Interrational Dating
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| Tue, 11-14-2006 - 12:14pm |
I need some advice. We are a white family, I was raised to not date outside of my race, my husband believes the same. I do not believe this makes us predjudice.
My daughter has had a bf who is mexican. We told her that she could not "go out with him" (they are not old enough to date but that is what they call going together). Well, she said she broke up with him. I kept seeing all the signs but she assured me that they were just friends, which is fine. I found out this weekend that she has been lying to me about everything for over 3 weeks now. I kept checking our cell phone account and suddenly she is sending and receiving hundreds of text messages and the only thing I could figure was during the night, because with school and all she wouldnt have time otherwise. It all came to a head this weekend when on Sunday night she was supposed to be in bed because she had school the next day. I walk in to check on her and she is on the phone. The boy's father that she has been going with lives with her best friends mom. (Hope that made sense) Anyway, when I caught her on the phone, I took it away and she made up another lie trying to cover who she was talking to and it was a BAD LIE! I immediately called her on it. Okay, when I take her phone, it starts beeping. She received a text message from the boy that she is not supposed to be seeing saying "G'night and I love you". Well, that is when all heck broke loose. My husband made her call him and break up right then and there because appearently she didn't do it the first time 3 weeks ago. I have always welcomed her best friend, or any other friend for that fact, into my home and took her places while her mother worked, fed her and she has always been welcome. She is half mexican. Now, her mother says she cannot come over to my house any longer because if we do not accept the boy, we cannot accept the friend.
I am not predjudice in any way. My daughter has hardly talked to me in 2 days now and she is acting so very depressed. I am afraid of what she might do. I am more upset by the lies than anything. Last night she had a ball game and all of her mexican friends just kept giving us looks. I told my husband 3 weeks ago that if we put our thumb down so hard on this that she would lie, and hide it all, sure enough, she did.
In the last weeks, her grades have dropped (not failing but from a straight A to straight B), she will not even think about going to church (But you can bet she will go this week!). She got a mail about a thing with the church in Jan. and they go to this big conference and concert, she used to would be begging to go, I asked her this morning about it and she said she wasn't interested.
I guess I am looking for any advice. I am not wanting to start a race debate or anything like that. That is just how I was raised. My daughter did go see the counselor at school yesterday and the counselor told my daughter that she was raised the same way, but she could not tell her to continue to lie to us, or what she was supposed to do.
HELP!

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Here's a news flash--if you forbid your DD from going out w/ a boy because he is Mexican, you ARE prejudiced, because that's what prejudice is. The fact that you are juding another person because of his race instead of what qualities he has, what kind of person he is, etc. I see you don't feel this way because you let her have female friends who are Mexican. But really, how many times to kids who date in h.s. end up marrying their GF or BF anyway? They might go out for a short time and then break up anyway, but by making such a big deal about this, you are really pushing them closer together.
I am white also and live in a town which is probably 90% white. There aren't that many black kids in the h.s. My DD made some male friends from the track team who are black and I knew she hung out w/ them, just as friends, not dating. However, she asked me if I would be mad if she dated someone black and she was kind of surprised when I said no. I said to her that if I said yes, I would be pretty disappointed in myself because that would be acting out of prejudice, which I don't believe is a good thing. Maybe it's because I work in a place where I am in the minority--most of my co-workers are Chinese. Also, we have had people work here who are from Lebanon, Russia, Romania, Korea and India.
I can see how it would be hard to change your thinking if your parents raised you to believe this was the way to act, but my question is why do you think interracial dating is wrong?
My dad was full polish and my mom is 1/2 Spanish and 1/2 Puerto Rican. I know on the Polish side there is also some Czech and Slav, and my sister swears Mongolian (??) and on the Puerto Rican side there is supposedly some Native American.
Please, don't fall over dead. lol
What are the odds - guess what kind of Spanish I am? Yep, Puerto Rican.
I was staying as far out of this as I could get, in order to not FLAME the racist OP, but I had to share my children's "lineage": from my side- Irish, German, French and Lebanese; from DH's side- German, Scottish and Irish....plus good old Kentucky hillbilly! His greatgrandmother was Cora Mae Hatfield of the feuding Hatfields and McCoys, lol.
We are very openminded regarding those that our children choose to date. DS18 has dated white, black, asian, middle eastern, wealthy, low-income, middle class, high IQ, struggling students, athletes, musicians, theatre kids, etc., mostly very nice girls. DD14 has also dated outside our race/religion and the only problem kid we've encountered was white, middle class and Christian- go figure.
I'm pretty sure we would be okay with anyone they brought home as long as they aren't a McCoy............ ;)
The turn of this discussion reminds me of a sociology professor I had in college in the late 70s.
I hear ya on the sun damage thing... too bad no one ever told us it might not be healthy to slather baby oil on and lay outside until we were burnt.
And now I'm paying for it. Man, I was a stupid kid!!
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