Raising Multiracial Children - Page 2

[KayleeZoo]

My children are mixed, asian, and white. My children are NOT catergorized by any race. I'm a firm believe that race is not a factor in a person's life. My children are human beings, and that is what we as parents should be teaching them.

I agree completely. My girls are 1/2 Vietnamese, 1/4 Italian and 1/4 White. But they are Kaylee and Alexis- not races or colors.

[Rain Child]

Hello...I haven't quite figured out how it works posting on here. I found this site when searching the internet for some help. I am raising a little boy on my own. I am caucasian and my son is half Indian. I never realised his skin colour would become an issue to him, but it has and he's only four. His father is a very racist person, well, his father has many serious issues, that's just one of them. Anyway, I was never raised to see colour, my parents were Christian missionaries, and I grew up living in many countries around the world. My relationship with my son's father was my first encounter with racism. Now my little boy asks if he can be "skin colour too." I tell him how beautiful his skin is, and he cries and says that he doesn't want to be brown. I point out that his Daddy is a lovely brown like him (I never have and never will speak negatively about his father in front of him) and I tell him that his father comes from a country called India where most people have lovely brown skin like him and his daddy. Then he says he wants to live in India. I tell him that when he's bigger he can go there with his daddy. Sometimes he points at people of African or South Sea Islander descent and asks if he can please "Have one of those faces"
I wonder if it's because they seem to be in such big family groups, and he can see the obvious sense of belonging. This whole thing is seriously worrying me...because I desperately don't want him to feel displaced. I stayed in an abusive relationship expressly to avoid the very thing that is now happening.

Any help right now will be a lifesaver.

Thanks

[OriginalGirlGamer]

I think I'm going to get that book.
I just found out that there is a strong possibilty that my birth father is white. It had been kept from me for 27 years, I always thought I was black, but now might be biracial. My grandfather was white/black as well, but looked white. I guess I'm still just 'me', you know?
My DH is white, and when my son was born, we got a bit of a shock. He looks 100% white. So when we're out in public, people take second looks at us. I've had people come up to me and ask "Is your son mixed?" O_o
That's just rude to me.

He's still too young to understand or ask, he's 22 months, but DH and I were wondering how we were going to address it. I guess start off by telling him he's Logan and his parents love him no matter what the world throws at him. Will that be enough? Its not much of an issue here though, we see multiracial kids all the time, but I still want a good base to teach my son. I'll check that book out for sure.

[USAmma]

Originally Posted by Rain Child

Hello...I haven't quite figured out how it works posting on here. I found this site when searching the internet for some help. I am raising a little boy on my own. I am caucasian and my son is half Indian. I never realised his skin colour would become an issue to him, but it has and he's only four. His father is a very racist person, well, his father has many serious issues, that's just one of them. Anyway, I was never raised to see colour, my parents were Christian missionaries, and I grew up living in many countries around the world. My relationship with my son's father was my first encounter with racism. Now my little boy asks if he can be "skin colour too." I tell him how beautiful his skin is, and he cries and says that he doesn't want to be brown. I point out that his Daddy is a lovely brown like him (I never have and never will speak negatively about his father in front of him) and I tell him that his father comes from a country called India where most people have lovely brown skin like him and his daddy. Then he says he wants to live in India. I tell him that when he's bigger he can go there with his daddy. Sometimes he points at people of African or South Sea Islander descent and asks if he can please "Have one of those faces"
I wonder if it's because they seem to be in such big family groups, and he can see the obvious sense of belonging. This whole thing is seriously worrying me...because I desperately don't want him to feel displaced. I stayed in an abusive relationship expressly to avoid the very thing that is now happening.

Any help right now will be a lifesaver.

Thanks

Hi! My daughters are both half-Indian also. My dh is from India. I have had a few questions from my 5yo about why we all look a little different. I think it helps a lot that I have a good friend who is also Caucasian, married to an Indian, and they have two daughters. My dh takes the girls to the temple every month or so. My second daughter was born with some health issues, otherwise we would have travelelled to India every other year for a month or so as we had been doing before her birth. We hope to go this summer for 6 weeks!

