I Told My Trump-Supporting Mom I’m Having A Biracial Baby. Here’s What Happened.

In the volatile era of Don­ald Trump and the trans­paren­cy cre­at­ed by the dig­i­tal age, a lot of us find our­selves on dif­fer­ent sides of social and polit­i­cal issues than some of the peo­ple we love. 

I grew up in east­ern North Car­oli­na among con­ser­v­a­tive farm­ers, but as a film­mak­er, most of my col­leagues are lib­er­al artists, so I have friends and fam­i­ly on “both sides.” At best, I’ve seen numer­ous friends have to unfol­low their fam­i­ly mem­bers on social media because they couldn’t stand read­ing their polit­i­cal posts or com­ments, and at worst, they’ve stopped talk­ing to them alto­geth­er. 

I couldn’t have that hap­pen to my fam­i­ly, but I was in my first inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ship and my mom was strug­gling to accept it.

Race was nev­er an issue for Maya or me, but she did have to edu­cate me on what life as a Black woman is like. This ranged from explain­ing Black hair cul­ture to being the only per­son of col­or in a field dom­i­nat­ed by white men.

She was every­thing I ever want­ed in a woman: smart, gor­geous, kind, fun and, most impor­tant­ly for me, calm. She was the ice to my fire and changed me for the bet­ter as a per­son. She was def­i­nite­ly the kind of girl you bring home to meet your moth­er. 

Before my mom came up to vis­it, my broth­er sug­gest­ed that I might want to tell her Maya was Black. He thought she might have a prob­lem with it. I thought he was over­re­act­ing. It turns out, he was right.

My mom wasn’t rude when she met Maya, but she wasn’t her nor­mal, sweet self either. I could tell the dif­fer­ence, but Maya had nev­er met her so she couldn’t. Thank­ful­ly, we were at an event I was host­ing and Maya and I were too pre­oc­cu­pied to get past for­mal­i­ties with my mom.  

Regard­less, the next morn­ing I woke up ear­ly to have cof­fee with my mom and knew this would be a top­ic of dis­cus­sion. She explained that she knew we lived dif­fer­ent lives (for exam­ple, she is a Trump sup­port­er) and that I have friends from many dif­fer­ent back­grounds and cul­tures, but this was some­thing new for her that she wasn’t pre­pared for. She did agree that Maya was a great girl, but that only con­fused me more. It hurt me that I even had to have this con­ver­sa­tion.

When I asked her exact­ly what the issue was, she sim­ply replied, “We just didn’t do that in my day.” I told her I under­stood it was dif­fer­ent for her, but that I didn’t come from her gen­er­a­tion and that wasn’t rel­e­vant to how I chose to live my life. I end­ed the con­ver­sa­tion by telling her that I loved her, but she didn’t raise me to act like that. The words hit her hard.

My mom grew up as a South­ern Bap­tist woman in North Car­oli­na dur­ing a racial­ly seg­re­gat­ed time. Her par­ents taught her to care for the well-being of every­one, and she instilled those val­ues in me and my broth­er. She was involved in every team, class­room and scout group I belonged to and treat­ed kids of all races just as she treat­ed us.

Black and white peo­ple in my home­town got along in indi­vid­ual cas­es, but there was still a stark line between the two racial groups. And even though it was just “the way things were,” this meant peo­ple would often emu­late the behav­ior of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions ― some­times casu­al­ly igno­rant and some­times down­right racist.  

A few years ago, my mom mar­ried a man that wasn’t secre­tive about his big­otry. I think he said things just to be provoca­tive, but I nev­er under­stood why she didn’t con­front him for the ridicu­lous things he said. Her silence hurt me worse than an igno­rant per­son being igno­rant.  

After that first con­ver­sa­tion about Maya with my mom, I could tell she was still strug­gling with our rela­tion­ship, but she nev­er said any­thing to me direct­ly. I want­ed to give her the time to work through it her­self, though I found out lat­er that my broth­er was medi­at­ing and talk­ing with her con­stant­ly. 

Sev­er­al months passed, and I decid­ed to take Maya back home with me for my birth­day cel­e­bra­tion with my fam­i­ly.

The night before we left, Maya could tell some­thing was wrong with me. I hadn’t told her about any of the con­flict with my fam­i­ly because I didn’t want to hurt her feel­ings or want her to think I came from a racist fam­i­ly.

After she final­ly forced me to talk, she kind of chuck­led and said, “Well you obvi­ous­ly have no idea what it’s like to be Black. You’re always sur­round­ed by peo­ple who don’t like you because of your skin col­or. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, you kind of get used it. You scared me, because I thought you were going to say you cheat­ed on me!”

