When Anne Wambui* got her second-born son with a white man, she did not know it was the beginning of a life-long journey of emotional torture.
Wambui, 36, says her white boyfriend left her when she was pregnant and went back to his country in Europe. She soon got a mixed-race baby, and humiliation, abuse, and ridicule followed. The last 10 years of motherhood have not been easy.
“Instead of feeling the joy of becoming a mother, I have wallowed in shame, people made me a topic of discussion, I have spent a great deal of my time in despair, wondering why it is this hard to raise a mixed-race child,” she tells the Nation.
It started with name-calling and graduated to harassment in school, in markets, and matatus.
“People used to make stupid jokes about my son while we walked to the shops or in matatus. They’d look at my child and overcharge me because they assumed that I was married to a rich white man. I had thought I’d raise my son like any normal child. But no, even people in my village who were least bothered initially, started tracking my movements as they wanted to see my baby. I was forced to hide him. I avoided daytime leisure walks with him. I operated like a late-night owl to avoid embarrassment and irritating words that were said about me and my innocent baby boy. I found it hard to explain to him why I could not take him outside during the day,” she says.
The racist attacks did not end at the market or matatu. At home, family members could not understand why she was permanently broke.
“I was at pains to explain to my immediate family members the situation I was going through because they could not understand how a white man was not taking care of his baby. They thought I was hiding money,” she says, “I was once embarrassed at a family gathering fundraiser when a relative told me to make my contributions in dollars. That night, I remember, I didn’t sleep well. I was very disturbed by the comments.”
Besides the racist attacks against her son, what pained her most was society judging her harshly for having a child with a white man.
“Many look at me like a woman who had a promiscuous past. I’m not a promiscuous woman. I fell into a trap at 26 just like any girl seeking a permanent love partner,” says Wambui.
“Gossip had spread that I had gotten pregnant while in Mombasa. In our area, I was the reference point of a bad woman. If I passed by the shopping centre even children started pointing their tiny fingers at me Mama kamzungu, sasa! (Hi, the mother of the white baby). This became the village anthem.”
Since getting her son, she has also struggled to find love. Wambui says the moment she identifies a potential suitor, the relationship collapses like a pack of cards when the man realises she has a baby with a white man.
“It hurts. The moment I disclose I have a mixed-race child, a man vanishes. No man wants to marry me,” she says, “If I had gotten a baby with a black man, I would not be treated like an outcast. Perhaps I would be married by now.”
She once met a man who she thought was a soulmate. But what he told her pierced her heart like a double-edged sword.
“He told me ,‘Not only will I say No on earth but even in hell, I will still say a big No to you and your white baby and you can go and find the real father,’” she says.
Wambui says in some areas in Kenya, it is still taboo to have a baby with a white man.
“I received no sympathy or understanding, like a woman who has a child fathered by a black man and is accepted by society. This affected me psychologically. The shame tags along because my son will always be white.”
She started isolating herself and stopped attending social gatherings, but that did not prevent people from using her son’s skin colour to give directions. “I became a Google map in my village. Every time a visitor asked for directions, I became an easy location marker. It was so hurtful to hear neighbours giving directions using me,” she says.
“I was forced to take my child to a private school with slightly higher standards. But it did not cushion us. The bullying affected me and my child. I fell into depression and other health problems that affected every area of my life,” she says.
She recounts moments when her son turned 11, his racial consciousness was fully formed, and he could narrate the nasty incidents that occurred at school.
Parents should not be afraid to talk about race with mixed-race children.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
“The first time he told me about the racial attacks, I broke down. I thought he was too young to handle a deep conversation about race. I wanted him to be old enough to handle the race talk, but it was affecting him. He was a sweet, creative, adorable boy facing ugly realities,” she says, “I suffered insomnia, perennial headaches, and stomach ulcers, wondering how to protect him and why society was stopping us from enjoying a normal life.”
Her advice to young women dating white men? “If you don’t want to become miserable, lonely, and mentally unstable, make sure you formalise your relationship.”
But if you are a single parent with mixed-race children, she says, encourage them to be proud of being both black and white.
“Teach them confidence from a young age. Keep the conversation about race wide open to avoid an identity crisis. Talk and talk and talk with the child about race. You are the guide. If you don’t talk to your child about the race, there will come a point where he or she will feel lost. People will decide for them what their race is. Educate them about who they are when it comes to race. Be supportive of them and validate their feelings. Constantly remind them that they are human too,” says Wambui, who is a social worker at the Young African Women Initiative in Nakuru.
A professional counsellor, Runo Billy, says: “Parents should not be afraid to talk about race with mixed-race children. As hard as it might be, ignoring the conversation means children will encounter questions about their racial identity for the first time, not in the safety of their own family, but at school or on the playground, and often in ways that are scary or unpleasant.”
Dr Runo says going to church, reading books, and watching films about mixed-race characters introduces the idea of the mixed-race experience to a child and reduces the rejection trauma.
“You can do it as young as three or four years old. That allows the parents to find more words and get to know the feeling the child could be experiencing at some point.”
“When the child goes out into the world and someone asks, “What colour are you?” that child will be less likely to be hurt or surprised. Rather, they’ll be ready with answers,” adds Dr Runo, who is also a psychology lecturer at St Paul’s University Nakuru Campus.
“You protect them more by doing it this way rather than talking to teachers or other children making racial comments about your mixed-race child,” adds Dr Runo.
