Multicultural or Mixed Race families - Page 4

[thesunthesun]

holy cow, Nico is adorable!!  

hey does anyone know how to register a Paiute baby?  the native mom thread doesn't seem to be active on here... 

i called and emailed the Klamath Tribe association, but no word back.  this child will be 1/4 but i think that still counts. 

s

[cynthiamoon]

I'm a Caribbean/Central American Latina, and thus a mix of Mayan, Spanish/Italian, and Black, and DF is eastern european Jewish. We're always joking that when the baby arrives we'll just announce "It's a nose!" since he has a classic, large bridged jewish nose, and I have a classic broad nostriled african nose.

If those two come together... we'll just have one big nose on our hands!! :) 

I have to say, it's so great reading your experiences, mostly because it makes me feel so good about the progress we've made as a society, but also because I know I'll have a place to turn when we encounter those who haven't come so far. I think it's sadly going to be easier for us in some ways because we are both light skinned, so we don't face much discrimination. But in that way it is harder also because my heritage is always getting denied, and I hate hearing "compliments" like "but you have no accent!" and "but you don't look it."

I want  my kids to feel ethnic, different and tied to their roots. Not in a burdensome way, but with pride. 

[AnyaRose]

Here's another one for no reason other than the holidays. 3 months old.

[CA Country Girl]

Hi All.  Long time.  Work and life has kept me very busy. I hope all is well with everyone.

Anya- he is gorgeous!

Thought I would add a few photos for the holidays too.  It is nearly impossible to get them both sitting still, and DD1 does not have her hair brushed yet in this one, but here are my lovelies.  The second pic is from summer, but I might use it as our New Year's card.

What do you think?

[joyfulmomof2]

Oh wow! I haven't been on this thread in a while! Yes, I did have baby #3!  A boy. He weighed 9 lbs 3 oz. He was born on June 5th. He looked a lot like his sister when he was first born, very dark hair, darker skin (actually he seemed pretty red to me for a little while). But now, he's really fair, hair has lightened up a lot, and seems to be growing in blond like his brother. I'll see if I can post some pics...

This is baby J when he was about a day old, I think.
 

All three LO's together. (Baby J 6 months, DS1 5 years, DD 3 years). Not a very good quality picture, but you can see their complexions and hair colors. DS1 has green eyes, DD and DS2 have blue eyes. DH is 1/2 African American, and Scandinavian (and probably a mix of other things), I think. I'm mostly Irish, some German and a tad Native American. I have a friend (who is African American) who is always amazed at how fair our children have turned out. And DD, she's so funny. She always (well until a few days ago) says "I'm brown like Daddy and Grammy." One of my sisters got her a Princess Tiana doll for her for Christmas and I said "oh, look, she's brown like you!" and she replied "I'm just only white." *Sigh* (I've never pointed out the brown vs. white thing to any of them, DD just seemed to pick up on it, as she's very much into "categorizing" people- ie "I'm a girl, you're a boy" that sort of thing.

All of your babies are so beautiful!

[kitteh]

Originally Posted by gitanamama 

A proud multicultural family here--- DH is from Peru and I'm from the US with Scottish/German heritage.

But my DH and I have definitely had our share of culture clashes over the years---aside from just appearances, we come from very different backgrounds (nationality, language, socio-economic, etc.). I love that my son will grow up with two very distinct cultural backgrounds---I hope he feels proud and comfortable with each of them and finds a way to merge those aspects that may clash.  

We sound pretty similar to your family. I'm caucasian of Scandinavian/French/Irish descent and I have reddish hair (though not as red as I'd like!) and skin so pale you can almost see all my blood veins through it! DH is Chilean of Italian descent (in fact, he might be able to get an Italian passport and dual citizenship--Chile and Italy--because his great great grandfather relocated to Northern Chile from Genova.) Because of his Italian heritage, DH is taller than most Chilean men,(and I'm just 5'2" I'm hoping our children get his stature!) Though many in Chile--and within DH's family--are fair skinned with light eyes and hair my DH is dark. They nicknamed him Chune el Negro after a black cat that an aunt owned.

DD came out looking EXACTLY like DH, big brown eyes, dark olive skin, and dark dark curly hair. Over the past few years she has lightened up considerably and is now a pretty even balance between the two of us. I'm 4 months pregnant with #2 and curious as to how the next will look.