I laughed ner­vous­ly, impressed with her grace and relieved to know she wouldn’t judge me based on my family’s opin­ions.

The birth­day cel­e­bra­tion was fun and Maya shined, as she always does. I knew then that my girl­friend wasn’t going any­where.

After that trip, I noticed my mom mak­ing more of an effort. She would send Maya East­er bas­kets and birth­day gifts and ask me about her more often. I knew she wasn’t com­plete­ly com­fort­able with the sit­u­a­tion, but she was start­ing to accept it, and that’s all I could ask.

When Maya told me she was preg­nant with our child last sum­mer, I was elat­ed, but as I fell asleep that night, some­where in that hap­pi­ness was the fear of how my mom would react. She was OK with us dat­ing, but hav­ing a baby togeth­er? I wasn’t sure.

I decid­ed I need­ed to tell her in per­son. When I did, she sighed and paused, like she had expect­ed this to hap­pen. She final­ly said, “Well I wish y’all would have been smarter about this.”

I asked her what that meant and she told me she hoped we would have been mar­ried before Maya got preg­nant. Hon­est­ly, I was just hap­py her issue wasn’t with race any­more. I could han­dle not agree­ing with my mom on mar­riage or reli­gion.

I told her I was excit­ed about this child and I need­ed her to be as well. I want­ed my baby to be close to her grand­moth­er, and my mom agreed. Our fam­i­ly is too impor­tant. We talked for over an hour about life, how short it is and how we should cher­ish what we have and who we care about. She told me that she’d spent a lot of time think­ing about my rela­tion­ship with Maya and she just want­ed me to be hap­py.

It’s tricky to nav­i­gate these roads with fam­i­ly. We must remain firm in our own beliefs and keep pro­gress­ing as a soci­ety, but we also need to be under­stand­ing of oth­ers who might not be in the same place yet. That does not mean we don’t stand up for what is right. It just means that to tru­ly con­nect and com­mu­ni­cate with some­one, we must be patient, hon­est and lov­ing ― espe­cial­ly in a time when it’s so easy to scream our opin­ions and then go hide behind the walls of our echo cham­bers.

Scream­ing and hid­ing doesn’t change any­thing. Love and under­stand­ing does. To quote my mom (and many oth­er South­ern moth­ers): “You catch more flies with hon­ey than vine­gar.”

But I wasn’t sat­is­fied. I wouldn’t feel like Maya was a part of the fam­i­ly until one more thing was done.

I asked my mom if she was wor­ried about telling her hus­band about the baby.

“A lit­tle bit,” she said. “But I told him recent­ly that I was sick of hear­ing him say stu­pid things like he does all the time. If he ever said any­thing neg­a­tive about you or your broth­er, or some­one you cared about like Maya … I just don’t know what that would mean for us. It would change every­thing and I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to recov­er.”

I was proud of her. Just months before, she was strug­gling to accept my inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ship. Now she was defend­ing it, fac­ing the sta­tus quo that she’d known for so long. When she told me that, I real­ized that it’s nev­er too late for peo­ple to change.

I told her to give him the ben­e­fit of the doubt. I thought that spend­ing real time with Maya would actu­al­ly help him grow. From my expe­ri­ence, peo­ple are usu­al­ly scared of things or peo­ple they’re not famil­iar with. If they get to know peo­ple they think are dif­fer­ent from them, they might find out how alike they real­ly are.

No mat­ter how ugly things get at times, no mat­ter how much we dis­agree with one anoth­er, there is no replace­ment for fam­i­ly. We must fight to keep it togeth­er, but at the same time we must fight to make it bet­ter.

Months lat­er, I brought a very preg­nant Maya home for her first Christ­mas with my fam­i­ly. It was her first Christ­mas away from her fam­i­ly, too, so this was big for both of us.

On Christ­mas morn­ing, we all trot­ted down­stairs to open presents. When Maya entered the liv­ing room, I noticed her glance up to see the stock­ings hang­ing from the man­tel. We both saw a brand new one with her name inscribed on it hung with the rest of the family’s.

At that moment, I felt com­plete­ly at home and at peace sur­round­ed by the peo­ple I love, despite our dif­fer­ences.

I’m excit­ed to raise a bira­cial child, and I hope her expe­ri­ence with two cul­tures will help us con­tin­ue to blur those lines we drew long ago. We don’t have it all fig­ured out yet, but as long as we start with love, patience and under­stand­ing, I think we’re head­ing in the right direc­tion.