People's reaction to my kid makes me uncomfortable - Page 3

[MissinNYC]

Originally Posted by AmyKT

BUT, you are right that there is still, in some quarters, an ideal baby look. I'm sickened every time I drive down an interstate in one particular state because every 10 miles there are huge pro-life billboards encouraging adoption, and on EVERY. SINGLE. ONE, the baby is white. As if white babies are the only ones the group is worried about saving. Ick.

But I'm sure that's not happening in the minds of everyone who sees your beautiful babe. Unless you live in that state.

you know what, though? If they showed a black or hispanic mother and baby, the organization would get flak for showing that only minority women get pregnant out of marriage or have crisis pregnancies. I know many pregnancy places around here have gotten in trouble for reinforcing stereotypes in advertising by showing mainly minority women and not showing that yes, even white middle class girls get knocked up.

They sort of can't win.

[MissinNYC]

Also,

My first DD has strikingly blue eyes and is a brunette. Neither of us have blue eyes. everyone used to comment and it made me feel weird.

turns out people just find something to comment on. Because now my DD2 has big brown eyes and people comment on those. Or on DS's curly brown hair (he's biracial) or gorgeous rosebud lips. Or DD3's (natural) fauxhawk, or her button nose. Just random cute stuff about various kids. Maybe people just tend to point out the unusual stuff, like blue eyes or blond hair. It's relatively uncommon.

[Chamomile Girl]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

There are major historical and contemporary issues with gender, but we don't put that baggage on our little boys, and stop taking them outside, and start chewing people out for mentioning his boy-ness in anything other than a neutral tone. We don't pull our toddler daughters aside when they want to wear a princess dress and explain the historical atrocities the patriarchy has created for women, we let them play.
.

Well actually...often we do chew people out for inappropriate gendering. But that's a whole 'nother thread.

[tessie]

Originally Posted by MissinNYC

turns out people just find something to comment on.

Very true.

People like to chat to mums of young babies. And they'll always have something to say, although mostly they're just making conversation. Commenting on your kid's appearance if just an alternative to commenting on his size or even the weather. (Unless they are actually neo-nazis. Which is unlikely.)

We get comments about her lovely eyes (which happen to be blue), her being a such a smiler and how solid she is (nice way of saying fat).

[zinemama]

Honestly, I think you're reading way too much into these comments. And if they affect you to the point where you don't want to go outside with your child, that's pretty serious and yes, it is going to have an impact on you and your kid.

People used to comment all the time on my "Gerber baby" - because you know what, he did look like the Gerber baby. The plump cheeks, fair skin, blue eyes, blond hair. I didn't interpret this as veiled racism, but as people making a comparison. And too, people want to compliment a baby.

Now, if people had told me I was lucky to have a blond kid, I'd have called them on it, and I think you should, too, rather following your instincts to stay home. There's no reason to smile and agree to a comment like that. "Lucky? In what way?" And let them wiggle out of that one.

[larzanna]

[QUOTE=

in my opinion, it is just as "racist" (or focused on race) to worry about having a blonde, blue eyed white skinned child, as it is to worry about one for being dark, or whatever.

a child is a child is a child. they are ALL precious![/QUOTE]

This, i agree with this.
You don't want your being uncomfortable to come across to your child that he has something to be ashamed of, any more than if he had dark skin, red hair, or one arm for that matter. I would just say "thank you, i think he's pretty cute too!"

[snoopy5386]

if it helps I have a dark haired, dark eyed DD. When she was a baby/young toddler we would get comments on how cute she was all. the. time. People would stop us in stores, on the street, etc and tell us she should be a model, the gerber baby, etc. I once had some lady stop her car (she was driving and we were walking) to tell me how adorable DD was. The comments stopped sometime between 2 and 3, I guess she isn't as cute now?
Nothing super strking about her except she had a lot of hair as a wee babe, just super cute when you put it all togehter.

[junipermoon]

well, we shouldn't teach our kids to be ashamed of their skin color--if it is white, whiteness is a harmless mutation--but we should teach are kids that we are ashamed of white privilege and that they should be, too.

and in terms of the "can't win" thing--so what if white people have a hard time developing nonracist identities and nonracist organizations and nonracist topics of conversation--it still needs to be done. and what about how hard it is to live in this world if you do not have white skin privilege? without it, if you also don't have socioeconomic class privilege, you often face a painful road in this culture and on the planet right now.

think, for instance, about the intense search efforts at the hotel montana in haiti, vs. the search efforts in the rest of the city. having white skin or, in the case of the hotel montana, even being associated with people who have white skin carries privileges that other people do not have.

it is insulting for people to say, well, you just can't win. if you feel that way, maybe you need to try harder. or accept that being criticized for reinforcing racialist discourses, and learning from that criticism, is not losing--no, that is growing.

