Location, Location, Location- Why some places are better than others for IR families

Suddenly, it seems my life is filled with interracial couples and their mixed children.

Lil Bit and I go the pool almost daily, and she's become fast friends with two little girls around her age who look a lot like her- and both are biracial. They differ from our family slightly in composition (the mothers are white, the fathers are black) but this matters little to them or to me. As mothers of biracial daughters, their moms and I have enjoyed some interesting poolside conversations as the kids splash around. We talk about our husbands… and men are men. We talk about the local schools. We talk about our daughters and we talk about our experiences with the whole "black and white family" dynamic. We agree that, for the most part, race has a played a relatively small part in family lives.

My friend Susan's family is the most like mine. She too, was married before her current partner and has a now teen-aged daughter from that relationship who is white, not mixed and who lives with Susan and her current husband. Her current husband has a teenaged daughter from a prior relationship, too—she is black. And together they have Layanna, who is six. Over the summers, his daughter joins their family: black dad, white mom, white daughter, black daughter, mixed daughter. Instant mixed and blended family.

You might think that this would be a recipe for all kinds of conflict—and it sometimes is, but not in the way you might expect.

The conflicts, to the extent they exist, come as the teens struggle to accept the authority of step-parents-- and between the two teenagers who are not related by any blood tie-- than from any other issue.

In a way, I'm not surprised. Where we live—Montgomery County, Maryland— a suburb of Washington, D.C.--is one of the most diverse regions of the United States. Our town boasts a population that identifies itself as 43% white, 18% black, 21% Latino, 15% Asian and 3% of other racial/ethnic groups. When we go out as family here, we rarely feel anyone pays us any special notice. There are so many families of so many cultures and mixes of ethnicities that we merit barely more than a glance. Our family's racial composition may be a little unusual, but it's nothing folks around here haven't seen before. In fact, these days we're more likely to get special notice from a family that looks LIKE OURS, than one that doesn't.

Just last night, Kevin and I took the girls out for dinner and ran into a couple with their children. We didn't know them at all, but the mother said hello, and the father said hello and the kids said hello before we all headed in our separate directions. The reason for all these "hellos"? She was black, he was white, the kids looked like Lil Bit. Just one moment like that is a nice thing. But when we got the restaurant, we were seated near another black-white couple, who also gave us the smile and nod as we passed them.

In the 1990s, Montclair New Jersey was crowned as a mecca for interracial couples by Interrace Magazine, a publication aimed at interracial couples that I don't think is in existence any longer. Since the Interrace poll, I don't know of any more recent polls, but the recent Pew Research study found that other areas are catching up. Specifically, the study found that among all new marriages in 2008, 22% in the West were interracial, compared to only 13% in both the East and South and 11% in the Midwest. Since the same study also found that Americans are marrying interracially at the highest rates ever, I expect more and more communities to become so diverse that none of us pay much attention to the colors any more.

The sheer numbers of multi-racial and multi-ethnic couples in our community creates a feeling of solidarity that is particularly helpful for our children. That we ended up living where we do wasn't exactly planned— I grew up in neighborhood Fairfax County, Virginia, an equally diverse part of the world, and Kevin has made the Washington area his home for the past 30 years—but we stumbled into our community quite by chance. I didn't do a demographic search to test its diversity: we just bought the house we liked/could afford. We were lucky.

If for some reason, however, we decided to move, I'd definitely do my best to determine a community's diversity before settling there. Most communities have a website that includes at least some demographic information on its residents. While most won't break down the number of interracial families, a solid balance of ethnicities provides the raw material to do our own calculations. Since we're all marrying each other, and most of us have children… well, the math's not that hard.

Fortunately, that move is not in our future. Instead, Lil Bit will keep playing with her little biracial friends until they all go to school together in the fall. I'm certain she will meet all kinds of children whose parents look different on the outside at school—and there is strength, power and protection in those numbers and in the familiarity and ease they create for the community as a whole.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue... When Does Experimenting With One's Look Become Self-Hate?

Having a teenaged daughter who has two black parents, a white step-father and bi-racial half sister is perfect fodder for anyone who wants to write a family blog on race, identity and family. Almost daily she says something that raises issues I think are appropriate for this blog, but not always does she give me her consent to talk about them. Yesterday, she told me something supremely interesting, but when I asked if I could blog about it, she said "No." I even offered to change it up some. She still said no. I think she's being slightly unreasonable-- after all, none of her friends would EVER do anything as boring as read her MOTHER's blog-- but I respect her and her privacy. You'll all just have to wait to find out what she revealed in one of our (ongoing) mother-daughter talks yesterday. She did, however, give me permission to recount today's story.

