Overcoming Identity Challenges As a Family

By Sonali Vongchusiri

Families don’t all look alike. Mine certainly doesn’t fit the norm. My kids are learning how to navigate a world where people regularly have questions about us. Our appearance and our differences get noticed and remembered. And while that can feel hard or isolating, I’ve learned it can also be the foundation for deep belonging, confidence, and strength.

Our identity

Saying identity is complex is an understatement in my household, and my kids feel it too. Let me explain:

I am a single parent.

I have a disability. I’m legally blind. I’m light-sensitive, and I don’t have depth perception or facial recognition. Sometimes I use a cane, but not always, which can create a lot of awkward situations—from people not knowing whether to offer help, to even me doubting if my disability is “real enough”.

I am a person of color with no color. My heritage is Indian, and I have albinism—that means I don’t have pigment in my skin, hair, or eyes. On the outside, I present as white, or “really white”. My kids all have Indian pigmentation. Now add to the mix my American accent, and it’s one more layer that has people pause, stare, and ask questions.

The questions we’re asked

My kids get questions all the time:

“Why is your mom so white?”

“Where’s your dad?”

“Why do your mom’s eyes look like that?”

“Why does your mom wear sunglasses inside?”

For a child, these questions could be identity-crushing. They could plant seeds of shame or confusion about who they are, or who we are as a family. Knowing that my kids will face questions like this throughout their lives, I’ve made it my mission to support them in turning these moments into building blocks: tools for confidence, for resilience, and for belonging.

We don’t get to choose the questions people ask us. We can’t hide from them. Where we do have choice is in how we respond, and we choose to respond in a way that shapes our family story.

While we all have different family situations, many of us understand what it’s like to live in the silent spaces between identities. We’re part of our family of origin, yet we may live thousands of miles away. We live in Thailand, yet may not speak Thai. Though we have different experiences, we all understand the experience of longing for a community or “box” to belong to, yet consistently finding ourselves not fitting neatly into any boxes. 

Here are three tools that have been essential in my home. I hope that they may support you in bringing voices to those spaces in-between in your family’s quest for belonging.

1. Acknowledgement: name what’s real

When people ask hard or awkward questions, it can be tempting to brush it off, pretend it didn’t happen, or minimize it for our kids. But kids notice. They know when something is uncomfortable. And when we don’t name it, they may decide that it’s too shameful to talk about.

Acknowledgement is a process. It’s not perfect.

Acknowledgement doesn’t have to be heavy. One night, a taxi driver asked, as is often the case, “Your daughter? Why not same?” We were getting out of the taxi, so I paid and ignored his question at first. But then it hit me that my daughter was watching my response and my response was sending her messages about her own OK-ness. So, I turned to her and lightly said, “Did you hear what he asked me?” She said, “Yeah, he asked why your hair is white and mine is brown.” I lightly responded, “Yeah, he was confused. We didn’t make sense in his head. Isn’t that funny?” 

An easy way to speak when we feel uncomfortable is to say just that—well, this is awkward. When I meet someone for the first time, at some point in the conversation, I’ll say, “This is awkward. I won’t recognize you because I’m legally blind. So, if you see me, please would you say, “Hi Sonali. It’s Emily”. That way I can enjoy our conversation instead of guessing who you are.”

By naming it out loud, I am showing my kids that difference isn’t something to hide—it’s something we can hold with honesty. Acknowledgement creates safety. It says, “this is real, and we can talk about it.”

2. Humor: lightening the load

Acknowledgement and humor often go hand in hand in our family. Laughing about hard things creates space—space for us to breathe, space to be real, space for our connection to deepen.

Once, after being asked multiple times in one day about why I was white or blind, my teenage son leaned over and gave me a wink. “Mom, your high score for being asked why you’re white today is four. Congratulations. You’ve leveled up!” We both had tears in our eyes from laughing.

Humor also helps my kids self-advocate. When my daughter needed to tell her teacher that noise was overwhelming, she froze. The evening before she was confident, but the next day in front of her teacher, she grew quiet and didn’t want to speak. I leaned down and whispered, “Repeat after me: sometimes it gets loud in my toes.” She turned to me and laughed, “No!” And then smiled and said to her teacher, “Sometimes it gets loud in my ears.”

Our kids learning to speak their differences and name their needs can be light and fun. And that makes it enjoyable as well. 

3. An ongoing conversation: building belonging over time

The third tool is remembering that identity is not a one-time conversation. It’s a process.

As my children grow, the questions they receive and the way they experience them will keep changing. What hurts at age seven might just roll off their shoulders at age 12, and vice versa. 

That means my job isn’t to give them a single script or a one-time family meeting about difference. It’s important to keep the conversation open. To check in with them. To ask, “How did that feel? What do you wish you had said? What do you want to try next time?”

Belonging isn’t built in a moment. It’s built through small moments, all those small conversations, quick-witted one-liners, and acknowledgments.

By modeling that ongoing process for my kids, I’m showing them that identity is a journey. We aren’t meant to have it all figured out to belong. And we can grow and change and evolve in the process.

The bigger picture

When I think about the kind of family I want to raise, it’s not one that blends in perfectly. It’s one that knows how to stand strong in who they are, with confidence. I want my family to be able to connect both in ways where we are the same as others, and through acknowledgement and humor about how we are different. 

So when the questions come, because they will, we won’t shrivel up or shrink. We’ll acknowledge what’s real. We’ll laugh when we can. We’ll keep talking it through. And together, we’ll keep building a sense of family that is strong, sturdy, and loving so that it can hold it all.

About the Author

Sonali is a parent coach, speaker, and founder of Forward Together Parenting. She’s been where you are with her own sensitive, strong-willed kids and has worked with thousands of parents worldwide. Her work is dedicated to sharing how you can confidently parent, have fun, and create lasting change that feels good.