Excuse Me, Are Those Your Kids?

Ever since Danielle and I started talking about marriage 10 years ago, one of the nightmare scenarios in my head was my kid acting like a brat in public and me getting accused of kidnapping the kid because he or she didn’t look like me. My parents are Cuban and hers are Vietnamese. All kids go through impertinent phases and some of them threaten to accuse their parents of abuse and other things in an attempt to blackmail their parents. I would hope that I would raise my kids with more respect than that, but in my head I saw them pretending I wasn’t their parent in an attempt to get me to buy them something. Joke’s on them, I’d let them sweat about being put into a foster family. But how do you prove your kid is your kid? It’s damn near impossible. But I also have an over-active imagination so I figured this wasn’t a real thing. Until I came across this news story.

Here’s the husband and wife:

[caption id=“attachment_6354” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Joseph and Keana[/caption]

and here is the husband with his kids:

[caption id=“attachment_6353” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Joseph and kids[/caption]

He went to Walmart with his kids. Shortly afterward he arrived at home and a cop was there. The cop said that someone at the Walmart had expressed alarm that the kids were being kidnapped. He made the kids say that these were indeed their parents. This is always wrong, but here’s the part that pissed me off the most:

Soon after the officer left, Keana called Walmart demanding an explanation. She says after asking to speak with a manager, she was transferred to a Walmart security officer who denied raising the alarm. The officer said it was a customer that came forward.

Keana says she was told, “Well, the customer was concerned because they saw the children with your husband and he didn’t think that they fit. And I said, ‘What do you mean by they don’t fit?’ And I was trying to get her to say it. And she says, ‘Well, they just don’t match up.’”

People need to mind their damn business! I’m serious! Look - if the kids were screaming for help or if there was an Amber Alert out for three girls, that’d be one thing. But to just say - “Nope, there’s no way a white dude would have 3 black kids” is just ignorant to the MAX. I mean, what if he had chosen to adopt kids (and his wife wasn’t even African-American)? I feel so bad for him and the worst part is that I don’t think he has any avenues for restitution. After all, the person who called in the tip probably remained anonymous. Yet they completely ruined his day and have sown doubt into his kids. They will potentially feel bad for causing problems for their kids just because of the way they look.

I guess the only potential way to prevent this from happening is to have family photos with the kids? I don’t know. But Lord help me if this ever happens to me. (Or my mother because of my adopted siblings)

• Interracial