How can i tell if my child is mixed

5 Things to Know if You Love a Mixed-Race Kid

While being a person of multiracial or “mixed” background can be highly idiosyncratic, there are some common themes across experiences. Knowing some of these commonalities can provide support to parents, family members, teachers and others who want to understand what mixed-kids in a racially obsessed society might go through. These examples are drawn from my life and from my conversations with other racially mixed people over the years.

1. Racially mixed kids may be “read” differently depending on who they are around.

My eight year-old son is Guyanese, Japanese and white. Among his nearly all-white classmates, he’s perceived as a dark-skinned boy. The color he chooses for self-portraits drawn in school are always two or three shades darker than his actual skin color. On his all-black basketball team, he’s called the light-skinned team member. Among my husband’s Puerto Rican family members he looks Puerto Rican. Sitting next to me, it’s clear that he’s part Asian.

While my son can’t fully process these racial identity realities yet, this ambiguity, this fluidity, is a common experience among racially mixed people. To borrow from W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of “double consciousness,” many racially mixed people learn to see themselves through their own eyes and through the eyes of others.

2. Mixed kids may look different over time and may need to actively assert all parts of themselves to others.

At birth, my son’s hair was dark and straight, his skin was light and his eyes were almond. Looking at my newborn son, my first thought was that I’d given birth to my late Japanese grandfather. Eight years later, my son’s hair is full of bouncy curls, his skin is caramel and his eyes are wide. Today his middle name is the most evident trait he shares with his great grandfather.

3. Mixed kids may be treated in ways inconsistent with the way they see themselves.

As a mixed race Japanese and white woman, my own features have changed over the years. In the first grade a white classmate confronted me at recess, pulled the outside corners of his eyes wide, and sang, Chinese, Japanese, Your Knees, My Knees. I thought to myself, why would he sing this to me? Are my eyes slanted? In retrospect, I did look Asian at the time, but I hadn’t developed an Asian identity then.

4. Mixed kids usually benefit from affinity group experiences.

An affinity group is a group of people who share a set of experiences, identities, or goals and meet to discuss them. As an educator who teaches about social justice and race-related issues, I’ve participated in many conferences about race over the years and had opportunities to be in mixed-race affinity groups. There is a powerful feeling of affirmation I experience in multiracial affinity groups that allows me to feel proud of who I am when connected with other mixed people. Kids who participate in supportive mixed-race affinity groups are also likely to feel pride and joy in who they are.

5.

Maria P. Root is a multiracial clinical psychologist and educator who has written seminal work on multiracial identity. I was first introduced to her research at an event put on by a community group for multiracial Asians. Root has identified and validated the shared experiences of mixed race people through her research and created documents to empower us. Her “Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Race Descent” is one such document.

Sharing the Bill of Rights with my son and “translating” it into kid-friendly language and sentiments, making it his and our own, was an immensely helpful exercise. It might be helpful for your mixed-race kid too.

You can find Dr. Root’s original Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Race Descent here and our (shorter) version below:

Bill of Rights for Kids of Mixed Race Descent

• I have the right not to be bullied about who I am.
• I have the right to be what I say.
• I have the right to not be teased about who I am.
• I have the right to call myself what I want to call myself.
• I have the right to be friends with whoever I want.
• I have a right to look differently than my sisters or brothers, and that’s okay.

Which box do second generation mixed race people fit into?

Britain has barely got its head around interracial relationships, and already we’re behind the times. The children of mixed couples from the 1960s and 70s are now adults, with their own kids – even grandkids.

But which box do they fit into? Black, white, Asian, mixed race? Is there a terminology that exists for second generation mixed race children that does not just shove them into the box labelled “other”?

Emma, who describes herself as half Mauritian and half Sri Lankan, resists the labels put on her:  “I am classified as ‘Asian’ in the UK or ‘Asian – mixed’ or ‘mixed – other’ or ‘other’. I don’t resonate with any of these terms.”

Since having a son with her Nigerian partner, Emma is well aware that negotiating restrictive labels is about to get even more complex.

If her son was confused or asked for guidance, she says, she’d discuss it with him to find a term that he is comfortable with. But ultimately the choice would be his. “I think it’s important for us to identify ourselves as we feel as individuals,” she says.