[junipermoon]

aversive racism is the kind of bias that white people exhibit unconsciously and that they are unaware of--that they exhibit and that people of color recognize--but that they do not personally recognize. aversive racism is often displayed by consciously egalitarian and well intentioned white people. the studies proving the existence of aversive racism are overwhelming. see Gaertner and Dovidio for more info from a psychology perspective--they were the seminal researchers in this work.

an aside re: aversive racism is that people with nonracist intentions exhibiting aversive racism will actively explain their racism as rooted in some other cause, ie, no no no it isn't that she is complimented profusely because she is white, it is because she is unusual, rare, etc, etc.

i am seeing a lot of this on this thread.

this is because ideas that challenge the dominant ideas that pin "race" into place often provoke extremely strong feelings in everyone--not just white people, not just old fashioned racists...there is powerful social reinforcement for NOT naming racist underpinnings and ideas out loud, or for providing other explanations. we must challenge this.

folks, if you are white, you do swim in this. i do. everyone who is white does. you just might not be conscious of it, yet. how can the rains of racism fall all over the land and miss your house? this is a quote I often hear and love. all we can do is be dedicated to changing things, to showing up for the dialogue, to being willing to learn other ways of being with ourselves and other people in the world. i am so grateful to everyone who is present in this conversation who is being willing to challenge the status quo. thank you for being here and challenging these things.

and, to whom it is relevant, please stop harpooning the OP for saying she hesitates to bring her baby out. I highly doubt she meant she has developed antiracist related agoraphobia and stopped leaving the house to keep her white baby from perpetuating more racism in the world. i bet she was speaking figuratively, you think? this type of harpooning just shows HOW heated people get when privilege is challenged and HOW quick people are to try to locate the dysfunction in the individual challenging the discourse rather than in the discourse itself.

[ErinYay]

Originally Posted by junipermoon

med of their skin color--if it is white, whiteness is a harmless mutation--but we should teach are kids that we are ashamed of white privilege and that they should be, too.

Wait, what? How will that help anyone?

[junipermoon]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

Wait, what? How will that help anyone?

because it teaches them to love themselves because they ARE--not because they are assigned artbitrary privileges within an atrocious system of stratification based on race. it teaches them to challenge that system.

[ErinYay]

Originally Posted by junipermoon

because it teaches them to love themselves because they ARE--not because they are assigned artbitrary privileges within an atrocious system of stratification based on race. it teaches them to challenge that system.

That can be accomplished without teaching a child to be ashamed of what traits they happened to be born with. It's no different from teaching a profoundly gifted child to celebrate themselves for working hard vs. being born smart. While I fully agree that no innate trait should be fodder for praise, I would never agree that an innate trait, such as whiteness, is up for punishment or shaming.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, because I can't wrap my head around the idea that a parent would deliberately teach their child to feel shame for something that the child has absolutely no control over and expect that same child to somehow bring forth social change.

ETA: Upon further thought, I think you mean we should be ashamed of white privilege itself, not the fact that we are white. I can totally get behind that, though I think it may be difficult for children (jeez, and lots of grownups) to separate, for lack of a better phrase, hating the game from hating the player.

[Blueone]

I didn't read all of the comments, but just thought I'd share my view. My son is like that as well. Both my husband and I are blond hair and blue eyed. I really don't pay much attention to the comments and how they meant. I just say Thank You because I think he's cute too!

Where I'm from the majority of people are not blond haired and blue eyed so I think that seeing a blond hair and blue eyed child is a bit of a novelty, like in Asia, they get excited over that too.

I'd suggest not over thinking it and just roll with it. Your son will pick up on the reactions and as he begins to grow older and understand it he'll start to feel ashamed of how he is even though he had no control over it.

[Anastasiya]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

Really, it's probably best to not praise innate traits in any child, which is why I coo over other babies and tell them, "Look at you! You're so funny!" I figure everything else (appearance, intelligence, physical abilities) is taboo on some level to someone, but no one has ever said, "My life is awful because people think I have a good sense of humor!"

I disagree. Beauty is something that humans are innately drawn to, and there is nothing wrong with commenting on it. What a sad world we live in that making a remark about a "beautiful child" can be taken as an insult.

[ErinYay]

Originally Posted by Anastasiya

I disagree. Beauty is something that humans are innately drawn to, and there is nothing wrong with commenting on it. What a sad world we live in that making a remark about a "beautiful child" can be taken as an insult.

For me, beauty is very subjective, and I'm very wary of praising anyone for something they didn't contribute to. You're born "beautiful," just as you're born "tall." Of course, I tell the people I love that they're attractive and beautiful, but I don't make it the only compliment or overly stress it.

