Parenting Bi-Racial Children in a White Society

Mixed families aren’t rare in America anymore. Adults choose who they want to love and marry, often regardless of race. Celebrities are doing it, urbanites are doing it, and even my neighbors have chosen their partners based on the quality of their character instead of the color of their skin. These partnerships produce children that are a mix of their parent’s heritages. The adults have chosen their relationship and can rationalize who they are and where they come from in terms of their racial culture. But the kids? The children of these unions are a mixed bag, not fitting easily into either culture. How do you parent a child that doesn’t firmly identify with either culture, where their identity is rooted in the best and worst of not only one race, but TWO?

Where do bi-racial or multi-racial kids fit in the landscape of a predominantly white America? And as a parent, how in the world do you raise a child of mixed race to feel firmly grounded in both races AND to feel secure in their place in the world as a child, adolescent and teenager? What if the child identifies more with one race than the other?

My kids go to school with a number of mixed-race kids. While researching this article, I spoke with many of the parents about their challenges in parenting. The theme that kept coming up was that their children felt more at ease when they were around a diverse population. The Japanese mother of two Japanese/white children speaks Japanese to her kids and exposes them to Japanese food, music, and culture. When the grandparents come to visit they bring more of the language and heritage to the family. The white mother of two boys that are an African-American/White blend enrolled them in a school that has a population of about 25% white children. The rest of the children are either mixed or ethnic. She is no longer married to their father, so she works hard to engage them in a school and activities that emphasize their black heritage. These are two examples of families that consciously emphasized multi-culturalism in their homes and daily lives.

There is a third family that has yet another challenge. The family is multi-racial, though the child is not bi-racial. The father is white, the mother is Filipino, and they adopted their Chinese daughter at birth. The little girl goes to a school that is predominantly white. She is a first grader and has fixated on the three girls in her class with blonde hair. She holds them as the standard for how she doesn’t measure up. Her mother notes that she doesn’t notice the ten other girls with brown or black hair in her class. She’s not the only Asian child in the class, though she is definitely in the minority. At family gatherings on both her parent’s sides, ALL the family members have dark brown or jet black hair, like hers. Even though the majority of hair color around her is NOT blonde, she’s absorbed the message from her peers that their looks are superior to her own.

Each of these families has acknowledged how their children may feel out of place, and have worked hard to emphasize how they fit into the world. Because school is such an important place for children during their developmental years, parents need to put their children in a school and in activities where they see other kids that look like them. As a species, people want to fit in somewhere. They seek out this information in all sorts of ways. As parents, we can either help or hinder our kids’ natural instinct to find others that look like them. By allowing our kids to spend a majority of their waking hours in a bi-racial or multi-racial setting, we’re giving them the tools they need to develop higher self-esteem and the confidence that there is a place in the world where they truly belong.

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Zoo animals
written by myvalentine62, March 17, 2010

My daughter is now 25 and my son is 18. I can remember when we were as a family looked at as if we were exhibts in a zoo. Our son was more caucasion than not. When he was born the attending nurse for the day made my husband get me inorder to bring him form the nursery to me. I was very upset that I had to get out of bed just to prove that my husband was our sons father mind you after about 8 hours after delivery.

I rmember getting looks form people around me when I had my daughter and son with me. Some would look at my daugher and then my son, it was obvious when they shook their head.

Mixed Up Family
written by Elina, March 23, 2010

My mother remarried to an African-American man, my step-father, who I call my father because he raised me. Now, in reality, he is actually mixed with Barbadian, Native American and Jewish. He is dark skinned but his eyes have that West Indian quality to them. Because he was raised around everyone, my step-father has friends of all races. He treats me like his own and introduces me as his daughter. He is at ease with people of all racial backgrounds.

Five years ago my mother gave birth to my baby brother, and while we have a different father and different racial backgrounds, I love the little man more than life itself. I never looked at him as my "half-brother." I mean, we came from the same womb. Race to me, is an illusion because I grew up with a white mother and a black father. And just like my dad, I have friends of all ethnicities. However, I relate way more to African-Americans but I do feel comfortable with everyone. I hope that my little brother will feel the same.