It begins in Walmart (like any good story) with a discussion over makeup. I had promised her she could start wearing it in high school and now Sisi wants a ton of it. Since she starts that institution of higher learning this Fall, she's lobbying hard to build her supply: eyeshadows, mascara, thick black eyeliner.

"No," I said. "First, it's still summer. You're not in high school yet. Second, until you're buying it yourself, I'm in control of how much makeup you can wear. And I think mascara and a little lip gloss is enough. Maybe a neutral shadow. We'll see."

She argued with me: I'll spare you a repeat of all that. But what she said when she finally gave up on eyeshadow and liquid eyeliner is where I once again confronted questions of race, identity and the double-standards of it all. Because after a long pause, she asked, "If I saved my money and bought them myself, could I have blue contact lenses?"

My daughter has perfect eyesight-- she only wears glasses in costumes or in the sun--so the purpose of these contact lenses would be cosmetic only.



Sisi in her doctor costume last Halloween. Very fake glasses.

But her suggestion triggered so much more in me. In the space of a blink, I thought of Toni Morrison's masterpiece, The Bluest Eye-- the story of a black girl who longs for white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes.
I thought of the story I read of the Caribbean woman who paid close to $8,000 for a surgical procedure to turn her dark brown eyes blue-- a procedure that failed-- and nearly went blind in the process. (Read about it here.) I think of James Brown singing "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud." I think of chemical relaxers and hair weaves, of colorism, of just how hard it can be to affirm that "black is beautiful" in a culture that makes daily assaults on brown eyes, kinky hair and curvy figures.

My daughter, like most teens is a voracious consumer of this culture... and now she wants blue eyes.

"Absolutely not," I said before I had really thought about it. "You have beautiful brown eyes, why would you want to cover them up?"

"But you let me dye my hair," she reminded me.

True. I did. Not only did I let her dye her hair, I let her dye it purple, in the hope that being allowed to do it would get the desire for "crazy hair" out of her system once and for all. It worked.

"So what's the difference?" she demanded.

The difference of course, is everything that blue eyes suggests to African Americans about our "insufficiencies." And I was about to say something along that lines, but instead I thought of my other daughter, my Lil Bit, with her green eyes and fair skin. In my mind, I fast-forwarded a decade, and imagined her asking me the same question: "Mom, can I have blue contacts?"

My initial reaction was the same-- "Why would you want contacts if you don't need them to see?" but after that, I had no issue. There were no concerns of pride in racial identity, no worries about self hate, no need to defend the choice beyond reasons of finances or frivolity.

As soon as I realized that I was applying a double standard to my daughter's choices about how to experiment with the beauty God gave them, I knew I was probably being unfair to Sisi and loading her up with the same limited (and limiting) notions of black beauty that hamstring the choices of so many. I realized that because I'm sensitive what others have defined as "black beauty" (e.g.natural hair, brown or black eyes, a big butt, or whatever) my automatic refusal to even consider her request was, in fact, applying the same kind of double standard that black women are subjected to daily. If we choose to straighten our hair-- we're trying to be white. When white women straighten their hair, it's a choice. When we wear weaves or wigs, we're trying to be white. But when white women wear "extensions" they are enhancing their natural hair. When we change the color of our eyes, we're trying to be something we're not. When white women do it, they are experimenting with a fresh look. It's a double standard and it's silly and unfair. While the black community as a whole may continue to define "blackness" and black women according to narrow and specifically "authentic" images, it's not something that I want to perpetuate in my own family.

It is absolutely essential to me that BOTH my girls grow up to believe in their limitless potential. That potential is not simply in academic, career or professional opportunities: it also extends to much more mundane choices like how they wear their hair. And while I still think it's silly to wear contacts if you don't need them to see, if Sisi actually saves her money and insists on buying them, I'll do my best to see it like the purple hair-- as a mild and youthful exploration into counterculture. Blue contacts would also bring her some questions-- and perhaps even some disdain--from some who might feel that her choice abandons something fundamental about black identity. I know we'd have to have a lot of conversations about all of that. Still, I believe my daughters can have a strong black identity-- even with purple hair and blue eyes.