This doesn’t mean, though, that other people aren’t already deciding for him – albeit in a positive, inclusive way. On the couple’s regular trips to Lagos, he’s embraced as a Nigerian and called “Yoruba boy”. And when the children at his London nursery had to make a flag of their country, he came home with a Nigerian flag.

The most important thing for the couple, though, is simply to celebrate all sides of their son’s ancestry. He has a Yoruba name and a Sanskrit name. He has traditional Nigerian and Asian clothes. He eats food from both cultures. And, says Emma, “we call him beautiful brown boy most of the time!”

“While there have been many studies of mixed-race relationships, there is precious little research on mixed-race families”

While there have been many studies of mixed-race relationships, there is precious little research on mixed-race families. This is something Miri Song, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, wants to change. Her new book, Multiracial Parents: Mixed Families, Generational Change and the Future of Race, explores some of these issues.

“There has been no study of how multiracial people think about the next generation down, their second generation mixed children,” writes Song in the book’s introductory chapter. “And as these second generation mixed individuals grow up, partner, and have children themselves, we are facing a fascinating yet unknown societal landscape.”

There is, she says, no single official definition of “mixed” in Britain. So can the children of multiracial parents use this ambiguity to call themselves mixed race too? In theory, yes, but in practice wider society often has other ideas. Mixed race has almost become shorthand for someone who has one black parent and one white. Any deviance from this ratio raises eyebrows.

When I describe myself as mixed race, for example, people aren’t always convinced. “Is your dad black though? Or mixed?” they say suspiciously, looking at my more-curly-than-afro hair. I sometimes feel obliged to show a photo as “proof”.

“Mixed race has almost become shorthand for someone who has one black parent and one white. Any deviance from this ratio raises eyebrows”

Boxed out by existing terminology, some people of different racial mixes have come up with their own creative but slightly awkward descriptions, such as “blasian” (black and Asian), “blackanese” (black and Chinese, Vietnamese or Japanese), “blindian” (black and Indian), or Tiger Woods’s inventive “cablinasian” (Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian).

Sarah Bentley, founder of charity Made in Hackney, usually ticks White/British or White/Irish on forms to acknowledge her Irish ancestry. Her partner has Nigerian and English roots (“with a bit of Italian thrown in as well”). And though he’s only three and a half, their son is already noticing race.

“He came back from nursery saying, ‘I’m brown’ or ‘I’m black’ – I can’t quite remember which – and that prompted a very simple conversation,” says Bentley. “‘What colour is Mama?’ He says pink. ‘What colour is Dada?’ He says brown. We then say, ‘So what colour is Rowan? And he says, as we’ve told him this: ‘I’m brown too because I’m half pink from Mama and half brown from Dada’.”

What would she say if he described himself as white later in life? “I’d find that quite amusing at first as he clearly does not look white – but then I’d be quite disturbed […] We’d have to have a very serious conversation about where this was coming from, why he felt this and why it wasn’t accurate and wasn’t who he truly was. ”

If you have one white parent and one mixed parent (who is half Caucasian), calling yourself white may feel like denying the non-white element. Yet calling yourself mixed isn’t always accepted. Just look at Mariah Carey. Back in 1998 she clearly told Vibe magazine, “I am mixed”. But 5,400 people a month apparently still search online: ‘Is Mariah Carey black?’

“But 5,400 people a month still search online: ‘Is Mariah Carey black?'”

BBC broadcast journalist Nora Fakim explores issues of mixed-race and multicultural identity in her work, by interviewing diasporans struggling with definitions of home and also through her blog, Mixed Up Messed Up?.

Asked how she describes herself, Fakim’s definition is testament to the richness and complexities of many mixed-race identities today. “I guess normally I would say half Moroccan and half Mauritian,” she says. “But to be more specific I would say half North-African and half Mauritian-Indian as Mauritians are very diverse! I guess I could also put Arab-Indian mix. But it’s more complex than that, only because Morocco has more Berbers than Arabs and saying Indian is weird because being Mauritian-Indian is very different to being an Indian from India.”

Try fitting that into the “other” box on a form.

