“When You Take This Jump and Cross Racial Boundaries”: Parents’ Experiences of Raising Multiracial Children

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of eight parents of multiracial children. Primary themes emerged from the analysis include (a) fostering a child’s multiple heritages, (b) nurturing the whole person, (c) race-conscious parenting, (d) having open communication, (e) learning on the job, and (f) a multidimensional approach to self-care. The findings revealed that parents valued open communication with their children and made efforts to not only connect them with their racial and cultural roots but also raise their children to learn about people whose cultural and racial backgrounds differ from them. Additionally, parents practiced a variety of self-care strategies to cope with stressors related to parenting and attend to their well-being.

A Narrative Inquiry into the Process of Inferential Identity upon Multiracial Children

“…The finding supports previous research by Seto et al (2021) who found that parents of multiracial children made great efforts to expose their children to various parts of the parents' ethnic/racial heritage. Additionally, research has shown that it is important for parents of multiracial children to expose their children to their minoritized ethnic/racial side (Rosen & Greif, 2021).…”

“…Furthermore, in their work on raising multicultural awareness through family therapy, McDowell et al (2005), spoke of ERI achievement through a multiracial person's self-emancipation from internalized racial myths and cultural constraints that maintain the hegemony of inequality. Typically, parents have racially labeled their children based on their own sociopolitical viewpoints where racist rules may determine racial group membership (Rockquemore et al, 2006;Seto et al, 2021). Non-white parents tend to induct their multiracial child's racial socialization and experiences as similar to their own (Crawford & Alaggia, 2008;Nuttgens, 2010;Stone & Dolbin-McNab, 2017).…”

“…As these numbers show, the multiracial child population is a rapidly growing segment of society (Humes et al, 2011). Overall, the multiracial population is estimated to triple in size by 2060 (Seto et al, 2021).…”

“…Hypodescent or the “one drop rule”, that anyone with any amount of African descent was categorized as Black in order to prevent slaves from attaining their freedom by claiming lineage to Whiteness. This “one drop rule” is reflected in the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 in Virginia and resulted in the binary categorization of race that multiracial people are forced to experience (Seto et al, 2021). Parents have also defined racial identity based on the physical qualities of their children (Stone & Dolbin-MacNab, 2017).…”

“…Parents who have produced children resulting from an interracial relationship may struggle in developing their own sense of ERI in addition to providing the correct modeling of cognitive behavior for their multiracial children (Rockquemore et al, 2006). Although each parent has different racial group memberships, they still send racialized messages to their youth (Atkin et al, 2022; Seto et al, 2021). The current study highlights the lived experiences of monoracial parents, from a variety of ERI backgrounds, who have produced multiracial children from interracial relationships.…”