This essay, written by Susanne W. Lee, was first published in my Mixed Mama zine, which I published 2002-2004. You can find more topics like it in the Mixed Mama book

I was visiting my friend Carolyn in Toronto last winter. Her family is originally from the Caribbean and her husband is from Southeast Asia. Their daughter was two at the time. She told me that the first time someone at her neighborhood park asked her, “Is she yours?” she cried. It was a cautionary tale. I was angry and was not about to let that happen to me, as I knew it eventually would. In anticipation, I began to think of snappy, witty, or sarcastic retorts to respond to those rude enough to ask.
In New York city this summer, I would encounter that particular line of inquisition almost on a daily basis whenever I took my three year old son to the Greenwich Village playgrounds. I came up with three to begin with, they would get snottier as the number increased or my mood got worse or it got more humid.

“Is he yours?” Slightly inappropriately loud and picking up and kissing my son, “Oh, absolutely.”

A puzzled expression with a tilt of the head. “Excuse me?”

A very flip: “No, he’s a rental.”

Those were usually enough to shut up or embarrass my inquisitor and there would be a nervous chuckle.

On a particularly muggy afternoon in Washington Square, a white father sized us up, as my son lay with his head on my lap and I stroked his forehead, and the following little dialogue ensued.

“Is he your son?”

What was I going to say? “No, he’s my boyfriend.”

A loud “Yes, what’s your son’s name?”

He responds, “Sebastian.”

I get uppity and ask, “Did you get that from Shakespeare.” I didn’t even say Twelth Night, but the reference went over his head. I got him, but why should we even be involved in these silly games? It makes a good story, though.

When the white parents realize that I’m a player in their “Get to the Ivy League Sweepstakes,” because I went to college, then they try to either get all chummy or engage in more insipid braggadocio. After their earlier blunder, I simply have no interest in getting to know anymore about them, no matter how ineptly they try to make up.

Would someone ask a white woman pushing a Chinese girl in a shiny new Mclaren stroller, “Is she yours?” Absolutely not. White people can travel halfway around the world, spend thousands of dollars adopting little Chinese girls and no one questions that. Why can’t I get extended the same courtesy?

The underlying assumption is that because I am a different shade from my son, I cannot possibly be his mother. I must be the nanny. Is this the 1950’s Mississippi? I naively hope that we are beyond this type of thinking, but here in New York, it is alive and well.

If my response to “Is he your son?” is impolite, simply consider the nature of the question.

It is amazing that these attitudes still exists, but I deal with them more than I would like to. I’ll come up with more sarcastic answers to fend off questions. The problem isn’t mine. Maybe it’s about time that those people asking us those questions should take a good look in the mirror, think about their racism and worry about the future of their own children.

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This essay was written by Susanne W. Lee. Ms. Lee has written about mehndi in Delhi, Hong Kong cinema and human rights for publications such as The Village Voice, The Nation, AsiaWeek and Giant Robot

This blog is by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

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