<p>I'm not a parent, but I'm interested to see how various parents feel about this.</p>
<p>My dad has at various times mentioned how he likes the way cultures like the Armineans or Japanese don't marry outside of their race, and how he thinks it's not right for someone to marry a different race. I've heard some severe racist comments from him to some races, not so much towards others.</p>
<p>Despite this (and living my entire pre-college life in a 99.9% white town) I've grown up seeing past 'color' naturally, and in college I'm dating someone with a great personality, who also happens to be a difference race than me.</p>
<p>If anyone has experiences or feeling on how you would react if you learned your son/daughter is dating inter-racially, feel free to post them. A lot of kids are lucky to have fairly non-discriminatory parents, but I can't change the fact that my parents are "old fashioned".</p>
<p>The families I know don’t have any issues with inter racial dating. I’ve never heard a peep about it. I’ve been to many prom photo sessions with inter racial couples. My own sons have dated women of different races, and it makes no more difference to us than it does when they have interracial friends, classmates, teammates. </p>
<p>Where I have seen parents get upset, is when kids start dating or even just hanging around kids of different socio economic backgrounds. I don’t mean someone whose family is just very poor in terms of money, but in terms of priorities, job outlooks, education.</p>
<p>I want my kids to date people. who care and respect them. I dont care what race they are. but I would rather see them with someone smart , motivated and classy, no matter what race . I guess that is my prejudice. I hope when they get married I can be happy for them or I can at least keep my mouth shut</p>
<p>cptofthehouse put it well, I dont care about the money part, but I do care about, standards, morals, priorities etc… I am not sure about the education part as I have friends who didnt go to college, but are smart, engaged and interesting. I want my kids to be happy most of all. I dont have to be married to them.</p>
<p>I don’t think the term “interracial dating” has ever crossed the lips or the minds of most current HS students. It doesn’t occur to them that it’s something that wouldn’t be done…to them it would be akin to dating guys with blue eyes but not green eyes. When kids come home from school with stories about their classmates, race is never brought up unless it’s crucial to the story (e.g. the dance teacher requiring a hairdo that the African American girls can’t manage). Sometimes I’ll hear them say a first name I’ve never heard in my life, and I’ll ask them where the kid is from and what he or she looks like, just because the level of diversity is interesting to this mom who grew up with zero deversity in school.</p>
<p>Thirty years ago I brough home a white guy. Bless my parents that they never said anything, but for the first 5 years of our marriage they kept on telling me it was ok to get a divorce.
They came around after D1 was born. At the end of day, most parents just want their kids to be happy. They may have some reservations initially, but if they see your partner treating you well that’s what really matters.</p>
<p>Growing up, my father was completely against me having non-white friends or talking to anyone who came from a socioeconomic class anywhere below upper-middle class. The rest of my family is a-okay with it. Actually, my mother is completely against me dating anyone from WITHIN my race/ethnicity. (I’m half-white, half-Hispanic – and yes, I know someone is going to mention that I’m getting race and ethnicity mixed up there but it’s how I identify – and she can’t stand most Hispanic men.)</p>
<p>I want my sons to be in loving, happy respectful relationships. The race of their partners doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>My brother (I’m black) married a white woman. My older S is dating one. The women’s race isn’t important to me.</p>
<p>My immigrant Asian parents have made numerous half-joking, half-serious comments about wanting me to date intra-racially. I personally find some physical race-specific characteristics more attractive than others, but I’m not willing to prioritize family/in-law relations over my actual relationship. (Yet another way I fail as a ‘proper Asian,’ hooray.)</p>
<p>Not an issue here. The kids have grown up up in an environment which is very diverse and it isn’t a big deal to them. I have never heard any parents here even discuss this.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t care one bit. As long as the person is nice and respectful to my children, I don’t care what color they all. That is just a non issue to me and my husband. By the way, we are old fashioned also but we still wouldn’t care about the race of the people are children choose to love.</p>
<p>I think it’s much more of a concern, generally speaking, for immigrant parents. They tend to be afraid of their children abandoning their culture, and I could see how dating partners could very easily be a part of that.</p>
<p>I think my parents wouldn’t really care if we dated someone from another race. My older sister is dating a white guy (we’re Mexican) and my other sister is married to another Hispanic (Peruvian).
I have heard my dad make racist comments in the past so I really don’t know what it’d be like if any of us brought home a black or Asian guy / girl. I think they mostly just want us to be happy and to be treated well by our partners.</p>
<p>I agree it’s about the priorities. My D (white) dated a black young man a couple of years ago. He was our same religion, had similar priorities, values and background. We loved him.</p>
<p>She is now dating someone who is the same race, but a totally different culture – think Jersey Shore – and, although he is a nice boy, in college and works very hard, I have a real aversion to him. Just the sound of his voice makes me crazed and I often think of ripping the chain off his neck. But, anyway, it’s me. He just represents a lot of things I don’t like.</p>
<p>^^ My parents are immigrants and yes, they want us to be very involved and to not forget our culture and our roots but I think they’ve come to realize that it does not really matter what color our spouse is, as long as we are loved and happy. I think they mostly just want our children to learn and speak Spanish like we did, which shouldn’t be a problem.</p>
<p>My kids are interracial (3 races). It is not an issue for me although I am pretty sure it still is for my parents. While I think this generation is a lot better than ours, I still think the prevalent attitudes about beauty run along some racial lines; in other words, black females (exception is very thin, light-skinned) and Asian men still have trouble dating. Frankly, I do think religion could be an issue for me.</p>
<p>Interracial kids are generally very good looking, you could use that as a pitch to your parents.</p>
<p>I want my kids to be happy and to be with someone who has similar values, work ethnic, is caring and is smart. I would have a problem with religions that are very different from our own and if the other person isn’t that bright or articulate.</p>
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<p>I’d say almost all parents, if not all, want their kids to be happy. If they blocked an interracial marriage and the kid became someone else, they’d blame themselves.</p>
<p>I agree with most of these parents…I would just want someone who has good values, is respectful and treats my child well; race is irrelevant. In fact, in some ways it’s a plus - oldfort beat me to the punch - I would love to have grandchildren that are bi/multi-racial; I think they are beautiful!</p>