Despite growing up in a predominantly white area, Fakim didn’t have many problems with racism. “I guess because people couldn’t figure out where I was from,” she says. “My friends who looked more Asian or black had more problems than me to be honest. My name is also Nora so some thought I was half Irish.”

She hopes that through her work she can highlight some of the complexities of straddling two or more cultures. “I think when you are mixed you can be judged from both sides simply because some people can’t figure you out,” she says. “But when you are mixed, you automatically don’t fit into a box.”

“Despite these concerns, mixed-race parents and children must also acknowledge the privilege that comes with being lighter skinned”

Labels and racial definitions, though, are just the tip of the iceberg. Mixed-race parents may also experience feelings of identity loss or cultural rejection. Some may worry about the reaction of strangers to, say, a mixed woman with a “white” child. Others may feel ill-equipped to support their darker-skinned child through negative experiences that they as a lighter-skinned person mostly dodged.

Despite these concerns, mixed-race parents and children must also acknowledge the privilege that comes with being lighter skinned or racially ambiguous in our current society. They are more often employed, supported or publicised in a conscious or unconscious show of diversity by white gatekeepers who don’t want to appear racist.

When the former editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, mentioned model Adwoa Aboah in a recent, cringeworthy Guardian interview littered with micro-aggressions, she gushed: “She’s the perfect mixture of mixed race, sort of posh Notting Hill royalty.”

Even the parents of some mixed-race children use their offspring in this way, showing them up as examples of how they “don’t see colour” or citing them in defence against accusations of racism.

Mixed-race people could be, we’re told, the future – an idea that often contains an anti-black undertone, as if this is the only acceptable shade for a person of colour. Until that day arrives (or doesn’t), there needs to be a space for us to explore how our terminology around race impacts on our sense of self. Let’s not wait for the inevitable Daily Mail article about Harry and Meghan’s “quadroon” kid before we have these discussions.

Love is international. What about children? | 74.ru

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Love, as you know, has no nationality and religious affiliation. Perhaps I will not be mistaken if I say that during the candy-bouquet period for us there are no such obstacles on the way to a happy life together.

And even more so at the beginning of a relationship there are no disagreements on ethnic grounds. The ones that often appear later, along with the stamp in the passport and the birth of a child, who in this situation becomes a hostage to the parental mentality. Inevitably, questions arise: what religion should the offspring belong to if neither parent wants to back down? In what traditions to raise a child? Here, too, relatives add fuel to the fire, especially those who are skeptical about a daughter-in-law or son-in-law of a different nationality than theirs.

In short, the environment for raising a child is, frankly, not ideal. How to be?

A good deed will not be called marriage

Before talking about children, let's talk about interethnic marital relations, since there is nothing to hide, many of us are so fundamentally religious affiliation that we are secretly from the second half ready to introduce children to our own faith. At one time, the statement of a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy provoked a storm in the public mind. “Interethnic marriages are a form of genocide of the Russian people,” said Deacon Andrei Kuraev . - When our women marry Caucasians and others, they enrich other peoples with their genes. And the Russian nation is weakening!”

The question is undoubtedly controversial, and the negative reaction to such opinions is also quite predictable. Unfortunately for future descendants, many nationalities and religions are very skeptical about interethnic marriages. As the old Arabic proverb says, two swords cannot be sheathed in one. “The situation when believers of two religions want to get married has become very frequent,” priest Daniil Sysoev noted in his speeches, including in online publications. – Conversations like this often take place in the monastery:

– Father, I have a problem.

– What is the matter?

– You see, I love one person very much, I just cannot live without him.

– Well, what is the question? Sign, get married and live happily ever after!

- Well, you see, my lover is a Muslim. He's not a fanatic. He eats pork, does not perform prayers, but he is a Muslim by origin, and therefore does not want to renounce the faith of his ancestors. He believes in God, and we believe that God is one, and if so, then there will be no sin in our wedding. What does the church think? After all, I am Orthodox, so I need to get a blessing for marriage.

