7 ms·

Thanks to the first comment posted here, which pulled out the key quote from the parents, "The most important thing is that he can relate to his peers and not b

Thanks to the first comment posted here, which pulled out the key quote from the parents, "The most important thing is that he can relate to his peers and not be seen as any different." I hope that is just a journalist quotation of an imprecise statement during live conversation in an interview. By contrast, as soon as I knew that my beloved and I would marry into an "interracial" marriage (she is from east Asia, and I am an American of a mixed assortment of European ancestry), I figured that my children would have no hope to "not be seen as any different." (I later learned my children actually look like typical members of the local population in some central Asian countries that none of us have ever visited.) I also had Taiwanese friends tell me even before I met my wife that if I married a local girl and had "mixed-blood" children (that is a polite term over there, not an offensive term), that the children would surely be smarter and better-looking than most children. I'll leave to other people to judge both the intelligence and the personal appearance of my children. But what I very intentionally did in bringing up my children was plan to give them support so that whatever differences they have with other people in their childhood environments--whether height, weight, hair color, low IQ, high IQ, physical weakness, athletic prowess, or whatever it would be--they would still be cherished as our children. I haven't wanted my children to be other than who they are. Yes, everyone should indeed "relate to his peers" and not be arrogant or aloof. Everyone should cherish everybody else's differences. But that also means children ought to be able to follow the life path that fits them best after the shuffle of genes they receive from their parents, the influences of their early childhood, and the constraints of their youthful circumstances. A great artist shouldn't have to set aside his painting to have buddies in the neighborhood. A young hacker shouldn't be told to set aside the computer and play Little League baseball. To each their own. It happens that my children grew up in an environment in which most of their acquaintances are supportive of young people who pursue their own passions, and they haven't had to be ground into sameness to have peers who like them.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
> my beloved and I would marry into an "interracial" marriage > whatever differences they have with other people in their childhood environments--whether height, weight, hair color, low IQ, high IQ, physical weakness, athletic prowess, or whatever it would be You seem to have bought into the fallacy of scientific racism. In terms of population biology, we all belong to the same race, Homo sapiens sapiens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  What genus we belong to is irrelevant, this is more to do with how we look. You can't collectively judge a race that you cannot tell apart from your own. Like wise, if a subset of your race were to look different from you, you would feel compelled to generalize about them. That's human nature. The reality is irrelevant. Fine, races don't exist, but they are perceived to exist, and the parent is concerned with how his children will be perceived.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Well, some alleles (genes) cluster among populations, and many people believe that statistically different genetic populations equates to different races. It's a widespread mistaken belief that has no scientific basis, because having different races requires 100% isolation of the populations. There are many horrible things that have happened in the world on the basis of this belief, and it irritates me when people propagate it, even if they aren't doing so maliciously. Note that I realize now I may have been quoting him out of context about the physical differences, kind of hard to tell. Okay, based on recent comment, apparently a total misunderstanding.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  You seem to have misunderstood my scare quotes around the word "interracial." I've always been clear that there is one human race, no more, and we are all part of it.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    I'm glad to hear that. Yes I did not understand about those scare quotes, nor the scare quotes around "mixed blood". What could you say besides interracial? Interpopulational? Intercultural?
lotharbot 13y ago
> "give them support so that whatever differences they have ... they would still be cherished" This is so important, even for kids who don't have really obvious differentiating factors. My wife and I are both educated, white, middle-class background, able-bodied, and so on. But that doesn't make our son "normal" or "average"; he's still different from every other kid. Part of supporting him is encouraging him to embrace differences, and encouraging other kids to do the same.
grannyg00se 13y ago
In a lot of places, being seen as "different" results in harassment. Sometimes to the point where families have to move. And other (extreme) times to the point of eventual suicide. I would definitely encourage exploration and appreciation of differences but depending on one's surroundings, a bit of apprehension is warranted.
MaysonL 13y ago
Yes. This. Personal anecdatum: when I was 5 or 6, I beat my father in a game of chess. That was the last time he ever played me, and the last game of chess I was allowed to play for a number of years (this was about the time Bobby Fischer was getting a lot of notoriety as a maladjusted prodigy). It still rankles after 60 years.
- samuelfine 13y ago
  I'm so sorry you went through that. I don't know if it's a generational thing or what, but if my child beat me in chess at 5 or 6 years old, I'd be thrilled. Granted, I'm not great at chess, but I'd still get them signed up for lessons pronto, and I certainly wouldn't stop playing with them.
- ionwake 13y ago
  same happened with me and my father fml
LoveLinux 13y ago
What are you talking about different? Have you opened your eyes and looked around you? You are the nearly the norm now. Go to any university or software organization (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc...) and what do you see? White men with Asian women. I'm now shocked to see a white couple with children. I have to assume that white women have just rejected white men completely (or won't commit to marriage and have children). On my team, only one white man is married to a white woman, the rest of the white men are married to Asian women. White women are getting the bad end of the deal as the top performing men (not just in software) are now heavily marring Asian women.
ams6110 13y ago
