When I decided to take M to the park, I was a little concerned about what might happen. Sure, I wanted M to learn that she was being silly. At the same time I didn’t want M to have an opportunity to hurt the other little girl’s feelings, which seemed like a definite possibility given M’s very forthright declaration of not wanting to play with someone who was “different” because she had “brown skin and braids”. I was planning on very closely monitoring the situation.
As soon as we entered the park and the little girl caught sight of M, she headed straight toward us. As she ran up, M said “HI!” but kept on doing what she was doing. The other girl didn’t say anything. M continued playing (and narrating her play to me and L) and the little girl continued following her wordlessly, always staying about 6-7 feet away. The lack of interaction was a little strange.
M decided she wanted to swing, so M, L and I headed over there. The little girl stuck right behind M, still not talking.
When we got to the swings, I decided I would talk if no one else was going to.
“So, what is your name?” I asked.
“Molly.” she said.
“Hi Molly, this is M and L.” I said.
“How old are you?” M asked, “I am five years old! My birthday is on February 9, 2003! What year were you born?
“I’m three.” Molly said.
Knowing that Molly was three, her lack of conversation made a lot more sense. Molly was only about an inch shorter than 5 1/2 year old M and she really looked 5. As soon as we found out she was only three, it was clear she was just acting like a three year old who really likes big kids. As the mostly one-sided conversation (from M) continued, I also concluded that Molly may be bilingual due to the way she was putting her sentences together and a slight accent. (I am guessing her parents were from Africa, but I don’t know.)
M continued to chatter on and on. Molly answered her questions occasionally. M tried to explain an imaginary game that she wanted to play to Molly, but Molly didn’t always follow M’s rules. I reminded M a few times that Molly was only three and M adjusted her play. They ran off to the slides together and played uneventfully for another 10 minutes, until we had to go home.
On the way home, I reminded M that she had said she didn’t want to play with Molly before because she looked different. “Well, that was before I knew her,” M said. We talked about how silly that was and that Molly ended up being a good playmate. We talked again about all our friends who had differences and how they are different. (We have continued to have this conversation over the past few days. M seems to enjoy it.) We also talked about how M might feel if someone didn’t want to play with her because she was Chinese or had brown hair or was a girl. M agreed she would feel sad and she didn’t want to make other people sad. Then we went home and she went to bed.
Sorry to disappoint the folks who thought there would be some big, dramatic ending to this story, but it was real life.
I will be honest and say some part of me hopes that the original issue came up because Molly was only 3 (but looks 5) and didn’t play the way M expected her to. Mr. A said they had talked a little before M started to ignore her, so it could be possible. That doesn’t explain why M would blame Molly’s hair or skin color though.
The truth is I don’t know where this came from. M does have some friends who are Black and she has made friends with other Black kids in the park easily recently. There were no African American kids at M’s preschool, but there were a number of very dark-skinned south Asian kids. While M could tell me where every classmate’s parents immigrated or ancestors originated from and their skin/hair color, she had never placed any good/bad value on it to my knowledge.
I know I shouldn’t have been so surprised that this would happen, but it caught me off guard. I felt like we are trying to do a decent job of being anti-racist in our parenting. I think talk a lot about race and ethnicity in what I think is an age-appropriate way. I am realizing that we have talked a lot about differences, but not much about discrimination. I think M has shown us it is time for us to broaden the conversation.
Maybe we haven’t done enough in our day to day lives either. Maybe it was a mistake to send M to the preschool where the ethnic mix was mostly Asian, white and hapa. We knew we were sacrificing other diversity, but I felt like it was worth it for M to come out of preschool with a solid understanding of herself as (half) Asian and knowing other kids who shared that experience (which she did). I don’t know.
While I am not proud of this situation, but if I had neglected to share it here, it would have been really hypocritical after all my talk about being anti-racist. Even if we parent in a perfectly anti-racist way, our girls will be out in the world being influenced by people/things out of our control. We are trying to use it as a learning opportunity.
We just have to keep plugging away, I guess.
New reader here (hi!). I think it sounds like you did a great job with M. These issues are difficult but talking about them and being able to fine-tune your parenting in the way you describe is admirable. (And inspriational! Thanks!)