And this is not surprising. After the Soviet era, there was a "mixing of peoples." But how does God evaluate this matter? Contrary to the opinion of many, both the word of God and the rulings of the church clearly condemn marriages between Christians and non-Christians. If you look into the Holy Scriptures, you can read that almost throughout the entire sacred history, God warns against mixing people who are faithful to Him with those who do not do His will. And also about the fact that at the dawn of the world the Flood occurred, caused by the fact that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they are beautiful, and took them as their wife, which one they chose." (Gen. 6:4)

“When we use the term “mixed marriage”, we, of course, primarily mean Tatar-Russian marriages,” says the imam of one of the mosques. “Now such families are for the most part a natural result of the destruction of traditional morality and morality, a consequence of the destruction of national cultures and languages. Is the current Russian-Tatar marriages based on true love? Do they correspond to our ideas of morality? No, between modern Tatars and modern Russians in their marriages, true love, alas, is not. These marriages are immoral, not patriotic, but remember: the main task of marriage is an axiom! - the continuation of the family, the nation. In these marriages, as a rule, children grow up - either Russian, or completely non-national. Tens, hundreds of thousands. Who are we educating? Whom will they raise and educate, these children? How can a person mature without his own nation, school, culture? In my opinion, in such a multinational state, a special law should be adopted, according to which each of the spouses entering into a mixed marriage would undertake to give their children knowledge of the culture and language of both peoples. May love bring renewal and prosperity to all nations. Let them live, let them be happy. We just want to explain the degree of responsibility that these people bear to society, their native language and people. The epidemic of the birth of people without a clan and a tribe is what we want to ban.”

“I know one thing for sure: in mono-ethnic marriages there are no problems with what to name a son or daughter, there are no problems with religious rites either, relatives do not drip on the brains in this regard - there are already fewer risks!” - Supports Imam Irina .

“We also have a mixed marriage: I am a Muslim, my beloved is Russian,” says Alin a. - Even at the beginning of our relationship, we wanted to read us nikah (the Muslim rite is akin to a wedding). My husband, an Orthodox, was not against it, but when the mullah asked him if he was ready to change his faith, my husband did not quite understand what they wanted from him and said that God is one, just faith is different, and refused to change religion. Meaning, he says. I didn't insist, it's a personal matter. Mulla even shook his hand, says, well done, I respect him. It was at the Kul Sharif mosque. The mullah also told us that all those who read nikah or perform a wedding ceremony without changing their faith, such a marriage before God is like a great sin. We named our daughter a neutral name. When she was about a month old, her husband himself offered to give her a name according to Muslim customs. I was shocked, but in my heart I was delighted, of course. I would not agree to baptize her, but even until she chooses the faith herself (which was the contract initially), it was scary to wait: after all, the child walks without an angel. Now he affectionately calls her “my Tatar child”. I guess I was just lucky, but I think that if two people really love each other, then questions of nationality play a secondary role.

Where does that come from?!

“Raising a child in a mixed marriage is always an unnecessary showdown, if not with a spouse on the topic of proper upbringing, then with grandparents, for sure,” says Aigul . - Only later, many years later, I understood the phrase of my grandmother, who said that in the old days they were taught to choose a spouse of their nationality, if only so that there would be no unnecessary problems in marriage related to religion and creed. I lived in a mixed marriage, with my first husband for ten years. We divorced. We, of course, had other reasons for the divorce, but the main obstacle, in my opinion, was a thousand different little things that then make up a whole life. In general, I absolutely agree with the Jews who write down nationality according to their mother. Because it is the mother who lays the foundation of everything in the child. She does it the way her mother taught her, and her mother was taught by her mother, that is, her grandmother. Well, she won’t be able to do it the way moms and dads did, not because she doesn’t want to do it, but simply because she doesn’t know it. And to learn this, you need to live a new life.

Therefore, it is foolish to think that by marrying a Russian girl, a Tatar will get Tatar children. The same is the opposite. My husband and I lived for the first three years, not noticing the difference in our nationalities, until our son was born. This is where it started. Each grandmother tried to "pull the blanket" in her direction. In this little undeclared war, we suddenly began to notice that we are very different. It turned out that I didn’t know at all how to address my child affectionately in Russian, although I never noticed any problems with the Russian language. It just automatically happened to me that I addressed my child in the Tatar language, although in ordinary life I never spoke much Tatar and spoke more and more in Russian. It turned out that I did not remember a single lullaby in Russian, but in Tatar I suddenly remembered three. It asks: “Where? I often recalled an episode from the film "17 Moments of Spring", how the radio operator Kat on the delivery table shouted in Russian: "Mom!" I want to wish everyone who is in a mixed marriage, patience and wisdom. It's a lot of hard work every day. May you succeed."

