This scenario could conceivably happen to me, as my daughter is nearly eighteen, uninvolved, and will be going to college in the fall.
I’ve also given some thought to this very question, and I can honestly say that, given the conditions established in the OP, I’d be delighted.
Or, put another way, better an African-American who is an intelligent, good, hard-working man who treats my daughter with love and respect than a Caucasian lout. It’s the person, not the appearance, that matters. And if he was a Mets fan…well, so much the better!
OK, this gives me an excuse to tell one of my favorite stories. Well, sort of an excuse …
My sister went to a school dance in high school with a young African-American fellow. My father did not like this idea one bit. But he also knew that a racially-based objection would be unanimously overruled by the rest of the family, undermining his fatherly authority. So he had to try to find another objection to block the date.
Tough row to hoe-the guy was an honor student, a member of the student government, and a potentially Olympic-caliber athlete on the swim team. The best he was able to come up with was that, according to my dad’s conversations with the basketball team’s coach (my dad knew everyone in the school district), the coach thought (from overheard conversations) that the boy had ‘sex on the brain’. So naturally, to protect my sister’s virtue (ha!), he couldn’t permit her to go on a date with him.
Personally, I’d be more worried if a sixteen-year-old boy didn’t have ‘sex on the brain’. That would sound more like some sort of hormonal imbalance or something.
As for me-well, obviously, I was on my sister’s side on that one; so although my boys are a long way from dating age, I don’t foresee that I’d have a problem. (Come to think of it, I’d love to date the black woman who teaches my younger one’s kindergarten class. Yowza!) Only time can tell for certain, though.
Wouldn’t bother me particularly, In the scenario you posit, I’d be far, far more concerned with how the guy treated my daughter than his skin color. I’d far sooner see her with a black/hispanic/whatever guy who treated her right than a white guy who was abusive/obnoxious/etc. E.G. dear friends of ours are a black male/white female couple, and John is a prince of a guy. Couldn’t have asked for better for her (friendship with her pre-existed his arrival).
My only concern re: my kids in this situation would be, not applicable to merely dating but really only if it became serious. I’d want to ensure that they are fully aware they may face challenges as a couple that same-race couples might not - something I’m keenly aware of through these friends of ours.
I.e. that they understand that there ARE morons out there who will give them a hard time. That there ARE idiots who may freak out that an “oreo” couple has moved in on their street. That they understand their mixed-race children may face challenges and hurdles others won’t.
All of these are WRONG and unfortunate and by no means am I saying one should bow to the pressure they bring. But the real-world situation is that they do exist. I simply think any mixed-race couple (particularly where one of 'em is mine) needs to be ready to deal with that and not let it become an added pressure on the relationship.
I was the different-culture guy brought home by a girl, and the reaction was very unpleasant. However, it wasn’t a mixed-race thing – she was Filipino/Polish and I’m Chinese/Puerto Rican. The dealbreaker was that I wasn’t Catholic. Regardless, we dated for awhile without her parents’ approval. This ended a day after I had a conversation with her father in which he casually brandished a pistol while telling me how important his family was to him.
Side note: In my experience, mixed-race children grow up to be very attractive adults.
matt_mcl Who was your grandfather married to if he had kittens?
We are an interracial family. Hubby and I are both pretty darn white, bio daughter is white, son is Korean.
With that - to say there are no problems in being in an interracial marriage or family is simplistic. You need a little thicker skin. You become more aware of racism in day to day interactions. To choose it is to choose a harder road than to choose to live within socieities comfort zone. Just because a parent doesn’t want their child in an interracial marriage, doesn’t mean they are racists - parents want an easy life for their kids and interracial families have harder lives.
I think that is changing, and I expect by the time my children are dating that interracial relationships will be almost common enough not to elicit stares. And I certainly would support my children decision to date/marry interracially. Watching your child choose a difficult path is not easy, but you do understand it can be rewarding.
Intercultural is another battle - whether you are talking about a Grosse Point Country Club girl marrying a Trailer Park Alabaman, or a white middle class American marrying into a traditional Hindu family. Culture will affect the marriage more internally, race, externally. I’m more hesitant to support a relationship that would be very different culturally than I would be to support one different racially.
