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| Image credit: Photo by GarySmith70 on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
"Mama, I'm half black, half white," Janie calls to me from where she's playing in the living room.
I'd been wondering when this day would come, the day when my biracial daughter would finally notice race and start talking about herself in racial terms. Before either of my children were born, race loomed in my imagination as the greatest parenting challenge I would face. I worried a lot about how I, as a white woman, could raise my children to live in a world that would see them as black, with all the racial stereotypes and prejudices that went with that.
I read books and articles about how to raise healthy biracial children. I observed my own children and how other people reacted to them and how they reacted to others. And I found that young children don't understand the concept of race; it's learned. It takes children a while to make sense of those color words — "black" and "white" — being used for people who really aren't black or white at all, but share a set of features common to people of African or European descent. It takes them time to recognize what features those people share. And it takes time for them to internalize the stereotypes that go with those racial labels. Race doesn't become an issue until we make it an issue. So I try very hard to meet my children where they are rather than to make an issue of it for them. Parenting around race hasn't been without its challenges, but so far it has taken up much less of my daily parenting bandwidth than issues related to autism.
But I felt that, today, I'd entered a new phase. Janie had stopped seeing me as light skinned and Daddy as dark skinned and herself as golden skinned, which simply describe how we all look as individuals. She had finally figured out what those terms "black" and "white" meant in terms of categorizing us as part of racial groupings in society, and with that understanding would come all the burdens that our culture puts on those words. I'd never heard her use these terms before, never heard her test them out and play with them, so her simple statement caught me off guard. Maybe that's why I responded the way I did. Perhaps I've been too sensitive to my own tendency to see the world in another kind of black and white to be comfortable with Janie's stark breakdown of herself, but I said the first thing that popped into my head as I walked toward the room she was in, "That's true. And you're probably some other things too."
"What?" she said.
"You know," I said rounding the corner into the room, "You have black and white and some other things too in the way you're made up."
"No, Mama," she said, looking up exasperatedly at me from where she was playing on the floor, "That doesn't even make any sense. There are no other colors on a chess board!"
And then I saw. She had a chess board on the floor in front of her and had been laying out the pieces, combining both black and white on the same side of the board to make a pretty pattern: half black and half white. Her side of the board was half black and half white. She was going to play half black and half white. She was half black and half white.
Oh. Race wasn't an issue. I made it an issue. Look at that.
Oh man - I swear I have to tell you this story - it is about sexual orientation though and it includes my lovely dad who is gay and my wonderful then 2 year old son (my oldest) We were in a parking lot as my dad ran inside - we were visiting for a week just the two of us and as my dad was walking back to the car, my son pointed up and out the window and said, " look at the fag" but he meant Flag and I heard Fag and so then I looked at where he was pointing and sure enough - just above my dads head there waved the stars and stripes...
I can so relate to your post, your moment.
Cat
Funny how we are keenly aware or even hyper-sensative about certain things. It is there in the back of our minds and jumps out as an automatic reaction.
I remember when my kids learned about Martin Luther King. My son came home from school and told me he was thankful for him because without him my husband and I wouldn't have been able to get married. My husband is not black, he is Latin and has a year-round gorgeous tan. I am German/Polish and W.H.I.T.E. I just told him, "You are right. There are a lot of wonderful things that Martin Luther King did for white and black people." His innocence was adorable.
Funny how kids experiment with concepts in fascinating ways. I suspect you'll be talking about this issue eventually ... but letting her take the lead makes sense to me. Thanks for dropping by. I've not spent much time at all in this virtual world and feel out of touch. It's good to know you're still out there sharing. Looking over your last few posts reminds me how much I enjoyed visiting you in the past. I'll try to drop by more often in the future ;--)
Hugs and blessings,
This is great! I love the way kids see the world. My son is 4.5 and understands that papa is brown and i am white. He hasn't really asked why and I don't really spend time dwelling on how to raise him "differently." I just go with the flow!
This is a beautifully written share of a special moment inside your world. Thanks for sharing.
The innocence of children never fails to amaze me. I wish we could all be like them, what a place the word would be
We've all done it as mamas. dreaded the beginnings of something...and then actually brought it up ourselves. Thank you for sharing, and reminding us to look and watch them.
Kids do say the darndest things! Glad your Janie is still seeing the world through her own glasses.
Mary, thanks for the many ways your share your vulnerability and transparency. This a topic near and dear to my heart, thanks for sharing.
Enchanting!!!!!!!!!!!
Janie's making patterns of her own & you are letting her find the ones that work for her.
What a wonderful parenting moment for you.
And, btw, GO! Janie for starting chess at her age! Luigi started at her age as well and he LOVES the game. We play several times a week. He's finally started playing the board in front of him, rather than moving the pieces he feels like moving. Huge step for him. I wish we lived near one another, the two of them could play together. None of Luigi's friends play yet. What is the world coming to??
I thought of this post recently when I was reading David Gets in Trouble with my two-year-old.
She started pointing at the faces of David's classmates. "Brown, white, ummmmm black, brown . . ." etc.
I was silent, trying to prepare an appropriate response for this Teachable Moment.
Turns out she was describing hair color.