Parents of mixed race children

[Iamnotagoddess]

I have two older children who are white (as am I) and a son who is mixed race.

Is it just me or do people behave a bit differently towards you when look nothing like your child?

Parents evenings the teachers always seemed to direct the comments etc to DS dad (as if I was a step parent) and I took DS to a dental appointment a while ago and the Orthodontist asked me three times who I was....?

People keep asking me where my husband is from. It gets awkward when I point out that I am the forgeiner. The lady at our local bakery is a bit frosty with me now

My two older DC are two years apart but when they were little looked like twins.

I was away with them camping once and a lady said to me she thought we had IVF twins and had adopted from China

Also awkward when people ask whether my children have the same dad (one paler than the other and used to have very different hair cuts)

@bumble270 my grandad was Italian and I have experienced the same in the past! Those ‘oh no, where are you you from from?’ sort of questions asked by random people that refuse to accept London as an answer. Sometimes the line of questioning seems a bit ‘off’ and makes me feel uncomfortable if that makes sense?

OP, I think the orthodontist was quite rude to you. Three times?!

Gosh people can be so dumb. Do they not understand how a mixed rage child is created? If they live in areas predominately White surely they watch the tv and see mixed raced people/couples and can put two and two together?

The orthodontist himself was foreign

I have told DS2, the next time he is questioned about where he is from to ask “are you asking me why I am brown?”

I just thinking people are unfortunately just so wrapped in their own bubbles they don't realise how uncomfortable they are making others,

I think that would be a fab response OP!

My kids get asked who their mother is - they have light hair and my hair is black. Both inherited my husbands complexion though my daughter is slighter darker. People assume they’re both adopted as we have different skin colours - Nevermind that my daughter looks like a mini-me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

*formerbabe
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Unfortunately, happens to my friend all the time. She lives in London

Well the orthodontist does need to know you have parental responsibility for ds, but that should have been established the first time they asked!

YANBU Op. I have one very blond ds and one with darker hair like mine. Their childminder is blond so people often assume she is his mother. I have also been asked if 2 ds have the same father. My kids aren't even mixed race, so you must get it so much more than me. It is rubbish.

Aww, feel sorry for your son if he constantly has to deal with these questions/assumptions too. Yes it’s not outright rude or discriminatory, but sometimes it’s these little comments that can make you feel singled out, that you carry around with you forever. People should really watch what they say.

Very often and from their birth. Quick peek in the pram and, 'ooh, you adopted!' to You're NOT his mum' and (from paediatrician to my youngest) 'who is this lady that's with you?' - after I had introduced myself as his Mum. We have different colour skin and hair but I think we're really similar looking.

I have ds2 and dd who are mixed race, white / Asian and a blond haired much older ds1. We live near London so don’t get many comments but once waiting to see the nurse when DD was a baby there weren’t many in the waiting room and the nurse (herself Asian) kept coming back and to and not calling anyone for ages. Turned out she was expecting to see an Asian parent as DD’s first name is a name that’s popular in English and Asia but has the Arabic spelling. I hadn’t realised as DS2 has an English first name

His dad and I, we aren’t together, we split before DS (who was a “surprise”) was born but we have brought him up together have always brought him up to be proud of his heritage and his Asian grandmother has taught him her native language, so hopefully it doesn’t make him feel too shitty, we laughed about the Orthodontist

Yes, great response OP!

I have a mixed-race child and generally have not had much of a problem, I live in a very liberal place with lots of mixed kids.

I did once get asked if he was adopted. People can be so rude and nosy! (Complete stranger).

My parents live in a much more conservative area (think orange, yuk) and have had downright hostile looks there, they can fuck right off!

Same as that bitch in the bakery PP....

My mother was asked whose baby she was holding. In bed. On the maternity ward.

She was black albeit quite fair, but I’m very different looks wise.

Still. Unlikely to be cradling someone else’s baby in bed in the maternity ward. It was the 70s though.

My son’s appear completely white but the older is aware of his heritage which I think is important.

When my dad knew I was of with a mixed race child he asked me “how dark” DS dad was .....

*PG sorry

Yes I get this. I’m much darker than my dd. I get, are you the nanny, is it your dc, she looks nothing like you etc weirdly when she’s with my white dh (her dad) it’s a lot more along the lines of wow what a beautiful tan etc even though she’s obviously not white.

Tbh I am also mixed and my mum was darker than me and she used to get the same. It’s probably your first experience of what people actually talk like to people who ‘look different’, all my life I got where are you from, er I’m born & raised in uk, but where are you really from etc. I also got asked by a job agency how dark do I actually get. My dad is also white English & I’ve never even been to my mums country, feel like I have no place to really call home tbh.

Nowhere near the same but I have 3 who look very different, very different hair colour and skin colouring although not due to racial heritage, just genetic fluke. I sometimes get asked if they all have the same dad! Cheeky fuckers! They do as it happens, although not that it's any of the nosy buggers' business. I can well imagine mixed race families having the same kind of outright fuckwittery magnified.

We’ve been called a “Benetton” family

OMG, that agency! Unbelievable what people come out with!

Net, if at all possible I think you should visit your mum's country one day. You may be pleasantly surprised how you feel there.

I took my DS to his dad's country - he'd returned there. DS loved meeting the family and generally getting a great response from everyone as he has both names that are quite common there.

A great decision to go there (was always on the cards) for DS sense of belonging in this world.

So glad we did it cos now it's too dangerous there to go.

DS went with his dad, gran and stepmum to his grans native country for 3 weeks and met his great grandparents and wider family.

He loved it.

I'm white and DH is black, and I've never got this. However we do live in a diverse area, and DD does look like a "stereotypical" mixed race child (fairly light skin, ringlets, born with blue eyes although they turned brown) so I guess people aren't surprised that one of her parents is white.

My white friend had her baby in a very hot summer. The health visitor looked at the baby and said, 'oooh she really caught the sun, didn't she?' 'No', my friend replied, 'her dad's black'.