[Mosaic]

Originally Posted by Lizafava

I think people here are either not aware of or discounting, oh 500 years of intense racism and color-ism in our lovely nation. People do not mean to be racist when they are complimenting a baby, but the fact is that white, blonde, blue eyed people are far more highly valued than others, especially when it comes to attractiveness. And not because its rare.

Originally Posted by junipermoon

aversive racism is the kind of bias that white people exhibit unconsciously and that they are unaware of--that they exhibit and that people of color recognize--but that they do not personally recognize. aversive racism is often displayed by consciously egalitarian and well intentioned white people. the studies proving the existence of aversive racism are overwhelming. see Gaertner and Dovidio for more info from a psychology perspective--they were the seminal researchers in this work.

an aside re: aversive racism is that people with nonracist intentions exhibiting aversive racism will actively explain their racism as rooted in some other cause, ie, no no no it isn't that she is complimented profusely because she is white, it is because she is unusual, rare, etc, etc.

i am seeing a lot of this on this thread.

I find these comments to be almost ironic, as they assume that white/blond/blue-eyed is the preferred, favored, or otherwise exhalted phenotype in all cultures and environments, when that is quite simply not the case. Furthermore, in an effort to show how whites may be blind to racism, these comments have conveniently ignored and entirely discounted the comments and experiences presented here by minority or mixed members!

Globally, the preferred phenotypes are those typically associated more with class and social standing, with physical characteristics far beyond skin color certainly playing a large role in that. I don't doubt that we are wired to notice, appreciate, or admire some characteristics over others, whether from evolution or social constructs. But to assume this is the case and refute the possibility that anything else might be at play here seems to be more of a knee-jerk response rather than the informed or enlightened perspective it attempts to achieve.

[Chamomile Girl]

Originally Posted by Mosaic

I find these comments to be almost ironic, as they assume that white/blond/blue-eyed is the preferred, favored, or otherwise exhalted phenotype in all cultures and environments, when that is quite simply not the case. Furthermore, in an effort to show how whites may be blind to racism, these comments have conveniently ignored and entirely discounted the comments and experiences presented here by minority or mixed members!

Globally, the preferred phenotypes are those typically associated more with class and social standing, with physical characteristics far beyond skin color certainly playing a large role in that. I don't doubt that we are wired to notice, appreciate, or admire some characteristics over others, whether from evolution or social constructs. But to assume this is the case and refute the possibility that anything else might be at play here seems to be more of a knee-jerk response rather than the informed or enlightened perspective it attempts to achieve.

Except we are not speaking of all cultures and environments, but a definitive time and place...specifically San Jose California, 2010. Nor is anyone postulating that people are "wired" to do anything specific, but that the preference is one that is subtly reinforced by the dominant white culture.

Again, thanks to all who responded. No, I am certainly not becoming a recluse a-la Salinger (RIP) because my baby garners too much attention. However I still believe that cultural conditioning is driving many of the compliments he receives, and upon further reflection I think the best I can do is to try and educate him as grows older as to what white privilege is and how it impacts him. Actually I think my husband can probably do this better than I can as he is the other blonde, white male in the family (and certainly having a PhD in the humanities doesn't hurt).

I would like to address many of the implicit assumptions made in the responses about racism being overt: It usually is not. Someone does not have to have overt hatred, or be a "neo-nazi" in order to be racist. I agree with the one who posited earlier that we are all racist to some degree simply because we have certain assumptions about other groups, ie. "races." I think that the best thing we can do is not to ignore that these assumptions exist (there is truly no such thing as color-blind) but to work on navigating through these assumptions while allowing every individual to have their inherent uniqueness and dignity.

Oh, and I of course I do not hate my son for being a super-blonde white guy, but I do recognize that he will face certain assumption about himself because of that fact. He is a cute kid and I love him very much.

[physmom]

Originally Posted by Mosaic

I find these comments to be almost ironic, as they assume that white/blond/blue-eyed is the preferred, favored, or otherwise exhalted phenotype in all cultures and environments, when that is quite simply not the case. Furthermore, in an effort to show how whites may be blind to racism, these comments have conveniently ignored and entirely discounted the comments and experiences presented here by minority or mixed members!

Globally, the preferred phenotypes are those typically associated more with class and social standing, with physical characteristics far beyond skin color certainly playing a large role in that. I don't doubt that we are wired to notice, appreciate, or admire some characteristics over others, whether from evolution or social constructs. But to assume this is the case and refute the possibility that anything else might be at play here seems to be more of a knee-jerk response rather than the informed or enlightened perspective it attempts to achieve.

Like I mentioned in a previous comment my mixed DD gets a ton of comments on her looks even to the point that people will see her stop in their tracks and come back to say something about her. She's got dark hair and big beautiful eyes that people just can't resist.