A young hacker shouldn't be told to set aside the computer and play Little League baseball. I absolutely disagree with this. Kids should start to play sports from about age 4 or 5. It doesn't have to be intense. It doesn't have to supplant other interests. Community soccer, basketball, baseball, once or twice a week. It helps them learn to socialize and work in groups towards a goal, keeps them physically active, makes them less likely to be bullied or outcasts at school because they will have a wider circle of friends and will have had more exposure to dealing with confrontation/competition. Also like it or not, especially for men, sports is a common bonding activity even when you get into adult life. If you can't at least talk about last Sunday's football games or play a game of pickup basketball after work, you are going to be excluded from a lot of networks.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > I absolutely disagree with this. And I absolutely disagree with your disagreement. > Community soccer, basketball, baseball, once or twice a week. Nope. They can just play together. It doesn't have to be competitive sport. What if they say they wanted to run around in circles or play spaceship on the playground, or say help one of the dad in the yard or fix a car. Some might like to play chess or paint for example. > It helps them learn to socialize Just playing together with other kids and making up their own games is good enough to socialize. They could be kicking a ball half an hour then climbing trees the next. They don't have to necessarily compete with other teams to get that. > makes them less likely to be bullied or outcasts at school because they will have a wider circle of friends They are in the wrong school or adults are not doing their job if they are bullied because they don't play sports. > Also like it or not, especially for men, sports is a common bonding activity even when you get into adult life. Well I don't like it. I would rather discuss virtual machine implementations or sci fi novels. I don't give a shit about who plays in the superbowl or what hockey teams names are. > If you can't at least talk about last Sunday's football games or play a game of pickup basketball after work, you are going to be excluded from a lot of networks. I am doing pretty well for myself. I can talk about politics, linguistics, computers, some music, sci-fi, movies, there is plenty of other stuff. If talking about sports is what is going to exclude me, then please, exclude me. I don't want to be included in that group to begin with.
nilkn 13y ago
It seems to me this is about finances and has nothing at all to do with whether or not he is allowed to pursue his passions (which he obviously is allowed to do).
rdouble 13y ago
as soon as I knew that my beloved and I would marry into an "interracial" marriage ... I figured that my children would have no hope to "not be seen as any different." Minnesota and asian countries are particularly bad about that sort of thing, but in Los Angeles nobody would look twice.
- joshmn 13y ago
  Can I ask what Minnesota has anything to do with this statement? I mean, as a native Minnesotan, I know what you're talking about, but there are MUCH further extreme states than here. Montana, Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, I feel are all much more critical of interracial marriage. Minnesota has the highest hmong population in the US (IIRC) and with that comes a significant number of interracial marriages (can't remember the number off the top of my head). If you want to put aside interracial marriage and look at another factor that deals with race, we voted in the first Muslim into congress. Keith. And everyone loves Keith.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    The guy I was responding to lives in Minnesota (so do I). Minnesotans aren't critical of interracial marriage but they do tend to point out when people are "different." Especially once you get outside of the Twin Cities. Regarding your specific examples, Idaho, Montana and Utah have higher rates of interracial marriage than MN. The Hmong community is pretty insular and it would be surprising if they factored into the interracial marriage stats in any significant way.
  - tokenadult 13y ago
    Correct. I've actually seen Census figures that suggest that Minnesota has a very high percentage of "interracial" marriages, which have never, ever been illegal here. My wife likes living in Minnesota very well. We've both heard funny questions about our relationship to our children in various places we have been, inside and outside the United States, but never to an annoying degree here in Minnesota. AFTER EDIT: I was Keith's classmate in law school. I like Keith too. I can't vote for him (I don't live in his district), and I don't share many policy preferences with him, but I like him on a personal level.
6ren 13y ago
My observation of people I know is that "euroasians" (mixed eurporean and asian) are better looking than average. The ones I know are also smarter than average, but that's harder to be sure of. It seems it's simply "hybrid vigour" - when you cross strains, you can get the both of both pools. But there's a logical dark side - you can also get the worst of both. (In nature, hybrid vigour is a net positive, because the weaker ones are selected against...) I say "logical" because I haven't actually ever observed this in reality. Anecdotally, Elvis Presley, Keanu Reeves and Tiger Woods seem to demonstrate this with other gene pools - but I have no idea of the statistics with respect to other actors/athletes. And there are other factors, such as non-standard features being considering more striking, the parents being strong-willed, self-determined and courageous enough to go against the norm, the other being considered so attractive and valuable to be worth the hassle, etc.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  There's probably a lot coming from the fact that the kid would have exposure to two cultures in the first place. Maybe this helps the kid to be more "open" in the first place, more "curious" subsenquently, and therefore potentially more successful in the end. Who knows. I don't think it's so much about genes, honestly speaking.
ekianjo 13y ago
> "mixed-blood" That's a very neutral expression. In Japan, the non-offensive term is "Half", and it's probably worse than "mixed blood" :)
- Amadou 13y ago
  The modern american term is "hapa" - comes from Hawaii were all kinds of races blended (japanese, chinese, filipino, portugese, hawaiians and whites just for starters). Originally it was "hapa haole" which meant, roughly half-white. That's probably still the most common meaning even without the haole on the end, but it is being used for other blends more and more too. And, FWIW, in hawaii, hapa kids are generally considered the cutest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa
  - jrn 13y ago
    aka, hybrid vigour, or heterosis.
arjie 13y ago
> It happens that my children grew up in an environment in which most of their acquaintances are supportive of young people who pursue their own passions, and they haven't had to be ground into sameness to have peers who like them. I'm truly astonished by the West that this sort of thing is worthy of remark. I studied all my life in India, both in government schools and in different private schools, and every kid who did something that was atypical was always cool for it. You're the tennis star? Nice, everyone loves you. You're the guy who plays Golden Axe better than anyone else? Damn, nice. You top the math class or are good at building things? "Wow, I wish I were that smart". I would never have suspected that in the land that ostensibly worships individuality, not being "ground into sameness" is worth mentioning.
- rdouble 13y ago
  I would never have suspected that in the land that ostensibly worships individuality, not being "ground into sameness" is worth mentioning. The UK has always seemed to have some respect for eccentricity but I wouldn't say they've been known as a place that "worships individuality." They have had a historical reputation for merciless bullying at the grade school level, though.
  - arjie 13y ago
    The person I'm replying to is American, and according to his profile is from Minnesota. Americans have a reputation for individualism.
    - rdouble 13y ago
      Oh, my bad. Americans hold the rights of the individual paramount but tend to be conformist socially. You have the right to be different but nobody is going to make it easy for you.
      - arjie 13y ago
        Ah, I see. Thanks for that.
arethuza 13y ago
"The most important thing is that he can relate to his peers and not be seen as any different." I think you are reading far too much into that one statement - to me, from reading the whole article, it sounds like the parents are being supportive and responsible.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