I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty about. Regardless of how conscientiously and consistently we parent our kids, they are always going to come up with something that is odd or awkward once in a while (my 19 month old recently pointed to a fellow commuter’s behind and said “BUTT!!” in a very loud voice–eek!). I think the important thing is the way you handled the situation, which was perfect. You were able to present the main issue to M in a way she could understand, and you provided an opportunity for immediate reinforcement of the things you had talked about. Awesome job!
This story blows. I thought there would be a fight or something. …argh.
http://www.AnUrbanStory.com
I thought the situation was handled well, and have had a similar experience with my daughter who is also biracial, Korean-White when she was about 4 years old.
You might be interested in this book I recently read, “The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism.” This book is based on a year long field research study of pre-schoolers (3-6) in a diverse school setting and looks at the ways they understand how to use race and racism even as early as 3 years old. It was a fascinating read.
I think you handled it well. And look at this post that came up on ARP today:
http://www.antiracistparent.com/2008/08/04/when-anti-racist-parenting-goes-wrongor-at-the-very-least-neurotic/
I think you did an amazing job, and it was so helpful to hear about how you handled this. Thank you for writing about it.
I think you did a good job.
You’re brave to post this story. Thank you. I admire the way you handled the situation.
I’m glad things went so well. I think it was a great opportunity to talk about these things.
Thank you for sharing the story. It helps me feel a bit more prepared for if/when we have a similar situation.
Thanks for sharing your story. It’s inspiring to read about such thoughtful parents.
Another book suggestion (about exclusion, but not based on race necessarily) is You Can’t Say You Can’t Play by Vivian Paley. It’s about her attempt to institute that rule (that you can’t say “you can’t play”) in her kindergarten classsroom. It’s an amazing story by an amazing educator.
I respect you so much for not letting shame get in the way of doing the right thing.
When my brother was about 5 he refused to let a nurse give him a vaccination because she was Black. She was the first Black person he had ever seen (there was one black family in our small town) and he was a bit afraid of how she looked. My mom (also a nurse) was mortified and didn’t know what to do. She opted for scolding my brother rather than using it as a teaching moment. Thank you for sharing your story.
I read all 3 parts of your story breathlessly. You and Mr. A did such a great job with M and she is so lucky to have such committed parents.
Will have to file this post under “some day I may need this…”
I definitely wasn’t hoping for any big, dramatic ending! I was just genuinely curious about what happened once you took M back to the park!
Before you went back to the park you should have braided M’s hair.
Great series of posts. Thank you for sharing this story.
Thank you so much for A) your response and work with M and B) blogging about it. It’s a great example to other parents who might be upset but not know what to do in this situation.
I know this has happened to Nat on a couple of occasions and the parents just get freaked out and try to brush it off or deny what’s going on. And I bet the language/age issue did complicate matters, but M found it easier to describe the physical differences when telling you about it.
Wow… what an interesting story. I worry about this a lot too — how my boys will react to people who look different from them. Thanks for blogging about this. It’s good to read other people’s experiences so I can be a better anti-racist parent myself and proactively work with the boys so they won’t be prejudiced.
These kinds of real-life stories are so helpful in trying to learn to be an anti-racist parent–thank you for sharing it.
I’m curious about how you talk to M and L about Asian appearance. My daughter (Chinese) is 2.5 and I’m searching for terms for her skin colour, eye shape, etc. that don’t come across as racist or offensive. Any suggestions?
I haven’t read all of the comments. I think people have always and will always be afraid of something different. This is inborn. Part of being an anti-racist parent is to do what you did, point out the similarities and focus on how people are similar and not the differences.
I would not be embarrassed by M’s behavior. I truly believe that was a normal human interaction, but I am glad that you,A and M found a new way to approach this so she can work on looking for similarities instead of differences.
Yes…. you just keep plugging away. That’s all you can do and it appears you’re doing the best you can do.
I wasn’t hoping for a dramatic ending, I just wondered how it would turn out, lol!
Is it possible that M did get frustrated with the age difference but, neither knowing Molly was three nor even being able to articulate “she’s at a different stage in her development than I am” she decided to voice the only explanation she could think of for why the girl was acting differently than she expected? Because she WAS “different” but just not in a way that M was able to articulate.
In any case, it was great you tackled this so directly but without placing any guilt or blame on M, just turning it into an active learning experience for both of you- and an ongoing one, too, it looks like! Awesome
[...] (at least I hope not!). She has only started saying those things since this summer (remember that one incident at the park?). I just don’t know what the heck is going on. I thought maybe kids were [...]