Jeena Wilder knows what it's like to get nosy comments about her family. Wilder is a Haitian American living in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Drue. She's also a mom of four, including one 7-year-old, two 6-year-olds, and a 3-year-old. But because their family looks "different" (Drue is white, as is one of her daughters, whom she adopted), she often finds herself answering the same obnoxious questions … over and over and over again.
Wilder recently addressed several of them in an Instagram video.
The clip, which is going viral, was originally posted on August 26. In it, Wilder stands beside her 6-year-old daughter, who is white, as the video captions begin to rattle off the many questions (and assumptions) people have made about their relationship.
"Are you the nanny?" the first one read.
"Are you her mother?"
"Did your husband cheat on you?"
Yep — she's heard them all.
But when it comes down to it, the questions that follow sum up what really matters most.
"Does she call you Mommy?" Answer: Yep.
"Is she biologically yours?" Answer: Nope.
"Do you love her unconditionally?" Answer: Yep.
As Wilder explained to 'Good Morning America,' her daughter was placed with them four years ago.
At the time, her biological parents were unable to care for her, and because they were related to Wilder's husband, the couple opened their hearts — and their home — to her right away.
By 2019, they became her legal guardians in what's known as a "kinship adoption" — otherwise known as a relative adoption.
Wilder couldn't be more grateful for how things played out.
But that doesn't mean it's been easy.
She chronicles her experiencs with transracial adoption and raising a multicultural family on Instagram, where she has upward of 107K followers.
"It hurts me to know that there will be those who will compare my children's skin tones and find one more attractive or more worthy just because it is more lighter than others," she wrote in one recent post. "Colorism is real. I will warn my children about the ridiculous standards society says about lighter skin seen as more desirable. I want all of my children to love who they are and that includes their skin color but I also want them to find the beauty of all skin tones."
After she shared her video, nearly 2,000 people commented on the post.
"I get asked this a lot!!!" wrote one mom. "One neighbor called the police because she didn’t understand how I got that white baby!"
"As the biological mom of biracial girls I’ve ALWAYS been asked if I was their mom," someone else added.
"They do that with my dad," another person wrote. "They think he's my grandpa and that my mom cheated on him."
By sharing her story, Wilder hopes to shatter some of these persistent stereotypes.
And so far, at least, it seems she has.
She also told Good Morning America that she hopes more people who are not white will consider transracial adoption after seeing more families like hers.
"Then, it will not only be the norm," she shared, "but we will see more children getting adopted."