What I really don't want to see is any tattoos... but, for now at least, that's a worry for another day.

My Little Mixed Girl

    

Lil Bit is nearly five, still in pre-school and for the most part, unaware that her family is any different from anyone else's in anyway. To her, Mom is just "mommy" and Dad is just "Daddy." To the extent race plays any significant role in her consciousness, it's on the level that experts say most young children appreciate it: strictly in terms of colors. "Mommy is brown," she might say. "Daddy is white. Sister is brown and I'm…"

Well.

Sometimes she says "white like Daddy." And sometimes, particularly after a long session in the sun, "brown like Mommy." Once she said, "I want to be as brown as sister." Another time she said, "I'm almost white like Daddy." And yet another: "I look almost as brown as Mommy."

The beginnings of her process of self identification—and the questions that will accompany it—are evident in what she says. So are some my own conflicts about it. I confess that it bugs me a bit when she says she's white. I don't know how Kevin feels about this, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it bothered him if she chose to identify as solely black. After all, she's a part of both us. Neither of us wants to be "erased."

A few months back, I was interviewed by Dr. Laura Berman on Oprah Radio regarding my book and other topics around interracial dating and relationships. A woman called in and shared that she (a black woman) and her husband (a white man) had recently had an argument because she'd said to their ambitious, mixed race, ten-year-old daughter "You can be the first black female President of the United States!"

"She's not black," her husband argued. "She's biracial. Why would you say that?"

The woman confessed to being genuinely surprised by how upset he was. "Our daughter looks like a black American—light skinned, but definitely not white. She's seen as black in our community and has even had some run-ins with white kids at school because of her color. I didn't think he'd react that way."

I didn't really have any advice for the woman—except that I think I understand how the husband felt. Unless you saw her with me, my Lil Bit would pass in the world as a white girl and saying that makes me, as a black woman uncomfortable in the same way that having his daughter perceived as solely black made that woman's white husband uncomfortable. I know a lot of black people don't like it, but Tiger Woods' identification as "Cablinasian" really was apt and sensitive in many ways. It recognized the different influences of ethnicity and culture that multi-racial children try to honor. For bi-racial and multi-racial children, single race identification quite literally erases people they love.

The real experts—the social psychologists and psychologists who work with mixed race children—say that racial identity is a constantly shifting thing for kids. In response to the question "What are you?" children can shift between being "black only" and "white only" to "both" then on to being simply "human." To be helpful a parent must put aside his or her own desires about how the child sees herself and provide as much support and information as possible. It's also helpful to realize that how the child sees herself and how the world sees her may not necessarily be the same. Knowing that there may be conflicts ahead, and training her to respond to them in ways that are self-affirming is just part of the uniqueness of being a mixed race person—and a part of the unique challenge of raising a mixed race child.

I'm all for supporting my daughter but the experts' advice leaves out the fact that parents have feelings too. It is my genuine hope to teach Lil Bit to value and claim all of her heritage proudly, erasing none of it. I know there might be heavy pressure from peers and others to fit her neatly into a single box—but I hope Kevin and I can support her in becoming the kind of young woman who can withstand it.

But I know that in the end, who she becomes is not my decision. It's hers.

Strange Conversations: Or Can A White Man Raise a Black Girl?

Sisi is having a tough summer. Thanks to the video of the two "young ladies" in their "altercation" with a Seattle police officer over a jaywalking ticket, we had a long conversation about what to do if you're arrested (Ask one of your friends--there are always friends-- to tape the whole thing, don't fight it and let them take you in, honey. Your mom's a lawyer.)

We had a conversation about why it was a bad idea to station herself on the school grounds with a bunch of friends and why it's always going to be better to congregate in smaller groups at someone's house or doing a specific activity than just "hanging out."

And today, we had the conversation about why it's bad to walk home from the pool with just your bikini top and towel on (no cover up, no t-shirt)- no matter how comfortable it was or the fact that "everybody else" is doing it.

In each of these conversations, Kevin and I both talked with her about what we perceive as the nuances of each event. And in every case, he brought up the differences in how young black people are perceived than how young white ones are.

In the first incident, his comments were that while she might be stopped unfairly-- possibly for racial reasons-- escalating the encounter or getting angry would only make it much worse. Instead, he counselled-- and I completely agree--the smart thing is to respect the officer's authority (even if he or she is dead wrong) and fight through other channels.

