“Just too awkward for a dad with a different-race teen daughter. Who wants to risk the stress of that kind of scrutiny?”
Who cares what other people think? I wouldn’t change my behavior of not spending time with my teen daughter over some stranger’s possible gossip and I wouldn’t be stressed about it. Some people are just ignorant and always will be…
Plus, it is much more common that it was just 20-30 or so years ago whether biological or adopted.
I was with D checking out at the grocery store once when she was around 16-17. I had a bottle of red wine and the clerk asked for my ID so I handed it over. Then she looked directly at D and asked her, “Is he buying the wine for you?” D replied no, then the clerk asked her, “Do you have ID?”
The whole thing was just too bizarre for words. After the shock wore off I realized I should’ve complained to a manager.
Mine are “professionals” who shouldn’t have been in their position.
In the mid-80’s, I was struggling with infertility and on fertility drugs. When I refilled the script, the pharmacist yelled out, “Guess it didn’t work this month, huh?”
When D was diagnosed with a chromosomal condition at 9 months, we met with the geneticist at the state’s leading childrens’ hospital. (Think little old man with a bow tie who should have only been allowed with lab rats…) The condition is not fatal and can be managed. He gave us lots of dire information and said, “She’ll never look anything like you. They all look alike, like children with Downs’ Syndrome.” Said with such disdain. Wow, way to slam two entire categories of people. This syndrome is now diagnosed mostly in utero and I have no doubts he’d be firmly advising for abortion.
@socaldad2002, it’s not about what people think or their gossip, but about what some people DO. I’ve read of incidences ranging from annoying to hair-raising when calls were made to authorities to investigate. Like, kids seized overnight to stay with social services until legal paperwork was produced. Not saying that vigilance by concerned individuals isn’t warranted…there ARE predators out there. But I’ll bet you have never had to think about traveling within the U.S. with everyone’s passports and/or copies of birth certificates/adoption paperwork on board, have you?
We don’t have any family policy against dad traveling with daughter, but I guess the discomfort of the whole thing may dampen his enthusiasm for it a bit. At any rate, I’m the parent with the travel bug anyway.
I ran into the mother of my DD’s classmate at a local grocery store. We caught up on what our children were up to these days, and I said mine is in medical school now. Her eyes opened wide, and she exclaimed “I didn’t know she was one of the smart kids”!
@juniebug, don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but that woman is kind of pathetically hilarious (if that makes any sense). Sounds like a Disney sitcom mom.
@inthegarden I laughed! Ours is a very high performing, competitive school district with some crazy smart kids! Mine is just average smart, I suppose.
My neighbors as they left D’s wedding reception, which included lots of popular music with music from his family’s culture mixed in: “We have to get out of here. We can’t stand all of that Arabic music.” Seriously, did you have to actually say what you were thinking, you small-minded so & so’s? Maybe if they had opened their minds a bit, they might have had a great time, like everyone else there.
@kelsmom, I’m speechless!
I am white with dark curly brown hair and olive skin. D is much fairer and was blonde as a child. Once, when she was about 5, I took her and a bi-racial friend (I mention the child’s race only because it’s relevant to the story) to a museum. While there, a woman asked me if both girls were mine and I responded that one was and the other one might as well be. She pointed at D’s friend and said, that one must be yours. When I said, no, the other one is mine, the woman looked at me in shock and said: “No, you’re wrong, the first child (described in racial terms) is yours.” I had no clue what to say - okay, lady, you’re right, I don’t know my own kid…
Weddings…DH and I had a very small wedding and reception in an old Victorian house that had been converted to a Spanish Tapas restaurant. Though a tiny party (maybe 30 close friends and family) we hired a killer Klezmer band. Our little group got pretty reved up dancing. We didn’t book the entire house though, and the restaurant was buzzing in other rooms. From a bathroom stall I overheard people talking “What’s going on in there? There’s a wedding going on! Wow, I think it’s GREEK or something!” LOL, that was a happy moment for me.
My DH has very dark skin & dark hair, with light eyes; I am pretty brown, though not as dark as he is. Kid 1 is dark, usually assumed to be Mexican or East Indian; Kid 2 is not quite as dark, but brown, though light eyes; Kid 3 is has very pale skin, blue eyes and had white blonde hair. We were involved in a sport for a decade with over a hundred kids in the group (ages 4-18) so a pretty large group of parents. I was quite involved in admin and my kids were strong members of the team. So many of my friends told me of the questions about Kid 3’s parentage. Had Kid 3 been the oldest, the assumption would have been a different Dad, but since my DH was dark and the youngest was light, they were mystified.
