Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Due to the unseasonably warm weather today, I took the girls to the park before M’s swimming lessons.  About 50,000 other parents had the same idea, so the playground was packed.

As I was pushing L on the swings (and simultaneously talking to Chicagomama on the phone), when a little boy who was probably about 7 years old tugged on my sleeve.

“Hey LADY!  Hey Lady! Do you ever watch Jon and Kate Plus 8???”  he asked.

“HUH?  The TV show?  Why do you want to know if I watch that show?” I replied.

“Well, uh, because that girl with you..” as he points at M on the next swing over, “…she looks like Mady on that show!!!  I wondered if you are babysitting for Mady?”

“Oh! No.” I replied, “She is my daughter her name is M.” (M is not short for Mady fortunately!)

“Ohhhh.  I love that show.” said the kid, clearly disappointed.   Then he walked off. 

The truth is, M got a haircut last week and she actually does look a little bit like Mady on Jon & Kate Plus 8.  Or rather, both M and Mady look mixed Asian and white and have hair of a similar length.

A few minutes later, the kid’s mom came over and apologized to me for what her kid said.  She said she had told him not to ask us, but he did it anyway. 

“Well, my husband is Asian so M is biracial,” I said, “ The kids on that show are biracial, too.  I can see why he sees a resemblence.” 

“Yes, well I told him not to bother you!” said the mom.

I wasn’t especially bothered by this incident (actually, I thought it was kind of funny), but it was the first time I felt like another kid was identifying M as something other than white.  The mom seemed rather embarrassed by her kid and also by my pointing out the race thing, so that kind of confirmed it in my head.

The conversation did not seem to interest M at all.  She was focused on trying to get me to follow her agenda and spot her on the monkey bars.  We have had a crazy day today, but I will ask her tomorrow if she heard and if she has any thoughts about it.  She also occasionally watches Jon & Kate plus 8, so she will know who he was talking about.

It was going to happen sooner or later, I guess.  I should probably get a little more proactive and start talking to M about how she can answer these questions herself.

Edited to add: I realized after I wrote this it isn’t the first time another kid has questioned M’s race, but the other times were by Chinese/ Chinese American kids trying to figure out if M was Chinese too, even though she doesn’t speak Chinese as well as they do. That was in the context of Chinese school so it wasn’t very surprising.  Today’s thing kind of caught me off guard.