Kids are curious and often cruel, we know this. If you had a child of mixed ethnicity, a non-anglo looking child, would you counsel them in ways to answer questions others have about, "what are you- where are you from?"?

My mom had me say, “I’m human. What are you?” when I was too little to think of my own answer.

@electricsky:
:D I like that. Unfortunately it wouldn’t have worked, kids are quick to come back with, “ha- you look like some type of such-and-such to me” and then there’d be brawling.

What age group are you talking about? I hope that most kids who would ask this are actually curious, not cruel. What’s wrong with saying “My mom’s from ___, and my dad’s from ___”? I’m pretty much as white as they come, so maybe I just don’t have a good frame of reference for this, but is it now considered rude to ask someone about their nationality or culture?
I like electricsky’s answer too, by the way.

my daughter is pretty dark, I don’t know, I guess it would depend on the questions and her answers.

Her best friend is black (from Cape Verde), and he’s cool about it, everybody loves him anyway. But his sister tries to hide her roots (something hard to do when you’re black in an all-white society). I tell her stuff like “black is beautiful” and that she should be proud of who she is and tell people, just like her brother does. But it all depends on the society too.

No, I would counsel them about how kids are curious and cruel.

I would console them about how less likely they are to become a victim of stereotypes.

I was told as a child to say I was American, and to keep repeating that if asked again. That’s what I say now.

I was lucky to raise my bi-racial child in a very diverse community (Well if I hadn’t lived in a diverse community I probably wouldn’t have had a biracial child) And some of my siblings spouses are of different ethnicities so family gatherings represent all races and combinations.

When my daughter was 11 she announced that she liked a boy at school. When I asked her why she liked him she said he was Filipino like she was. It was actually a shock because she came up with that thought on her own. BTW she still identifies herself as Filipino but grew out of picking her friends by race.

@Likeradar: kids are curious and not so cruel under 10yrs old, after that it gets edgy and their parents are no better if they see your own aren’t around to observe.

@galileogirl: I was lucky in being put into a ethnically diverse school for awhile but when I moved to a predominantly anglo school, it got weird. I’m considered dark in my family so we decided to pick a story that would match up closest to my looks. As I made closer friends then of course we were more open because let’s face it, backgrounds are cool!

I also meant to say that ‘kids are cruel’ doesn’t have to be. They also start off telling lies, hitting, biting, taking things that don’t belong to them and peeing in their pants as toddlers. Hopefully their parents don’t let them grow into childhood that way.

Actually, we have had fewer problems with appearance than we have had with the concept of adoption. However, in any case a great deal depends on the parent’s approach as well as the child’s personality. We tend to turn things like that into a joke and a learning opportunity both.

My husband (who is of Japanese ancestry) tends to tell folks who ask where he is from that he comes from 1) Chicago (where he grew up), 2) California (where he was born), 3) a concentration camp (he was born in one of the WWII internment camps), or 4) America. OTOH, he sometimes has to deal with people who will walk up to him and insist he is Inuit, or ask him what tribe he is from, or will insist on speaking Spanish to him (I am the Hispanic one in the household).

Our kids have a problem in that they are both mixed race but my son definitely looks African-American, while my daughter, with similar features, is blond haired and green eyed with pale skin. Many folks assume that one is adopted but the other is not. The answer they learned to give is that everyone is adopted at our house, even the dogs, and that we specialize in looking different from each other so we can tell ourselves apart.

In any case, we have had relatively few problems because we make light of any problems we have come across, we are obviously and publicly proud of our diversity, and possibly because we greet each new person as an individual greeting another individual and take their questions at face value. No looking for motives here!

Darwin, sometimes it takes a sense of humor. My daughter resembled her father and in the 70’s I fostered a little boy who was Chinese/Mexican ancestry. We made guite a picture-father, daughter and son who all looked alike with a really pale green-eyed blonde. It turned a few heads. One day in 1975 a woman approached me in a store when I was with my daughter and asked me how I ‘got’ a Vietnamese orphan. Even a Dr assumed she was adopted.

I saw a program once on how multi-racial teen-agers would deal with it. The consensus was that teenagers are going to have to deal with things and biracialism is one of the most benign issues to have a crisis about.

Not sure. It’s something which one potentially live with thru childhood without realizing it’s due to looking ‘different’, as i did (English being my native tongue) ... so my experience with responding to this is quite limited.

Answering the town one was born &/or raised in, if it’s in the US, may keep them from pursuing the issue any further, especially if you ask them what they asked you. I tend to do the same with questions about my heritage.

Personally, i slightly dread being asked where i was born as opposed to where i’m from, for the tendency to have to almost justify be being here by making it clear i was born a US citizen (since not all citizens were born such, and i hate contrasting myself with those deemed ‘illegal’). It’s also unpleasant noticing the pressure i perceive (perhaps overprudence, on my part) to state my European heritages before my ‘other’ one.

I always just said my origins straightforwardly. I don’t feel we can entirely inhibit the cruel reactions of others.

I’d tell mine that they’re from the magical country of Rand Mcnally.

I didn’t read the other answers, so people may have already said this, but I would tell them to say this:

What are you? “Human.”
Where are you from? “Earth.”