I’m (27F) an Indian American woman. I was born and raised in America. A large majority of my childhood friends are Indian and I love to catch up with them.
I’m the first of my friend group to have a baby. I was expected to be the last to have one, but life happens. I love her very very much and she’s the main focus of my friend group. Her father (38M) is white and my baby looks predominantly white. For reference, my skin is tan and lighter than some of my friends, but I still look very Indian.
My friends and I decided to have an outdoor lunch together for the first time since February. I take covid very seriously because of my baby (now 6 months) but the cases in our area are very low and we all agreed to go to a place with less crowd. We were very safe.
My friends and I were all sitting at a table and were having a great time. A white family later came to sit next to our table (still pretty far from us, more than 6 feet).
My baby was laughing pretty loudly and babbling. She was being the happy little baby that she is. I had dressed her up in a lavender dress and she was wearing a little matching bonnet.
A lady from that family noticed us and walked over to us, without a mask and pretty close to me and my baby. I immediately started to put a mask on my baby.
She started talking to me and complimented my baby and then asked me where she came from. Her exact words were “How cute! That baby is just adorable! I just want to eat that little face up! Where did she come from?”
I was so confused and put off by that question. I didn’t know what she was talking about and my immediate response was “Umm, well my vagina?”
My friends all looked so confused and irritated and we were just super awkward. The lady was offended and told me that I could’ve just told her that my baby was mine and I didn’t have to be so rude.
She then huffed off and my friends and I were left pretty angry and confused. We carried on with our lunch and then when we were leaving, the lady’s husband and son walked up toward us and told us that we disrespected her and asked us if we had any lessons in basic manners.
We didn’t say anything to them because frankly, we were scared. I’m putting this story here because I want to know if what I said was wrong and if I brought this situation on myself. AITA?
Edit: Wow, I’m overwhelmed with the response. I showed this post to my friends and we all laughed at some of the replies.
In regards to my baby and the mask, I’m a new mother and I’m young, please cut me some slack. My boyfriend is the one who’s the baby expert and I try my best to keep up. I tried to do what was best to protect the baby but I hear that I was wrong. Baby doesn’t go out at all except to doctor visits and I only put a mask on her because of how close the lady was.
Conclusion
The internet exploded with opinions after this mom shared her bizarre encounter, and her witty retort to a rude stranger went viral. Was her response out of line, or was the other family completely out of bounds? The internet has spoken, and the consensus is clear: she’s definitely not the a-hole here!
Here’s how people reacted:
As an aside, it’s not recommended to put a mask on children younger than 2 because they can’t remove it themselves if they have trouble breathing. It doesn’t really protect the wearer anyway; it protects everyone else from the wearer. Next time, if you feel safe to do so, just ask an unmasked stranger to step back at least 2 meters or leave entirely.
NTA, the racism is strong with this one…
\- Mother picking me (completely white appearance) up from school (30 years ago mind you) and being asked if she was the nanny
\- My cousin having a coffee with her father and an older woman coming over and calling him a pervert! (I guess she thought they were a couple???)
\- Another cousin’s wife being asked were she got her “Chinese” baby (her response was “more direct” than yours)
Along with the constant assumptions that I’m adopted and don’t know it (I’m not, I’m just a clone of my dad).
Your response was perfect, let these people be embarrassed by their racist bias!
I’m half Hispanic, my skin is tan and I have dark hair, my daughter is blue eyed dark hair…
People assume she is adopted, or I’m her babysitter, or anything but the possibility that she is my biological baby. She looks just like me, except lighter features… But people just don’t see her as my biological daughter.
Anyhow some people ask in a nice manner and I’m not as offended, others are insensitive and rude in how they ask.
Congrats on your new baby.
When my aunt and uncle had twins and brought them to church for the first time a parishioner asked them “did you use a sperm donor. He’s (my baby cousin) really dark!”
My uncle is a darker skinned Italian. The cousin looks JUST like him.
People are just rude sometimes. But I did laugh at your response. 🤣
If you ever encounter a situation like that again I’d keep your original response, and then when the questioner acts affronted, calmly sit them down and start with, “well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…”
NTA
The fact that she did respond with the huffy comment that you could’ve just told her the baby’s yours indicates that was her initial angle of approach – doubting that you produced that baby. She’s a racist weirdo who apparently can’t comprehend mixed-race families, and she deserved an answer like that.
I don’t even understand what happened here. Did the white woman get offended… because the brown woman said that the white baby was actually her baby? I get that OP would be slightly offended, since the weird wording suggests OP just took a baby from somewhere. More likely the woman thought the baby was adopted. But why in God’s name was the woman offended…? For what? And why did her husband and son feel the need to intervene? Is this some cultural issue in the USA? Is “vagina” a very vulgar word maybe?
Once when my older child was having a melt down, someone took it upon himself to say if I couldn’t handle her, then I should take her back where I got her from. I said you tell me how I’m going to put her back into my vagina! The look on his face was priceless. What’s even funnier is that my oldest is my spitting image, we just joke the printer ran out of ink.
It’s a body part. Babies come out of it. NTA.
Your response was unintentionally hilarious. What she was doing was a microagression, and your response was well-deserved.
Sadly, welcome to the wonderful world of people having a hard time believing your kid is yours (I experience it from the other side of course, being a mixed kid. I look nothing like my White father).
People must stop thinking the race matters so much. The End.
Perfect response.
10/10 tell racist assholes about your vagina again.