As the mom of a large transracial family, I often write about our experiences being “out and about” and how conspicuous we are and the attention (both positive and negative) that we receive. We get nice comments, we get rude comments and we get down right silly ones…

Case in point…yesterday, I took all of the kids to dinner by myself. As I carried my two trays of happy meals back to the play room, a mom looked at me and said, “Birthday party?” I said, “Nope…just my family.”(and smiled at her politely.) She got this bewildered look and said, “oh…that’s nice… I guess.” And she didn’t smile…it was more like a sneer.

Whatever. (Later on she did comment nicely that my 10 kids were sitting and eating much nicer than her two kids…it’s true…they were.)

Everywhere we go we feel people’s eyes on us…whether it is friendly, “knowing” eyes (like at church), curious eyes (probably the most common) or the down right rude eyes (every so often it happens). We draw attention wherever we go because we stand out…both because of our size and because we are a multiracial family. We’re used to it.

Yesterday my husband got to experience that all from the other side.

Josh was about two hours away from our town at a track meet (he coaches the throwers) and as he was walking around the school campus, he noticed a white man with a black little girl up on his shoulders. He looked around the man and noticed a white woman, several white children and several other black children, and they were clearly (to him) a family. Josh started to “count heads” and admire the family that was similar in both size and make up to ours, when he made eye contact with the mother.

And that is when he realized…

Josh said, “At that moment I realized that I was being ‘that guy’….That guy that stares at our family and makes us wonder what the heck he is thinking, and makes us wish he would either say something or go on his way and leave us be. I was THAT GUY.”

Continued...