to think that this was a really fucking weird thing to say to a pregnant woman?

[LoopyGreen]

In Tesco this morning and bumped in to someone I knew a very long time ago. She commented that I was pregnant and congratulated me. Asked me who my partner was (we all went to school together years ago) and she was a bit shocked to say the least by my choice of partner. Anyway. I'm mixed race so half black/half white but fairly pale, and DP is white with super fair features. Never really crossed my mind but she felt it appropriate to blurt our 'you know your baby will probably look white...' (like that's a bad thing ). I was absolutely stunned! What a weird, weird thing to say.... AIBU to think that her head isn't screwed on right?

She’s probably too small-minded to realise that since one of your parents is white and one side of your family is white, having a child that “probably looks white” wouldn’t be as much of a revelation to you as it obviously is to her. Odd woman.

The annoying thing is it actually made me wonder what colour my baby would be!

Why annoying? Surely that's pretty normal, the same as you'd wonder about their hair or eye colour. I'm amazed you and your oh hadn't thought of it before tbh!

Yes it is a weird thing to say!

A friend of mine is white (very pale, red hair) and her husband is black, so obviously their kids are mixed race. I was out with her and her kids one day when we bumped into a former school mate, who blurted out "Oh your little MULTICOLOURED kids are so cute"!

I don't think she was being malicious but some people just don't have a clue!

@FatSally it's annoying because I hadn't thought of it previously, I guess I just presumed baby would be half way between me and DP. The way she said it implied that it would be a bad thing, like she was warning me, made me question whether it would be an issue if my child is a different colour to me, just like I found it hard being much darker than my mum. Everyone thought she was my child minder. I guess it made me think about things that I didn't really want to think about...

@HildaZelda that's worse than what was said to me. Blimey. That's not ok!

I agree it's a weird thing to say. It reminds me of a scene in the TV show Outnumbered where one of the kids has a similar conversation with a pregnant lady and asks if the baby will have stripes like a zebra. It's funny in a sitcom but odd in RL.

What a weirdo :/ (her not you obviously)

It is odd but people blurt out all kinds of nonsense.
We are similar to you and your husband and we have one middle eastern looking brown eyed child and one who is white looking with green eyes.
Genetics is more complicated and mixing two colours together and that is pretty much what I've told people when they have commented.

Best comment I got when I said I told work I was pregnant was - umm, intentionally? (very much with an expectation I would say no)
God knows why, I was 32 and in a long term relationship.

what did you say to her btw?

@Trinity66 I said 'I hadn't really thought about it to be honest!'

I know someone with a mixed race child who is very obviously the colour of their father. However, her parents are no longer together and her mum is with someone else who is of the same race as she is. As a result they frequently are asked whether they are babysitting or whether the child is adopted.

Perhaps it's no more a "speculation" than that of possible hair colour even if awkwardly put ? ...or possibility of freckles, height or other feature if parents have diverse looks.

Often people do speculate what features babies will inherit... my DH and I were both blonde as babies but I have redheads in my family...3dc all blonde but 2 of 7 dgc variants of ginger

I used to date a very very dark skinned West African man... having seen the variations of other dual heritage unions our dc could have had every very variation going... to even having one twin looking Caucasian and the other looking West African.

If you did not perceive her as having said it in a negative way and the surprise was not that you married a "white man" rather than a "black man" then no harm done .

Have a wonderful parenthood.

Two of my cousins are mixed race and have children with white & blond husbands. Their kids coloring varies from superwhite to dark and blond to brunette. One of the dark kids has blond hair, so skin and hair are truly mixed. I seriously don't know what your friend was thinking what kind of colored child you will have, you won't know till it's here. And even then it might change when they grow up. And I don't understand what her preferance would be actually???

Congratulations on your pregnancy. I hope you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child.

It's bloody weird but people say daft things. A colleague of mine congratulated me on my first pregnancy and then said, as a joke, "I assume it is your husband's?" I didn't find it funny.

personally I always use to think my kids were more beautiful then everybody else's - as will your kids be - full stop end of statement- Mine are consider mixed race technically I suppose but I never think in those terms -

Some people are just bonkers and say whatever comes into their heads.

My partner and I are both white. And I had a woman telling me my baby was mixed race... this women, who I had never met, kept telling me that my partner was black (he wasn't there btw)! It was really odd. She was SO sure.

Definitely one of those “speaking before engaging brain” moments. I’d bet the friend is at this moment curled up in a little ball somewhere cringing at having said that out loud.

It's just plain rude.
I've encountered similar comments and to be honest it doesn't shock me any more. Some people don't seem to have a "pause and think" button located between their brain and their mouth so it just shoots out like verbal diarrhea!

Years ago before he met me my DH (who is Chinese) had a girlfriend and the relationship became serious enough for them to discuss marriage/children. She apparently said one of the reasons she was unsure about it was because her children would not be blonde-haired & blue-eyed!

I don't think the comment made to the OP is particularly rude, but this is spectacularly so:
"I assume it is your husband's?" and not even remotely funny.

I think the correct response is “I don’t really mind what colour my baby is, it’s more important that they won’t be thoughtless and rude, isn’t it?” followed by a big smile with plenty of eye contact.

This is so weird and rude!! Wtf. After my first DS was born an old school acquaintance was at ours delivering some furniture we bought second hand and asked if he was planned as DS was still a baby and was staring quite intently at her I said in a hideously high pitched cutesy voice “Awwwww DS are you staring a rude acquaintances funny face- has she got a big funny face! Awwww” that soon shut her up

Thing is Loopy which you have briefly alluded to in your subsequent posts is that growing up mixed race and or in a mixed family does tend to raise all manner of queries about skin colours, eye colour, hair texture etc etc... I learnt (presumably you did too) from an early age the difference between people approaching it from a perspective of curiosity or from a perspective of disdain. I agree it is tedious at times and I've just accepted it as a by-prodcut of being mixed race but there we go. I think considering the circumstances what she said is rather odd and I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt because I have also been partial to those sort of odd comments.