My wife is Indonesian and I’m “pigmentaly-challenged” and would like to chalk up the surprisingly lack of drama to where we live in Southern California. There have been “opportunities” as my wife has also been mistaken for the nanny (as if we could afford one :) several times, although for the most part she’s found the situations humorous. (There was the time when she was feeding our oldest at day care just before leaving and a (white-duh) woman was very rude as she demanded information about her child and wanted a diaper changed. I wish there had been a video of her answering in a very calm but powerful voice: “Do you think I work here?” followed by “And even if I did-you do NOT get to talk to me this way”. Awesome.

Our oldest (now 16) has the facial features and hair of a Pacific Islander, but is almost as pale as me. He spends an hour a day out in sun trying to brown up, but he’s not getting dark enough (for him). In short — he’s trying to find his identity (as we all are) and we do our best to help him understand that “race” is pretty much a made-up thing anyway. We are all different and made just as we were intended — part of growing up is finding where we belong anyway…