The Baby Blues

When the mixing of races doesn’t quite melt

What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough enough enough to take
The world and all its got And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee colored people by the score

From the song Melting Pot by Blue Mink, 1969

I’m a coffee-colored person by this song’s definition. I was a pre-teen when I first heard it, and it stuck with me. I was oblivious to the offensive racial slurs in the rest of the lyrics in my fresh-faced ignorance. I only heard the positive, mixed harmony it called for. Now that I’m in my thirties and I’m much more conscious of race and racial bias, I’ll never hear it the same way again.

My partner and his family are White. One of the first things I learned about my partner’s mother was that she always wanted to be a grandmother.

A couple of years after I met her, when I was pregnant with our child, she invited my partner and me to visit his family for Christmas. While we were driving back from his extended family’s Christmas eve dinner at his aunts’ house, she began talking about how much she loved blue eyes. How pretty her, my partner’s, and his cousins’ eyes were. She said, “I hope the baby gets our eyes.” followed by a casual, “That’s not racist.” As if to reassure herself. She knew there was something wrong with saying it. I awkwardly responded with, “Blue eyes can be pretty.” and “He’ll be beautiful no matter what color his eyes are.” Wondering why no one else in the car was saying anything. I scold myself for not saying more often.

Fast forward a few months of awkward interactions like that, including a baby shower for her that almost entirely excluded me as a mother. Our baby I’d labored for 52 hours was finally breathing air. Our families had been together in the waiting room for a good amount of that. She and my partner’s father made it to our hospital room first. One of the first questions she asked me was about my parents. “So, they’re from Saudi Arabia? And, their religion is Muslim?” with concern in her voice and as though she hadn’t even known that. As though meeting them confirmed it a reality when it hadn’t settled in her mind before. “Don’t do that!” came from my father-in-law, followed by silence. I was exhausted. My partner was too.

The next few days were full of similarly terrible interactions. The one that makes me tear up when I remember it is my child’s grandmother holding his tiny, fragile, then gray-eyed self after he was finally out of NICU, looking into his face and saying, “I hope your eyes turn blue.”

She came to visit with her daughter three months later, uninvited and without any direct communication with me. While sitting on our couch, she casually said, “Oh, I wanted to send your parents a gift for that holiday you guys celebrate but, then I realized I didn’t know how to spell their names, so I didn’t send it.” More casually, “You can tell me how later. Not now.” She’d had several meals with my parents before this. She and they are on social media. I emailed her the spelling of their names later. She didn’t send them anything for the holiday.

There’s been more. Some worse and some more palatable. Several failed attempts at talking about it and loads of deflection and ignoring. The last time I asked her in-person why she doesn’t call or text me or ask about our child, she told me it’s because she gets “worried [I] don’t translate things right.” My partner’s father disliked the face I made when I got upset and pointed out that she was being very unfair and that I speak English well enough. He disliked it so much that he spit-yelled at me in front of our child. To be fair, she had just told him I’d waited for him to leave the room to “attack” her with questions. What started as an apology call from him a few days later turned into him telling me he wasn’t sure I was “good” for his son.

There hasn’t been any change since. Nothing my partner or I have said to either of them has been heard.

The only question my child’s grandmother has ever asked me about my child is, “What height percentile is he in?”. She’s asked that three times. With each, I’ve told her it doesn’t matter to us because the data isn’t from kids like him, but that we could Google it for her.

He will be two years old in June.

Imagine always wanting to be a grandmother, then choosing not to make an effort to be involved when you finally are because your only grandchild’s mother is so different; your grandchild’s eyes aren’t blue.

Then, imagine being my partner and watching your family react to the one you start so cautiously. The strain and tension it brings into the mix feel like bricks. You see, he never thought his parents could be racist. He’d never seen it in them until we decided to have a family. Honestly, I didn’t see it in them until then either. It’s almost like our decision to procreate triggered resentment.

Interracial couples have a 41% chance of separation or divorce, compared with a 31% chance among couples who married within their race.

— Pew Research Center

We aren’t separating, but the complexity of the necessary conversations and the hurt from our experience so far has a weight that we have to push against actively. It isn’t easy.

While the inspiring beauty that can only result from the mixing of cultures and identities is undeniable, the gas-filled bubbles that can grow and burst in the process are undeniable too.

I, just like the 60’s flower power anthem, misunderstood what the melting pot meant and needed.

So, if jumping into the pot is part of your journey, have the hard conversations and ask all the uncomfortable questions first. Don’t assume that extended family will have the same attitudes you and your partner do. It’s a long, gassy simmer to the melting point when not all the ingredients are prepared. And when they’re stubborn, preventing a premature boil takes very heavy work.

An Injustice!