For seven years, I have endured strange looks and questions from random strangers while out with my kids. I am probably one of the whitest people you will ever meet. I’ve had pale, easy-to-burn skin all my life and used to be made fun of for it when I was a kid. My hair is medium brown, eyes are blue and shoulders mildly freckled. My children look nothing like me. They have gorgeous, flawless tan skin, chocolate-brown eyes, and thick dark brown hair. They are lovely and head-turningly beautiful. I would say this even if they weren’t mine.
The older they get the more apparent it is that these children have inherited none of my physical traits, at least at first glance. My princess has the exact shape body I did at her age with matching long legs, but people don’t see past the skin color. It doesn’t matter where we are: church, the playground, grocery store or wherever, random strangers {mostly women} will make a beeline for me to ask {out loud} if my kids are adopted. Puzzled when I tell them “No, they are mine,” they look at all of us perplexed asking, “Really?”. Really. Because why would I lie to you, complete stranger whom I have never met. Maybe I would, if my children actually were adopted and didn’t know it and here you are outing me in front of them. “Yes, really,” and then more questions and comments are fired my way, “They just don’t look anything like you! Is your husband Hispanic? They look Mexican. I just assumed you were either their Nanny or you adopted them”.
My comments are always nice when I assure them they are my children and I didn’t just snatch them from someone else, but it is infuriating. I’m not bothered by the fact that they don’t look like me. I’m irritated at the brazenness of these nosey people who are bringing unnecessary self-consciousness to my children. The baby is too young for this to bother him, but my 5 and 7 year olds are aware of what adoption means and are at an age where they question everything. My mother was adopted and we explained to them when they could grasp the concept that my grandparents chose my mother with love. I imagine it would be devastating to them if they found out we have been lying to them all their lives about where they came from and that everything we have told them about carrying them, delivery and otherwise was a total façade. At one point after one of these encounters, my oldest even asked me if she was adopted despite the videos and photos we have backing up that she most definitely grew in and came out of my own body.
Why is it anyone’s business? Why is there so much focus on skin color? It’s just skin. This world has come so far in so many ways, yet there are just some people who can’t see past skin color despite someone’s character or morals. My husband is super dark with thick black hair. He’s Indian and is classified as “caucasian” on his driver’s license. His parents are from Kerala, India. He was born in New Jersey, but has lived in Texas most of his life. He’s strong, handsome, insanely intelligent and the funniest man I have ever met. Yet, on the commuter bus to and from work people would rather stand than sit next to him. Because he isn’t white. Because he is Indian. Because they have some idiotic preconceived notion that he is probably a terrorist waiting for the bomb he planted on the bus to blow up even though he is holding a homemade cake I made for him to take in to work. The audacity is unbearable. I hurt for him having to endure this and that I can do nothing to stop it. I hurt for him knowing this bothers him, but outwardly he smiles his beautiful, heart-stopping smile to the ignorant, racist bigots who would rather stand an entire hour for the commute than to sit next to the man who stole my heart with his wits and charm. I hurt for my children who are made to question who they are and where they come from because some idiot with two eyes can’t keep her enormous mouth shut.
People aren’t so quick to comment when the five of us are together, but we do see the glances from me to him to the kids and then back to the both of us with a nod of recognition as if saying to themselves, “Oh, that makes sense”. But does it have to make sense? Is it really anyone’s business? We have happy and healthy children regardless of how they were brought in to our lives. Yes, we made them with our bodies and out of complete and total love for one another. They grew from love and share that with the lives they touch. They are amazing. They don’t see color at all. They only see the good in people and I thank God for that, because honestly in this scary world I worry for them every day. I worry about how mean people can and will be to them at some point in their lives because most inevitably they will cross paths with bigotry. All we can do is continue to do what we do as their parents and make sure they know how much they are loved and that being different is something to embrace and be thankful for. We are all different in some shape, color, or form and though it might be a hard concept for some to embrace, it’s the truth. My children have been changing and enriching the lives of people they have touched their whole existence on this Earth. To know them is to love them and I do with my whole being. I would even if they were purple with orange stripes.
But, Jackson and Ryan took a little time out to do Cheers! 
