Transracial mom-daughter duo shut down strangers' nosy assumptions about their relationship

Mom-of-four Jeena Wilder has crossed paths with quite a few nosy strangers ever since she began her motherhood journey. With three biracial, biological children and one blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter, she's heard all kinds of insensitive comments and questions from people who have no business judging how Wilder is related to her kids. Especially when it comes to her daughter Claridy — who is White — and has been a part of the Wilder family for nearly four years. Tired of these questions that come almost as a package deal with transracial adoptions, Wilder and Claridy recently decided to put snooping noses in their place.

"People would ask me, 'Is she really your daughter?' Honestly, I would just reply, 'Yup! She's my daughter – what are you trying to insinuate?' Those individuals usually wouldn't say anything after that," Wilder told PopSugar. "But there's an occasional person who will ask, 'No, is she really your daughter?' And I would just look at them, like, 'Are you really going to ask that in front of my daughter? Do you want her to respond to you? Do you need to see some paperwork? It's really hard. Why can't you just see a family that's together and just say, 'Hey, that's a beautiful family?' You should just be happy that it works."

Unfortunately, these obnoxious questions still pop up every now and then. The mother-daughter addressed several of them in a now-viral Instagram video that's equal parts fierce and adorable. "Are you the nanny?", "Is she biologically yours?", "Did your husband cheat on you?" — Wilder has heard them all. As insensitive as these questions are, the duo demonstrated in the video that the ones that really matter are these: "Are you her mother?", "Does she call you Mommy?", and "Do you love her unconditionally?" With wide grins on their faces and endless love for each other, the two proudly said yes to all three of these.

Speaking to Raise about the transracial adoption process, Wilder said: "During the process, it didn’t occur to me that ours was a transracial adoption because I have biracial children. I see my daughter, I know that she’s White, but I don’t think I put two and two together, if that makes sense. It wasn’t until the adoption was final that I realized, this is really big. I want to make sure that I know as much as I can in order to help her be the best person she can be. And one of the first things I needed to do was to accept and realize that this is a transracial adoption."

"Even though I don’t see her differently from my other children, it is different, and I know there will be a point where she realizes that I am different from her. When that time comes, I hope she sees me as a person she can talk to and learn from," she continued. "For me, the hardest part of transracial adoption is the comments and DMs that I get from other people after I post a picture of my family. 'Why not a Black child? Why did you feel like you needed a White child?'"

She explained that the key to building a relationship with Claridy has been open dialogue. "One of the things I'm really proud of in our family is that Claridy doesn't feel left out in our biracial family. She'll say, 'Mommy doesn't match me or Delylah. We're all different.' It doesn't matter that we're different. We're still a family, and we say we love each other. Say it often because it makes a huge difference," Wilder stated. "Also people like to say love is love and that race doesn't matter, and they're right in some ways. But trying to hide our racial differences or sweeping it under the rug doesn't help anyone. As the kids get older, they'll have questions, so ensure they always feel comfortable coming to you. I want my daughter to feel as comfortable coming to me as she does her White dad."