Taylor Pederson,
MN.
Almost 2 years ago I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl. She has my smile, my big eyes, my fine hair with a touch of red that shows when the sun hits it, my long fingers, and so much more. But no one sees this. They don’t see me in her because I have round blue eyes, light brown hair, and fair freckled skin. All they see is her olive skin, dark hair, and the way her eyes pinch in the corner like her daddy’s do. They see an Asian baby and I feel forgotten. Don’t get me wrong. I love my beautiful girl and I love that her Korean side shows. I’m proud of my brown eyed girl and I wouldn’t change a thing about her. But I hate the way people take one look and classify her as different from me. Not just different, but separate. They check a different box for her. She’s my baby. She comes from me. She’s part of me and I’m part of her. Her coloring shouldn’t define her away from me.
I don’t look like my mother. We are both white but I’m slim and she’s curvy. I have brown hair and fair skin, she a natural so-blond-it’s-almost-white with tanned skin. If you didn’t know us you wouldn’t guess we were related. But no one ever walked up and asked her “what’s having a brown-haired baby like?”. No one ever asked if she was my nanny or where she got me from. I wasn’t immediately judged as different.
So to answer the question, I don’t know what it’s like to have an Asian baby because I don’t have an Asian baby. Or a White baby. I have my one-of-a-kind HUMAN daughter and that is pretty wonderful 🙂
