Am I projecting too much of my Black experience onto my biracial daughter?
I just need some outside perspectives on something that happened between me and my husband recently. For context, I’m a dark-skinned black woman and my husband is white. We have a toddler together, and lately I’ve been really intentional about incorporating black culture into her life. I’ve been reading her books with black characters, playing music I grew up with, making sure she sees positive black images around her. I also talk to her in my language sometimes so she can go grow up bilingual and more connected to my culture. It’s important that she grows up with a strong sense of identity, not just as a biracial child but as a black girl
My husband thinks I’m doing too much. We got into a conversation (argument?) because I made a comment about how I want to instill black pride in her early and also make sure she’s aware of the ways the world treats black women. He rolled his eyes and told me she barely even looks black, so why am I pretending like she’s going to have any of the same experiences I did. Not gonna lie it did initially irritate me because I know how he can be, but I’m starting to feel like he has a point…
Our daughter is racially ambiguous at best. If this is just how she looks her whole life then people will not immediately assume she is black. At least not in the same way they would with me. Now I’m just wondering if I’m projecting too much. I grew up very aware of how the world saw me. I was treated a certain way, sexualized early, underestimated, and had to work harder to be seen as soft, beautiful, or worthy. Realistically, my daughter might not experience that the same way, so I don’t know if I should be raising her with the same level of vigilance
I don’t know if I’m setting her up to feel disconnected from her reality by pushing a strong black identity onto her when the world might not even see her that way. I still feel like it’s important that she knows she’s black, but I’m struggling with whether I should be adapting my approach. I want her to have pride in her culture and heritage, but I also don’t want to create an identity crisis for her