Even in an area as progressive as the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s not unusual for my family to get a second look when we’re walking into a restaurant, store, or other public area. My family is both mixed race and same sex. So we probably get double the stares of just a mixed race family. I’ve been luckier than some mixed race families in the U.S., in that I’ve never actually had someone ask me if my daughter was actually my child, unlike other families where the child is noticeably a different skin color than the parent or even where a set of twins might have completely different skin color.
In my case the worst comment ever made directly at me (with my daughter in tow), was a stranger stopping to ask me if she was mixed race, as if that’s a perfectly acceptable thing to ask a complete stranger in public about their child. Unfortunately for Heather Greenwood, when walking around with her much lighter skinned child, she not only got asked “How come she’s so white and you’re so dark?”, but also told “It’s just not possible, You’re so…dark!”.
While parents like myself may cringe when we hear statements like this one, really it’s the kids I think we worry most about. When they hear these phrases, it automatically makes them think they are different from everyone else. And that’s generally not a good thing, since at my daughter’s age (six), it’s all about fitting in and belonging. So the best I can do is to make sure she understands she’s not any different than either of her parents, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her individuality.
If you happen to be a parent in a non-traditional family setting, whether it’s mixed race, same sex, single parent, divorced, grandparent raising a child, or other family structure, there’s a great book titled “Who’s In A Family?” by Robert Skutch and illustrated by Laura Nienhaus. It walks through all kinds of alternative families, and then let’s the child put their own family in on the last page. It’s a book I got my own daughter early on, and one that we’ve read often enough, that when I comment on a particular family type (like the one with two moms) in the book, my daughter puts on the “so what?” face, and wonders why I’m commenting on something so normal and mundane.
So while we’re not in a color blind society yet, there’s hope we can raise kids who will create one.
