This week, South Korea expert Robert E. Kelly‘s BBC on air segment went viral as he was discussing the recent impeachment of that nation’s president Live when his two daughters burst into the room where he was Skyping his interview.
The Pusan National University political science professor’s wife, Jung-a Kim, shut it down when she burst into the room, ninja style, ducking low, but making a ton of noise and dragged the kids out of the room. Many work-at-home parents can relate.
It is hilarious (You can catch it HERE).
One of the by-products of the video is the discussion among members of the public and the media who assumed that Kelly’s Korean wife was the nanny, not the mom of the two racially-ambiguous kids.
While one could understand the presumption of many, given the trend of interracial marriages, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume the woman was the mom.
The number of mixed-race babies
has soared over the past decade, new census data show, a result of more interracial couples and a cultural shift in how many parents identify their children in a multiracial society. In fact, more than 7 percent of the 3.5 million children born in the year before the 2010 Census were of two or more races, up from barely 5 percent a decade earlier. The number of children born to black and white couples and to Asian and white couples almost doubled.
Young & Restless actress Victoria Rowell wrote in her autobiography that her nurse refused to give her blonde hair blue eye baby to her after birth before triple checking.
In light of the recent video with Kelly, there have been a few summaries and think pieces on the unconscious bias and micro-aggression many women of color around the world endure when they are asked by well-meaning people what agency they work for or if they are the mom to their own children.
This is not one.
I have several friends who are married to men of European decent who have children that are very fair and have physical features that are also quite European-looking. I have a few blogger friends as well who have penned pieces on the topic and I’ve written about one from the DC area, Thien-Kim Lam, whose entire blog is actually titled, “I”m Not the Nanny”.
Because this topic is new to a lot of folks who cannot imagine these women’s perspective, I curated 14 Blogs and Interviews with over 15 women of color giving their first-hand personal essays on this topic. Check them out:
No, I’m Not the Nanny, He’s Really my Son, Stacy-Ann Gooden, Weather Anchor Mama
I’m Not the Nanny — Darker Mom, Lighter Baby, Angela Gray, Huffington Post
No, I’m not the nanny: When you don’t look like your kids, reporting by Pamela Sitt, TODAY Moms
Nope! I’m Not the Nanny, Just a Black Mom, Thanks, Nicole Blades, Jezebel
I’m Not the Nanny: Multiracial Families and Colorism, Allyson Hobbs review of Lori Tharps’ book, New York Times
I’m Not the Nanny, Collection, What to Expect.com
No, I’m Not the Nanny, Jennifer Borget, BabyMakingMachine
My Daughter, I’m Not her Nanny, C. Fleming, The Race Card Project
I’m her Mom, Not the Nanny, Rose Arce, CNN
No, I’m Not the Nanny, Paloma Thomas, The Gal-Dem.com
No, I’m Not the Nanny, Sage Steele, People
No, I’m Not their Nanny, Vivienne Lewis, Chronicles of a Young Mother
Please Stop Asking me If I’m the Nanny, Oriana Branon, Scary Mommy
Here is a young white mom who is mistaken for being the nanny of her biracial son in the Upper West Side of New York.
No, I’m Not the Nanny, Allison, Motherhood Project NYC
Finally, my journalist friend Jamila Bey and a multiracial San Diego native Phaedra Erring who each are parents to blonde haired blue eyed kids, and New York Times Motherlode blogger Lisa Belkin were interviewed by NPR.
Also on this interview is Carolyn Hall who is a white woman who has two African adopted kids and a bi-racial child with her Jamaican-American husband, who is given harsh looks while out with her African kids because people assume wrongly she “stole” them from her husband’a previous relationship.
. Listen to their stories:
