Chambana Mom to Know: Cindy McKendall

Cindy McKendall is this week's Chambana mom to know. (Photo provided)

Cindy McKendall came to Champaign-Urbana for school, left for a job, and returned after her college sweetheart (now husband) Sean graduated and started his career locally. A Chicagoland area native, McKendall’s life now revolves around taking care of her almost 5-year-old fraternal twin daughters as well as working part-time for the University of Illinois. Conversations about race, appearance, similarities and differences are nothing unusual in the McKendall household, where mom is white and dad is black. One of the twins has blond hair, blue eyes and a light complexion; while her other twin has dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a darker complexion. The family recently moved to a new home in Champaign, giving Cindy another hobby: remodeling.

See why we think Cindy McKendall is a Chambana mom to know.

Q: How did you react when you found out you were having twins? Or was that your plan all along?

It was a huge shock when we found out that we were having twins. HUGE shock. Twins don’t run in my family, though there are some in my husband’s family. I had an ultrasound at six or seven weeks, and the technician said, “There’s one heartbeat, and there’s another heartbeat.” I said, “WHAT?!???” and Sean said, “Nooooo.” We had a difficult time getting pregnant; it took us over a year to conceive, and the month I got pregnant was our last chance to try without intervention. I probably would have gone on fertility drugs if I hadn’t gotten pregnant when I did, and who knows how many babies I might have ended up with? Two was plenty!

Q: Please tell me about the Infant Replay club and how moms of multiples might get involved.

Infant Replay is a support group for parents of multiples (twins, triplets, and higher order multiples) in East Central Illinois. We welcome anyone who is a parent or parent-to-be of multiples. We have monthly meetings, where we talk about our kids and can ask each other questions. It’s also a nice chance to get out for an evening without the munchkins! We’ve had discussions on who is the best local pediatrician, and how you can feed two babies at once. Infant Replay is part of the larger Illinois Organization of Mothers of Twins Clubs (IOMOTC) and the National Organization of Mothers of Twins Clubs (NOMOTC). These organizations do great advocacy for families with multiples – for example, helping to pass legislation that outlaws automatically splitting up multiples into different classrooms. In Illinois, the parents, not the schools, make the decision about splitting up multiples, but that isn’t the case everywhere.

Q: Your twins look like they are different races, which is unusual, and you were once featured on local television because of that. How has that affected their childhood and your life as their mom?

It’s been only recently that my daughters have started noticing that their skin color is different from each other’s, and from Mommy’s and Daddy’s. Kids their age are very literal, and they don’t necessarily understand racial differences unless they’re specifically taught about them. We chose not to make it an issue until they asked about it. If you ask Sarah what color I am, she’ll tell you that I’m yellow, and she’s orange. Abby is brown, and Daddy is brown. The hardest thing that has happened so far was Abby telling me a couple weeks ago that she didn’t like having brown skin. That just about broke my heart, because she’s gorgeous, and her skin is beautiful. I talked to her about it, Sean talked to her about it, and we read a book together called ‘Shades of Black’. Sean figured out that she felt left out because both Sarah and I have lighter skin – she is the only girl with brown skin in our family. I think she’s gotten over that feeling, because she told someone a few days ago that she was going to get some ice cream, “Chocolate like me!”, and laughed.

Q: I recently read a blog post on the New York Times website, “When Mom is Mistaken for the Nanny” which talks about the questions parents of bi-racial or different races often receive. How do you respond in those situations?

I’ve never been mistaken for a nanny, at least. I do get strange questions sometimes, and I always try to answer honestly. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are asking from a desire to understand more, rather than willful ignorance. That being said, my favorite question was asked by a white woman when the girls were babies. She asked, “Does one of them get a lot more sun than the other?” That was four years ago, and that question is still funny to me. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to tell her that I was doing an experiment in baby sun exposure, where Sarah was the control baby and Abby was the variable baby. But no, I just told her the truth.

Q: You work part-time and seem to have found the right balance for you. Do you have any advice for other moms who want to work part-time?

Ask – the answer might surprise you. When I interviewed for my current job, they were looking for someone who could work full-time, in the office. At the time, my daughters were three months old, and I wasn’t willing to work full-time, and the cost of putting two babies in full-time daycare would have been prohibitive. So I asked if I could work part-time, from home. I’m still amazed that the answer was yes. I’m know that I’m very, very lucky to have the flexibility that I do, and I wish that all parents had the same options.

Do you know of a Chambana mom or dad to know? We love nominations.

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