Written by Love Isn’t Enough Contributor Amber; Originally published at American Family. This is the second post in a two-part series. Part I is here.
After I said Chinese New Year wasn’t likely to help L like her skin any better, I got nothing but a blank stare from the principal.
“I don’t want you to think I am making a bigger deal out of this than I am,” I said. ”I understand that recognizing differences is developmentally appropriate in preschool. We are comfortable talking to L about race and other differences. I just wanted to find out of there was an incident, because if something like that happened, I would want to address it differently with L than if this is just her letting us know that she is noticing thing on her own.” ( I had asked L if there was an incident several times, but she always said no. I just wanted to check in with the teachers to be sure.)
The assistant teacher said “I don’t think any kids in this class even notice differences!”
I knew that was a bunch of hooey. The class is about 40-50% not white. When I was there for the halloween party, one little African American girl couldn’t figure out which kid I was attached to. When I told her I was L’s mom, she looked at me, looked at L and looked back at me. ”I don’t THINK so.” she said shaking her head with one eyebrow raised doubtfully.
Kids this age notice race. There is no reason to pretend that isn’t true. L talks about kids in her class who have certain disabilities, darker skin, etc. That doesn’t bother me at all because she wasn’t viewing these things as good or bad. She just never put it in context of herself before and the negativity is what gave me pause.
“It is just so sad that L doesn’t like the way she looks!” the assistant teacher said, “I don’t know why she would think that! We ALWAYS tell L how cute she is…and in her case it is really TRUE!”
And again, things in my brain kind of skipped a beat. True, I think L is a cute enough kid. What about the uncute kids? Are they just telling them they are cute but they don’t really mean it? I almost started laughing out loud.
It was clear we were not on the same page, so I decided to just let it go (with the teachers) for now. I am not convinced that anything they try to do about it won’t cause more problems than it will help and we will be leaving for our trip soon. By the time we get back, L will likely have a very different understanding of being Chinese and we can see where things are then. I thanked them for their time and got us the heck out of there.
I was glad we had the meeting because I have a better idea of what might have happened to lead to L saying she wants white skin like XYZ. I am guessing that they were talking about different and the same and the issue of skin color was probably brought up. I am guessing the three kids in question (who happen to be white boys) were playing together and L wanted to play. They probably said no.
L is not the most socially adept kid and sometimes she doesn’t catch all the angles in group play situations. Because they were talking about skin color in class, it is possible that L decided that they said she couldn’t play because she doesn’t have white skin. She never said anyone said that directly to her, so I think maybe she made that conclusion on her own. She could just have easily decided they wouldn’t play with her because she was a girl, but I think the class conversation had her thinking about her skin for the first time.
Since the first few weeks when this happened, we have talked more about differences with L. We aren’t making a big deal out of it, but she has let us know she is understanding more. She has also moved on from saying she hates things so often. Now she is more focused on telling me she won’t be my friend or M’s friend when she is looking for attention.
So thats it. The first time we have to deal with this stuff at school. Ugh.
A school with 40-50% nonwhite children and the teachers and principal are this clueless about racial issues faced by those children? Inexcusable. My son’s church-based preschool is about 20% nonwhite children (not all Christians) but the director (white) and teachers are VERY informed about such issues and VERY responsive when something like that arises. But perhaps that’s because the majority of the teachers are POC – Indian, African-American and Asian.
It’s a wonderful, wonderful program that includes exploration of cultures. But I am so afraid that when we leave this supportive cocoon for a public school with much lower diversity, it’s going to be a harsh adjustment and we’ll face dunderheads like L’s teachers.
I would also look into whether my daughter was looking at me and my white skin wishing she had that. You are white, right?
As her mother and as the female role model in her lfie, you’d have to consider that as a factor.
And who knows, maybe her classmates noticed her mother is White and she isn’t.
Adoption is complex…its not as simple as saying “I am…because my parents are….” Her father being Asian has absolutely nothing to do with her being Asian because he didn’t bring her into this world. Just as your being White has absolutely nothing to do with her racial makeup because you didn’t conceive her.
Many adult adoptees’s racial and ethnic identity is tied up in how they feel about it, not how their aparents feel about it, but how THEY feel about it having lived their lives adopted, transracially adopted, adopted from x country with the ethnicity from that part of the country.
Where the child originated is always going to be compared to what is around the child and how the environment a child is in reflects ideas about race and ethnicity. The majority of people featured in print media and movie media and tv media in the States are White or have white skin.
Sometimes we forget that children very well develop their views of themselves because of the unique people they are who are having the experience they are having as themselves.
I would talk directly to my child and listen in to what she feels, or thinks after asking “Sweetie, why do you want white skin?”
Maxi’s advice at the end of her comment is perfect-just ASK the child! That is what I did with mine when she said SHE wished she was white like me (although she is not adopted).
Also, it struck a chord with me about the little girl in the OP’s daughter’s class who didn’t believe she was her mother. When my own daughter was a 3 yo preschooler I picked her up one day from her very diverse class and one African American boy asked another African American boy if I was her mom. The boy said, yes, I was. The other one didn’t believe him and shoved him. Then HE retaliated-there we were, watching a shoving match between two kids over my child’s identity! It was very disconcerting, but I talked with her about how it was very possible they had not seen many multiracial families and had no frame of reference. I also went over and told the boys that yes, I WAS R’s mother, but that her dad was black. That made sense to them and they stopped fighting.