> my beloved and I would marry into an "interracial" marriage > whatever differences they have with other people in their childhood environments--whether height, weight, hair color, low IQ, high IQ, physical weakness, athletic prowess, or whatever it would be You seem to have bought into the fallacy of scientific racism. In terms of population biology, we all belong to the same race, Homo sapiens sapiens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

GhotiFish 13y ago
What genus we belong to is irrelevant, this is more to do with how we look. You can't collectively judge a race that you cannot tell apart from your own. Like wise, if a subset of your race were to look different from you, you would feel compelled to generalize about them. That's human nature. The reality is irrelevant. Fine, races don't exist, but they are perceived to exist, and the parent is concerned with how his children will be perceived.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Well, some alleles (genes) cluster among populations, and many people believe that statistically different genetic populations equates to different races. It's a widespread mistaken belief that has no scientific basis, because having different races requires 100% isolation of the populations. There are many horrible things that have happened in the world on the basis of this belief, and it irritates me when people propagate it, even if they aren't doing so maliciously. Note that I realize now I may have been quoting him out of context about the physical differences, kind of hard to tell. Okay, based on recent comment, apparently a total misunderstanding.
tokenadult 13y ago
You seem to have misunderstood my scare quotes around the word "interracial." I've always been clear that there is one human race, no more, and we are all part of it.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  I'm glad to hear that. Yes I did not understand about those scare quotes, nor the scare quotes around "mixed blood". What could you say besides interracial? Interpopulational? Intercultural?