I think it's very, very important to try to find other families like yours, or to seek out Indian families. Do you have an Indian cultural center near you by any chance? Or an India Association. There are many Christian Indian groups around but you often have to call and ask around.

My dd has really taken her color and heritage with style. There are two racist neighbors whose children won't play with her but overall it's been a positive experience. She just started school and I sought out one that was diverse. In her classroom of about 15 kids is a boy who has Indian heritage, a child of Middle-Eastern heritage, two African-Americans, a Latino child, and one who is of mixed race. In fact about 50% of the classroom is non-white, and 1/3 of the school is non-white. That has really helped her to see that everyone comes from a different background and everyone has a story to tell.

[ncas72]

I am african american and dh is irish american. We aren't going to ignore race but we aren't going to dwell on it either. The same way we handle race in our relationship. We discuss issues and then we move on. We don't want race to become such an overpowering force in our lives that it consumes us. Right now DH likes the idea of responding to the "what are you" question with human. Wouldn't it be nice if that was the only answer required.

We are also fortunate that we live in an area that has a large population of mixed children so DS is not that unusual.

[OriginalGirlGamer]

I think that's the approach we're going to take with Lo. my hubby responds with 'human' as well.

DH is from down south, and his friends and family asked us, "so what are you going to raise him as?" we were like O_o? but we figured out that they wanted us to pick a race to raise him as. We answered "We're going to raise him as Logan". People are so strange. O_o

[mahrphkjh]

When I first decided to adopt I was of a similar mindset that race did not matter. It didn't to me so if anyone else had a problem with it that was their problem. However, one of the first things they pound into you as an adoptive parent of a child of a different race is that race will matter to them in the real world and that you need to be prepared for it.

On the one hand I think that it can be overblown and too much emphasis put on race. In fact, I read a horrible article years ago about a white woman with an adopted African American son. She constantly told him that he had to dress upper class because so many racist out there were going to look down on him that he had to overcome their expectations of him. This woman was supposed to be educated.

However, I am extremely glad that I live near LA. The suburb that I live in is fairly mixed. Just about every birthday party is completely mixed with almost no dominance of one race. I want all my children to be a part of America as it should be - completely multicultural. Where I can make tamales from my MIL as well as potstickers and lefse. Where we celebrate Chinese New Year, St. Patrick's Day, and Martin Luther King Day because each means as much to us as a family. So far, I think I am doing an okay job achieving that; my 4 year old never mentions how someone looks, except to point out babies that look like his sister. To him, people are people.

[Rain Child]

Originally Posted by USAmma

Hi! My daughters are both half-Indian also. My dh is from India. I have had a few questions from my 5yo about why we all look a little different. I think it helps a lot that I have a good friend who is also Caucasian, married to an Indian, and they have two daughters. My dh takes the girls to the temple every month or so. My second daughter was born with some health issues, otherwise we would have travelelled to India every other year for a month or so as we had been doing before her birth. We hope to go this summer for 6 weeks!

I think it's very, very important to try to find other families like yours, or to seek out Indian families. Do you have an Indian cultural center near you by any chance? Or an India Association. There are many Christian Indian groups around but you often have to call and ask around.

My dd has really taken her color and heritage with style. There are two racist neighbors whose children won't play with her but overall it's been a positive experience. She just started school and I sought out one that was diverse. In her classroom of about 15 kids is a boy who has Indian heritage, a child of Middle-Eastern heritage, two African-Americans, a Latino child, and one who is of mixed race. In fact about 50% of the classroom is non-white, and 1/3 of the school is non-white. That has really helped her to see that everyone comes from a different background and everyone has a story to tell.