We were never offended, our family joke was that the farrier was Dutch 
In reality, there is both light and dark in our heritage and genetics are fascinating.
When H took S to his families cottage in Canada he called in a panic. I had to drive the (then) 30 minutes back to the airport to sign papers giving permission for H to take S out of the country. Ok, this was when abductions by estranged parents was in the news. Guessing S being Korean did have something to do with it. From then on H or I traveled with a letter giving permission plus copies of his citizenship and adoption papers…
The truth is that S, although adopted, acts and nearly looks like H. Good friends would forget about his heritage and make comments at how they looked! and acted alike. They still do!
One of my favorite stories regarding S was when he was playing on the school playground waiting for his older sis. Another mom said, “which one is yours?” I replied,“the one in the red jacket”. She asked at least 2 additional times. I finally got her confusion. “The Korean boy in the red jacket!” Gads. He was just my kid to me. She was embarrassed. As she should have been…
I did tell S at age 14 to not act smart at customs returning from Europe.
“take your hat off, be polite, and do not! make a joke if they ask if we are your parents!”
Whew, yep he was asked even with all of our paperwork.
I was in a mall with my then 6 month or so bi racial daughter. Some random lady had stopped and was going on and on about how cute my baby was. It was flattering to me as a new mom until she proceeded to tell me what a Christian thing I did to adopt a brown baby. Say what??? I told her nicely that she wasn’t adopted, and the nice woman didn’t say a word as she walked away.
No, it didn’t. There were a number of years when ANYONE traveling to Canada or Mexico (and quite a few countries in Europe and Middle East) had to have the permission of BOTH parents if both weren’t traveling with the child. Now that a passport is required for air travel, and both parents (if there are 2) have to apply for the passport, they aren’t as strict about the permission letters.
My daughter, who is Chinese, has traveled all over the world with my brother, including to Mexico. They do have the same last name, but because she traveled on a passport it was never questioned.
Canada was always very strict, Mexico a little less so but my brother got caught up in it twice and one time realized the airline agent just wanted a bribe. He declared he was never going to Mexico again until daughter was 18!
When my kid flew to Canada (alone, for summer camp), we sent her with a letter, signed by both parents, saying that she had permission to travel to Canada and contact information for the summer camp. My recollection is that the Canadian version of CBP requested it on their website. They don’t want runaways and / or trafficked kids moving across international borders.
The comment that stung me the most was from a running coach. Yes, I’m slow and run very awkwardly (@MomofWildChild knows, ha). I signed up for a boot camp with this local coach. I needed to do a fairly long run that day, and I fit it in before the camp. I was proud of myself for doing it even though we were about to have a vigorous workout. I ran up to the coach and she had a big smile. I thought, “Oh, she’s going to compliment me on running before camp!” Instead, she said, “MaineLonghorn! We need to work on your speed!” Sigh.
While pregnant with my fourth, I was out running errands with my third child, a boy. While standing in line at the drugstore, a man about my age (late 30s at the time), asked if I knew what I was having. When I said no, it would be a surprise, he made some comment about how I was probably hoping it for a girl. I replied that I was just hoping for a healthy baby. My young son then chimes in and said he already had a sister and a brother. At that point, the man looked horrified and wondered out loud if my birth control failed.
Now I know a lot of people have opinions about large families (including my mom), and I’m sure this thought had crossed many people’s minds when they learned I was pregnant, but I was a bit aghast he voiced this opinion out loud.
Following on my post above, I forgot to add something said to dh. Like others have mentioned about kids’ appearances compared to the parents, we have had those comments as well, but for the most part, nothing rude. Dh and I are both olive skinned, with brown eyes and dark hair. Our first two kids have the same coloring, with our son looking very Italian. Our third child is very fair, when born he had blond hair and big blue eyes. It was kind of funny actually. Dh would say he was the mailman’s son.
Not long after he was born, an old friend of dh’s who we hadn’t seen in years happened to be town for business and had tickets to a ball game. He arrived at our house before Dh got home from work and met all three of our kids. He didn’t say anything about our kids’ looks. However, Dh told me when he got home after the game that when they were driving to it, his friend turned to him and said,in all serious, “Dude, there is NO way that is your kid. Are you sure XX hasn’t been fooling around?” We got a good laugh out of it later but Dh said his friend was definitely not joking when he asked.
Interestingly, when our fourth was born, she too has blue eyes, blond hair and fair skin. And both she and #3 are left handed (Dh and I, as well as our older two, are right handed). They definitely got the recessive genes. Only one out of our four parents is blue eyed (my mom). However both my parents and brother are lefties.