gorgeous baby who had a health check with the local clinic the other day.
We went in and were met by a HV who, after saying hello said "Ooooh isn't she fair?" I said "Sorry?" So she added, looking at me then back to the baby "You know, her skin, it's very light". I was a bit annoyed at the time but am sort of used to it as we live in a small town outside London that's not very diverse. Baby has an usual - but not particuarly exotic name (think Greek mythology, i.e. Ariadne) and they often struggle to pronounce her name when I get her weighed.
DH said he couldn't see why I was annoyed but it really irked me. Would she comment on the appearance of every baby she saw? I'm ready to accept that I might be being sensitive but it's been playing on my mind all weekend.

We have one blonde blue eyed, one brown hair/eyes and freckles (many freckles) and one who is so gorgeously dark and curly haired that all the black kids at school call him bro! FIL was mixed race but brought up in an orphanage so DH has very little family history on his side.

Funnily enough we never had any comments from HV except so regularly advised me that my skin looked dry and I should use a better moisturiser.

In my work, I help parents and carers fill in paperwork. These days, there is ALWAYS a section on what ethnicity you are, and lots of options to tick;, and you get to choose which box you belong in. I look very "white British", by my heritage is a little complicated (we're what the Brexiters have voted to keep out!). I try not to look startled when very dark skinned, heavily accented parents tick "white British" (it's not my job to judge!). I hope none of them have ever seen me look surprised, but they might have done. I'm honestly not judging, I'm just proud of my heritage and surprised when others don't celebrate theirs.

Oh and yes we were told he had jaundice too and more recently that he may have Gilbert's syndrome (Liver complaint that causes jaundice).

aryan race?

sorry to go ot but that is fucking rude

I have three children, ds has dark brown hair, blue-green eyes and super pale skin, dd1 is blonde, blue-eyed and olive skinned, dd2 has ginger curls with green eyes and freckly milky skin. More than once people have asked if they are all mine. Once a woman asked if they all have the same dad. Its just observing differences.

OP is it because she was implying it's a good thing she turned out fair? As if to suggest she doesn't appear anything but white?

That's how I'd take it and I'd be offended too. She shouldn't comment on things such as skin colour unless the child was yellow with jaundice!

I think it was a daft thing to say.

It's hardly unusual for a baby to have a different skin colour to a parent!

I'm just wondering how it would sound and how people would react if the HV had said "Oooh isn't she dark? Her skin, it's very dark." I think that would get a different response here.OP I think it's an odd and unnecessary thing to say. The HV maybe needs a bit of extra training on not saying out loud every last thing thing that pops into her head. But I would try to not be upset, and if it really bothered you maybe request a different HV.

The thing is HVs do tend to waffle on. I suppose it's one of those jobs where you sort of need an endless line in inane chatter, like hairdressing.

Sometimes that does seem to result in som breathtakingly insensitive remarks. I'd love to tell you my HV story but it would out me. I think by DC 2 or 3 you stop listening TBH.

OP's experience is a doozy, though.

HVs hard-wired to say silly things about babies, especially to over-sensitive new mums. Still remember one saying at an early weigh-in for my DS, when I was there without DH: "ooh isn't he gorgeous! Must take after his daddy". Er.... Thanks? I guess?

I get 'hasn't he got a lovely tan' or 'what mix is he' (mainly from mothers of other mix raced babies...that one makes me giggle because it makes me think of Dulux paint mixes)

As long as it's kindly meant I'm not bothered.

I was another one who got the 'is it jaundice or his skin tone?' confusion. He had prolonged jaundice (he's fine just one of those babies who has it for ages) and the Indian (so not white) consultant at the hospital said that although he did have jaundice his skin tone made it look much worse than it was.

You get used to the bizarre things people say. I'm mixed raced and both my kids are fair, one has blue eyes. People always make comments ranging from complimentary ones to "oh they're actually yours?!" Some just have no filter

I am pregnant with a mixed race baby - I can sort of understand why she said this and she probably meant nothing by it. (I often comment that people have a "good colour" after returning from hols, and then wince because I don't know if I have offended them...) I think it's best to assume people didn't mean to be arseholes the first time they say something daft or insensitive.

My personal beef is people saying "oooh he's mixed race - that means he will be REALLY good looking!" One even said that DH and I would be "punching above our weight" with a mixed race baby! I just smile and nod (and pray that my PFB doesn't have a face like a bag of spanners).

