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Nov. 10th, 2008 10:40 amAt dinner last night, Alex announced, "Some people with white skin are mean to people with brown skin."
Yikes. "That's right," I said.
"And some people help them get away from the people who are mean."
"Did you learn about this at Sunday School today?" She nodded. "Who helps them?"
"People." She thought for a moment, and then said, "People with brown skin had to do aaaalll the housework."
"That's not fair!" I said. She nodded. "And other people helped them get away?" A lightbulb went off in my head. "Did you learn about Harriet Tubman?" She smiled, and nodded again.
This was surely the point for a parental message about values, but as God is my witness I had no idea what to say or how far to take it. I stuck to her terms: "We always want to be the people who help, and not the people who are mean."
I mentally sorted through and discarded various other things I could add, like "it doesn't matter what color someone is" (demonstrably not true) and finally came up with: "It's important to be nice and friendly to everyone, no matter what color they are. Even if they have purple skin."
"Even if they have blue skin," Alex contributed. We ran through a few more colors, and the conversation was over.
I would have put this conversation off, if I could. I haven't been in a hurry to teach Alex about prejudice and bigotry and discrimination and inequality. I fully recognize that, among adults, "I don't see color" becomes an excuse for failure to confront racism and privilege, but among preschoolers it seems like a fine starting position. Or do I have blinders on? What is the age at which I'd feel comfortable sitting my daughter down and explaining that people who look like her have done awful things to people who look like some of her classmates and cousins?
A few weeks ago we were looking at pictures of Sasha and Malia Obama. (One of Obama's unique qualifications in the Presidential race, to Alex, was that "he has little girls like me.") After we'd sorted through a dozen or so pictures, she said, sounding as if it had just occurred to her, "They both have brown skin."
"Yeah," I said. "That's because Mr. Obama and Mrs. Obama both have brown skin, and children are usually the same color as their parents." I wondered if she had never noticed before that Obama is black. (We had been over the heritability-of-skin-color thing before, when she asked why some kids have brown skin.) It certainly didn't seem to be something she thought was noteworthy about him. And why would she? In her three and a half years of life experience, where would she have encountered the necessary background information?
Alex is starting off from a place of innocence. When she tells us (as she's been doing lately; the preschool years are a time of categorization) "Most families in our land have a dad in them, but there isn't a dad at Nick and Allie's house," or "Some kids have two moms, and some kids have two dads," she is completely unaware that those are weighted, fraught categories. She's just describing. Michael and I cheerfully reinforce the normality of all of those family structures. We want her to know, from the very beginning of knowing, that there are many equally valuable ways of being a family. And yet, the passage of Prop 8 makes it so abundantly clear that it's not as simple as Alex's happy categorizing.
As I try to feel my way through parenting, my feeling has been that the right thing to do is to establish bedrock principles of equality and acceptance from the start, so that when Alex encounters concepts like prejudice and discrimination they will feel wrong to her on a gut level.
And you know, it would be so tempting to stop there. It is hard, hard, hard to violate her innocence by teaching her about the rest of it: the history and present course of discrimination in our country and in the world, the ways in which we benefit from prejudice even though we reject it, the moral responsibility we have to change the world to be more like we wish it were already.
I guess I should be grateful that Sunday School gave us a push forward yesterday. Part of me feels like it's too early, like three-and-a-half is too young to know about slavery and racism. But when would I think she was ready? When would it be time?
...I guess that's why we take her to church for moral guidance, huh?
Yikes. "That's right," I said.
"And some people help them get away from the people who are mean."
"Did you learn about this at Sunday School today?" She nodded. "Who helps them?"
"People." She thought for a moment, and then said, "People with brown skin had to do aaaalll the housework."
"That's not fair!" I said. She nodded. "And other people helped them get away?" A lightbulb went off in my head. "Did you learn about Harriet Tubman?" She smiled, and nodded again.
This was surely the point for a parental message about values, but as God is my witness I had no idea what to say or how far to take it. I stuck to her terms: "We always want to be the people who help, and not the people who are mean."
I mentally sorted through and discarded various other things I could add, like "it doesn't matter what color someone is" (demonstrably not true) and finally came up with: "It's important to be nice and friendly to everyone, no matter what color they are. Even if they have purple skin."
"Even if they have blue skin," Alex contributed. We ran through a few more colors, and the conversation was over.
I would have put this conversation off, if I could. I haven't been in a hurry to teach Alex about prejudice and bigotry and discrimination and inequality. I fully recognize that, among adults, "I don't see color" becomes an excuse for failure to confront racism and privilege, but among preschoolers it seems like a fine starting position. Or do I have blinders on? What is the age at which I'd feel comfortable sitting my daughter down and explaining that people who look like her have done awful things to people who look like some of her classmates and cousins?
A few weeks ago we were looking at pictures of Sasha and Malia Obama. (One of Obama's unique qualifications in the Presidential race, to Alex, was that "he has little girls like me.") After we'd sorted through a dozen or so pictures, she said, sounding as if it had just occurred to her, "They both have brown skin."
"Yeah," I said. "That's because Mr. Obama and Mrs. Obama both have brown skin, and children are usually the same color as their parents." I wondered if she had never noticed before that Obama is black. (We had been over the heritability-of-skin-color thing before, when she asked why some kids have brown skin.) It certainly didn't seem to be something she thought was noteworthy about him. And why would she? In her three and a half years of life experience, where would she have encountered the necessary background information?
Alex is starting off from a place of innocence. When she tells us (as she's been doing lately; the preschool years are a time of categorization) "Most families in our land have a dad in them, but there isn't a dad at Nick and Allie's house," or "Some kids have two moms, and some kids have two dads," she is completely unaware that those are weighted, fraught categories. She's just describing. Michael and I cheerfully reinforce the normality of all of those family structures. We want her to know, from the very beginning of knowing, that there are many equally valuable ways of being a family. And yet, the passage of Prop 8 makes it so abundantly clear that it's not as simple as Alex's happy categorizing.
As I try to feel my way through parenting, my feeling has been that the right thing to do is to establish bedrock principles of equality and acceptance from the start, so that when Alex encounters concepts like prejudice and discrimination they will feel wrong to her on a gut level.
And you know, it would be so tempting to stop there. It is hard, hard, hard to violate her innocence by teaching her about the rest of it: the history and present course of discrimination in our country and in the world, the ways in which we benefit from prejudice even though we reject it, the moral responsibility we have to change the world to be more like we wish it were already.
I guess I should be grateful that Sunday School gave us a push forward yesterday. Part of me feels like it's too early, like three-and-a-half is too young to know about slavery and racism. But when would I think she was ready? When would it be time?
...I guess that's why we take her to church for moral guidance, huh?
