racial discrimination or AIBU???

[hollowsorrow]

Hello everyone, so dh is white, i am brown and we have a 7 month old ds who looks completely white too, blonde hair, green eyes. So when i am out and about with him people(all women so far) start talking to me about my ds and then ask me if i am his nanny/caregiver. The first time i was asked i was taken aback till that time i had never actually thought about the colour difference between my ds and I. I am actually very offended and hurt when people ask me this question and I keep wondering is it just because of the skin colour or are there any other signs. Have other people had this experience and what happens if the colours reversed white women and coloured child? Anyways AIBU or are people just being racist???

Like plenty of people will get asked if they are a nanny and they are white. A blonde person with a dark haired child will get asked. A redhead with a blonde child will get asked

I'm not sure that's actually true though. No one has ever asked me why I'm blonde and my children are brunettes. I'm sure no one has questioned the parentage of my blonde friend's (very) red-headed child either. I don't think people really question differing hair colours - the confusion lies with skin colour.

I take your point about, as a black person, not wanting to frame every negative interaction as racist. That would be a heavy burden to carry around all the time and I don't blame you for that at all.

Just a side note, I have no idea where all you folk are from but geographically where I live no one is asking anyone if they are 'the nanny'. Auntie, friend, cousin yep, but nanny, Haha not on your nelly. I'm by far not from the posh part of England, more the arse end

StrawberryTot you have a point!

At the end of the day, it's just the sort of thing we should not say - to anyone - out loud. We should also not ask older women of they are the gran (deflating to women in their 40's who are the mums), if women standing next to much older men if they are out with their dad (often much older husband), if two people of the same gender are viewing a flat don't assume they're siblings, etc. Make small talk in other ways.

JinkxMonsoon

But people on this thread have talked about how it has happened to them. And I believe them because I've seen it. And I've seen young (white) girls out with their younger sisters get hissed at for being a "teen mum" and a million other assumptions that people make. I have seen the teen mum thing a million times but if I'd never seen it and it happened to me, I'd assume it was racially motivated, right? But I'd be wrong.

That's the problem. The reality is that this happens to lots of people who are the same race as their child. It happens to young women in affluent neighbourhoods (where mums are usually a bit older), it happens to older mums in areas where mums are younger. God, I've seen people make catsbumfaces at a mum because they assumed a child belonged to her because they both looked similar. Blonde child was being loud at a bus stop and being ignored by brunette mum. Blonde woman was getting daggers from everyone. Not her child.

It happens because human beings look for patterns and seek familiarity and comfort and get confused when things look slightly different to what we expect.

I bet if you think hard and are honest you'll remember (silent) judgments you made about who is who when you are in public. times when a child yelled "daddy" on the tube, and you were sure it was guy A but it was guy B etc etc