e-mail
Jack has known that he’s brown for well over a year now. His pre-school is about 50% white, 50% everything else. Brown kids are well represented. With the exception of President Barack Obama, we don’t generally make a big deal over who’s brown or white or whatever.
Today, Jack was discussing a pretend party.
Jack: You can come to my party. And John-Samuel. And Nadia. And Karina. And…
Me: Anyone else?
Jack: (thinking)
Me: Marisa?
Jack: Yes! And Marisa.
Me: And Anika?
Jack: NO! Anika can’t come to my party.
Me: Why not? We like Anika. (We do. Anika calls Jack her brother. We play with her family a lot.)
Jack: She’s not brown like me.
Me: Neither is John Samuel, and he can come.
Jack: No. He can’t come to my party either.
Me: Well, that’s not nice. How would you feel if someone told you you couldn’t come to their party because you were brown?
Jack: (clearly not seeing the logic in my reply) Only brown people can come to my party.
Me: I’m not brown.
Jack: But you can come to my party.
Me: So, white people can come to your party?
Jack: Yes.
Me: Good. Because we like people if they’re white, or brown, or yellow, or red, or purple…
Jack: Or green!
Me: Or chartreuse.
Jack: Or green.
Me: Or green.
We ended with the silly color combinations.
I’m not sure what to make of this conversation. I think that right now, Jack is preoccupied with what is the same. If he’s using a regular spoon, for example, he points out we have the same fork. He and Daddy sometimes color coordinate, and Jack will point out “we have the same”. Last night, we went for frozen yogurt, and though we had two different color spoons, they were both the same length (insanely long – who needs a foot long frozen yogurt spoon?), and he pointed out that they were the same size. I actually tried to get him to tell me what was different about them, and he wouldn’t.
I suppose it’s a good thing that this happened today, as I had writer’s block. I do want to record it for future reference. It’s hard to tell what pre-schoolers think, as adults tend to bring a lot more drama to the table. It’s like that joke about the child asking “Where do I come from?” and the parents giving him a mini sex-ed lesson, only to find that he thought he was born in Cleveland.
Does anyone else have thoughts on pre-schoolers and skin color?
We have three copies of the children’s book Ten Days and Nine
Nights by Yumi Heo to give away! Please visit our giveaway
post to enter!
Photo Credit: Robyn C. 2009.
I would love this book for my family! It sounds great!
Our 2-1/2 year old was sitting on my lap the other night and was pointing out colors in the book we were reading. He then went on to point out what we were wearing… and pointed to me and said, “Mommy, you’re white.” I said I thought I was more pink. He giggled and said, “Yes, and I’m brown.” End of conversation.
This was our first “racial” discussion, but I hope we have many more in our future. Keeping these kinds of lines of communication open is important for me. Having taught high school and middle school for years, I’ve seen lots of kids who have been singled out because of race. I pray that my son will always feel like he can talk to me, if this every becomes an issue for him.
Kelly in Ohio
i blog about our biracial family at http://www.spontaneousdelight.com our son is 6 years old and from 2 to 5 were big years for him as far as skin color. frankly, he doesn’t like having brown skin. i think this is because skateboarders and snowboarders are cool to him and he hasn’t seen any with brown skin.
we switched schools and churches in order to have him be in more diverse surroundings (his father is black.) none of this occurred to us until he was 2 1/2 and started talking about skin color.
it’s interesting to say the least.
Wow, that one is a doozy. I admire you women for trying so hard to do right by your children and having the courage to talk about these things.
I know from my experience growing up, I very much knew I was different and was treated as such in kindergarten. I didn’t attend preschool.
Since preschool is a different developmental leve, I fear my insights will not apply.
For me in kindergarten, the “color awareness” came from things like:
1) Kids would sometimes just
matter of factly tell you
you can’t play because you
are Chinese or brown or
whatever (I’m Chicano).
2) White kids would sort of
“circle the wagons” and
bunch up together or subtly
let you know you are an
outsider.
3) The teacher. I remember we
had a “cowboys and Indians”
play and, of course, I was
steered to be an Indian and
generally marginalized.
4) Most everything a child sees
from the media or simply out
in public indicates segregation
is the norm.
Well,like I said, preschool age is an entirely different situation, but I thought maybe somehow sharing my experience might help.