“That child will never be welcome at our house!”

And with these words, my father and mother drove the proverbial wedge between us as I entered the first trimester of my second pregnancy.

My parents harbored only hope and excitement as I prepared to deliver their first grandchild, Paul, six years earlier. This second pregnancy varied greatly from my first, however, for the fetus growing within me was spawned from a black and white union. It would yield a child of a different color than my first, a child with different features.

As conservative Southerners, my parents were raised in an era and place intolerant of interracial marriages. Indeed, many states outlawed interracial marriages up until 1967—the year I turned 1—with Virginia leading the way in overturning archaic anti-miscegenation laws in the 13 states that had adopted them. The products of these interracial marriages during this era, the biracial children, suffered social stigma and cultural alienation, never fitting into either black or white circles.

A fellow New River Valley resident, Kelly Good, has faced a similar experience, yet only in the fact that she and her husband, Shawn, recently welcomed a beautiful biracial daughter, Hayse, into their lives. Unlike my parents’ initial response, Kelly’s demonstrated unconditional love and extreme joy with the announcement of her pregnancy. Interestingly, Kelly and I grew up within 20 miles of each other in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, although I’m 10 years older. So how do we account for the drastically different reactions from our parents?

As Kelly and I chatted on the phone, several other similarities did arise over the course of our conversation. After she detailed the plethora of biracial nieces and nephews on her husband’s side, a biracial designation not confined to black and white but inclusive of Asian, too, I recounted the multiple hues of my younger son’s cousins on his father’s side. As both of our children grow and develop, they will not feel themselves to be an oddity in such family settings.

But I also recalled an incident that occurred just this summer, a time of year when my younger son, Campbell, acquires the most radiant caramel-colored skin. While both of my boys splashed and dashed in a swimming pool, my four-year-old nephew, William, who idolizes both of his older cousins, looked longingly at Campbell. He then proclaimed to my sister-in-law and mother, “I wish I had brown skin like Campbell.”

Though William yearned to be like his cousin, a positive association, it was in a way that signaled his awareness of color differences. Will Campbell and Hayse be subjected to this and other types of “othering” as they navigate their way through schools in the New River Valley? Will they always stand apart, never quite fitting in, wondering whether they are black or white?

I tend to subscribe to Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction. It’s not an either/or predicament. Our children can embrace both their black and white heritages. In fact, Kelly and I determined that such an acceptance of both backgrounds, this melding of the races, is one solution to racism in our nation.

I’m reminded of a poem in Frank X Walker’s first poetry collection, Affrilachia. In “Cease Fire” the speaker declares, “there were no mirrors / at our house / browns stared into greens / kinky pondered straight / burnt brass fingers fondled / locks of gold.” Even though the relationship experts declare that “people / fall in love / with their own reflections,” that wasn’t the case in this speaker’s family. He notes that his “yoruba-faced sisters / all married white boys / my brothers and nephews / do not discriminate / collecting ebony and ivory / prom pictures / like trophies / believing all of the words / to the preamble / consecrating their mtv choices / with white chocolate babies / with hair / their mothers / can’t comb.”

Since Campbell is a boy, I don’t have to comb my white chocolate baby’s hair. We keep it shaved, close to his head. If honest about this issue, I must confess that I wouldn’t know how to handle his hair, its texture so different from both his father’s and mine. Thus the blending of the races gives rise to such challenges. Yet these are easily overcome, much more so than ignorance or intolerance.

As the speaker in Walker’s poem describes his siblings’ act of “birthing human treaties / in a domestic race war,” the speaker conjures up the past, a past that inevitably contains slavery and oppression. He explains, “I am caught up in the middle / at the peace conference / bullet holes in my memories / bayonet around my neck / negotiating cease fires / with families / whose maiden names / are / enemy.”

And herein lies another challenge for young biracial children from black and white families, an acknowledgement that one set of American ancestors may have enslaved and oppressed the other set. This is historical information that all children in America should know, however, as all children should know that some whites, such as the Quaker John Woolman, were devout, active abolitionists, and in the case of Woolman, 100 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.

But I digress. Where are we today? What does the future hold for Campbell, Hayse, and other biracial children of the New River Valley? I’m uncertain. I possess no crystal ball with which to foresee the future. I do know that the unfolding of my own life story signals hope and change. Despite my parents’ initial severance of familial ties, my mother remained by my side throughout Campbell’s delivery. My father and paternal grandmother made an appearance in my hospital room the very next day, taking turns cradling Campbell and kissing his perfect mocha fingers.

Now, now that Campbell is 5 years old, full of little boy energy and love, consumed with curiosity and mischief, both my parents delight in his presence. As I travel across the country to attend various conferences related to work, my parents willingly and eagerly assume the responsibility of caring for him. My father recently shared with me while I was in Portland, Ore., “Campbell is the most loving child.” Yes, he is. And skin color or ethnic blending remains irrelevant in such a wonderful character trait.

Theresa L. Burriss is Assistant Professor of English and Appalachian Studies at Radford University.