“Kids this age notice race. There is no reason to pretend that isn’t true.”
So well written. Thank you for sharing your life and your courage. I like the way this post raised the issue of our children’s peers reactions and how we have to be aware that on occasion things get dicey via their perfectly reasonable curiosity. Yes, that curiosity is not the same as a child bringing racism into the school yard but it can get tricky. For instance, what do you say to a little white kid (let’s say 2nd grade and under) who walks up to another child and proclaims ” YOU are black” when the child is Indian, Latino or other ? Nothing said was insulting but it was an action of a peer labeling a peer based on difference. What if our child’s response and newly forming sense of self identification is denied? Ridiculed? Or when that same declaration “You are black not ____!” or “You are not black!” is made on the play ground by a child of color to another child of color?
In my experience (yes I am bias) even after any initial scepticism, children of color have an easier time accepting gradations in tone and culture than most white children. With more blended families, adoptions and people choosing to self identify with more than one race and/or culture, more and more parents will be opening up to small children. This will mean a more evolved and ethical society.
This post arises so many important vital questions. Thanks so much!
Pingback: the Internets can still make me crazy « American Family
This was brilliant….I agree with every word.
It seems ridiculous to pretend that children are colorblind and that they don’t notice differences in physical appearance, skin color, etc.
@Nativelands…you made a really good point. Since childhood, I’ve experienced other people attempting to label and define me. I am biracial (black/white) and I look mostly white, except for the texture of my hair. As an adult, I don’t trust the motives of people who claim that I’m one race or the other, because this often means that they do not respect my choice to identify with ALL of my heritage. The concept of identity can be tricky sometimes.
@agibean…I’m afraid that as your daughter gets older, that experience might happen more often. When I was in school, I literally had people cursing me out because my father was White and my mother is a very light-skinned biracial woman. Some people believe that I’m not her daughter.
I’m a white early-childhood educator who has worked in racially,ethnically and culturally homogenous and hetereogeneous centers. I find the Anti-Bias Curriculum to be a developmentally appropriate way to work with these big questions. You can read about the anti-bias goals here: http://www.redleafpress.org/client/sample_chapters/411501.pdf
It is very scary for educators (especially white ones) to encounter these questions. The center where I work now is spending the year looking at these goals, working with them in our classrooms and meeting together to find out what it all means for us. I understand how it feels to be “that parent” at a center… I know many of them, and imagine I would be the same kind of parent. In my experience, parents who are this eager to talk to staff about concerns (instead of building resentment silently) are a great way to bring energy to the parts of our teaching practice that we ignore.
I encourage you to get Louise Derman-Sparks classic book about Anti-Bias Curriculum from the library and read it, then see if you can share it with your teachers or your director.
Cinnamondiva-that happened many years ago-my daughter is now 11, and yes, it got worse. In 3rd grade she had one AA boy tell her he would not play with her because she was “too white” while another child called her a Negro, and yet another taunted her for an entire day for being “mixed”.
And her experience in her two years in a public gifted program made up almost solely of white kids was just…awful. FINALLY we’ve found a school that is both very diverse and very accepting, as are the kids, but we’re sort of hyperaware of racial issues after some of the experiences R has had over the years.
The poignant stories I’m reading remind me of a very, very wealthy white family I know. Bless their hearts they give and do so much globally and locally for people of color and those who are low income. One member is an expert on trans-racial adoption and he and his wife adopted a bi-racial girl (white mother and black father). As pre-school gave way to grade school I recalled the adults talking about her facing similar problems as we are discussing here. They coolly likened her interactions to “doing more negotiating” and “finding her way through processing her experiences with her peers herself.”
I always found that so odd and so collegiate. How could a small child grasp such an adult construct like “negotiating?” The way all of them were talking about it with such authority made me a bit ill-how do they really know what that kind of racism is? They needed to be down at the school asking questions like Amber is not making it some nebulous lesson in “processing and decompressing.” Oh the 90s!
`
Granted this was back about 20 years ago and yes, I think things have and are changing. The internet has given voice to millions of multi-racial people and parents who have adopted across racial lines and who want this “blinders on” way of dealing with racism to evolve towards an end.
Nativelands,
Sounds like a lot of SAT words to say, “The kid’s on her own with this.” Basically, those parents abrogated their responsibility. It’s like they figured, “Hell, we ain’t the cullud ones. She is. Therefore all her problem!”
Wow. I don’t envy this mom’s position. The demographic issue is the main issue on the table for my husband and me right now. We are looking to make our little one’s environment as diverse as we possibly can. The legacy of racism in housing, etc. makes this so hard but we’re trying to do our best to find a place that makes us all feel comfortable.
Witchsistah: So true. What also bothered me is after all that, they moved her , pre-teens, from one of the most diverse areas (still racism as there is everywhere but as places go one of the better major US metropolitan options) to the Mason-Dixon line!
Foot note: After this post, I found the now grown child I was referring to. She left the small white town her parents moved her too and is a mother of a small child and is in a predominately black city. She’s reconnected with her birth mother, half siblings, found other relatives and still has her adopted 1990′s Skinnerian parents near in her life. All is well according to her but despite looking like the picture of twenty something health and beauty, she has health problems that only seem to afflict people who had stressful childhoods.
For me this ties in with the post because I feel that the stress of a child experiencing self hatred can at least be somewhat alleviated if they know that their parents are trying their hardest to protect them.