If you are a parent of a mixed race child or children, you may have encountered this awful and annoying moment in your life. If you haven’t yet, then you must be living in an area where integration is the norm and is highly accepted. So thank your lucky stars because at one point in time, you may have to deal with it.

Nevin Martell, a White man married to a Black Ghanaian woman was with his son one Saturday with his 3-year-old son, Zephyr in the dining area of a local Whole Foods when he noticed a Black man giving him “odd, furtive glance” since they sat down. At first, he thought the man thought he looked familiar so he was bracing himself for that awkward conversation that he felt was about to happen. Little did he know it was going to be a different kind of awkward and super annoying conversation.

I am just going to quote most of the conversation so that you get a clear picture. He writes about their conversation in the Washington Post:

“Is that your son?” the man suddenly asked, without any preamble, and with an aggressive edge to his tone.

“Yes, this is my son,” I answered, a little warily.

“Hmph,” he snorted. “I didn’t think so.”

Now my defenses were fully up. “Why not?” I shot back.

Now he was on the defensive. “Why would you say that?”

“Because he has been calling me ‘Poppa’ since we arrived, he looks like me, we’re clearly very close and I’m obviously his caregiver,” I replied. “There’s nothing else.”

He huffed and he puffed, but I knew my verbal punch had landed.

Nice punch that one, right?

Anyway, Martell left with son and when he got to his car, he realized how furious he was about the whole encounter. “I was angry this stranger would question my paternity of my son, because he couldn’t see past his own biases and stereotypical visions of a family. I was heartsick he couldn’t see the love and connection between Zephyr and me. And I was outraged that anyone would think they had a right to confront a parent in such a way,” he says.

Martell is not the first interracial parent to encounter this kind of ignorance and prejudice. Sadly, he wont be the last. People will always make assumptions if you and your mixed race child have different skin color; no matter how slight it is. A Black friend of mine was with her mixed race daughter at the mall one time when a Chinese woman approached her daughter and asked: “Where is your mummy?” Imagine how hurtful that must have been to her.

The problem is strangers shoot up these questions without a care as to what they are doing to such parents. Well, here is one experience Martell narrates that really really got out of hand (and that’s putting it lightly):

My Salvadoran friend, Javier, is married to a white woman, Ashby. They have a sweet, round-cheeked and light-skinned daughter, Nina. When she was about 6 months old, Javier was taking her home alone after dinner with friends. It was late, so Nina was tired and crying. He was at his wits’ end as he tried to soothe her and strap her into her car seat.

As he was doing so, a woman in an apartment overlooking the street opened her window to ask what was happening. He replied that he was simply trying to get his cranky baby into his car and figured that was the end of it. It wasn’t. A few minutes later, as he was still trying to calm Nina down, a police car pulled up. The officer got out and began quizzing Javier. What was he doing? Was this his daughter? What was his address?

Javier replied that Nina was his daughter and he just wanted to get home. Why was he being treated like a criminal? The officer said someone called in a suspected kidnapping.

Whether its the questions or what Javier went through, these experiences are very painful to parents. How do strangers get off telling someone that your own child couldn’t possibly be yours? Whether its an interracial adoption or your own flesh and blood, people need to mind their freaking business. Such questions might even make a child start questioning their paternity.

Such experiences are very depressing given the fact that mixed families are on the rise. They are everywhere you look these days. So for someone to ask such questions, you wonder if they have been living in a cage for decades on end and just got out. Its plain and simple. Such people are just racists who don’t want to accept the society as is. So they deliberately attack interracial parents and children just so they can sleep at night.

Martell concludes brilliantly:

“I feel like I’m speaking to kindergartners, but here are some tips for anyone thinking of questioning someone else’s family arrangement: Mind your own business. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it. Apologize if you hurt somebody.

And if you’re one of the parents of an interracial child who is questioned about your position in your child’s life, do what I plan on doing if it happens to me again: Start a rational conversation. You just might change someone’s mind about the endless possibilities of the modern family.”

If you have mixed race children and have gone through this, share your experience.

The post That Hurtful Experience Parents of Mixed Race Children May Have to Endure. appeared first on Love is all colors.

Whilst the thought of interracial marriage being an outright criminal act might seem alien to some of the younger generation, it will still be a vivid memory for many of their parents, grandparents, and other relatives. The fact of the matter is that this kind of institutionalized racism is not yet part of a murky history which we can brush off as being ‘way back in the past.’ It was not until 1967 that it became legal for interracial couples to wed in America.