lotharbot 13y ago

> "give them support so that whatever differences they have ... they would still be cherished" This is so important, even for kids who don't have really obvious differentiating factors. My wife and I are both educated, white, middle-class background, able-bodied, and so on. But that doesn't make our son "normal" or "average"; he's still different from every other kid. Part of supporting him is encouraging him to embrace differences, and encouraging other kids to do the same.

grannyg00se 13y ago

In a lot of places, being seen as "different" results in harassment. Sometimes to the point where families have to move. And other (extreme) times to the point of eventual suicide. I would definitely encourage exploration and appreciation of differences but depending on one's surroundings, a bit of apprehension is warranted.

MaysonL 13y ago

Yes. This. Personal anecdatum: when I was 5 or 6, I beat my father in a game of chess. That was the last time he ever played me, and the last game of chess I was allowed to play for a number of years (this was about the time Bobby Fischer was getting a lot of notoriety as a maladjusted prodigy). It still rankles after 60 years.

samuelfine 13y ago
I'm so sorry you went through that. I don't know if it's a generational thing or what, but if my child beat me in chess at 5 or 6 years old, I'd be thrilled. Granted, I'm not great at chess, but I'd still get them signed up for lessons pronto, and I certainly wouldn't stop playing with them.
ionwake 13y ago
same happened with me and my father fml

LoveLinux 13y ago

What are you talking about different? Have you opened your eyes and looked around you? You are the nearly the norm now. Go to any university or software organization (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc...) and what do you see? White men with Asian women. I'm now shocked to see a white couple with children. I have to assume that white women have just rejected white men completely (or won't commit to marriage and have children). On my team, only one white man is married to a white woman, the rest of the white men are married to Asian women. White women are getting the bad end of the deal as the top performing men (not just in software) are now heavily marring Asian women.

ams6110 13y ago

A young hacker shouldn't be told to set aside the computer and play Little League baseball. I absolutely disagree with this. Kids should start to play sports from about age 4 or 5. It doesn't have to be intense. It doesn't have to supplant other interests. Community soccer, basketball, baseball, once or twice a week. It helps them learn to socialize and work in groups towards a goal, keeps them physically active, makes them less likely to be bullied or outcasts at school because they will have a wider circle of friends and will have had more exposure to dealing with confrontation/competition. Also like it or not, especially for men, sports is a common bonding activity even when you get into adult life. If you can't at least talk about last Sunday's football games or play a game of pickup basketball after work, you are going to be excluded from a lot of networks.

rdtsc 13y ago
> I absolutely disagree with this. And I absolutely disagree with your disagreement. > Community soccer, basketball, baseball, once or twice a week. Nope. They can just play together. It doesn't have to be competitive sport. What if they say they wanted to run around in circles or play spaceship on the playground, or say help one of the dad in the yard or fix a car. Some might like to play chess or paint for example. > It helps them learn to socialize Just playing together with other kids and making up their own games is good enough to socialize. They could be kicking a ball half an hour then climbing trees the next. They don't have to necessarily compete with other teams to get that. > makes them less likely to be bullied or outcasts at school because they will have a wider circle of friends They are in the wrong school or adults are not doing their job if they are bullied because they don't play sports. > Also like it or not, especially for men, sports is a common bonding activity even when you get into adult life. Well I don't like it. I would rather discuss virtual machine implementations or sci fi novels. I don't give a shit about who plays in the superbowl or what hockey teams names are. > If you can't at least talk about last Sunday's football games or play a game of pickup basketball after work, you are going to be excluded from a lot of networks. I am doing pretty well for myself. I can talk about politics, linguistics, computers, some music, sci-fi, movies, there is plenty of other stuff. If talking about sports is what is going to exclude me, then please, exclude me. I don't want to be included in that group to begin with.

nilkn 13y ago

It seems to me this is about finances and has nothing at all to do with whether or not he is allowed to pursue his passions (which he obviously is allowed to do).

rdouble 13y ago

as soon as I knew that my beloved and I would marry into an "interracial" marriage ... I figured that my children would have no hope to "not be seen as any different." Minnesota and asian countries are particularly bad about that sort of thing, but in Los Angeles nobody would look twice.