I’m 16, but pretty sure I’d be fine if I ever had kids and they ended up with someone of a different race - I’m in that situation now. My mom is pretty fine with it, other than the fact that I’m ‘her baby’ and he’s a guy and slightly older.
Dad, on the other hand, just can’t deal with it. He’s really not a racist, but somehow, it changes for him when it’s his daughter. He’s constantly bringing up his ‘flaws’, and why he’s not good enough for me - very few of these ‘flaws’ really exist.
I think a lot of it has to do with my dad afraid he’s going to somehow loose me. He acts the same way with religion - we (as a family) are Jewish, but I have my own set of beliefs (which don’t at all follow Jewish beliefs). This has been the case since about 7th grade, my parents have known it since then, but they refuse to accept it. THey forced me (up until last year) to continue to attend Hebrew school, even after I explained to them how there were a few issues with the head rabbi at our synagogue being an unbelievable bigot. The only reason that they ever gave for forcing me into it was “You’ll loose touch with who you are”, which, IMO, is crap. But my parents are like that with a lot of things: if I don’t do things the way they did them when they were teenagers, I’m loosing touch with my culture/heritage/self.
Hrm. I kinda hate to admit this, but when I was younger I was slightly racially prejudice. Not the kind-of blow-it-out-of-the-park racist stereotypes that are often portrayed, but I definately didn’t feel comfortable around races other than my own.
Oddly, all of that changed when my aunt started dating someone of another race. My grandmother went absolutely bonkers, disowned her, and became the most spite-filled woman I’d ever seen. After about a month or two of that, I realized just how frickin’ stupid the whole thing was, and haven’t had a problem about races or interracial relationships since.
i can bring the reverse- I am black, but I do not see myself marrying a black person, I was married to someone who was White before. Even now that I am single I don’t see myself dating a black man. No real reason for it, just don’t see it happening.
Seeing as how I am the product of an interracial marraige— I’m all for it. Children of interracial couples are really smart and pretty and nice-- they should all be rich too.
Sometimes cultural differences are hard to overcome. I when I was in college worked at a supermarket owned by very traditional Palestinians – they owned a chain of supermarkets and were quite wealthy. All of their marriages were arranged. They were also polygamists.
The oldest son fell in love with one of the cashiers-- who was white-- and eloped behind his father’s back. Things did not go well at all for her. In fact things went very, very badly for her. The cultural divide was too great to bridge.
My sisters are married to black men and my oldest neice is an asset to this planet----a true beauty, married to an Italian man and mother of Mexican/Black/Italian boys of supreme intelligence and complete charm. The other varied neices and nephews are pretty good-looking and good citizens. My brother married a very fair-skinned Mexican girl and produced a gorgeous boy and a lovely girl, very happy and doing well in school. I married a white man and have a glorious 16 year old daughter who is the misery of the local boys and a 13 year old son who has been a Little League ALL-Star 4 years running. All parties being raised in small melting-pot towns in California, of similar socio-economic backgrounds and values and education, there’s been no real inter-racial issues, excepting my Mom’s comment that she looks like she’s babysitting for the UN. My mom is a tiny Mexican woman they all call ‘Nana’. I honestly feel our interracial relationships have enhanced this part of the world and if we have to be labeled, just define us as ‘California’.
Alright, since I’m only 16 and never plan on having kids, I’m going to look at this from a slightly different perspective than that of a parent.
I personally don’t see myself dating a black guy anywhere in the near future. This isn’t because I have anything against black guys, it’s just that the black guys that I see (at school) generally have their own groups and act much differently than white guys. I’ve never been attracted to the black guys’ behavior, but I have on occasion seen one and thought “Wow, he’s hot!”
Added little thought: If you look at the black girls that are considered beautiful nowadays (especially by the media), they often share some of the charictaristics of caucasions- i.e. not the wide nose, etc.
Don’t have any problem with it. It’s hard enough to find Christian guys, let alone trying to restrict it to blacks.
