my 3 year old is much darker than the rest of us..

[nop169]

I understand how you feel but just realize that there are MANY rude & insensative people out there! Our youngest (WHO IS ADOPTED) is a bi-racial child - smart & extremely beautiful (of course I am biased!) & my wife & I are white. Many, many people have come up to us IN FRONT OF OUR DAUGHTER & asked if she was adopted... although we have never hid the fact & even celebrate an "A" day each year - our daughter did not realize she was adopted. We always taught her that God loves wonderous variety. She has beautiful brown skin - daddy & mama have white skin - I have blue eyes & she & her mom have brown eyes - they are girls & I am a guy... things such as that so it was never an issue.... so back to when it first happened my wife & DD were getting groceries and a woman came up & asked if this was the child we had adopted. My wife was astounded & didn't know what to say & simply changed the subject & moved on. DD asked on the way home if she was adopted - she was 7 - once I got home & talked to her about it & explained that we had asked God for her for years & she understood we chose her - she was fine. But I couldn't beleive that people would be so rude & so harmful to my child by asking this in front of her (much less to ask at all)! Unfortunately it has happened over & over since but it has not harmed the spirit of my child. She is confident & secure & loved. Now almost 12 - she will even answer the question when someone asks the same way she has heard us answer them - "I am their daughter". As I have answered repeatedly ..."she is my daughter." Because she IS my daughter - both heart & soul & could not be loved more.
People are ignorant & rude but many of the ones who asked us did not intend to be hurtful - they simply did not think about what they were asking or the possible consequences. Your child will learn to take her "que" from how you respond - as did ours. Ignore the ignorant people - hold your head up high & proud & thank God for blessing you with each of your different & individual children. Once people see you respond in that way - they will tend to respond the same..... for color does not define us - our humanity does.

 

[littlefarm_bighappy]

When I am with my nephews, (4 of them... when you combine them with my kids you get 6 kids each about two years apart) I will get stares, people counting out loud, murmurs (I am sure they are thinking how many fathers)

I just think of the wonderful family I know that has oh, I think 13 adopted children, some special needs, a bunch of foster children and a few home-grown- and i just laugh to myself.

Some people must just not get out much.

I have:

Given a blank stare, as in, I CANNOT believe you asked me that..

a slight giggle, and "That's an odd question."

TO the ONE lady who asked me how many dads, A cold stare and a "That is quite possibly the rudest question I ever heard."

 

[Dar]

wow I cant believe the ignorance of some people..but I get it too

my DH is Cree/Caucasian, Brown hair brown eyes

I am German/English (England) Blond hair blue eyes

My oldest is blond hair blue eyes
2nd is dark brown hair brown eyes
DD is brown hair brown eyes..

everyone asks if my younger 2 children are my step children, and if their father was Italian

 

[claud]

I have a friend that has 2 boys - one adopted, one biological. Amazingly they look very much alike.

People always asked him "So, which one is adopted?" at which he'd say "Oh, I can't remember anymore"


I'd just come up with some good comebacks to use. People have no idea what they are saying sometimes

 

[SarahBeth9394]

If someone asked me where my kids came from I'd have to answer back with "my uterus".

 

[saddina]

I look like my sicilian Grandmother, the rest of the family is tall willowy norse blondes. My sons both have thier fathers blond hair and pale skin.

 

[SarahFair]

Quote:

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:

A slightly less humerous answer along the same lines would be the name of the hospital (if it's local) or the city (if it's not)

 

[chicken_china_mom]

I get that question A LOT. I am actually the darkest complected person in my family, and that isn't saying much! Lol. Yet I have the lightest hair. My father is Irish, Finnish, and Native American. He is WHITE, with green eyes and curly dark brown hair. My mother is 100% Irish. She's as white as my dad, with the same curly dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Me? My family was dumbfounded when I came along cause I was platinum blonde! I got my dad's green eyes, and when I was a baby I was as white as my parents, but as I grew up I developed a golden tint to my skin, and if you stand me in a group with the rest of my mother's side of the family, it's clear that I stick out. Especially at my cousin Melissa's wedding in 2004. I tanned so nicely that summer and I actually had people assuming that I had hispanic in me, I was THAT dark that year. I've made a point to stay out of the sun that much ever since. That said, I'm still white, lol. My ex, my kids' father, is Puerto Rican but has grandmother from Spain on his father's side. His family is like the United Nations I swear! If you walk into a family get together, you see people blacker than some people that live in Africa, and you see people whiter than my Irish family. Yet they are full PR. Interesting how genetics works! My ex though has rich brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes. Next to him, I look like a sheet of paper. When we had our first daughter though, his family always said she took after him and was his clone. Thing is, they never looked past the hair and skin. She has dark BROWN hair, not black. It also had red highlights in it, just like MY mother's hair. She has brown eyes that are actually darker than her father's. But if you actually LOOK at her, she is my clone, just with a better tan!

