With comments on my baby's skin colour?

[MrsNjie]

So I'm White British and my husband is Black African. We've recently had a baby and during pregnancy I received constant comments such as "your baby will be beautiful" "oh mixed race babies are so gorgeous".
Now he's here we get "your baby is very white" "I love his colour" "I wonder if his colour will change" and so on.

AIBU to find this very strange and a bit rude? As if all babies are not beautiful because they're just white or just black? Would you comment on a child's skin colour who wasn't mixed? I can't get my head around the obsession.

Btw my 7 year old son is ginger with brown eyes and alabaster skin. He looks very striking and people have asked about his heritage. My DH and I have non descript blue eyes and I have freckles. My DD looks more like us. I've had so many comments asking if my son has the temper to match his hair colour. I've been asked if he's ever been bullied because of his hair colour. Do I wish it was my daughter who was so striking instead of my son? 😂 meh. If you're going to call racism then I'm going to call gingerism.

I don't know, I'm not really a baby person and would struggle to think of something to say to complement a baby. I suppose hair/no hair, skin colour, big/little... I don't know, what else is there to say about a baby? Sorry, not helpful.

That mixed race babies being beautiful thing Is incredibly rude and insensative. You might as well say” black skin is ok once it’s diluted isn’t it”.

Your statement is incredibly othering
They are children and are beautiful. As are all children IMO.
You are stating that mixed raced children cannot be viewed as beautiful without racist undertones.
Which is utterly ridiculous.

Don't use my kids as a political football. Thanks.

I’m mixed race and have noticed that there is a difference between simply being considered attractive vs having my ethnic ‘otherness’ fetishised. Being mixed race is a weird ground - you are exotic yet relateable, and people feel they have entitlement to comment on that.

DS is also mixed (more Caucasian than black however) and it’s a strange hypocrisy in that as a young child he’s treated like a beautiful angel but I know that as a 6ft+ adult male he could be treated as a black man - that is a very different life experience.

Overall - I did feel as a child that I was being treated as ‘other’. As more mixed race children are born and now living in London I feel much more normal. But there is still a fetishisation of mixed race (particularly black/white) people. I often wonder about mixed people who don’t fit with the white ideal of what ‘mixed’ should look like - I think it’s awful that that is the standard.

Silver lining I did make some cash out of it through modelling. But was shocked at how many mixed race girls there were at casting - very interesting. Herds of us.

I don't know where you all live but I have 4 mixed race children and have never had anyone comment on their skin colour. Don't get me wrong people complement them but not on them being mixed neither has anyone mentioned there colour but then I live in london so mixed race children are not uncommon here.

I probably would comment as I find genetics fascinating.
I think babies have beautiful skin once they’re out of the winkley newborn stage, irrelevant of colour.
I also find eye colour changes interesting as DD had dark blue eyes, then grey, then brown.
I do mostly just comment, they’re beautiful and look like their sibling/Or they have lovely hair/eyes or something.

I’m mixed race myself and DH white. Both my kids are white (unexpected!) and look like him. If anyone does comment to me, I would be happy to point out 50% of my genes are from my white father. Was strange when the DD was paler (practically ultraviolet white) than the white babies in our NCT group! Honestly, you would’ve commented on DD!

There is actually a genetic reason why more people find mixed race people more attractive and why "worlds most beuatiful man/woman" is almost invariably someone who is mixed race or looks like they are.

There was some research done on it a few years ago I think.

People want to fish outside their genetic pool for offspring as it's not healthy to be reproducing within a small gene pool but offsetting that, we are attracted to people we feel comfortable with ie our tribe. Hence mixed race people fit the bill - look familiar to a wider group of people and yet look sufficiently different to enough people to be more widely admired

In the early seventies I was a teacher in a school for University staff in Sierra Leone. There was a very wide range of nationalities among the parents. The girls in the top class (age 12-13) decided to have a ‘beauty contest’. They dressed up, recited a poem and each member of staff was asked for an anonymous vote.
The winner was a girl with a German dad and a Nigerian mum. There was a big fuss from some of the other girls saying ,”It’s not fair! It’s because you are dark white!” The girl replied ,”No I’m not I’m light black!”
This has always come to mind in discussions like this. I hope you are reading this J T-M you were a lovely person and a beautiful girl.

People say all sorts of daft things about pregnancy and babies though as let’s fsce it other people’s babies are pretty boring and most babies arnt that attractive. All mine looked like winston Churchill.i know as people told me.

Just smile and nod. You can see offence in any comment if you are always looking for it. We had 6 kids and still think puppies are far far far cuter.

Yes it's strange. However my friend has a mixed race baby herself and she can't stop talking about it either.... I have olive skin as does Ds1 and people often ask about it - I don't have an answer to that, it's just how we are!

”However my friend has a mixed race baby herself and she can’t stop taking about it”.

I’m not surprised. Having Mixed raced children, to some, is seen as a fetish. My DS’s are mixed race and a remember a woman telling me, whilst pregnant with DS 2... and DS 1 beside me... “I can’t wait to have my own mixed race babies, they are going to come out cute like yours”.

I didn't mention anything about it being racist... I don't actually find it racist as it comes from both sides of the family plus friends (and strangers).

I just wanted opinions on whether anyone else found it odd or rude :)

Thanks for all the replies... my baby is beautiful but of course I think that ;)