One of my good friends posted this on Facebook today. It really makes you think! Or at least it got me thinking.I grew up in a town with predominately black and white folks. While I had a whole lot of black friends I had always been raised to not date outside of my race. Something I never really thought of back then. Then about 10 years ago I met my oldest daughter’s father, who just so happened to be a black man. I really didn’t think much of it because we were friends and I had always had black friends. Then something happened. I grew feelings for him. It wasn’t something I had planned to or not to do. It just happened. It didn’t feel wrong to me the way I had always been raised to feel. So I went with my heart. Anyone that knows me knows my relationship with him was clearly one of my absolute worst relationships I had ever been in. In fact the only good that came out of that relationship is my beautiful daughter! She is the reason I will never regret the time I wasted on him. So there I was suddenly the single mom of a 9 year old white son and a newborn biracial daughter. I can’t even begin to tell you the immense love I had for both of them. I never ever once regretted having either of them. Thankfully I had always raised Budah to not view people by their skin color. He was such a very proud brother the day she was born. Hence the picture at the very bottom of this blog. The first time he locked his eyes on this precious brown eyed girl it was love at first sight. A few months later my now husband came into our lives. He is the reason my daughter knows the true love and bond between a daughter and her daddy. In fact it was this very moment, as I took this very picture, that I knew I would spend the rest of my life with this man and was certain he loved my children as much as he loves me. I won’t go into the details of the horrible relationship I had with her father. Or the absolutely horrible father he turned out to be for her. The only thing I will say is I am grateful that while he lives close by I am so thankful he has finally left her alone and hasn’t been around in years.

Anyway, when Bunny was little she never really had questions or concern about the difference in our skin color. That really didn’t come along until she started school. Of course really my first time out with her as a newborn I had a complete stranger ask me what country I had adopted her from. Those rude out of line questions never have really stopped. I have always done my best to shelter her from the sheer ignorance of people when it comes to race. I have cut people out of my life that I have known since I was a child myself in order to protect my monsters. It’s one thing to have to protect their innocence from strangers, it’s another to have to protect them from people that should want to do the same for them. At the age of eight the questions come a little more frequently now. I answer them with complete honesty and to the best of my ability. She has on more than one occasion expressed that she wishes she were the same color as me. To which I reply I wish I had her beautiful skin tone! That is the absolute truth, this child’s complexion is nothing short of stunning! I have recently shared this photo with her to explain that regardless of how we look on the outside, we are are the same on the inside. It made her smile! She is faced with challenges that I know we won’t always be able to shelter her from. But we do our absolute best to prepare her for the ignorance of others. She has questioned why people say our president is only “black” when his parents are black and white. That’s always been a tough one for me to understand as well. Why should one race over rule the other in a biracial child? After all it took the combination of both races to make her the person she is today. In our opinion she is both and we embrace both cultures for her. Now that Buggie is getting old enough to understand the difference in her and her big sister’s skin tone she has really only had one question “When will I get to be brown too?”. It truly melts my heart to see the love we share in this household for each person’s individualism. The fact that we all have a different appearance but we are a family and are all the same on the inside. I find myself frequently praying for people to view race and biracial relationships and children differently. I have searched for the Bible verse that says it is wrong and all I find is people twisting verses into meaning something it is not. I have yet to find the verse that says my beautiful child is a sin. When I look at her all I see is the happy singing, dancing, cheering, loving, bubbly, blessing that I get to call my daughter. I am so thankful God blessed me with her. This one eight year old little girl has changed the views of so many people about race and is so loved by many!