Every decision I’ve made since my first child was conceived has been made with a Mom’s heart. “What’s best for my children?”… “How will this affect my kids as adults?”… “Will they respect their mom for doing this?”… etc. etc. etc.
One conscious decision that I made as a parent is to never refer to people by the color of their skin. Before you start hating me and emailing me about “respecting differences” and “teaching history”, please read on. There’s a perfectly good reason for why I do this.
I was raised in a small town in south Arkansas, so I’m very conscious of problems and tension between races. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it than many of my friends who were not raised in an area that had such a blend of black people and white people, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m sensitive to it because of the hell I’ve seen close friends go thru because they chose spouses or life partners who weren’t exactly the ‘norm’. Maybe it’s a combination of a lot of things. Whatever the reason, I’m sensitive to it.
I believe that racism is learned. Children aren’t born with negative opinions of others, based on their race or their gender or any other difference. They learn those things from parents, friends, family members, and neighbors. So, I decided to never label people with the hopes that my children would develop a genuine belief that we’re all equal. And once that belief is an ingrained fundemental part of who they are, and once they are old enough to understand, we’ll teach them about the differences, the history, etc. But we won’t be teaching racial tolerance at that point. By then, ‘tolerance’ won’t be necessary, since their way of life will be accepting and loving everyone, regardless of race.
Now, many of you who are close to me have heard this story, so I apologize for putting you thru it again. But this is a PERFECT example of how my method of raising my kids is working. Last fall, Autumn was in kindergarten at a public school in Panama City, Florida. The teacher, like most I imagine, was loosely following the Presidential election. (As an aside here, I don’t think KINDERGARTEN is the right place to be discussing politics on ANY level, but that is another topic.) At the dinner table on the night before the election, Autumn says, “If Bobama wins tomorrow, he will be the first black President ever”. Autumn had NEVER referred to anyone as ‘black’. She was born in Arkansas and has lived most of her life as a child in the Air Force, so she’s made plenty of friends and been around lots of people from all sorts of backgrounds and races… but she had never referred to anyone by the color of his or her skin. I was floored when she referred to Obama as ‘black’. I hardly even noticed that she called him “Bobama”. I asked her quickly, “He’ll be the first WHAT?” She looked at me with confusion and replied, “…the first blue President?” It was clear to me at that point that she had no clue what her teacher meant that day when she told the class that Obama was ‘black’. WHEW! (The teacher and I had an interesting talk the next day.)
The reason I’m writing on this topic TODAY is because of something I overheard the girls arguing about in the toyroom earlier. I heard Autumn (now 7) say, “your Barbie is going to marry the black boy”, and Heidi replied, “no, YOUR Barbie is going to marry the black boy! I don’t want to marry the black boy!” So I quickly raced into the room to see what in the world my kids must have learned at school, only to find them arguing over who would be married to Ken in the black tux and who would get Ken in the white shirt and jeans. I exhaled a big sigh of relief and hugged my kids. They are turning out to be great people, and I’m very proud of them. And I guess I’m sort of proud of myself, too.
As much as we carry on today about everyone being ‘equal’, prejudices do still exist in our society. You’d be foolish not to believe that. But happily, I can blog to you all today that it doesn’t exist in my children. And I would encourage other parents, if we are TRULY going to get to a place in our country where future generations see each other as ‘equal’ regardless of race, we GenX’ers and GenY’ers are going to have to take the matter into our own hands and raise that generation.
Bravo!!! Kudos to you and your kids.