Thank you. Actually, my son's father is Sikh, and I know there are some Sikh temples here, but I was afraid they would not accept me and my son. We live in a small city, and in most of the things we've been to, (Play group, kindergarten, swimming class, kindergym, etc) My son has been the only non-white child, or perhaps one out of two non-white children. We haven't encountered any Indian familes, and certainly no mixed-Indian families. We are in Australia, and people sometimes think that he is part aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. I was so afraid of my son growing up without a sense of who he is that I took a very long time to make the decision to leave his father, because I knew his father would give him that pride. But finally I knew that growing up with violence and alcoholism was even worse. Now his father visits him about twice a year. I hope that will be enough not to feel that he is an anomaly. I was so shocked when all of this surfaced on its own. One day he begged me with tears in his eyes if he could climb back into my tummy and come out with white skin, yellow hair and blue eyes! (I myself have an olive complexion, dark hair & brown eyes, so I think it must be at daycare that he is noticing this big difference!) I almost cried when he asked me that, but I told him (like I do every day) that he is the most beuatiful boy in the whole world and that when I saw him I thought he was the cutest baby I'd ever seen. I don't mean to sound like he is upset about it all the time, he's normal very happy, social, and makes friends easily. those are just incidents that have happened sometimes and caused me worry. He and I are very close, and he talks about everything he thinks and feels.
BTW, what is dd and dh?

[njeb]

Originally Posted by Rain Child

Thank you. Actually, my son's father is Sikh, and I know there are some Sikh temples here, but I was afraid they would not accept me and my son. We live in a small city, and in most of the things we've been to, (Play group, kindergarten, swimming class, kindergym, etc) My son has been the only non-white child, or perhaps one out of two non-white children. We haven't encountered any Indian familes, and certainly no mixed-Indian families. We are in Australia, and people sometimes think that he is part aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. I was so afraid of my son growing up without a sense of who he is that I took a very long time to make the decision to leave his father, because I knew his father would give him that pride. But finally I knew that growing up with violence and alcoholism was even worse. Now his father visits him about twice a year. I hope that will be enough not to feel that he is an anomaly. I was so shocked when all of this surfaced on its own. One day he begged me with tears in his eyes if he could climb back into my tummy and come out with white skin, yellow hair and blue eyes! (I myself have an olive complexion, dark hair & brown eyes, so I think it must be at daycare that he is noticing this big difference!) I almost cried when he asked me that, but I told him (like I do every day) that he is the most beuatiful boy in the whole world and that when I saw him I thought he was the cutest baby I'd ever seen. I don't mean to sound like he is upset about it all the time, he's normal very happy, social, and makes friends easily. those are just incidents that have happened sometimes and caused me worry. He and I are very close, and he talks about everything he thinks and feels.
BTW, what is dd and dh?

DD is dear daughter, and dh is dear husband.

[Rain Child]

Originally Posted by njeb

DD is dear daughter, and dh is dear husband.

So, should I say, DX for my dear ex?

[njeb]

Originally Posted by Rain Child

So, should I say, DX for my dear ex?

Uh, no.....

[PrennaMama]

As a "white" gal, of mysterious origins (my Irish Canadian mama was artificially inseminated in the 70's, I'm one of the 1st dozen public products -nonexperimental - of the method with ethnically ambiguous sperm... I look like I could be greek or middle eastern mixed with Irish) married to a Cambodian rescued out of Cambodia during the Vietnam War by a Jewish family who has 5 siblings, 3 of them adopted... I gotta jump in on this one. We're Baha'i, and I have never felt so comfortable as I do in our community, and I know DH would second that. It seems that one of the biggest stumbling blocks of our world is how to address race, whether to address it all. We tell our kids, and my parents told me, Love Sees No Color; race doesn't matter. Underneath our skin, we all look the same, for the most part. We all bleed the same blood, cry the same tears, and feel the same joy.

But I see here so much clinging to the idea that people have to be prepared for the REAL WORLD. It saddens me, but I know what you mean. I think it's preferable tho to teach that "We're not all the way there yet, but that we're getting there."

"There" is the realization that we are ONE WORLD. ONE PEOPLE. All of us mysterious, and complex, beautiful, and culturally diverse... But ONE nonetheless.

I think it's imperative to keep teaching THIS first and foremost... the more it's taught, the better the chance that we will sooner dilute the dogmatic clinging to racism.

[camomof5]

Does anybody have experience "play acting," providing scripts, or otherwise preparing their children for the "What are you?" questions and other comments they are likely to get? Has anybody relocated so as to provide their children with a community with children like yours? How do you engender self confidence in your children so they can weather what will confront

Well I never told my children what to say should someone aske them, They just told them they are brown, (they actually did not understand why people could not see that themselves LOL) My children have been raised to be proud of themselves and they know they are beautiful children.