Teen Racial Dating

I was surfing the internet, when I found this site. Parents write in about the problems they are having with their children and then other parent's reply on what they think will help to solve their problems. This story a woman wrote really caught my eye.

I have a 16-year-old beautiful blonde haired blue-eyed daughter. She is [secretly] dating a young black boy from her school. This was a problem last school year along with pot, drinking, staying out all night, and failing grades. We believe that we have the drinking, pot, and failing grades under control. But the secretly seeing black boys continues. She is under constant supervision at home but we can't control what happens in the school. We are not prejudiced. We have discussed this with our friends (who are black with the same beliefs) and they also are at a loss of how to handle this. We look for any suggestions on how to handle this problem without instilling any prejudice in her.

One person wrote in:

Unless they boy is having a negative influence on your child, such as involvement in or encouragement of the substance abuse and failing grades, you should have no problem with their relationship. Otherwise, you are prejudice, and just because African-Americans agree with you does not mean that your beliefs are justified. Black people can be prejudice as well. I suggest you have a calm and serious discussion with your child and find out how she truly feels about this boy and your refusal to allow her to make her own judgements when it comes to HER relationships.

Another said:

This one dropped my jaw!

All of my children are girls so therefore I have been faced with the dating problem of different races. I will not allow my children to date out of their race (w) and for good reason. I come from a small town and through my 12 years of high school and almost 40 years of life have seen what interracial marriages and births do to children. Call it racism, prejudice or whatever but the children do pay for it. The kindest thing a parent or future parent can do is give their children one heritage or background to deal with. My best friend married a Mexican and it ending in divorce. I have several friends that married out of their race and not one of their marriages lasted. Cultural and religious differences may be a problem thought in the past but it is not. I am about to graduate from College and there are students in my classes who are as angry and separated by race, religion, or whatever as strongly today as they were in the 60's. The bottom line date and marry in your own race, with the problems facing today's marriages, don't you think that those problems are better left unchallenged.

Here is my view:

First of all if the drinking, pot, staying out all night, and grades are under control, then it sounds like this little black boy is not the problem. It sounds to me that the last boy she dated was a problem and they are taking it out on everybody she dates know. If you always blame the boys that she is dating instead of her for her actions, then she will continue doing the things that she is doing no matter whom she is dating. I know as a parent of a daughter that you want to blame the boy, but you have to look at your daughter also. As for their black friends, they just may not want to tell them that their daughter is the problem. They may want to save the little boy. It sounds like I would want to save him from these parents! These friends may also be friends with the white couple, but it may be one of those deals where they are friends that you have that you walk around them like you are on ice afraid to say what they really think. It's always just easier to agree.

As for the person who wrote in who has all girls.- Wow! - He really did come from a small town, because he has a small mind. He has missed out on living his life and his four girls are going to miss out on living their lives. I hope that his girls grow up and grow out of being small minded. They will miss out on meeting so many people and learning about so many different cultures. The thing is, is if they don't let them date out of their race, they probably don't let them have friends out of their race either. I could be wrong though.