Yes, This Baby is Mine

Happy Mother's Day! In honor of this day, I am featuring a guest post from one of the feistiest, funniest,  most thoughtful and thought-provoking mom bloggers I know: Martha, from Momsoap. Thank you so very much, Martha, for sharing your experiences of being a mom on this Mother's Day.

Photo courtesy of Momsoap.com

If you look at our features, my daughter looks exactly like me, not her dad. But most people don't notice it until they get to know us. Most people don't look past the color of our skin.

I'm white. My daughter is, as she puts it, "light brown." Her father is Nigerian, so he is very dark. I'm as waspy as they come, full-on European background and raised in west Texas.

But since becoming the parent to a biracial child, I've become accustomed to  the once hurtful, now simply, banal, question, "Is that your daughter?" Or, "Is she adopted?"

Yes, yes she is my daughter. And no. No, she is not adopted.

I carried her around for nine months. Spent 19 1/2 hours in painful labor, pushed her out and nursed her for a long, long time. She is fully mine.

I made her with him. And we are different colors. The conception doesn't seem to fully register with many people until they see us all together. Or get a glimpse of my daughter's dad, who is now my ex.

Over the past four years, I've been asked if my daughter is adopted; had strangers insinuate that I'm the nanny; poked fun at, until they realize I'm not joking, that she really is mine; and just been stared at in general.

All because my daughter and I have different skin colors.

If you look at us up close, I mean, stop, and look past our skin, we look very much alike. I've been told that my daughter is just a mini version of me, with brown skin and curly brownish/black hair. She is mine, through and through. It's difficult for me to see how people don't see it.

Yet, over and over again, we get questioned.

Once, we were at a funeral of a distant relative. My own flesh and blood looked me in the eye and said, "How long have you had her?"

As I bounced my baby in her Mei Tei, I thought it was a strange way of asking me how old she was, confused, I responded, "She's almost a year old." At that point, I had not yet learned to see how we looked to people outside my own frame of reference.

I had a baby. She was mine.

It never occurred to me that people would question my parentage. Until it started happening.

He went on to tell me that he and his wife as missionaries in third world countries had adopted some biracial children. Too.

Too. It was that word that sent my mind quickly to what he had assumed.

I laughed. "Oh, she's not adopted!"

Stammering for a moment he finally managed to spit out, "Uh, uh, OH! You mean your husband is African American?!"

Once he realized that I had indeed procreated with a man from another race, I thought it best not to bother correcting his assumption that we were also married (we were never married) and move into the realm of a hell-bound sinner who had sex outside of marriage. After all, I was at the funeral of Bible-thumping west Texas Christian. There was no point in asking for a prayer session to bless me away from the eternity of hellfire.

Not to mention, possibly confirming for him the stereotype that white women who sleep with black men are sluts. Yes, another small town Texas stereotype that I battled as a youngster when I began exploring men of different cultures, and had long forgotten after living for nine years in Detroit where mixed race couples were much more common, but still not without stereotypes.

Motherhood to a Biracial Child

Now that it's been a few years into motherhood of a biracial daughter, and I've worked out the basics -- like how to comb her unbelievably thick hair; how often to moisturize her skin; and managing to mostly ignore that mini punch to the gut when someone asks me if she's mine --  I realize that I am in a wonderfully amazing position here in between the racial discussions in our society.

Something I learned from a mentor years ago, and I'll share with you here today, is we do a great job with racial discussions here in the United States. We do the most important thing when it comes to relieving racial tension. We talk about it.

We may not always agree. But we talk. It's the most important thing. To not be afraid to talk about race and ethnicity. Because it's all around us.

And as a white woman, who grew up around lots of racism and negative stereotypes about people with brown skins, I know how and when to measure very subtle racism. I also know how to address to my own people, which is an important part of the talks.

And best of all, I have come to realize that there is an important place for the biracial family in the midst of racial conflicts.

We see both sides. We really do.

Since having my daughter I am truly and honestly able to look quickly past the exterior and see a whole person, no matter what color the skin, what kind of clothes they are wearing, and what side of town they live on.

Many people believe that we are already living in a post-racial society because we have a black president. Because we got rid of Jim Crow laws and because everyone has the right to vote.

But we are far from a post-racial society. There is still racism in our culture. And it's time we talk and try to see the other side. All of us. Because eventually, if you don't already, you will probably have someone in your family who has different color skin than yours. And they probably won't be adopted.

___

Photo Courtesy of Momsoap.com

Martha Wood lives in Austin, Texas where she is a single, self-employed, work at home mom. She runs a small social media business, and blogs as a freelancer. She also authors her own blog at http://www.momsoap.com where she writes about racism, attachment parenting, and just general motherhood.