Raising an Intercultural Child

I am reading a book titled, Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? by Donna Jackson Nakazawa (Caucasian woman married to a Japanese man with two biracial children). I really like it! She shares many incidents and encounters with people who are either insensitive about or flat out racist towards her interracial family. She shares practical advice about how to address these issues with children growing up in a multiracial family and discusses the issues of race so honestly, I feel like I'm sitting in a coffee house chatting with her over a non-fat, sugar-free, vanilla latte (the only Starbucks drink I can have on the South Beach diet). I'm only two chapters into the book, but I feel like it should be read by anyone who comes into contact with multiracial families, and in many states that's a growing segment of the American population. She makes the argument that while it would be nice to raise children to be "color blind," the reality is that this world is very "color conscious." Having moved from a city in our country that is very diverse to a community that has a significant history in race relations, I have to agree with her that we can't raise our children to not be prepared for a color conscious world. The part of the book that has got me thinking this morning is her discussion on our obsession with commenting on children's physical features...beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, skin tone and complexion, etc. I am at fault of this kind of objectification...and it has really caused me to step back and think about what I will say the next time I see a child, even to a white child with a white family.

I am not nervous about raising a child who is of a different ethnicity than mine. I just want to be prepared for how I will handle the kind of comments or stares that I will most definitely encounter. I especially want to best raise our son with a strong sense of self so that he will be able to confidently respond to people who either naively, or not so innocently, make comments about our interracial family.