As for hanging out at the school, Sisi and a cluster of her black friends--girls and boys-- had taken to doing this until I told her I didn't like it and that she wouldn't be allowed to go over to the school unless she had business inside it. When the "but Mom, why?" started, I explained that it didn't look good for a bunch kids to be loitering in front of the closed school building. "Someone's going to notice a bunch of black kids in front of the school, get nervous and call the cops," I told her. "I know you're not doing anything, but that's not how it's perceived. I know it's not fair, but it's true and I don't want you to get in any trouble. Your friends are welcome to come over here and hang out on the back deck," I concluded, trying not to be a complete kill-joy. After all, we live right behind the school and I'm usually here to chaperone-- oh, right. That's the problem--at least to her mind!

She might have concluded that I was over-sensitive, bougie and ridiculously over-protective. Perhaps she does think that. But if I'm over-sensitive, bougie and over-protective, there are two of us in this household who feel the same way.

Finally, I was livid when she walked in an hour late, wearing just her bikini top and a towel. The pool is half a mile a way, the neighborhood is pretty safe and it was still light out. Still, walking the streets that naked doesn't strike me as a good idea-- especially when I know how this society hyper-sexualizes the bodies of young black women. (If you need a primer on this, check out Erykah Badu's video here or the work of scholars Layli Phillips and DP Stevens paper "Freaks, Gold Diggers and Dykes" here

Kevin approached this one a little differently, but firmly. He told her: "I'm telling you, as a man, you do NOT want that kind of attention. There are men out there who dressing like that as an invitation. They are not good guys who stop when you tell them to or let you call your mother to come get you. Don't ever do that again."

I know Sisi find all of this terribly unfair-- because it is unfair. I wish we lived in a world where everyone was treated equally regardless of race or gender-- but we don't. You don't have to be black to know that doing certain activities with black skin creates a different perception than being white and doing the exact same thing. Fair? No. Reality, yes. You don't have to be female to know that being female carries with it concerns that males rarely think about. Fair? No. Reality, yes. And while I'd like to believe that the world can change, that someday there will be greater racial and gender equality I'm certain that I won't see it my life time. Sisi might not see it in hers, either.

One of the most common things I've heard in writing about interracial relationships is that the white parent can't possibly "teach a kid what it means to be black." I disagree. Being a partner to another culture means quickly learning a sensitivity to the differences--especially where the children are concerned. No one wants their kids to suffer, and certainly not from parental ignorance. We learn as parents and partners because it's essential to the success of our families and our relationships. It's like saying a father can't teach a girl how to be a woman, or a mother can't teach a boy to be a man. Not so, as many single parents have proven.

Race doesn't drive the quality of parenthood; commitment does. If race alone was the only factor that mattered, every same race family would have perfect kids. But of course the factors that create successful children are far more varied than simple skin shade. We are still very much a work in progress here, but so far, from the sensitivity he's shown I'd say the white guy I married could raise a black girl quite well. Still, it's a little strange to hear him say "You have to understand that because you're a black girl, you might be treated/perceived differently."

It's an acknowledgement that while our family might be "post racial" the rest of our society isn't.

Father's Day Reflections

For the first time that I can remember since he died three years ago, I dreamed of my father last night. I know I've had dreams of his last moments, when the pain of cancer left him unable to walk or speak. But it's been forever since I dreamed of my father-- the man as he was before the diagnosis: upright, healthy and as sure of himself as any person alive... especially when it came to what his children should do. It never mattered that we were adults: he always thought he knew best. I guess your children are your children, it doesn't matter how old they get. It's an attitude that, the older my own girls get, I understand better.

In my dream, my father was walking through my house, giving me unsolicited advice, much as he would do when he was living. He suggested paint colors for the living room. He made pronouncements about the state of our finances (in the military he was finance officer, who managed large budgets for several of the Army's largest agencies) and, he gave me a lecture about my health... which is good, but I've been ignoring a few little things. In my dream, I was telling Dad about that and he didn't think that was such a good idea. I guess he would know. He ignored little things that, had they been investigated, might have alerted us to the cancer before it was too late.

It's weird that after years of silence, Dad should step into my dreams, now on the eve of Father's Day. While I know he loved me and I loved him, ours was a complicated relationship. We saw the world through very different lenses and valued very different currencies. Because of that, it was often difficult for us to communicate.