We have some issues with language. DH just moved to the US 4 years ago and has been working with a lot of Spanish speakers, so his English is not as developed as he would like it to be yet. DD understands Spanish and says some words/phrases in Spanish but mostly speaks English. We're hoping to send her to a bilingual pre-school and elementary school, which will hopefully work to strengthen her Spanish. But for now, sometimes she and DH have difficulty fully understanding each other and I have to serve as a sort of translator. It makes me kind of sad for DH.

[cynthiamoon]

Can I get some advice on last names here in the context of heritage?

My fiance and I are both keeping our names when we marry, but are debating what to pass on to the kids. We both have long, unwieldy names so hyphenation is not an option. I realized the other day, that I really want my kids to have my last name. 

My reasons are that: 

* They are growing up around their dad's family and not mine, so they will be very connected to their Jewish heritage and traditions, but not at all to my own

* They will probably all look very white and again, I don't want them to lose connection to their other ethnicities 

* They will probably look pretty Jewish what with dark curly hair and fair skin, so if their last name is also Jewish, it'll erase any connection to my family 

Are these silly reasons or solid reasons? I've brought up my feelings to Benny, but we haven't had a deep conversation about it yet. 

[CA Country Girl]

Cynthiamoon

This is a hard issue.  It should be simple and your rationale makes total sense (not silly at all!).  I guess it really depends on how your husband feels about it.  For some reason, some guys are super sensitive about the kids and last name thing.  Can you give one last name as a middle name or even first name?  Or give them family names as first names?  I use my own hyphenated and unwieldy last name to work (as a professor) and decided to take my husband (and children's) last name for personal things (also a Jewish last name BTW, though he is both Jewish and African American).  Both my daughters have family names for middle names.  There are so many ways to connect them to your family and heritage in addition to names.  

I wish I had better advice.  Lots of luck I hope you guys figure it out.  

[cynthiamoon]

Thanks for the perspective. I should add that I was thinking they'd use his last name as a middle name and mine as their last name.

I think that he is not one to demand his last name be used, but will have his reasons for wanting it too.

And I do hope to keep them connected to their heritage in other ways, but naming is important to me because my last name is very rare and almost everyone who has it can trace their heritage to the same region, and I like that connection.

[bearandotter]

Hi Everyone, 

So glad to see this thread. 

I'm white, verging on clear, of Irish/Scottish background. DH is from South India and looks as one would expect someone from India would. Incidentally this makes us both caucasian. He likes to say so we are a bicultural, bicolored, but monoracial family. We have two DDs (almost 2, and 3) and are expecting again end of June. Our DDs look like twins - med-brown hair with red highlights, chocolate eyes, and latte skin. They look far more like me than I expected our genetics would produce. 

I love how our names worked out. I took his last name when we married, it is one of the shortest, most pronouncable Indian surnames in existence (yeah!). Our DDs have Sanskrit words, but not 'names', for their first names - both are fairly pronouncable in NA and unique. They have very traditional anglosaxon names of family significance as middle names, and then our Indian last name. Overall I think it makes for very unique, meaningful, and representative names for them. 

Here is an old, but cute pic of my little girls:

[cynthiamoon]

Aw, how sweet! I think skin color has a lot to do with climate for some ethnicities. For example, my family were all much darker living in El Salvador sans sunscreen than we are here after a decade of North American light and sunblock habits. It's more variable than you think! But then again, IDK if Indian darkness follows this same ebb and flow based on the sun.

[lilblueberry]

My dh is 100% Chinese and I'm a mix of German, English and Danish.  Our dd has blue eyes and light brown hair and my head shape.  I wonder if our next baby will look more Chinese... 

[bearandotter]

Originally Posted by cynthiamoon 

Aw, how sweet! I think skin color has a lot to do with climate for some ethnicities. For example, my family were all much darker living in El Salvador sans sunscreen than we are here after a decade of North American light and sunblock habits. It's more variable than you think! But then again, IDK if Indian darkness follows this same ebb and flow based on the sun.

Yes! Definitely this. I can lather my DDs in sunblock, go out for a couple hours and they come home with 'farmers' tans. Makes me feel like a horrible mom, but I recognize it is due to their skin coloring. DH has about 20 shades difference between his lower arms and his belly (which never sees the light of day!). I'm sure if we were living in India my girls would be a whole different color (but with crazy light hair from the sun). We hope to move there for a year once they are old enough to really benefit from it - it will be interesting to see what happens. 

