Raising Biracial Children Whilst Coparenting by Tarryn Mentoor

I am hyper aware of the fact that I am raising a biracial child in a country that has a tragic past regarding race and inequality, as well as the very recent intense rise of xenophobia.

I am a colored  South African single mom to a gorgeous 16-month-old son (which means 1 year and 4 months old for those who do not care to count in months haha), peacefully coparenting with his black Nigerian father. As I was thinking about what I could share about my ongoing lived experience, I would like to throw out the following caveats: • This perspective is coming from a single mom with a supportive coparent. • I am speaking from my current lived experience as this journey is fluid and will change with each phase of my child’s life. • The points given are intended as high-level take outs for all parents raising biracial children. There is so much that I would like to share on this topic and found it difficult to put into one post! That being said, below are the three things I want to highlight for those who are raising biracial children: 1. Success starts with you and your relationship with your coparent. I cannot emphasize enough how key this point is. All relationships come with its challenges, and even more so when you and your coparent have an unpleasant past. From my side, the work really needed to be done internally to come to a place of peace and collaboration with my coparent. I had to decide to move forward, and it was so damn hard! I had to move forward in order for me to start rebuilding my life towards my vision of living abundantly. The same can be said for my coparent as he also had to work on himself and adjust his behavior towards me. Once we got past our “ish,” a whole new world opened for us. We started to communicate openly and truly engage in what is best for our son. 2. Be open about what you are comfortable AND uncomfortable with relating to the cultural differences on raising children. It is important to discuss some of the cultural upbringing aspects of your coparent and hear their viewpoints on how they would like to implement that with your children. In my case, our cultures are very different, and I really had to wrap my head around some of the things that are considered the norm in Nigeria. An example of this is something called a naming ceremony. A naming ceremony is an event at which a newborn baby is given a name and is done when the child is eight days old by the Yoruba tribe. Now peeps, it is my first child, I had given natural birth and was still bleeding & healing, just about started my breast-feeding journey and now you telling me to throw a big event with lots of people? Ummm……………….????! You can imagine the conversation my coparent and I had to delve into. Definitely set aside time with your coparent to discuss and plan the way forward on those cultural differences pertaining to your children’s upbringing. 3. Expose your children to both cultures. As a child that was born into the pandemic, this was tricky as he was not exposed to people, never mind multiple cultures (Pandmeic coparenting is a story for another day lol). What this exposure looks like specifically for my 16-month-old son is purchasing books with little kids that look like both myself and his dad, letting him watch nursery rhyme channels on YouTube (well done Cocomelon for introducing Cody to the series), Yoruba nursery channels on YouTube, weekly video calls with his dads family in Nigeria (especially grandma), His dad speaking Yoruba around him, My mom speaking Afrikaans around him and tasting the different foods from each culture. As time goes on, exposure will take on more depth as we try to keep it age appropriate, but the important thing here is that you as the parent be the 1st channel that opens your cultural background to your children. Wishing you strength, happiness, and abundance on your amazing journey. Xx Love always, Tarryn