But neither of us ever stopped trying. He never turned his back on me, he or any of my three siblings. He supported me in the best ways he knew how, and though he might have been critical of some of my choices, he certainly wouldn't let any outsider make those same comments. He was my father and he understood that job meant protect, provide and guide. It's hard and often thankless job-- a lifetime sentence in some ways. He accepted it willingly, warts and all, just as he committed himself fully to his marriage to my mother. They were married for 46 years.

Contrast this with the 70% of African American children who are born out of wedlock. Many of these kids grow up without a father in the home, without a father in their lives. It's a void I cannot imagine.

It was my father who taught me to swim, who pushed me academically, who provided discipline, who modelled a work ethic. My father interviewed my dates and showed me how a real man treats his wife. My father insisted we clean our rooms, handed out chores, introduced the concept of financial stewardship. He modelled physical fitness and moderation in food and drink. The military gave him the chance to "see the world": he encouraged his children to see it. The military expanded his horizons beyond what he might have known if he'd lived his whole life in central Virginia where he was born. So from a young age, his children's horizons were expanded-- whether we wanted them to be or not. Going to symphonies, operas, taking piano lessons, playing sports-- these weren't options, they were orders.

Sometimes, my siblings and I groused... but now we're immensely grateful. Much of what I am now, I owe to him. My lawn looks good because he made us do yard work every Saturday and I learned how to cut grass, trim hedges and lay down mulch. Kevin says I can put together anything. Not true, but what I know about assembly I learned from Dad. When I hung the chandelier in our dining room and painted the kitchen, I was channelling lessons from Dad. Those were the things he loved. Even when he was sick, I could excite him with a conversation about laying tile, whitening grout, building a deck or constructing a swingset. That I know anything about those kinds of projects is a debt I owe to him.

None of us are perfect parents-- no more than any of us are perfect people. Fatherhood, like any job done well forces a man to confront not just his strengths, but also his limitations. The good ones hang in, even when the going gets tough. They say the unpopular things, do the dirty jobs, allow themselves to be hated and feared when that's the course that is required. They strive for an ideal of parenthood: for goodness and wisdom and fairness and steadfastness. Maybe they don't always succeed, but it's the trying that matters. The trying and the "teaching"-- not just how to hammer a nail or cast a line-- the teaching of what manhood means. It's an example all children need, regardless of gender.

Good fathers stand with their kids. They don't back away when the money gets tight, or when they don't know what to do-- and they certainly don't disappear because they'd rather be doing something else. Even when marriages or relationships between adults end, good fathers bend over backwards to remain engaged and involved in their childrens' lives--not just financially, but in every way.

Far too many black kids--far too kids, of all races-- don't know what it means to have a father stand with and for them every single day. It's an unimaginable loss... as great as the loss of good father, like mine. It explains too many things about what's wrong in our society. Rather than pointing fingers of blame, it really is time to as the saying goes "man up". Got kids? Parent them. No excuses. If you don't know how, find out. There are always resources available to those who seek them. Where there's a will, there's a way. I know that sounds like a platitude, but there's truth in it.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I think that shade of blue would really pop in the living room, my roses do need a trellis and you're right, it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll make a doctor's appointment, thanks. And thanks for being a great Dad.

Not Black Enough... for Church?

Several months back, I was contacted by a producer from Soledad O'Brien's "Black in America" series. While I was hoping that Soledad wanted to interview me, that wasn't the request. Instead, the producer was reaching out to those of us who write about interracial relationships to see if we could help with a story. They were looking for an engaged interracial couple looking to marry in a church in which they both felt comfortable.

While the request may sound a little contrived, it's clear the effort was reaching for the complex issues surrounding how segregated religion remains in America. Looking for an interracial couple would allow Soledad and her producers to explore that fact through the unique paradigm of a fast-growing segment of the marrying population.

I did my best to help with the project, but when I talked to the couples I knew, I discovered something interesting: none of them were religious enough to be planning a church wedding. And that becomes even more interesting when you consider the data on black Americans and religion.

In a study published last year, The Pew Research Foundation found that compared to other racial groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Fifty-nine percent of those who identified a denomination said that they belonged to "historically black Protestant churches."

For those of you who don't understand what this means, it means that eight out of ten black Americans are religious, and that of those, more than half belong to an all-black church.