Honestly, I find the assumption that blond hair/blue eyes is preferred ironic because I never was attracted to blond guys and ended marrying Mr. Tall-Dark-And-Handsome. I've also seen the complete opposite be true. I lived in Europe for a number of years and have seen many mixed or non-white girls and guys be considered more desirable simply because of their coloration. There's one girl I knew who was considered absolutely gorgeous in Europe but who was "just normal" in her home country (I know some of her friends from home who always found her popularity their very surprising).

I didn't mention this previously but it occurred to me that it could be relevant here. My mom definitely had issues with her "whiteness". She grew up in an inner city school and actually had her life threatened on more than one occasion because she was white. She had some hang ups because of that that I think affected my self-esteem as a young child when it came to my appearance. THANKFULLY I got past that but I think it's important to deal with your own self-image issues as soon as possible so that they don't affect your children. Obviously, all parents have hang-ups that we need to work past but learning to love yourself (and your appearance) really can make a difference to your children.

I have to admit, I still don't get how complimenting someone on their looks is racist. Sure, it might not be the most helpful act because it is in innate traits just like other physical traits, intelligence, etc. This really brings to mind the chapter in Nutureshock discussing praise of intelligence. Basically it boils down to praising for hard work produces more success in children than praising intelligence. So I suppose if someone puts a lot of work into their appearance than praising them for it would be appropriate? IDK... But then again, praising innate traits even if someone hasn't "earned" that praise can also build self-esteem. If someone is having a horrible day and they get a passing comment that they look nice, it does help no matter how evolved we are. Sure, in the extreme it could be overwhelming (when people are constantly fixated on one trait) but in moderation it can be nice. Ok, I'm rambling now because I'm tired. Night!.

[boobs4milk]

i've always wanted a blue-eyed baby simply because blue is my fav color. i love my brown-eyed babies, wouldn't trade them .

if that makes me racist or unconsciuosly aversively racist, i think there's a sociologist somewhere with his undies on a notch too tight.

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by Mosaic

Globally, the preferred phenotypes are those typically associated more with class and social standing, with physical characteristics far beyond skin color certainly playing a large role in that. I don't doubt that we are wired to notice, appreciate, or admire some characteristics over others, whether from evolution or social constructs. But to assume this is the case and refute the possibility that anything else might be at play here seems to be more of a knee-jerk response rather than the informed or enlightened perspective it attempts to achieve.

Interesting, I'm not sure where you are seeing anyone here discounting the experiences of others, or assuming that any ONE thing is at play. I think many moms here just see this as a great window to discuss the proverbial elephant in the room. The OP said people have told her she is "so lucky" to have a child with blonde hair and blue eyes. That is the phrase which rubs me the wrong way. It is not the cute kid comments. Everyone gets those. Appropriate or not, we are a species obsessed with looks, and babies are biologically engineered to be irresistably adorable.

But, have you seen the google ad at the top of the page today for the "Cutest Kid Contest"? this year's winner has a golden blonde bob and bright blue eyes. I'm just saying.

And could anyone deny that in much of the English speaking world, white male is the default assumption? And that in countries across Latin America and most of Asia paler skin and more caucasian features are indeed favored despite being a minority, and that white models are plastered across the advertisements and Billboards? That young women throughout Asia have been known to have extensive plastic surgery on their eyes, noses, jaws, breasts and hips to appear more attractive and that this entails giving them caucasian features? That throughout indigenous Latin America and most of southern Asia women are sold skin bleach and they shroud themselves from the sun in an attempt to appear paler?

At the end of the day, there was something in the comments that made Chammomile Girl squirm. Don't you think it is EQUALLY damaging to ASSUME that these social constructs are NOT at ALL at play as it to assume they are solely responsible? Perhaps, as in most cases, there is more than one possible answer; keeping your mind open to all the possibilities, allowing yourself to question the norm, is vital to reaching a better understanding of the world we live in, don't you think?

Originally Posted by physmom

I have to admit, I still don't get how complimenting someone on their looks is racist.

I don't recall anyone saying that the act itself is a racist act, but rather the fact that someone would describe blonde haired and blue eyed as LUCKY is symptomatic of a society that confers privilege on certain groups of people, especially white people. As a member of that privileged group, the OP feels uncomfortable with that privilege and would like to work towards deconstructing the social systems that give her and her children those privileges. Does anyone here REALLY have a problem with that?

If you could see a baby's parents' bank account details on thier forehead, or their parents' educational degrees, or their genetic propensity for a fast metabolism, would we allow comments on that?

"You're so lucky to be so rich/educated/apt to be thin!"

I don't think so.

There is a very good essay by a writer named Minnie Bruce Pratt, Identity: Skin Blood Heart, that I have read with my students that I think addresses this very issue. It talks about how to work towards destroying the social structures of skin privilege without feeling shameful, or guilty about things you cannot change, like your race...in other words, how to fight racism without making it all about you. A very good read for anyone interested in addressing racism at its roots.