I enjoy putting mixed on ethnicity forms for myself. People like to tell me what I should put as my dad is from Turkey, so kind of Europe so they say White European but I prefer to tick Other - Mixed since often there is a separate Turkish box anyway.

My children are always Other - Mixed since DH is from Bangladesh.

I enjoy people trying to figure it all out to be honest and look forward to the day when DC marry other mixed heritage people and are Other - Mixed forever.

Really interesting to read all your experiences here. My daughter is half white British and half Spanish, and I always wonder whether to tick White British or mixed race. I don't know of any genetic conditions which are prevalent with Spanish people - does anyone else.

Anyway, having read all these comments it has got me thinking that mixed race is really more relevant, and recognises her family background.

it does depend on the relevance of the form. if it's not very relevant then i tick mixed other for dd, same as i do for me. i'm half north african, half white english. dh is white english (though with a french great grandma that he and his family choose to pretend never existed!). so dd is basically white with a quarter north african, berber to be precise. therefore, 'mixed other' (especially if you include the white european great great grandma ).

Ok this is an old thread but I was going to post the question myself - DH is half Caribbean Asian, half English. My booking appt with MW for DD was a nightmare as they said they didn't have a box for that and made me phone DH to ask if he wanted to be called Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi as they didn't understand that there could be Asians from the Caribbean.

HV has listed DD as White British in her red book which we're not happy about esp as DH is a thalassaemia carrier which could obviously get passed on to any future DC (we don't think DD is a carrier but I am pg with DC2 who could be).

However when she's older, I don't know how DD will want to characterise herself - maybe she'll think it's silly to call herself anything other than white british....

i am half american, and half british, i have duel nationalities, and passports for both but always tick white british on all forms.

re NHS forms - actually NHS services don't tend to do very much with the ethnicity forms. e.g. in our trust most services collect the info but then the central IT systme apparently doesn't have an ethnicity field in it - so we don't do anything with it re monitoring access. Re genetic conditions - well they don't have to have your ethnicity recorded to take it into account when clinically assessing you and although there are some diseases htat are more prevalent in some ethnicities the similarities are more important

yeah I always wonder about this. I mean how far do you 'drill down' (I mean pretty much everyone is mixed race really - we've all got a bit of this and that I'm sure!)

I'm 'officially' mixed race, because my dad is English, my mum is Thai. (I had to state this on the pregnancy form to get extra tests done from my bloods)

So DS is 1/4 Thai, and 3/4 English. I actually think thats sufficient concentration to just be English!

But then DS is blond and blue eyed - doesnt look asian in the slightest - perhaps if he did I'd feel like I'd need to put mixed on the forms. Plus I'm proud of his heritage - I like the fact he's a little bit out of the ordinary and it tickles me that my son could have such different colouring from me.

I'm half english and asian and although my dh is european i consider ds to be mixed race.

Interesting post about flling in nhs forms - a good point actually - as my ds looks positively nordic do tick the asian british thing for him and it ensured that he got a tb jab which most children in my borough dont get.

It's also highlighted a few medical possiblities for me so I've always put myself down as british and asian mix rather than the way I look (middle eastern) as it's got doctors to take a closer look at some of my health issues.

Do you what think. Your little one will decide what they want to put when they can tick boxes,

I wouldn't worry too much about forms. Maybe important at the doctors as like some people have said there are some illnesses that effect certain ethnic groups more than others but otherwise I think its frankly none of their business and don't always tick the box. For things such as job application forms I think its terrible to ask someones race. Everyone should be judged on personal merit, not by the colour of their skin just to meet equal opportunities quotas. I am speaking as someone with mixed race children in mixed race relationship.

The problem about the increased diversity is already a problem in some parts of the states where visually black (or white) people are not routinely tested for conditions prevalent in the 'other' race

They have started testing everyone for everything even tho' it costs so much as people don't have access to their genetic history

As the genome is mapped more effectively this won't be an issue as people will 'know' their DNA/chromosomes