When you think it about, these numbers explain why the "Black in America" producers were interested in finding an interracial couple for their program-- and why they had to put out the "all-alert" to find a couple that fit their parameters. It stands to reason that people who are deeply religious would choose to marry those who share their spiritual beliefs and belong to a similar (or the same) church. That bears true with the religious married interracial couples that I know: they either belonged to the same church when they met or very similar ones. These were mixed race churches where they both already felt welcome.

But the non-religious couples were what intrigued me. This is far from scientific, of course, since I only know a handful of engaged interracial couples, but each of them said they weren't religious AT ALL and no plans for church weddings. Actually, these black women and their white fiances mirrored my own situation: neither Kevin or I are particularly religious. We were married at the county courthouse--not in a church. And while we have attended both predominantly white and black churches together, it's our own choice, not the composition of the churches that has kept us from joining.

Being more agnostic in my spiritual beliefs puts me outside the norm for a black american woman, since the Pew study found that 84% of black women surveyed said that their religious beliefs were "very important" to them. And fully 91% of black women said that they were affiliated with some kind of organized religious institution. Only 9% of black women say they are unaffiliated-- compared to 16% of men.

These numbers remind me of some other statistics-- the statistics on black men (15%) and black women(6.5%) who are married interracially. Is there a link?

Deborrah Cooper, author of the blog surviving dating thinks so. In a recent post, entitled,The Black Church: How Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely she interpreted the Pew Study to suggest that traditional black churches are part of the problem for black women, who may follow teachings that discourage them from "going where the men are."

I don't know that I completely agree, but I did find it interesting that so many of the interracial engaged couples I spoke with in my efforts to help out this TV producers laughed at the idea of a church wedding and proclaimed themselves "not into that." These black women were, like me, in the minority co-hort of women of our race...both in our attitudes toward religion and our choice of partner.

I've been called "not black enough" for other reasons in my life (liking school, talking a certain way, marrying white etc.) but this is an interesting new divide. Deborrah Cooper's piece has a lot of people talking about race, religion and romance. I think that's a good thing. I often tell people that if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. It's fine as long as you're happy with what's in your life. But if you're not, things may have to change... including, perhaps where you worship and with whom.

Black "SWANS"-Stong Women Achievers, No Spouse

In my internet travels today, I came across an article by Dr. Linda Young on psychologytoday.com. Dr. Young is an attractive, successful black woman who writes a column called "Love in Limbo" for the magazine in which she analyzes dating and mating for those of us in the blogosphere with an armchair interest in psychology. Today's entry was entitled "High Achieving Black Women: Not Choosing or Not Chosen?" Of course, with a title like that, I knew it was something I had to read!



Using the phrase "SWANS"-- strong women achievers, no spouse--coined by Christine Whelan in her 2006 book Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, Dr. Young analyzed the impact of education and income on black women's marital status. She reached a conclusion that surprises no one: there are more black women with advanced degrees, making incomes over $100,000 than there are black men. In fact, according to her data, there are 157 black women with college degrees for every 100 black men-- and 209 black women with masters or higher for every 100 black men. Compare that with 133 white women, 101 asian women, and 173 latina women to 100 of their men and you see what all the attention on this issue is about.

The link to Dr. Young's blog is here.

These numbers suggest that, across the board, American women are becoming better educated than American men... but nowhere is this more evident than in the black community. While the long term ramifications of this growing trend have yet to emerge, Dr. Young suggests that black SWANS who are ready to trade "no spouse" for coupledom throw out a wide net. She took her own advice: her husband is also a PhD and shares her values and interests. He happens to be white, too, but he can't help that, can he? (smiles-that's a little joke in our house!)

Regardless of education and income, however, my position is and always has been that character, common ground and common interests are the stuff of solid relationships. Looks are nice, but they can often change. While race may be largely immutable, so many of our other physical qualities will alter with age, with the state of our health, due to accident or other misfortune. Let's not forget: some diseases even alter skin shade.

Incomes can change, too-- and choices based solely on bank accounts often don't have what it takes to go the distance when the money runs out.

But the core of one's character is another matter. Let it be the guiding star in all your relationships-- romantic and otherwise-- and all else will follow.

Dr. Young seems to be on the same page. I'll be adding Love in Limbo to the blog roll and keeping up with her future posts.