Too Much Tea and Coffee!

One of the first comments that my grandmother made once she laid eyes upon my then three week old son was how dark my son was. While most agreed that my son looked rather tan, my husband and I didn't really think anything of it.

"It's because you drank too much coffee and tea while you were pregnant. That's why he's so dark," my wise grandmother explained. " You should've drank lots of milk and soy milk while you were pregnant. Then his skin would be nice and white and beautiful."

It's not that she's racist or anything. In Asia (and just about all my friends who are from Asia will testify to this), to have very fair or light complexion is a sign of beauty. Skin lighteners are big there, and I mean BIG. Just watch TV and there will inevitably be commercials for skin lighteners as part of regular programming.

We could try to explain genetics to her, but it's pretty much just in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. So even though I barely drank any coffee during my pregnancy (and it was decaf, by the way) and hardly drank any black teas (if it was tea, it was either green tea or chrysanthemum tea), just that little bit was enough to cause my son's dark complexion.

I told my BIL (brother-in-law) about this one evening at which he promptly replied: "Did you tell her 'no' and that all you drank during your pregnancy was milk? I'd love to hear what she has to say about that!"

"Nope," I said. Crap, I thought. Too late for that now.