Being able to engage brain before speaking does not seem to be a prerequisite of being a HV.

Mine pissed me off royally at DD4s 2.5yr health check recently by waffling on about how i could be dead by the time she finishes primary school And how she knows a family where that happened and the father was left to cope alone. No mum at the school gates ect ect ect.

Thanks for that. I'm 47

Sorry, i know that's nothing to do with colour/race ect, but just an example of how some HVs can blunder all over your feelings.

calamityjam - I had a similar situation with DS (11) when he was a newborn. He was born in hospital but home within 6 hours, so we had a team of midwives visiting us "in the community" (as they called it). One of them looked at me, a Caucasian woman, and my ex-P, a Caucasian man, and at DD, who is paler than pale (she never tans... and believe me, she's tried!), and then at my 3 day old DS, also of Caucasian origins and said...

"Is his natural father Indian? Because he's very dark..."

It caused a huge row between ex-P and myself - and I'll be honest, if DS wasn't facially the image of his paternal aunt, there may well have been accusations of him not being ex-P's child and paternity tests when we eventually cut all ties to our relationship. My ex's mother had already heavily suggested during my pregnancy that her darling son couldn't possibly be the father of my DC because we didn't live together (no, because he decided to go travelling in Thailand and Vietnam when DD was a newborn baby and didn't come back until she was almost 3 years old... and I learned how to cope by myself!).

Turns out that DS had severe jaundice, which had been missed by the team in the hospital. Another of the visiting midwives (older and with more experience) picked up on it 3 days later. He should never have been allowed home at 6 hours old, apparently.

Was I offended by her comment...? Other than the fact that it caused a huge row between myself and his father? No. Because I knew DS was ex's child. Without a doubt. Can I trace the demise of our relationship, once and for all, back to that midwife's comment? Probably, if I cared enough to. It sowed the final seed of doubt in both of our minds, I suspect, that neither of us actually wanted to be with the other - but it took another few years to get that far...

DS being okay was all that I cared about, and he was, so it worked out. Even if I will never forget what was said...

Good Lord laiste and MrsDeVere that's awful.

Laiste and Mrs DeVere

Answering a pp's earlier quote about asking about names, and I assume the pp is an hcp, can I just explain something please.

I have a classical first name (Greek myths). My maiden name was very unusual (foreign) and my married name is very unusual (with a non phonetic quirky pronunciation). In particular nurses and other hcps make endless comments and it just gets very tiresome and for children it marks them out as being different and causes embarrassment at what is often a stressful time anyway (I'm having my arm reset, ears pinned back and I'm scared and they keep going on about my name and making an issue of something I hate). The children called Jane Smith or probably even Paige Wells probably don't get the comments. It's worth having a think about it.

As fir the diversity form I cross it through with two lines and write "at all time the best possible care should be provided regardless of ethnicity; it shouldn't matter and the money spent monitoring it should be spent on providing the best care". For as long as the sort of comments on this thread are being made ethnicity monitoring isn't really serving a useful purpose is it?. Add up all the time spent entering the data (which ought already to be there), filing the form and start imagining how much that adds up to.

I was recovering from anorexia when I had DD.
At a check up HV helpfully comments "oh looks like mummy has put on weight!"

I mean why would you say that to ANY new mum let alone someone in recovery?!

Not the same as OP I know but just an example of an inappropriate comment. I assume she was being thoughtless rather than intentionally hurtful but who knows.

My children are mixed race. Honestly...it's time to get used to getting comments on their appearance! Most will be complimentary, you might get the odd strange comment.

MrsD

It's peculiar when a professional is being crass or insensitive isn't it? You sit there thinking ... this is horrible. I shouldn't be being made to feel horrible. Is she being horrible? Is it me? It must be me ... :(

That woman's stupid comments come to me sometimes (climbing out of mild depression). Some days you can shrug it off, but some days it creeps into your thoughts and gets you down.

That said I did have a midwife ask me what I thought of my sons colour when he was a baby (half chinese with jaundice) thought that was fairly diplomatic!

Why should comments be being made on appearance at all though?

I'm white and dark. Dark skin eyes and hair people think I'm Italian/Spanish my eldest sons partner is mixed Race and her mum was surprised he wasn't there child is blue eyed copper hair and light brown skin and we all love it when here colour is commented on. My daughter is blonde blue eyed and has freckles and she is tiny she works at the same company as me and people are surprised she is my (real) Daugher