“Like any normal adequate person, I believe that everything depends on upbringing, and nationality does not affect character in any way,” Anton defends his opinion. - A Negro child raised in a Ukrainian family will behave not like a Ukrainian, not like a Negro, but like the people who raised him. It doesn’t matter what nationality you are, not only skin color, but also temperament can be genetically transmitted to you, I absolutely agree with this. But moral norms that limit the actions of everyone - both Russian and non-Russian - are instilled at birth. If a rapist grows up in a mixed family of Georgians - a Russian, or an alcoholic grows up in a mixed Russian - Georgian family, then this is not because all Georgians are rapists, but Russians are alcoholics. Because their parents raised them that way. By the way, when they say that Russians behave normally, while Georgians, for example, behave abnormally, a reasonable question arises: what positive qualities are there in the character of Russian people that are not in the character of non-Russian people? And with mother's milk do these qualities appear in a person? In my opinion, all this is nonsense, dividing society.

“I would not like to talk specifically about the specifics of interethnic families,” says psychologist Marina Zvyagintseva .– I would like to talk about what, one way or another, is important in marriage: how suggestible, selfish and stubborn in terms of religion people are . If both the father and the mother are deeply internally convinced and stand their ground, then no matter what nationality they are, they will always fight for their right, for some contribution to the child. And if people are compliant by nature and really happy with their marriage, then there are no nationalities in this, there is only that they want to be a happy family, they want to properly raise their children. This is not a question of nationality, but a question of personality. And such reasoning is available to everyone.

Let's put religious canons aside. If two married for love, and at the same time both are quite open and flexible people, ready to meet each other halfway, then each of these parents has a hope that the child will absorb two cultures. It will be equally good to speak two languages, feel belonging to two nations at once, and, it should be noted, will only get rich from this, and in no way lose anything. And how often in real life does a child form a so-called bi-ethnic identity - a sense of his similarity with two ethnic groups at once, a sense of competence in two cultures? Is this too common?

“Of course, this is a very common case, if we take that particular example of a happy family,” sociologist Elena Nasyrov confirms a. - But one way or another in any family, the child is more drawn to one of the parents, such is life. Either to dad or mom, and as a rule, he still chooses the dominant culture, which parent he is closer to. If he is closer to his father, and, for example, who professes Orthodoxy and lives according to church traditions, then most likely this will also be closer to the offspring. Or, for example, if a daughter reaches out to her mother, then it will be the other way around.

“There is a very important point in this matter,” psychologist Marina Zvyagintseva insists, “it is necessary for parents to carefully monitor that their disagreements do not affect the child. After all, let's be frank, an interethnic family where there is never any friction on this issue is a utopia. Quarrels between parents happen in any family, nevertheless, the fact is that they themselves chose each other. With the older generation, with the parents of my half, it seems to me that in the case of interethnic marriages it is more difficult to manage. Our parents are less flexible psychologically, and this can have a rather strong impact on the perception of difference in cultures, habits and traditions. But I recommend that young people listen to each other, and not to the “friendly” advice of relatives.”

The main thing is to love

“I baptized my firstborn son in secret from my Muslim husband,” Sofya reveals secrets . - I know that I did, most likely, not too well in relation to him, but I am against the rites that his mother insisted on. Now I at least know that my child is mine and spiritually mine!” “I perceive extremely negatively those women who do this! This is disrespect for the second half, because you can, still you can, come to some kind of compromise, the simplest thing is to let the child choose his own faith when he reaches a conscious age, - he is indignant Hope . “For example, my husband and I did just that. Religion is not a reason for discord. We just have twice as many holidays in our family, we respect each other's faith, and our sons too! This makes the atmosphere at home warmer, and does not turn children into the subject of religious wars.