When my younger daughter was born his family immediately said she took after me because she was light skinned. She was born with light brown hair but brown eyes. However, if you actually look closely, she looks JUST like her father's side of the family. Her cousin Joshua and her look like they could be siblings. So I have one dark child, and one light, and people that aren't familiar with Puerto Rico and how mixed their culture already is, they can be ignorant and I've been asked if my kids are full siblings, or if I adopted, etc. Once, when my kids were still in public school my older daughter was waiting with a friend for me to come pick her up. As I was walking down the street her friend leaned over to my DD and asked her who I was. My DD replied "That's my mom." Her friend looked at her for a moment and then asked her if she was adopted! My DD got very mad about that. But we've experienced it quite a lot over the years, especially where we live now. We moved to the middle of WHITE PEOPLE LAND, I swear we did! We now live in West Central Indiana, and the people here can be so downright ignorant! There is a lady in town that is openly racist, and she should be ashamed of herself because she is a minister's wife, but she is something else! The first time she saw my older daughter she had the nerve to stop my daughter in the street and ask her if she was Mexican! Now, I raised my kids to be above such ignorance, so my daughter just politely smiled and said "No.", and kept walking. She asked my daughter again some time later and again my daughter was polite, smiled, and said "No, I'm Irish." And then kept walking. She came home and told me that the look on the woman's face had her fighting not to just crack up laughing right in her face. We had a good laugh over that one. The neighbor next door has been very rude and racist as well. Apparently she is saying nasty things to her son because he said to my younger daughter one day that he couldn't play with her because she was Mexican. My daughter's jaw just dropped. She isn't as polite as my older daughter is, and tends to be very hot tempered, but she managed to keep her cool. She simply told him that she was NOT Mexican, she was AMERICAN, and that his mother shouldn't say mean things about Mexicans cause they wouldn't like it! He must have passed the info along cause her attitude did change. It's gotten worse since, but for other reasons. But the ignorance of people is something else. I was out with my friend once. He has blonde hair and blue eyes, and his daughter has light brown hair and blue eyes, and his daughter and my kids were with us. They thought his daughter was ours, and that my kids were adopted.

I get irritated when people are that ignorant. I was raised to NEVER ask questions that were none of my business. And honestly, if people just took the time to stand back and LOOK at my kids, there would be no doubt in the world that they are mine. Shoot, you call my house, and my daughter answers, you don't know whether it's her, me, or my mom. We ALL sound alike! Lol. My poor younger DD feels left out cause she doesn't sound like the rest of us. Oh, the same neighbor next door assumed that because my kids are different in looks and complexion, that they are half sisters and not full. Guess she doesn't look close enough either. Here are my girls:

This is my older daughter Katie. She looks like my grandmother did as a girl, just with brown eyes and a tan!:

Here is my younger daughter Mimi:

And here is a picture Of a picture, lol. But you can still see pretty clearly the difference in them. They were 4 and 3 here. My younger daughter's hair has darkened a lot since this, but it's still much lighter than her sister's:

And lastly, here I am with my girls when we went hiking with the same friend I mentioned before just a few weeks ago. My daughter wanted her hair cut the day after this picture. His daughter wasn't with us this trip. Boy did we get some looks that day!:

People will just be ignorant. There's no stopping it. Just be polite and remember, you're above their ignorance. And you don't have to answer their questions. It's beneath you to do so. Be prepared, the questions will be coming at you for MANY years to come. I know I'll never stop hearing them. And it's a shame too, because I would never invade someone's privacy in such a way.

 

[Mandalina]

she is tooo cute! people suck for saying that stuff to you.
My grandparents had to deal with a similar issue.Both of them were 1/2 Native American, 1/2 white. My oldest aunt has auburn hair, grey eyes and dark skin.My second aunt has black hair, dark brown eyes and dark olive skin.My mom was blonde when little with grey eyes and olive skin. So...I think genes are just crazy.