The moment our twins arrived into our home I began preparing a note: a sort of proof to be shown to anyone daring to question the validity of our family. My background is mainly white European, my wife is Australian and her background is Filipino. Our children are Black British. I feared that we would be stopped by random strangers, and I was anxious about possible confrontational encounters. Time passed, two and a half years now, and the confrontational encounters never came. We have had plenty of inappropriate and intrusive encounters.

Twins attract comments from people, ask any twin parent how many times they have heard ‘double trouble’ or ‘you have your hands full’ just this week. Ours are loud, impossibly cute and a different ethnic background to us. Our different skins seem to be more welcoming to those complete strangers who decide to ask about our children’s background, their birth family or whatever our relationship may be.

Being noticeable as a family in a way that is not sought, glances that take a bit too long and people who stop us to remark that they have noticed how much the children have grown, even though we had never seen that person in our lives before. Carrying this brings a sense of being watched, that demands best behaviour, a tension on every scenario and how we interact with each other.

 

The important thing is the experience of our children, the choice made on their behalf and them having to grow with this element of being in a fish tank. 

 

Yes, we thought of this prior to the adoption. We decided to embrace such situations because we are a mixed couple and believe that the most important thing one can do to promote diversity is simply to exist, to be present. It still does not make inappropriate behaviour acceptable. The important thing is the experience of our children, the choice made on their behalf and them having to grow with this element of being in a fish tank. We said to social workers that if a child was going to be waiting longer because they were looking for what is effectively a colour match that we were open to transracial adoption.

Being visible and feeling observed becomes heightened when the children are having a tantrum which happened recently in a bus. We, my wife, our two children and I, were not far from home so decided to get off the bus to deal with the screaming without all the head turns and a change of scenario can sometimes be effective. It was not effective, so we carried on walking with the children in the pram. A woman, white probably around 50 years old, appeared to be following us and as people often do, talked directly to the children ignoring us, she asked them if they were okay. At that moment I thought of my note.

My wife told her that we were fine. She oddly then proceeded to tell the kids that everything was fine and that there is no need [for the yelling I guess]. I eventually asked her what the problem was, I reckon my face was not particularly welcoming and she walked away. We got home, the kids calmed down and we moved on with our day.