Our Multiracial Family

Call it what you want, multiracial, interracial, miscegenation…that’s our family.

Recently I was sent a comment from a reader curious about our family makeup. At first I was a tad surprised, as I’ve only been asked this question on two other occasions.

I grew up in a town of 100,000 people, while it is racially diverse to some extent, and certainly not the South, it’s still a “country” farming area and many of the folks around here still live on values that races should not be mixed. Lucky for me, I grew up with a mind of my own and see the beauty in everyone, black, white, green or purple. My parents on the other hand didn’t share the same feelings as I did.

When I met my now husband, Jon, he was the first person of a different race that I had ever dated. I didn’t see him as black, white, or mixed…he was just the funny guy with big feet (and a damn nice car). I knew dating him would not fly with my parents, so we hid our relationship. By the time they found out, we were already engaged and set to move in together. I’m not going to rehash the tension that caused…and there was quite a bit of it. But…I think showing them that love is color blind, changed them. It took some time, but as they got to know the person he is, their issues with skin color soon faded. And that I’m thankful for. I love my parents more than anything in the world and hurt it feeling like I had to choose or had lost their respect, which in turn they had lost mine.

Then came our first born. I’ll fully admit, I was a bit … not sure of the word, not scared, not curious, I guess apprehensive about what our children would look like. Being that my husband is 1/4 African-American and 3/4 Caucasian and I am 100% Caucasian (as far as I know, and quite pale) our kids could be anywhere from ghostly white to as dark as my husband’s father. It’s kind of like popping a quarter into the gumball machine and waiting for the mystery of what flavor will pop out. When the day finally arrived and we looked at his sweet little face, my husband and I both chuckled. While he looked exactly like Jon, we both thought aloud, “he looks Mexican” Not at all what we were expecting! It was a strange feeling to have a child that didn’t even have a hint of my physical features, but nothing can change the way a mother loves her child.

And our daughter later came, again, the mystery of the gumball flavor. One look at her and we said, “wow, she looks EXACTLY like her brother”, except she didn’t. While all the features were the same, she came into the world with bright blue eyes, blond hair, and skin paler than my own. As she grows, she still looks like her father, her hair is still blond (like my own was) but has the pretty little curls like her brother and he eyes eventually changed to brown. With baby number 3 on the way, I can honestly say I have NO IDEA what she’ll look like, I wouldn’t even venture to guess.

Back to the subject of being asked about our family makeup. A few months ago I was sitting in the car with my kids while my husband was in the gas station paying.

A woman walks up to my window and says “are those your kids?”.

I was stunned, why the hell they wouldn’t they be mine? and if they weren’t, why I would I be in the car with them?

I replied, “yessss”

Woman says, “Do they have the same father?”

Okay, pause, who the hell asks THAT question!?! Out of my own curiosity as to where this was going I replied again, “yes!”

Woman says, “Well, I just wanted to tell you they are just gorgeous.”

That was it, she just walked away. Can we say weird???

I guess it’s natural to be curious about our family as the 4, soon to be 5, of us each have a different skin color, hair color, hair texture, and eye color. I guess my whole point of this is…we live in American, a melting pot. Very few people born in this country can’t be called multiracial. Whether your skin is white, tan, brown or reddish, odds are your family has been mixed racially from African-American, Indian, German, Irish, to Asian. We’re all different and that’s our family.