Lilblueberry your daughter is very cute. Do her blue eyes get a lot of attention in China?

[LaotianMama]

This thread reminds me of a nutritionist who said to me (with my 21-month-old) at an appointment, "He must look like Dad."

O_0

I'm full Laotian, Dad is white boy from the South.

I just giggled stupidly but I then remembered how much he looked like me in his newborn/infant squish days (super dominant Asian features, no mistake he was mine). The more he's growing, the more he's taking after Dad. Godspeed hahah

[ESPMadre]

Love this thread!

I am Mexican(Spanish, Mayan, Navaho)/Irish(County Mayo). My husband is Jewish(Russian/Polish). We have one child: 6 year old Elijah Santiago Pearlman (We should change that to O'Pearlman and capture more of his heritage). We are 13 weeks pregnant with number 2 and will find out the sex in about 5 to 6 weeks.  This baby will be named after my husbands wonderful father, who passed in September.  We will add a Hispanic middle name.  Obviously, there is so much more to culture than names but we do feel strongly that names are imortant as well.

I call ESP my little "Messican" and not because of his looks.  His coloring is mine but his facial features are exaclty like his father at that age. His blue eyes are the same shade as his daddy.

We have no idea what to expect looks wise for the new baby.  Could even have red hair since that is on both sides of the family. Coloring could be fair, olive, dark. Eyes - all possibilities.

I have two siblings and we are all differnt colors. My sister having Olive complexion, mine fair, and my brothers more brown.  Eyes: mine hazlel/green/blue, sister - Green, brother - brown. Hair: mine - Blond (now ash blond as I age), sister- dark brown with red highlights, brother - brown.  All that variation from only two main heritages. 

ESP has special needs and does not talk yet.  I still speak to him in basic Spanish as well as English. His receptive language is better developed than his expressive and he seems to understand the Spanish I use with him. I keep it to simple phrases that I repeat.  The new baby will hopefully be typical ( we will be fine even if special needs - in some ways more prepared since we are used to that type of child-rearing). If typical, I will teach the baby Spanish to the best of my ability (I am not fluent) and encourage learning in school and from fluent relatives.

My mother did not teach us Spanish because my dad did not want us speaking a language he did not know (control issues). Spanish was her first language.

We use a lot of Jewish (Yiddish) phrases in the house but I am afraid we will lose some of that as Zayde (grandfather in Yiddish) was the main force behind that. Bubbe (grandmother) does not use as much.

Any thoughts on language as culture from others out there would be appreciated.

[somegirl99]

I am Taiwanese/Australian and DH is Indo-Guyanese (Indian ethnicity from Guyana)/Lithuanian.

DS:

[CA Country Girl]

Hello ladies.

So nice to see this thread active.  Just a fun realization to share with you guys today.  My seven year old had a birthday party today and I realized that her group of friends is predominantly multi-racial/multi-cultural.  Perhaps she really will have a very different experience with identity than my generation.

[katrinka2013]

i am 25, expecting first baby in early august 2013. i am white,i am have german,finish,polish,and norweigian backrounds.and my babys father is of an african decent. he is ghanian,liberian and brazilian and i think 1 or 2 other things as well, i cant wait to see what our baby looks like!! i think its gonna be his twin! wether its a boy or girl... (2 wks n counting till i can find out!) he has really dominate features.i personally loved mixed race children,i think they get the best of both worlds, they usually have gorgeous hair and complections, and who wouldnt love a perfectly based permanent tan?! lol.  

[yilonne]

Hi
i am hungarian and i have an italian-hngarian boy now
we are xpectin a baby with my new love who is carrabian-afroamerican
he already has beautiful kids so i think we will have a woderfull one

do anybody nows any information about if black babys are a little bit bigger than withe ones? One of my friend told me this but i could find anything about this on web. But i found somewhere that balck abies coming usually 5days before withe ones...

[AnaKat405]

I have no idea about black babies being born sooner or being bigger. I'm black / polynesian / portguese, my husband is white and our little girl was born a few days shy of 37 weeks at 7 lbs 6 oz. One of the first things hubby said when she was born was, "She's white??" lol! Later, he told me he was expecting a black baby with an afro. I told him I didn't even have an afro when I was born and it's possible that her hair texture will change as she gets older. She's 5 months old now and has honey colored skin. She's also 26 lbs and 29 inches long. I've heard this is big for her age, but this is only anecdotal from other parents, so I'm not sure.