joshmn 13y ago
Can I ask what Minnesota has anything to do with this statement? I mean, as a native Minnesotan, I know what you're talking about, but there are MUCH further extreme states than here. Montana, Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, I feel are all much more critical of interracial marriage. Minnesota has the highest hmong population in the US (IIRC) and with that comes a significant number of interracial marriages (can't remember the number off the top of my head). If you want to put aside interracial marriage and look at another factor that deals with race, we voted in the first Muslim into congress. Keith. And everyone loves Keith.
- rdouble 13y ago
  The guy I was responding to lives in Minnesota (so do I). Minnesotans aren't critical of interracial marriage but they do tend to point out when people are "different." Especially once you get outside of the Twin Cities. Regarding your specific examples, Idaho, Montana and Utah have higher rates of interracial marriage than MN. The Hmong community is pretty insular and it would be surprising if they factored into the interracial marriage stats in any significant way.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  Correct. I've actually seen Census figures that suggest that Minnesota has a very high percentage of "interracial" marriages, which have never, ever been illegal here. My wife likes living in Minnesota very well. We've both heard funny questions about our relationship to our children in various places we have been, inside and outside the United States, but never to an annoying degree here in Minnesota. AFTER EDIT: I was Keith's classmate in law school. I like Keith too. I can't vote for him (I don't live in his district), and I don't share many policy preferences with him, but I like him on a personal level.

6ren 13y ago

My observation of people I know is that "euroasians" (mixed eurporean and asian) are better looking than average. The ones I know are also smarter than average, but that's harder to be sure of. It seems it's simply "hybrid vigour" - when you cross strains, you can get the both of both pools. But there's a logical dark side - you can also get the worst of both. (In nature, hybrid vigour is a net positive, because the weaker ones are selected against...) I say "logical" because I haven't actually ever observed this in reality. Anecdotally, Elvis Presley, Keanu Reeves and Tiger Woods seem to demonstrate this with other gene pools - but I have no idea of the statistics with respect to other actors/athletes. And there are other factors, such as non-standard features being considering more striking, the parents being strong-willed, self-determined and courageous enough to go against the norm, the other being considered so attractive and valuable to be worth the hassle, etc.

ekianjo 13y ago
There's probably a lot coming from the fact that the kid would have exposure to two cultures in the first place. Maybe this helps the kid to be more "open" in the first place, more "curious" subsenquently, and therefore potentially more successful in the end. Who knows. I don't think it's so much about genes, honestly speaking.

ekianjo 13y ago

> "mixed-blood" That's a very neutral expression. In Japan, the non-offensive term is "Half", and it's probably worse than "mixed blood" :)

Amadou 13y ago
The modern american term is "hapa" - comes from Hawaii were all kinds of races blended (japanese, chinese, filipino, portugese, hawaiians and whites just for starters). Originally it was "hapa haole" which meant, roughly half-white. That's probably still the most common meaning even without the haole on the end, but it is being used for other blends more and more too. And, FWIW, in hawaii, hapa kids are generally considered the cutest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa
- jrn 13y ago
  aka, hybrid vigour, or heterosis.

arjie 13y ago

> It happens that my children grew up in an environment in which most of their acquaintances are supportive of young people who pursue their own passions, and they haven't had to be ground into sameness to have peers who like them. I'm truly astonished by the West that this sort of thing is worthy of remark. I studied all my life in India, both in government schools and in different private schools, and every kid who did something that was atypical was always cool for it. You're the tennis star? Nice, everyone loves you. You're the guy who plays Golden Axe better than anyone else? Damn, nice. You top the math class or are good at building things? "Wow, I wish I were that smart". I would never have suspected that in the land that ostensibly worships individuality, not being "ground into sameness" is worth mentioning.

rdouble 13y ago
I would never have suspected that in the land that ostensibly worships individuality, not being "ground into sameness" is worth mentioning. The UK has always seemed to have some respect for eccentricity but I wouldn't say they've been known as a place that "worships individuality." They have had a historical reputation for merciless bullying at the grade school level, though.
- arjie 13y ago
  The person I'm replying to is American, and according to his profile is from Minnesota. Americans have a reputation for individualism.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    Oh, my bad. Americans hold the rights of the individual paramount but tend to be conformist socially. You have the right to be different but nobody is going to make it easy for you.
    - arjie 13y ago
      Ah, I see. Thanks for that.

arethuza 13y ago

"The most important thing is that he can relate to his peers and not be seen as any different." I think you are reading far too much into that one statement - to me, from reading the whole article, it sounds like the parents are being supportive and responsible.