Odd story:
When I was in 3rd grade (7 or 8 years old), I was riding in the car with a white friend and my mother driving. My friend mentioned that she had a crush on some black guy, and my response was “You can’t like him! He’s black.” At this point, I had never seen any interracial relationships, so the possibility hadn’t occurred to me. My mother immediately said “Why not?” and of course I couldn’t come up with a reason. What makes this odd is that fastforwarding 10 years later, when I went to prom with a white guy, my mother’s first reaction was that she hoped whoever I got involved with next/eventually married would be black. :rolleyes: Whatever. (At the same time, I suspect if I get married I’ll end up with a black guy. Don’t ask me why.)
monica: I respect your views as much as anyone else, but I would respectfully suggest you are too young to know if you will want to have kids later in life.
What you said about black guys at school acting differently to white guys is what I was alluding to earlier, when I talked about culture differences. I’m willing to bet that the black guys and the white guys are all American, but still there is a certain culture that blacks are raised in that makes them different to whites.
My opinions on this subjcet are from the point of view of a white guy, so I can’t speak for how black / hispanic / chinese guys see whites.
By the way, I’ve seen a few confessional type stories in this thread so I suppose I ought to fess up one of my own: One day I was chatting to my SO about nothing in particular. For some reason the subject of race came up. I was quite taken aback when she told me that she doesn’t like blacks. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say much more about it. She didn’t have any problem with openly admitting to me that she didn’t like black people.
Does this make me a racist, because I presumably behave in such a way that she thinks I would be OK with this? I don’t know the answer, but it made me feel uncomfortable. I argued with her about it, but in the end there is no way to change someone’s mind about race overnight. Is it wrong that I still love her, despite this?
:rolleyes: monica, be prepared to hear this for the rest of your life. Even when you’re 35, somebody with the best of intentions will inform you that you’re just too young to decide if you really want children.
As the product of a an interracial relationship (my dad is Scottish/French Canadian and my mom is Chinese) I have no choice but to have an interracial relationship because I have yet to see someone with the exact same genetic background as my own. Also, just because you are of a certain race does not mean that you are of the same kind of culture. My Chinese family has been in Hawaii for generations and therefore do not do things the same way as a Chinese family from China. I’ve been dating a nice Jewish boy for six years and his family, as far as I can tell, has no problem. I feel as though I am apart of his family and my parents love him like a son of their own.
Don’t you roll eyes at me, young lady. I was suggesting that at 16, she is too young to decide not to have children. Your comment has boggled my brain slightly. Can you expand?
One of my brothers married a black woman; they have two adorable children. No one in the family cared at all about the colour of her skin. Still don’t. Never will. My only concern is for the happiness of the people in the relationship, not how light/dark their skin may be.
samarm, I decided against having children shortly after learning where they came from. For the next quarter of a century, all sorts of people who knew nothing about me, my feelings towards children, or my life in general, have felt compelled to tell me that I was “too young to decide if I really want children.” I do not speak for anyone but myself, but I find this insulting and offensive.
To suggest to a responsible, adult woman that she is too young to decide if she wants children is insulting, I agree. The lady my comment was directed to is only 16 years old - is my comment insulting in this context?
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As a 16 year old female: It is kind of insulting to be told you’re too young to rule out having kids, at least if you don’t know them very personally.
Example (which is kind of rambling): Myself. I’m not planning on having kids, ever, because I’m not planning to have sex, ever.
waits for inevitable exclamations and mutterings to die down.
The idea of sex repulses me. It’s sort of an emotional baggage issue, but the reasons as to why aren’t important here, the fact I have zero desire for sex is. That’s part of why I don’t get along with most guys my age - I know it’s a generalization, but most 16-year-old guys are incredibly horny (anyone arguing with this?)
I get really tired of people telling me that I’ll grow out of it, or that someday I really will want kids. I love kids, actually, and will probably adopt someday. But I do know I have no desire to have my own children. When people assume that I do, just like I want a fairy-tale wedding someday, because that’s what little girls want, it is kind of offensive to me. I am sixteen, old enough to drive, nearly old enough to vote, and legally old enough to have sex in my state, why on earth would I ‘not know for sure?’
If, at sixteen years of age, someone is not responsible enough to decide whether or not they’d like to have children, certainly the age-of-consent should be increased. If I’m not old enough to rule out having kids, why let me have sex? If monica had said she did want to have kids, would anyone have posted a reply saying “No, you’re too young to decide you want to have kids, don’t decide on it yet”? Highly doubtful.
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