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Last year while I was pregnant with my youngest, my oldest was patting my extended stomach and asked, "Mommy, will the baby be brown?"
I was surprised at the question, especially since both my husband and I are white. C has some Native American in his family, but you couldn't see that in his blondish brown hair and bright blue eyes.
I explained to her that since both Daddy and I were white that the baby would be as well. Then she asked, "Then what about B?" B is my half brother, technically since we share our biological mother. I was adopted at a young age and found my mom when I was 18. She remarried some time ago and they had B about a year after my oldest was born. So yes my oldest daughter is older than her uncle.
But age means nothing to these two, what matters is that my biological stepfather is black so my brother is half white and half black. He is very light, his hair is the only way to 'tell' that his ancestry is mixed.
But since my daughter was obviously curious, I asked her to bring me her crayons. She did, and we took the white crayon and the brown crayon and colored a piece of paper with them blending together, to make... light brown! So I explained the brown one was like Pop Pop and the white one was like Nana and the result is like B.
Then we took the two white crayons together and explained that this was her mom and dad. Since my husband's family has adopted asian girls in the mix (His parents had three boys naturally and always wanted girls so they adopted them from China and Korea), we used the yellow crayons as well.
After we colored all the different 'people', I asked her if there was any real difference between B and herself. She thought long and hard... "He's a boy. That's a difference." Smiling, I asked her if there was any other difference. "Nope. God painted everyone, and he was like me, he liked using all the colors in the crayon box!"
Now because of my husband's past military experience, we have lived in Texas and right outside Washington DC and now we live in Iowa. In Texas, there was a predominant hispanic community and we were in the minority. In DC, there was a predominant black community where we lived and she went to school, so again we were in the minority. Here in Iowa, it seems more equal with a nice mix in the school room.
I think those experiences have helped my daughter see that color really is skin deep. She has friends that don't notice color differences. It's weird that people still have those kinds of issues, but I know they do. It's sad, but it seems the older generations have something to learn from the young. That its time to look past the color divide.
How do you think your children view skin color?
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Comments (24)
I was always taught to judge character and not skin color.
I have no children, so I can't say anything about that, but your daughter's views are cute and correct.
I wish everyone was as wise as your daughter! Children are such better people I think, before they get tainted with judgment and stereotypes.
wow thats really cool what your daughter said.
how cute. God does like to color with all the crayons in the box.
My daughters are both biracial growing up with two white parents (we're adopting). My oldest daughter has a black barbie and a white barbie. The other day, we were playing with them and I asked her which one looked like her and which one looked like Mommy. She said the black one looked like Mommy because we both have longer hair and the white one looked like her because the hair was shorter. *shrug* So apparently, skin color is not a big deal to her, which is exactly how we want it.
We have friends who are white and have two biological children and two adopted children from Kenya. For the longest time my kids only knew to describe their friends' skin color as "brown". They were surprised and a little bit confused to learn that most people describe darker-skinned people as "black". They couldn't figure out why folks called someone "black" when they were clearly brown. It was sort of funny, and I was so encouraged to know that my kids are growing up without the same biases that were so prevalent just a generation ago.
My son (3 years old) made me laugh one day when we were talking about ways people were all different. He said, "There are 3 different skin colors, Skin Color, Brown, and Turquoise." I nearly busted up laughing, and he said, "Turquoise is a color, Mommy." So, asked him if he ever saw anyone who was Turquoise, and he said, "Ummm, no."
I have a white friend who when she was younger, was watching a video. Her question was Which one is mr. insert name here. Her friend said, its the black one, and she asked, what one is that. Her friend said, he's the one on the hill, see..
Heh. So cute, and innocent.
little kids never seem to have problems with things like this (I didn't either--and still don't), unless some grownup has already influenced them in a bad way. I've heard some nasty comments from little kids ( 5 or 6 ) who couldn't know exactly what they were saying--but heard it either from their parents or other adults, and just repeat it. It's nice to hear things like this.
i live in a 'little white town' in texas...and there are only a handful of black people in our town...and that saddens me, because most of the children in our town grow up not really knowing, or interacting with any other race (there arent many other races in this town either)...and alot of these children grow up to either leave town for good, or stay in this town. and still never have much to do with other races, .this little town is 'the town' reporters come to when they want to do stories on racism...and even though this town has overcome some of the racial issues here, it will take so much longer to overcome the racism issue as a whole....
Skin color doesn't matter in our immediate family. I can't say that is true for my extended family. Unfortunately, I fought against their attitudes my whole life. Also just as unfortunate, is the fact that my children have friends that were actually scared of "black people" until they went to college and found out that there was nothing to be afraid of. It took a while. They were very sheltered and grew up in a town that was mostly white. My children on the other hand grew up in a small city with a whole lot of diversity. Our neighborhood and our schools have people of every shade from different countries all over the world. My children have often mentioned how glad they were that they went to schools with such diversity. It taught them a lot.
He is too young, but I am sure his views will be interesting especially since his family, especially on my side, ranges from pale white to dark brown and I won't be able to say it is because one parent is black and the other is another race in all cases because it is random. Maybe I'll just get out a genetics book and explain skin color to him and he won't ask again.
I think what your daughter said is so sweet.
"God painted everyone, and he liked using all the colors in the crayon box!"
Not only is that absolutely delightful, that may very well be the finest theological statement I've ever heard on the topic of "race". And I've read academic writings by scholars on the subject. Out of the mouths of babes...
The crayon thing was a great idea! That was very neat. I was gonna say, as long as kids know how skin color is determined and how it really doesn't matter what it is, they'll be good!
@Luv2BMama@xanga - hahah that is so cute! turqouise people. adorable.
My grandmother's neighbors are a family with a black dad, white mom, and two kids. My 8yo daughter asked me, "Dad, why isn't one of the kids white?" I explained to her, "if you mix chocolate and vanilla, it usually looks kind-of chocolate."
The recent election was a good teaching opportunity to explain that, although we may have different skin color, it's not really that big of a deal. (And, agreeing with many of the commenters, most kids don't make that big of a deal about skin color.)
When I was younger, I was fascinated by dark skin. However, I rarely even noticed skin color. I once asked my mother if I knew any black people. With a list including my neighbor and one of my doctors, my mom didn't know where to start.
Just goes to show you how much of an impact adults have on children's opinions.
kids do notice skin color, but it doesn't mean anything to them. if you ask them to notice differences & similarities between them and their friends, color will almost never come up. once in a while, a child will bring up skin color just because it's something they can see. just like some people are blonde and others are brunette. I love children's innocence.
and my mom loves to tell the story about when I was younger I went around telling everyone that I wasn't black. finally, my mom asked me what I meant by that and I went and got a brown crayon, held it up to my skin, and said, "LOOK, I'm BROWN, I am NOT black! See?" lol
Kids have such beautiful and pure thoughts here. Racism is taught... it is not natural to our species. Your daughter got it right... God painted us all. And we are all Master pieces, whatever the hue.
that's both cute and awesome =)
I grew up in a multi-cultural neighborhood. To me there are no differences.
A great book for that discussion is "You Be Me, I'll Be You". It is heartwarming and children love it. Read it to them and see what they say. It can be found on www.suesbooks.info
in preschool, i encountered an african-american boy for the first time. when i went home that day, i told my mom all about him. i referred to him as the "gingerbread man."
to this day, she still reminds me about it. haha.
first of all that was adorible!
second good idea!
third its nice to see that there are people out there who are open minded and have open hearts aswell.