SIL keeps mentioning the colour of my DS skin...

[AlwaysWearSPF]

Some insight into this topic- I'm married and my husband is biracial. His Father is of black Caribbean descent and Mother of white European descent. Last year we welcomed our son in August a healthy beautiful baby boy. Within weeks of my son's birth rumours started circulating about the resemblance of my son and his father. It was loosely joked that he wasn't my husband's son and this was mainly to do with how "white" my son appeared. I shut down such rumours on my side of the family and made it clear that I was not engaging in such speculation or entertaining people's ignorance.

My son is very light skinned he is actually quite pale. He has light hair which looks blonde when the sun hits it and brown eyes. He looks like me a lot especially when I was a baby though he does have his father's head shape and certain characteristic traits that I and his father see. Though when you look at him his resemblance is very much from my side of the family.

My SIL keeps making comments about how white he is, it's all she ever mentions when she sees him. She'll say things like..."little white boy." Or "I just don't see you (my husband.) in him."
It's actually not uncommon for babies to have features or skin tones that may not directly mirror those of their parents.

My husband's other sister has three children all from the same father and the father my brother in law actually has the same heritage as me, I am half Italian half Irish, he is half Italian half English. My husband's nephew their son is white with ginger hair and freckles and their twin daughters are darker more mixed race looking. You would think my sister in law who keeps mentioning my son's skin tone would think well her other nephew has white skin with freckles so why is it such a problem that my son has white skin? I think it's because she knows for certain that her other nephew is her nephew because he was born from her sister where my son was born from me so there's doubts.

How do I challenge this as she hasn't out right said she doesn't believe my son isn't my husbands but you know from the comments and looks that she believes my son is not my husband's.

I’d make it clear that unless she stops commenting on my baby’s appearance she won’t be seeing him for the foreseeable future. How fucking rude.

And I’d make that equally applicable to any similar comments from your family.

I’d just stay away from her.

Thats so rude, can you see her less?

You would think my sister in law who keeps mentioning my son's skin tone would think well her other nephew has white skin with freckles so why is it such a problem that my son has white skin?

I’d bring this up next time she says anything, something like ‘yes it’s amazing how different genetics can be passed on, like X nephew with his cute freckles and he’s paler than DS who’d have thought it’ with a smile and a stare…

This is DH problem, he needs to deal wit his sister!

Get a copy of Genetics For Dummies from Amazon and offer to lend it to her next time she comments, so that she can educate herself.

“Can you just shut the fuck up about my babies skin. It’s insulting”

That will probably do it.

I think many people speculate about which characteristics DC might inherit from each side of the family, but only before they are born (ginger/big nose/skin tone/whatever) -it's curiosity, excitement and sometimes wind up (eg gingerism)

Once the baby is actually born, it's fucking rude.

You should let her know in no uncertain terms, that your babies skin colour is not an ongoing topic for discussion. He will likely change a lot as he gets older. Is she going to keep making crass comments, that you will tolerate? From the moment she was calling him "little white boy", it should have been spelt out to her, that it was not acceptable what she is doing. I have mixed race people in my family, and contrary to popular belief, we do not sit around talking about the various skin tones.

I’d buy her a book on genetics and highlight the relevant pages and then tell her to stop with the white boy comments.

Tell her directly and in no uncertain terms that she's being rude and insinuating that you had another man's baby. That is unacceptable behavior from her. Don't let it slide because if she can't control her mouth, she's likely to say something in front of your son when he gets older, and that would be very wrong. Nip it in the bud NOW.

I would start responding with - look at your rude attitude, do you have control of your mouth or is just automatic?

As the mother of a bi-racial child ( not sure if that’s relevant ) I second this wholeheartedly.

OP I really understand your pain. I had a son who doesn’t resemble either myself or my dh - we are both white although dh has more olive skin and I’m more pink, with dark hair and unremarkable muddy coloured eyes.

Our son was born blonde with gorgeous blue eyes. He doesn’t look like either me or dh.

My mil has for years made comments which make me think she is questioning his parentage (are you sure he wasn’t swapped in the hospital haha) and she is constantly comparing photos of ds as he grows up with his dad and all sorts of members of her family trying to find a resemblance to photos of the kids going back several generations. She doesn’t examine PIL’s family photos quite in this way. And she’s uninterested when I produce photos that show the childhood blonde hair of my own family’s men.

I try to take the view, it’s mainly disappointment that she can’t see her own heritage passing down. At one stage I even quietly offered to dh to do a paternity test to see if he could shut her up, but dh says it wouldn’t help. It’s almost as if she’s personally offended that I produced a child which doesn’t resemble one of her three boys (all dark haired).

I have tried joking (“well we do have a blonde milkman”).

But now I just shut her down (“he takes after my side of the family - all the boys are blonde - and I’ve no idea where he got those blue eyes as all my family are dead, but I know PiL’s dad had blue eyes, right? So there are recessive genes somewhere on both sides I guess.”)

Sometimes I want to call out the insinuation of infidelity but I won’t rise to it. Let her stew, that’s my take on it.

Actually to add to my post above, I have been asked if my son is adopted several times by people I don’t know very well. I can’t even imagine voicing a speculation like that. So what if he was adopted?

But skin colour sits in a special category because racism. So calling a child “little white boy” has different meaning than calling him “little blue-eyes” or “blondie”.

I think in your shoes the focus on skin colour would probably be the thing that forced me to object - for your son’s sake and your own.

Mixed race kids can have a wide range of skin tones- I'm half Asian and my ds has almost my skin tone, dark hair, but my dd is totally fair skinned, light brown hair. They've got the same mum and dad (me and dh). It's really common in mixed race families to have different skin tones, particularly where one parent is mixed and the other isn't, ie 3/4 - 1/4, well that's what I've noticed.

They're both beautiful in a legendary, launch a thousand ships kind of way (I may be biased).

Your sil is both ignorant and a bigmouth.

I know a family with four adult children of one dark-skinned north African man and a blonde, blue-eyed English woman. Two of them take after mum, and two after dad, though they all have brown eyes, predictably enough, according to genetic likelihood.

The eldest two are only one school year apart, but had very different experiences of growing up in Middle England because their skin and hair colour was so different. The darker of them still has strangers commenting on how good his English is in his 40s FFS.

I'd be tempted to say "this again?" Have you nothing else to talk about, honestly? "
I wouldn't even enter into a discussion with her about it, so tedious, so disrespectful.

People within families do talk about what features a child has got from different people, not always just their parents. My dd looked exactly like my aunt in early childhood comparing pictures of them both at similar ages. It is mostly just fun conversation.
When it related to skin colour it is difficult to know where the line is drawn between nice family discussions and racism. If it is bothering you, you need to let her know this as politely as possible. She may be horrified you think she is insinuating he has a different father or that there could be a racist element to her comments.

She sounds so ignorant and just tell her to stop with it as it is beyond boring and ignorant. Is she like this in all other areas of your lives. Say what you have to say to her and if she keeps it up tell your husband to talk to her and limit contact as she sounds irritating and couldn't be arsed with her around.

You seem very fixated on my son's skin colour. Why is that?

Say 'stop making comments about his skin colour it's racist and unkind'

Challenge every time. Ideally in front of others

Why do you care ?

Why is my sons skin colour so important to you?

why do you keep making comments like this- What are you implying?

Sod pussy footing around, I'd be very abrupt and borderline rude, next time she says something like 'little white boy' I'd respond with

'stop commenting on my sons skin colour, it's incredibly rude and disrespectful, you're either being racist or you're insinuating I've cheated on my husband, either way pack it in'!