Most Important Conversation of His Life (to date)

I had an odd conversation with B yesterday and as I have been chewing on it a bit, I read a great post from another Momma blogger who is a great writer, as well as an adoptive mother. Please read her post here if you are interested. Her point is a great one. We have a duty to not just pretend everyone is the same and great, but to discuss with our children that race should not be a deciding factor in whether or not they like someone. By ignoring the issue, our kids may end up making choices that appear racist and eventually evolve into racist choices because we haven't given them the tools to make better choices.

That being said, I am a firm believer in NOT pointing out racial difference for very young kids (about age 4 and younger) but B is in school and nearly 5. He is starting to notice the differences in his classmates as well as in our family.

Yesterday afternoon, B approached me and said that people with different color skin are boring. Since he has NEVER made any comments about skin color in a negative way, I knew we needed to explore his thought process a bit. I asked him to tell me what boring meant. He couldn't. So, I asked him if he would like me to explain what boring meant. He did. Once I gave him my basic definition and a couple of examples, I asked if boring was the word he meant to use. Nope. Not boring. So I asked him to explain to me what he meant. He couldn't and was acting a bit impatient and embarrassed. I told him that this was something we needed to discuss and that, "This may be one of the most important conversations of his life." Ok. A bit heavy for a 4 year old to digest.

I got down and looked him in the eye. We sat on the steps of our living room and I tried to explain to him that just because someone has a different color of hair, eyes, or skin that it is OK. There is nothing bad about being different. He quickly said, "I know that, Mom." He goes to a school that is full of children of many races and nationalities, so I also tossed in that it is OK if someone speaks a different language in their home. Many of his classmates are bilingual or even trilingual, so he hears them talking with their parents and siblings in a multitude of languages every day. I then tried to explain that not very long ago, many grown-ups made bad choices and thought it was OK to hurt someone because they looked different. (I didn't want to scare him and get into the fact that racism is present today, but I wanted him to know that it exists and that it is important to understand that different isn't bad, just different.) I explained that people were treated differently because of how they looked and that the reason we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was because he worked really hard to change that.

I still don't know the exact point he was trying to make with his original comment. I am not sure if I covered all of the points in an age-appropriate way. But what I do know is that we did talk about it rather than just pretending it doesn't exist.