Hapa Dads

[hapasc]

Intro: I'm Korean/Irish-American... but I look full-on Asian... especially here in South Carolina.

I have a son with my caucasian wife. He looks totally white; blonde hair, blue eyes, light skin. Everywhere we go we get stares anyway. Now it is completely out of hand everyone is like "is that his kid"... and are they a couple even. I actually told a guy that was staring that I was the kid's math tudor.

Tell me I'm not alone here. Anyone out there have a child that doesn't exactly look like their own?

Our next child will look like me and people will think we're a modern Brady Bunch.

[Dimeron]

http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=33137

It seems our local super mod is facing the same issue. Except she looks white and her son looks more Asian.

[hapasc]

now that's some funny chit right there. thanks Dim

[VV o n g B a]

definitely not a unique situation, but not quite common either...

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/02/black-and-white-twins.php

[Jason S]

I'm Korean-German (and look more Korean) with a completely different situation. My son (who is 2) looks just like me and nothing like my wife (who is blonde and blue-eyed). I also live in the south (Tennessee). My guess is that plenty of people assume that she has adopted a brown child from somewhere (when I'm not with them).

I grew up in rural Missouri, and my father had a dilemma somewhat similar to yours. I looked nothing like him (and still don't). I'm sure people who see us together don't think we're related.

My sister's situation is like yours. She clearly looks Asian but her three children all have blonde hair and blue eyes. She says that sometimes people think that she's their nanny!

These kinds of situations are difficult, I think, and it's often dishonest when people just say, "I don't think anything about it." I admire your honesty. My wife and I have just had a second child. I was hoping that she would look more like my wife for my wife's sake--so people wouldn't wonder this or that. But her eyes have turned brown and her skin is getting darker (she's now four months). I live in a very rural area and I think that I'm lucky that my son looks like me. I'd feel a little uneasy in certain situations, I think, if I thought people "wondered" what this brown guy was doing with this white child. About ten years ago I was pulled over in Texas by a Highway Patrolman for having a headlight out (during the day). My blonde girlfriend and blonde three-year old daughter were in the backseat sleeping, and I think this guy thought I was Mexican and that I might have carjacked them. I had to put my hands on the car and I was frisked and questioned about where I was going and where I had come from. Then I had to sit in his car for twenty minutes while he "checked my information." I was then ticketed for not signaling when he pulled me over. If my girlfriend and her daughter had been dark-skinned I'm sure I wouldn't have been pulled over at all.

I think it can be a real internal struggle if part of you wants your child to look like you. As good, loving parents we are supposed to love our children no matter what, so if we want our kids to look like us (or at least not completely different), we immediately feel guilty. I'm pretty confident that my sister and wife have these struggles. I'm sure my father did too, though he's never said so. Of course we have these feelings because of the vibe that others are giving us. We don't actually care what our children look like, we just don't want to have to feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or in certain situations, threatened.

People are getting a lot more used to seeing mixed families, but the dark-skinned male with the white woman is still seen by many as a threat. You still don't see many Asian men with white women on t.v.

In one of my favorite poems by Martin Espada (called "Rednecks"), a farmer pulls up to a gas station and the boys working there notice his wife has a badly disfigured face. They stare at her. The farmer notices, leans over and gives her a deep long kiss. Maybe that's all we can do. Smile, show the world we love our kids and let them deal with it (which isn't to say that it's ever easy for us to deal with them).

Good luck fellow southerner.

[hapasc]

Jason,
Thanks, my man. I can tell you that your post is one of the best on the subject I've read and I appreciate your time in typing out your thoughts.

Ty

[VV o n g B a]

i've read a little bit more on the subject and just wanted to mention that it is far more common for children to have the phenotypic traits of their fathers than their mothers. the reason for this is that before modern times, there wasn't any good way for a guy to determine whether he'd been cuckolded except thru the appearance of his children. apparently, it's even pretty typical for a wife's family to say that a child looks like their dad when they really don't. i'm not trying to start trouble, but if u have any more kids that don't resemble u at all, u may want to think about why that may be.

the basic premise behind it is that parents will tend to pass down traits that will be valuable to their kids. fathers will tend to pass down traits that cause his kids to look like him so he will be more likely to support them as they grow up. beautiful parents will tend to have daughters because beauty is generally more useful to women than men. tall parents will have more boys for the opposite reason, and so on and so forth.

the reasoning came from this book if u're interested:
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-People-Have-More-Daughters/dp/0399533656

[kimpossible]

Everyone tells me that our son looks like my husband and not me. They have no idea that some of those Asian features are my contribution. It can change over the years. Some people, like me, look more Asian as a child then 'grow out' of it.

[bmwhype]

Tell me I'm not alone here. Anyone out there have a child that doesn't exactly look like their own?

paternity test?

[thaite]

Man, where the hell do you all live?

I'm not a dad, and I guess growing up I never noticed this with my brothers and my own dad.

I would venture to say that the military community experiences a higher rate of interracial marriage/families than the larger US population, and are less surprised upon seeing one.

[hapasc]

dude. hold your horses.

the kid is mine and he does look somewhat asian. he has blue eyes and blonde hair... but he looks like a caucasian me.

when i initially posted it was mostly about reactions and the typical southern hospitality we sometimes encounter.

i remember as a kid when my father and i lived in GA, people would ask what country I came from and he would say, TX. :biggrin: