Mixed Parents - Comments about your bub

[Sammiejane]

We've had someone once go on and on about how much DD is like DP...great, but must be genetic osmosis because we got together when she was 5 months old!

My mum was adopted and she looked exactly like my grandad weirdly enough and was always told so... she smiled to these people, but deep down it hurt her as she longed to know who her real dad was, so genetic osmosis there too, DSS looks similar to me and we always get comments too... sorry a bit off topic


PRAMA - i find that the people that are the ones that make comments are the ones that have grown with racism, children are hugely excepting and couldnt care if someone had purple skin, as long as they play fair and shared toys its all cool

Children are taught to behave in such a way that would exclude someone for the colour of their skin, and tbh i dont think that a child is taught that would make a good friend nor their parents good role model for little poopy...

Generally speaking people are becoming more tolerant, i use that word VERY loosely as i dont believe that you should be required to be tolerant of a 'mixed' race baby, child or adult, they are a person with as much to give as someone that is Indian like yourself or caucaian like DH.
It is very sad that the world still has a view like this, but i do believe that it is change, very slowly, but it will get their.

Possibly in Australia it is more common than in Malaysia to have 'mixed race' babies and as such the comment should be less.
Families can be incredibly insensitive and think that because you are family it is alright to say hurtful things

I think Lashkman is a stunner and will be beaking hearts left right and centre... i also think that he has two wonderful cultures and languages to learn and be prough of - something that children that do not come from mixed race families will never have and quite frankly im jealous!

i feel for you though, the last think that any mummy wants is someone to make unkind comments about their baby, try not to take it to heart, easier said than done, i know...

[~Kim~]

Ignorance is in bred. THey learn like from like.

I thing is is absolutley gorgeous Prama!

[HotI]

One of my siblings is adopted but looks lots like me (genetic osmosis again!). Another sibling was born to our parents but has red hair and different colouring to the rest of us kids. (Dad used to have red hair but it's gone darker as he got older). If people found out that one of us was adopted, they would look at the red head!

It didn't bother us that much, the adoption wasn't a secret and wasn't something to be ashamed of. At times, when the folks were embarassing, we all tried to claim that we shared no genetic links!

[Phteven]

If anyone has ever made any comments about my babies I haven't heard them.
Lots of people play the guessing game where they try to figure out our background but it's not in a rude way - there are people from so many cultures in our suburb.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Growing up, we lived in a very multicultural enough area, and this is where I got the 'abo' slurs (man, how easy it would have been to just say "yes, I am, and proud of it"!). I now live in a bit of a 'whitebread' area, and this is where people politely assume I'm a kiwi!
If anyone ever questioned my dad about me, I never heard it. He is typically Celtic and I remember being slightly self-conscious and expecting people to ask him, when we'd be out together. I've got dark curly hair, which if it weren't for my skin tone would be much easier to attribute to my dad (who had dark hair before it turned white in his 20's, and it's very curly if he lets it grow beyond half a millimetre!), and olive sort of skin. Unless I've blocked it out, no-one said anything to us!

[~Raven~]

I get this a bit about Angus as he has an olive complexion and thick dark brown hair and he looks totally different from his brothers. I have the dark hair but not the skin tone. I have pasty white and freckly Irish skin.
Most ask if he has a different father (no ) and the funny thing is that my DH was the odd looking one from his family being the only fair skinned redhead and his mum used to cop the same questions!

If people really push it I tell them there is Maori and Lebanese going back a few generations (which there is on MIL's side) so he is a genetic throwback Never had anything bad said about it just nodding and wow how interestings!

[neuri]

I think we'd be hard pressed NOT to find kids of mixed ethnic parentage these days. Especially here.

Well i'm Singaporean too! I am of Malay/Indian background. And yeah, we get those comments as well, but it's all been positive, if not funny. DH is Aussie with Italian heritage and DD is his mini me, or mini miss, rather I didn't even get a look in! We figured she'd have brown eyes as it is dominant and we both have brown eyes, but hers are a green grey. I'm so jealous I'm quite fair so she's got this nice honey colour which i hope won't burn under the sun as her dad is Lobster Man when he's at the beach.

Once we were at Paddys markets and some American tourists were oohing and aahing and even though there I was pushing the pram, beaming as new parents often do, and the tourists automatically look at my SIL next to me and go, "you have a bewdeeful baby."

Hubby joked that they might have reckoned I was the nanny! Needless to say he got a whack in the arm for that one.

As Russel Peters the comedian said, in 200 years we're all going to be beige anyway. I'm just doing my bit now!

neuri

[Smoke Jaguar]

Oh, my word, I have had experience with Malaysians (good friends, I'm not slagging them!) and yeah, does tact get removed at birth?? LOL!
Unfortunately, my DS' Mayan heritage is diluted with Irish (half of what I am), and English (which, if you go by thinking in terms of the false concept of 'race', means he is really mixed 'race' right there!), so I don't really get comments about him...and I wish I did, because I'm losing my connection to that side of things! But I'd probably be really sick of it after the first day.
For myself, being half and half, the only comments I really got were when I was little, from other kids who called me 'Abo'...which disgusted me so vehemently because I thought 'what if I really was? How much more offensive would that be?', as well as "well I wish I was, cos that would be easier to explain, as well as being a great thing to 'own up' to" (geez, I was a bit progressive for a 7 year old, cos I clearly remember thinking that and talking about it with my parents).
I guess I have always existed on the fringes of 'mainstream', so I can tell you that your child will be able to overcome this rudeness (should it continue) and possibly even become a very resilient person because of it. It's an extra 'something' that you can turn into a blessing or a burden.
In more recent years my appearance causes confusion because sometimes I'll wear some pendants from New Zealand, so without clarifying what my heritage is people will just assume that's what it is and when something about NZ comes up, they will ask what I know about it! This causes more embarrassment than if someone just straight up asks me what my background is (a far nicer question than where I'm from..."no, where are you originally from? No, well, where did your parents come from then?" Ugh, how rude! As if being born in Carlton isn't a good enough explanation for my existence for them to decide if I'm worthy!). It is also confusing when I mention my sister who now lives in NZ - I now recognise the knowing nod and that it will be later followed up with "so how long have you been here", so I have to explain that my sister married a kiwi and that we're not kiwi.
So, it's the constant explanations that your DS might have to incorporate into his life and his interactions with people
I love what this bit of diversity in me has brought to my life - inherent acceptance and appreciation of 'difference'