Only kidnap a child who shares your surname

The other week border officials at Eurostar's UK Passport Control in Brussels asked me to prove my daughter was in fact my daughter. They said they were challenging me because we do not share a surname. Here's an article for The Guardian that I have written about this, published today.

Travel troubles: the problems of not sharing your child's surname

And here are articles about the Mexican case to which I refer:

The blond 'Mexican beggar child' story holds a mirror to US perceptions of race

Little blonde beggar girl whose treatment has sparked race row in Mexico

And a previous post by me on a similar subject:

I did not steal my baby

The racism of strangers

On the bus two old women were admiring my daughter. Of course they were - she's lovely. She smiled, they cooed, she giggled, I was proud - everyone was happy. The one of them turned to the other: "She's a lovely little girl," she said. "You don't get many blond haired blue eyed children about these days do you."

I am jewish. To those tuned in to such things, I look jewish. My skin is, hmmm - olive? swarthy? a little darker anyway. My hair is brown. My eyes are hazel, whatever that means.

A little later one of the women turned to me. "Where does she get her colouring?" she said.

Here's what I said:
"From my husband. He's fair."

Here's what I wish I had said:
"I don't know, we bought her from gypsies who stole her from a white family."