My Final Thought on Biracial Children

I have done research on the lives of biracial children for over 3 months. After conducting my research and doing an interview, I still believe biracial children have a harder life than children born of one race. I think biracial children not only have to face racism but they also have to overcome identity issues that they will be faced with during some point of their lives.

I think its important for the parents of biracial children to make sure their children are educated about racism. Educate them about the customs and heritage of all the races that the child is apart of. And most of all, make sure their children know how special they really are! By doing this, when their children are faced with racism or an identity issue the children will have an easier time going through the ordeal and still maintain a positive image about themselves.

I hope with these blogs and the essays I have written, people have become aware of how important it is to treat everyone with respect! Everyone wants to feel accepted! Biracial children are faced with many obstacles every day...let's not make racism one of those obstacles anymore!

http://mulattodiaries.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/black-mask.jpg

Biracial Childrens' Grandparents

Your grandparents are usually people that treat you better than anyone else on this earth! They take you on trips, you spend weekends at their house, they come to all your sporting events, and they spoil you like no other! Your grandparents make you feel so loved and so special.

Due to how society labels and looks at biracial children, sometimes grandparents of biracial children face a challenge they are not quite sure how to handle. You see, the grandparents of the biracial children love their grandchildren. But when the grandparents go out in public with their biracial grandchildren sometimes they are not prepared for the stares and comments. This is more promident with grandparents who are white. Some white grandparents fear the label of being associated with a black family. They are also scared of what society and their neighbors will think of them. Can you believe that some grandparents actually will distance themselves or have no relationship with their grandchildren because they are biracial? Imagine how that affects a child!

On the other hand, sometimes it can bring the families together. In my case, my parents did not speak to me for 1 1/2 years because I married someone of a different race. When I was pregnant my mother told me she would have nothing to do with any of my children. The moment my first child was born my parents in love with my son. The birth of my two children actually helped my family become closer. My parents learned to love unconditionally and no longer saw black and white...they just saw family!

http://www.zimbio.com/Interracial+Marriage+Culture/articles/23/Interracial+Marriages+Effects+Children

More Acceptance for Biracial People?

Twenty years ago when I first married my husband I felt like the only interracial couple in Virginia. Although that really was not the case, you could look around and see that we were not the majority in our community. Our two children were born within the first five years of our marriage. I often wondered how they would be treated and would being multiracial cause problems for them. My biggest concern was that my children would not be accepted by anyone!

Fast forward to 2009 and I see many interracial couples. It almost seems like there is at least one interracial couple on every street. Interracial couples have quadrupled since a census took place in 1970. Research also shows that multiracial people make up for five percent of the population and has become the fastest growing demographic group in the United States. Some even suggest that multiracial people one day will be the majority!

Certainly with more people becoming socially accepting of race mixing there will be more and more multiracial people. There are also major multiracial icons for people to admire like Tiger Woods and President Obama. Having a biracial President alone should make the American public more accepting of biracial people.

I am sure its just a matter of time before multiracial people are accepted for who they are and not what they look like. One day they will not have to choose between their heritages because everyone will accept them as an individual and not where their ancestors came from! I truely believe biracial people are gaining more acceptance from others each day! Its just a matter of time for people to start seeing gray, instead of making everything a black or white issue!

http://www.projectrace.com/inthenews/archive/inthenews-052809.php

Biracial Children and Dating

When my son became a teenager I was quite worried about him dating. I had the common worries like most parents do but I also had one concern that most people do not have to deal with. I was worried that my son would want to date someone and the girl's parents would not approve of him because of his race. And unless my son found another biracial teenager, he had a very good chance of being rejected by both the white and black race!

I use to cringe every time he came home and said he had a new girlfriend! It would bring back memories for me from the time I brought home my boyfriend. I remember my parents disapproving of him and how hurt he was. My boyfriend was not allowed to even come to the house. I did not want my son to have to face those obstacles. Although I think I was more worried than my son, he always knew that there was a chance of a parent rejecting him for the color of his skin.