It is clear to see that much has changed since then – interracial couples and interracial families are now not illegal or even unusual. Yet, there still exists a stubborn stigma around this kind of family makeup (not just in the US but in other countries too). Even though scores of studies have shown that children growing up in interracial households are not given any less love, support, attention, and care, they are still perceived as ‘unfortunate’ and less likely to achieve.

So, the question is, when will interracial families be the norm? It is an important question and one which is, perhaps, even more fundamental that it first appears. After all, it is a clear and immutable fact that, as more and more people kiss, romance, love, and start families with people of different races, the more the lines will start to be blurred between them.

Yes, anthropologists all agree that, at some point in the future, the human race will begin to take on a much more ‘universal’ skin tone. It will be harder to distinguish between races and the majority of people will be somewhere in the middle of the scale, as regards color. Once we reach this point, interracial families will not only not be unusual, they will be the norm.

What about now? What is life like for interracial families in western societies right now? How quickly are we progressing? Well, in 2010, a record 8.4% of all marriages in America were between two people of different races. Whilst this might sound like a tiny amount, the figure was a lowly 3.2% in 1980. In 1987, only 48% of Americans believed that it was okay for ‘blacks and whites to mix.’ In 2012, that figure reached 83%, which is a massive increase in a relatively short space of time, anthropologically speaking.

There are some interesting trends which appear within this kind of data too. For example, Hispanic and Asian people are the most likely to marry a person of another race. Plus, black people are, at this point in time, far more likely to wed white people than ever before – despite continuing fluctuations in their overall level of social segregation.

If we look at what really lies at the heart of the issue – children – it seems impossible to see interracial marriage as anything less valuable or magical than any other kind of union. As already outlined, there is no evidence (and never has been) to suggest that interracial families are fundamentally any different to others. They laugh, cry, play, bond, and grow in exactly the same way as any family does.

The post When will interracial families become the norm? appeared first on Love is all colors.

These days, there are examples of high achievers from interracial households everywhere you look. The President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet, is the child of a Kenyan and an American of British descent.

He has talked many times about what kind of an influence this had on his formative years. He has also been forced to defend his lineage many more times, but the fact still remains that there is an interracial man in the White House – the days when interracial children were afforded fewer opportunities than children from white households are, fortunately, long gone.

This guide to the top five big benefits of raising a child in an interracial household will help you get to grips with any doubts you may have about creating a thoroughly modern family.

1. Interracial Parents Invest More
To combat a social stigma which is sometimes imagined and sometimes not, studies have shown that interracial parents invest more in education, home learning resources, extracurricular activities, and enrichment projects. They know that their children may look and feel different to their classmates, so they spend more time teaching them why this is the case, and on getting them actively involved in dance, drama, and sports clubs after school to make sure that they fit in and participate.

2. Multiracial Kids Are More Relaxed
According to another study from the Journal of Social Issues, multiracial children grow up to be psychologically tougher and will experience less stress than their peers. This appears to be the case even if their friends are white. The theory then, is that kids who identify with more than one racial group find it easier to adapt to varying cultural environments; instead of ‘standing out,’ they naturally adapt to fit the situation.

3. They Are More Tolerant Towards Others
It should come as no surprise to find that interracial children are among some of the friendliest and most tolerant of all. Whilst many youngsters struggle to define their own morals and ethics as they traverse an ethically murky world, interracial children already know that there is no difference between white and non-white, because they interact with both races.

4. They Are Exposed to Richer Cultural Resources
It is also true that children raised in interracial households grow up exposed to all the benefits and advantages of a culturally rich and culturally diverse environment. They live in mixed neighborhoods, uphold varied family traditions and customs, and may even get the chance to grow up speaking two different languages. They are a clear indication of the reality that not only can different races coexist, they can do so within a single home.

5. They Have Great Role Models
As already mentioned, Barack Obama is a child of two cultures. The same goes for a whole host of inspiring names and faces, from Halle Berry to Nicole Sherzinger, Rashida Jones, Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Alba, Idris Elba, Tiger Woods, and many more. For interracial children looking for role models, the world is a very inspiring place right now.

The post Five Big Benefits of Raising a Child in an Interracial Household appeared first on Love is all colors.