When The (White) Husband Doesn’t Want An Asian Baby

By Tim | Monday, December 3, 2012 | 15 Comments

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There’s an interesting letter circulating the internet on Dear Prudence’s advice column. Dear Prudence is one of those Dear Abby/Ann Landers columns, on manners and morals, and this particular letter comes from a Caucasian husband married to an East Asian wife who is infertile. Given that she can’t have a baby, he wants to know if it’s okay to ask his wife to select an egg donor who is also Caucasian so that they can have as he puts it, an “all-white” baby. Emily Yoffe (author of Dear Prudence) rightly calls him out on his request and pretty much labels him a racist without actually saying so.

It seems unbelievable that someone would marry someone of another race, but not want their child to be partly of that race. What did this man find desirable in his wife to begin with that he doesn’t find so desirable in his own child? His argument is that he wants his child to be more like the other children in their neighborhood. And while I understand that, as I wrote about a similar issue on why one would or would not circumcise their son, I certainly don’t believe being a mixed race Asian/Caucasian would be all that different from an “all-white” baby’s experience in an “all-white” neighborhood, especially since the mom would still be East Asian.

Likely having an East Asian mom (unless she was second or third generation American) would likely have brought along all the usual things Asian children have to deal with in school (bringing funny food for lunch, etc). Even my daughter has some of this, as she enjoys eating dried squid snack (saki ika), which my spouse has turned up his nose at quite a few times.

As one-half of a gay couple, we had to choose our egg donor as well, and since I was going to be the biological father, we knew immediately that we wanted the egg donor to be the same race and ethnicity as my husband, who happens to be Caucasian. There wasn’t even a second thought on the matter. Although I do have to admit when we found it nearly impossible to find an egg donor of Norwegian ancestry, I did scan through some Asian egg donor profiles. But it certainly was not my first choice, as I wanted my child to feel as if he or she was a part of each of us equally. So while we didn’t find an egg donor with Norwegian ancestry, we did in the end choose one with European ancestry.

Today, we tell our daughter she’s part Chinese and part Norwegian. She enjoys mooncakes and lefse equally. And she feels a part of both of our families. So to the husband who wants an “all-white” baby, all I have to say is that I think you’re making a big mistake if you don’t try for an egg donor who is more similar ethnically to your wife, at least at first, and then go for another option like we did if you can’t find an East Asian egg donor.

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Ahmed-Sanchez-De-La-Cruz-Kim/58700922 Ahmed Sanchez De La Cruz Kim

Yeah, that is pretty racist. I wouldn’t know what else to call it.
http://twitter.com/andrewjinwon jwkim

just another white-privileged internally racist white guy with equally self-racist, asian male-hating asian wife
Informed

just another buthurt asian guy jealous of some random white guy he will never meet.
http://destroytorebuild.blogspot.com/ MaSir

“I am white and my wife is East Asian. Her race isn’t a problem for me and I would have had no difficulty raising mixed race children, but frankly…I’d prefer my kids to be white….at the end of the day I want my kids to look like me, their cousins, and the kids they’ll go to school with.”

NE~GRO PLEASE. That statement is flat-out racist. Of course “her race isn’t a problem” when every man’s dick is colorblind.
http://destroytorebuild.blogspot.com/ MaSir

You can’t say the guy’s wife is a self-racist, asian male hater. She could love him for non-racial reasons but that has yet to be verified. I’ll give the woman the benefit of the doubt, but I do agree that the white guy’s comment was as racist as they come.

Race is a huge element of somebody’s identity so to deny that from their child is a form of cultural appropriation at it’s purest form.
my self

I can’t even began to understand despite my multiracial background. Growing up in a society that makes you shameful for being part black, I lack a sympathetic ear when someone who is in an IR relationship wants only an all white baby. Knowing their partner is of East Asian decent and can not conceive a child.

truly disgusting human beings and I love how sperm donating creates racial profiling. maybe i should have me a non-mix blond hair and blue eyed baby just cause.
Edwin

Talk about such disadvantages for an Asian male! Not only do they get spurned by women of all races, they can’t sell their sperm as well!
Andrew

Honestly, I’m an Asian male and I don’t really find this racist. Perhaps the husband wants their child to fit in better with the other neighborhood kids. Or maybe for some other reasons. But just because he wants a white child, you can’t automatically label him as “racist”. That’s a pretty strong word.
HelloFriends

This is one of those things where you are just 100% sure is a letter only a white person could have written. Grade A stuff.
mingzi

He doesn’t deserve our genes.
FabiusMaximus

just another racist white troll who is probably jacking off to some child porn while his wife is banging a black dude.
FabiusMaximus

If she’s not a self hater, then why is she still with him? Surely his racism has come out before, since white people cannot hide their racist feelings, kind of like they can’t hide that they’re pedophiles.
FabiusMaximus

TRANSLATION: I’m an asian guy who likes to get butt schlubbed by white guys while wearing a kimono.
FabiusMaximus

And asian women eat it up like cotton candy, num num num. Seriously asian guys, DATE OUT. Asian women are disgusting, vile, self hating trash.
Gail Sansolo

That was completely unnecessary, you miserable cunt. All he said was that he didn’t find it racist. There’s no need to tell him to go kill himself for stating his own opinion.

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