One of which is producing a darker skin tone, and one of which is producing a lighter skin tone. These gene variants control the amount of melanin or pigment produced in the skin. However the particular genes that a child inherits from their parents and ancestors is actually a chance process. According to Dr Wilson, genetically a mixed race and European couple, who are expecting twins, have about a one in chance that they are of different skin colours.
This chance only applies to non-identical twins, because they are conceived from two eggs fertilised by two sperm. As in a painter's palette, in the skin the presence of pigment dominates the absence of pigment, so the fact that Hope is white is very unusual. Shirley's DNA test results also showed that she carries the gene for red hair, so there is the chance that Hope could be a red-head when she grows up.
As well as the genetic differences, there are emotional and psychological factors to also consider. Twelve-year-old Moesha from Glasgow struggles to fit in. She is white and her twin sister, Ebony and mother Stacey are black.
Stacey feels that her daughter's difference in skin colour has had an affect on her self-esteem and body image.
In this week's 'Teen Talk' column, a teen explains her experience growing up mixed and how parents can help their children navigate the complexities of being biracial with single-race friends and family. In my eighteen years growing up as mixed race, I've only had one biracial friend. She was a year younger than me and endlessly realistic—the one friend everyone needs who tells it like it is.
Growing up, my school district was predominantly white, and my identity had developed around that of my peers. I'd never thought of my mixed skin tone like this before.
My mom is white and my dad is black. But my mixed look has definitely been complicated for me. I was 4 years old the first time I realized that my mother's hair was nothing like mine and never would be.
My white friend later explained to me that it wasn't a big deal, her friends said it all the time. Now 18, I have predominantly white friends, and a white partner. I'm finally at the age where I can recognize not only my privilege in being mixed, but my luck in finding both black and white people that I love and identify with. Colorism, or discrimination based on skin complexion, plays a huge role in the ways that modern society operates and picks the minorities it wants to show.
There is also truth to the fact that being mixed can be incredibly difficult and confusing at times. Older relatives may even be stuck in a different generation where things were done for hygienic, economic or practical reasons. Those reasons might not exist today and may not apply to your home country so decide whether these traditions are still right for you and your children.
The first bath in Nigerian culture for our little ones was a great example of this. Hence, its significance is not practical anymore but the cultural value I could recognise, was still relevant and important to my husband. Your interracial kids are going to take on some aspects of your culture, but not all.
Just as you probably did growing up and then going on to have your own family. I remember that feeling well, wincing in shame when one of my friends commented that my house always smelled like exotic food. I hated being different. Now I try to make a fusion of food so my little ones can experience it all. As they get older though, trust that your children will be proud of who they are. Maturity brings with it pride in being able to be different and feeling comfortable. Kids just want to fit in with their friends-especially when they get to the teenage years.
Evaluate very carefully how important it is for your interracial kids to miss out on the biggest high school event of the year for a cultural event or insisting on traditional or cultural wear. Our children just want to be themselves, and I agree there is a fine line between wanting to imbibe important values, morals and ethics onto our children and imposing our own ideas.
Finding the balance, through talking it out, explaining your reasons and not dogmatically insisting without allowing for dialogue is easier said than done but necessary if you want to pull them along. Keep with it, encourage it in gentle ways. In reality, there WILL be a time when the need will arise to learn and to speak it. And your biracial children WILL show more interest.
Make decisions based on what you and your partner believe is right but keep your minds open as they get older. All of this will make them feel unable to relate to how you grew up and may make them feel like a tourist in your home country. In class, a Punnett square revealed that with a mate who also carried the recessive blue-eyed gene, I would have a 25 to 50 percent chance of passing on that hue.
I grew up in what is currently the whitest town in California, a picturesque enclave north of San Francisco with lots of open space and liberals and not a lot of diversity. Blue eyes were an emblem of whiteness, and as a child I aspired to whiteness, wanting to fit in. I directed my anger at my Japanese first name. No one could pronounce it; it seemed to trumpet my Otherness.
You can be Nicole. Neither seemed possible. The future, though—maybe that I could change. Someday, I could have a child with blue eyes. The first time I locked eyes with the man who would become my husband, I glimpsed something familiar. He wore a plaid shirt and jeans, and in his eyes I perceived a sensitivity, a way of seeing the world that I recognized. Over beers on the patio, we talked about what we shared: His mother was white; his father was from Kobe, Japan.
By then, I was no longer the girl who had studied Punnett squares. I had realigned my brain in college ethnic studies courses, lived in Japan and Honolulu, and come to embrace my name and racial identity. I no longer wished for blue eyes. Nor had I been looking for sameness. As the fog thickened overhead, prompting us to reach for our jackets, we found how easy it was to talk to each other.
0コメント