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Multicultural families

Mums of mixed race babies

37 replies

CharIotte · 12/05/2022 17:04

Any other mummy's of mixed race babies/ children get annoyed by constant ignorant comments Envy

How do you deal with them? And any classics? I get the old "at least she's got a permanent tan" quite a lot

OP posts:
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Iwanttenofthose · 01/06/2022 10:49

I get a lot of people questioning the paternity of my children because they have different skin colours despite being full siblings. It's weird how vague acquaintances and even strangers in the street seem to think it's appropriate to ask if they have the same dad.

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lunar1 · 01/06/2022 10:53

Fuck off is a good start. I spent far to long ignoring.

Do you realise how racist you sound?

Honestly, be blunt, be rude, shame them.

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stepuporshutup · 01/06/2022 10:54

Op that is so rude of people to say that to you. Why anybody feels the need to comment on anybody's appearance is beyond me.

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kagerou · 01/06/2022 11:16

I often get asked 'is she yours?' - which i didn't think much of until i realized literally no other mum friends got asked this!

Also people have more bluntly asked if she's adopted, where she's come from and one memorable elderly lady who told me all about her gay son and how he wanted to adopt 'one of those' one day

For context she's half Korean but doesn't really look mixed (she mostly just looks Korean with black hair and dark asian shaped eyes) whereas I am white

Also add to the list people who asked if she will 'lighten up' , people who asked how the Drs would be able to tell if her jaundice had gone when she was 'supposed to be yellow' , people who try to nickname her Mulan or say she looks like an anime character and the mum who sat by and let her kids pull their eyes up at her and 'pretend to be Asian'

There are more, I could go on but seriously just fuck people

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Tothepoint99 · 01/06/2022 11:38

kagerou · 01/06/2022 11:16

I often get asked 'is she yours?' - which i didn't think much of until i realized literally no other mum friends got asked this!

Also people have more bluntly asked if she's adopted, where she's come from and one memorable elderly lady who told me all about her gay son and how he wanted to adopt 'one of those' one day

For context she's half Korean but doesn't really look mixed (she mostly just looks Korean with black hair and dark asian shaped eyes) whereas I am white

Also add to the list people who asked if she will 'lighten up' , people who asked how the Drs would be able to tell if her jaundice had gone when she was 'supposed to be yellow' , people who try to nickname her Mulan or say she looks like an anime character and the mum who sat by and let her kids pull their eyes up at her and 'pretend to be Asian'

There are more, I could go on but seriously just fuck people

Oh my goodness. So sorry. This is appalling. Is this in the UK?

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RoyKent · 01/06/2022 11:40

She's always described as exotic, she actually quite ambiguous looking but she literally a copy and paste of me facial features wise.

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kagerou · 01/06/2022 14:50

@Tothepoint99 yes in the UK unfortunately

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Wagsandclaws · 01/06/2022 14:58

Dd is 30 in August and she too is a copy of me features wise.

That however didn't stop people from commenting on how 'exotic' 🙄 she looks as well ( including her own grandmother ) .

Racist incidents at school such as 'get your brown hand away from mine' and when she was 4 years old having a brick thrown at the back of her head when we were visiting relatives in an area in Kent we didn't live, that was a stitches job which is still evident on her scalp today.

I thought things may have improved but reading upthread it appears not. WTF is wrong with people?

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ChocolateDeficitDisorder · 01/06/2022 15:00

My mixed DC are now young adults.

Many, many racist incidents over the years, always words and usually ignorant rather than cruel, but not always.

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Imnotahippo · 01/06/2022 15:14

My son is mixed race

i was once at one of those mum and child groups and one ‘lady’ was talking to her friends

i wasn’t listening so I don’t know what was said,but she turned to me as I walked past and said ‘it’s ok hippo,when he’s older (nodded at my son) and can’t get a job,he can always open his own p*ki shop’

i lost it and told her that she could always be the ‘before’ in a weightwatchers advert-after all she was the perfect candidate at her size (I would never ever comment on anyones weight normally)

no,I shouldn’t have said it (looking back I am ashamed I went down to her level)-it just came out,but I will never forget her smug face dropping

I saw her again years later when another of my children and her son where in hospital

(her son had been playing ‘chicken’ which is running out in front of cars on a busy main road and trying to avoid being hit-he’d lost on this car and broken his arm)

she was gobbing off very loudly to anyone who would listen (and a poor few that didn’t) about how she was going to sue the car driver as it wasn’t her sons fault he’d ran out in front of it-she saw me and walked away-I’ve never seen her since

it was just so uncalled for-and for the record,he’s one of the most hard working young lads I’ve ever met-he doesn’t own a shop,and even if he did,that’s something to be proud of not to be taken as a racist slur

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SallyWD · 01/06/2022 15:27

My children are mixed race white/Indian. I've never really had any ignorant comments, I'm happy to say! Just a couple of people have commented that they have nice colouring which I take as a compliment. It's like saying someone has nice eye colour or hair colour. No one has said anything unpleasant about it. I actually forget my children are mixed race. They're just them! I was scrolling past your post thinking it didn't apply to me when I remembered it did.

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Indoctro · 01/06/2022 15:44

@Imnotahippo people like that are utter morons and not worth your thoughts.

I didn't understand how racist people can be until I dated a man from Nigeria for 5 years.

I'm NE Scotland he got racist remarks all the time, I used to want to kick off back but he always just hurried me along, he said he was used to it and didn't care. But I know inside it hurt him.

When we visited his family in London , it would be role reversed and I would get comments and hissed at from black women when walking down the street holding his hands , in the area his family lived which was a deprived area of London.

It made me consider our future together and did I want to bring kids into such a racist world. We eventually broke up anyway but my time with him opened my eyes to how small minded and racist people can be and also how they don't like interracial couples also.

Sorry to hear you being subjected to this. The world isn't a nice place Sad

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SantoPalo · 02/06/2022 07:23

My ds is 11 months and is half Jamaican and Indian. So far no obviously racist comments, but lots of comments about his very curly hair

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NattalyBinkle · 08/06/2022 17:49

This reply has been deleted

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mnnewbie111 · 08/06/2022 17:51

My kids look white and I'm mixed race. I find people actually go out their way not to offend which is cute but I feel bad for them, like pretending they think they look like me when they really don't, they are the spitting imagine of their dad, but they don't want me to think they mean because I'm black and they're not

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Maireas · 08/06/2022 17:56

I got a lot of comments about their hair when mine were little - I have poker straight hair and theirs is very curly, so I suppose there's a contrast.
I know when I turned up on my own at parents' evenings I wasn't what some teachers expected!
I went with my husband to a parents' evening on one occasion, and a teacher kept looking from husband to me and said "I've worked out why your son looks like he does now"

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Malariahilaria · 08/06/2022 17:56

I'm mixed race, black African and white and my mother told me stories of horrendous racism in the 1970s with people spitting on my pram in the South East. I am relatively dark and now have dc with a white man, most comments are positive but some are slightly patronising, however have had people ask if my eldest is mine as a baby because he had blonde hair. Mostly older people who probably are curious or trying to work out if I'm the nanny or not.


There is a mother on tiktok at the moment, black with a very pale baby and the comments are horrendous. She's fighting back with love and humour though which is more magnanimous than I would be.

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Tuesdaynight · 08/06/2022 18:07

Where do you find all these people? I've never had an issue.

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FifiandPheli · 08/06/2022 18:16

@NattalyBinkle That link take you through to a pretty horrific white supremacy website- I’ve reported you post and asked it to be removed - I am assuming this was a error

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PerfectionValley · 08/06/2022 18:17

I've got 3 mixed race kids and luckily never had any comments. My natural resting bitch face works wonders.

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PolkaDotMankini · 08/06/2022 18:23

My two DC look white (blonde hair, blue eyes, golden skin) but are mixed white-black Caribbean. I never get any comments until people see their dad. Then people want to know if they're the milkman's Hmm

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StageRage · 08/06/2022 18:25

A long time ago - but I got 'fancy letting a child that young get a tan'.

And "they're very dark, aren't they?" (reply: no quite light actually, given their heritage)

I am also very unimpressed by the warbling of 'mixed race children are so beautiful'.
What, all of them? All mixes, every time? And why - are babies of either one of the races NOT beautiful? Especially the racist implication that black / Asian etc babies with some white are more beautiful than those people not mixed. It is part of the fetishisation of black people. IMO.

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TheWeeDonkey · 08/06/2022 19:00

I am mixed race, my mum is white, my dad is Jamaican, but he was not part of my life. This added another dimension to the awful racism I experienced growing up as I had no black family member to help me through it. There was also the added element off misogynistic abuse about my mother, I'm sure you can imagine.

I'm very obviously mixed race, but my son is white but with my features and it makes me sad that even with his blonde hair, blue eyes and lighter skin he has still experienced racial abuse because he has inherited my features.

I grew up feeling ugly and inferior and it wasn't really until adulthood that I started to appreciate my looks.

I think if you can raise your child to know and have pride in both sides of their heritage it can help them face the inevitable negativity they will face from others.

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TheWeeDonkey · 08/06/2022 19:07

StageRage · 08/06/2022 18:25

A long time ago - but I got 'fancy letting a child that young get a tan'.

And "they're very dark, aren't they?" (reply: no quite light actually, given their heritage)

I am also very unimpressed by the warbling of 'mixed race children are so beautiful'.
What, all of them? All mixes, every time? And why - are babies of either one of the races NOT beautiful? Especially the racist implication that black / Asian etc babies with some white are more beautiful than those people not mixed. It is part of the fetishisation of black people. IMO.

Ugh, yeah. I was out for a meal with DH a while back. There was a table of women nearby for what looked like a long planned get together. One of the women started talking about how she'd love a "brown baby" and kept going on about it! She spotted me and started apologising profusely, I don't know which part was most embarrassing but I couldn't get out of there quick enough.

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lunar1 · 08/06/2022 19:40

@StageRage, I got told off by a mum at swimming when ds1 was little for letting him get a tan. This was at the stage when I didn't say anything.

Her face was a delight when DH joined me on the balcony!

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