I am happy to announce that so far my son has not had any problems. The parents of all the girlfriends have all been really nice. I am not sure if interracial dating is more acceptable these days or if the parents realized that high school relationships were not really that serious. I'm hoping that my son continues to have success with dating and that him being biracial is not a problem with the girlfriend's family.

Citation

Interracial Dating - Should We Only Date "our Kind" ? Ria Rodridguez. October
2008. Articlesbase. 04 October 2009. http://www.articlesbase.com/dating

After reading the above article I believe more people are accepting interracial dating. The article lists how people feel actually feel about about dating outside your race. I will use this article to debate my viewpoint that race does not matter anymore and that biracial children are very common in society.

I still believe many people will judge you for what you look like and not how good of a person you actually are. I believe sometimes biracial children will have a problem dating and that everyone is to accept everyone as one big melting pot.

Biracial Children and the School System

Every year I go through the same ordeal with the Henrico County School System. My kids come home from the first day of school with tons of paperwork to fill. Some of the forms require you to fill in your child's race. I would have no problem filling these forms out if I could fill them out correctly. However some of these forms do not have a mult-race box. How am I suppose to fill out the race portion of the form correctly when there is not an option for biracial children?

Each year when I am forced to mark my children as either white or black I chose a different box every year! I do so because I know my children's school record has to be changed. This causes someone to have to manually change my children's record, causing them more work! I'm hoping that someone will realize that not everyone is just from one race. A multi-race box would resolve everything!

I also have a problem marking my child down as a "other". Doesn't that sound like they are an alien? My children are human beings, not an "other". Maybe I am being a little offensive but I truely believe making labeling a child as an "other" could cause low self-esteem. If the school system really wants to keep track of what race is the school system then maybe they need to include all the races! A multi-racial box would be the answer! I read an article stating on recommendations to educators on biracial children. The article I read also stated that educators should assume that a interracial child only has the identity of one parent.

Jennifer Beale

Indentity Problems in Biracial Youth. (n.d.) Fall 2004. Retrieved September 20, 2009 from http://www.cehd.umn.edu/

Biracial Struggles

I have two wonderful children that I could not be more proud of. My kids do well in school, they are active in sports and they participate in many community involvement activities. Yet the very same community where my children live, work, and worship in have faced obstacles and challenges that only certain people could relate to. My children learned at a very young age that sometimes people may not accept them based on their appearance. People have made racist comments towards them and prejudicial treatment. Although many people can relate to racism, my children have had to relate to racism and racial identity problems. In my journey, I will share with you the experiences my children face on a daily basis and how they learned to be proud of themselves and their heritages.

My children are biracial. Their father is Afro-American and I am Italian. My children have learned how to deal with bigotry and racial comments from both the black and white race. Society has sometimes chosen for my children what race they believe my children should be. Imagine how my children must feel going to school and having the school system declare them as an “other”. In many cases biracial children are faced with identity problems, feeling the need to choose only one of their heritages and rejecting the other side to feel like they belong somewhere.

I suggest for everyone to read this great article I found online. It touches the topic of identity problems among biracial children. One line that really struck a core with me was when the author said “We live in a society that sees things as black and white, with no gray areas.” (Identity problems in biracial youth). After reading this article I was upset that many government groups and educators assume that all interracial children should be classified as black. Why can’t they be considered multi-racial? Why should biracial children feel the need to discredit one of their races? My goal for this blog is make people aware of the challenges biracial children face. Society likes to classify everyone. I hope one day people will realize we are all in one, big melting pot and the only label we need to classify people under is the human race.

Jennifer Beale

Identity Problems in Biracial Youth. (Fall, 2009) Regents of University of Minnesota . Retrieved September 5, 2009 from http://www.cehd.umn.edu/EdPa/licensure/leader/2004Fall/identity.html