Skin Deep?

The Anti-Racist Parent again - ah, I love that blog!

The latest post (with content, there's a super cute photo there too!) is about non-white Barbies and whether they actually help or hurt the anti-racist parent cause. The author looks at how many of these dolls are either Caucasian Barbies made dark-skinned, with the same featues as the Barbie feminists love to hate, or if they are perpetuating racial stereotypes in an almost cartoonish fashion.

I find it difficult to comment on these types of things, because I really have no understanding or experience of what it is like to be discriminated against because of my race or ethnicity. I have some experience with sexism, but I really don't think that's comparable. My husband and I have nothing but Caucasian blood on either side of our family tree as far as the eye can see - we're about as un-diverse as you can get. We have the look of the perfect postcard family, especially my kids who fit right in with the cultural idea of what is attractive. My daughter is three years old, tall and thin, with olive skin, big hazel eyes and perfectly chiseled features. My son is six months, and is often described as a "Gerber baby" - chubby cheeks, big blue eyes, long eyelashes, platinum blond hair, and a smiley disposition.

As I read the article and comments that were discussing the experience of constantly being told that we aren't "pretty" because of dark skin, curly hair, a non-Barbie-ish figure or whatever, I kept finding myself thinking about the children on the other side of the coin. When someone comments to me about how pretty or cute my kids are I find myself a little put off. Of course, I'm only human and love that my kids are getting positive attention, but I also find the implications of these comments to be more than a little distasteful.

When I was a kid, I was definitely not pretty or cute. I had dark stringy hair that was usually in knots, freckles, and buck teeth. I was into everything and was usually dressed in utilitarian, rather than attractive, clothing. I was very serious and didn't have much in common with other kids, but adults usually didn't know quite what to make of me either so I was usually pretty lonely. My sister, on the other hand, had huge blue eyes, blond ringlets, and a sparkling personality. She loved to dance around and wear twirly pink dresses. People were constantly commenting how pretty and adorable she was - while they totally ignored me. They never said anything negative to or about me, but the rejection was stinging.

So when people who don't know my kids at all comment positively on their appearance, I am brought back to that moment. Sure, they're easy on the eyes, but I don't want people to notice them only for that reason. Likewise, I feel for the kids who, for whatever reason, don't draw the same attention and whose inner gifts go unnoticed because of that. The implication that is made when people notice my children's appearance is that there are other kids who aren't beautiful, which simply is not true. All kids are amazing, beautiful miracles and should be acknowledged as such. I don't want other kids to ever feel that they are less important because they don't fit the description of beauty that is commonly accepted in the time or place they inhabit, but neither do I want my own children to feel more important because they do.

Of course, we could get into the argument against praise of any kind here, but I won't. I just hope that if you ever run into us on the street, you'll notice some other things about my kids - my daughter is sensitive, enthusiastic (maddeningly so!), and notices detail to the degree that some might call her anal, and my son is easygoing, observant and really attached to routine. And they're really cute - but I can say that, I'm their mother!

How old is old enough?

I follow only a select few blogs on a daily basis. One of them is the Anti-Racist Parent, where bloggers examine race and ethnicity issues and how to deal with them as a parent. This is something that is interesting to me - when I was pregnant with my daughter and we decided to move to northwestern New Jersey from a suburb of Newark and New York City, the thing that most concerned me was that we were leaving an incredibly rich and diverse community to live in an incredibly homogeneous and conservative one. We decided that the slower pace, the quieter surroundings, the friendlier neighbors and the ongoing contact with the natural world was worth the sacrifice. Recently, when we were at a local farm and my three-year-old daughter said "Mom, look at all the little black kids!" when she noticed a group of inner-city youth who were visiting as a field trip....well, suffice it to say, I wasn't so sure we had made the right decision.

Clearly, I need to try harder when it comes to exposing my kids to diversity of all kinds. The question becomes, how do we do this? The Anti-Racist Parent has some great ideas, such as binging our children to professionals (doctors, for example) who aren't all white and male, and bringing dolls and books into the home that portray diversity in terms of color, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and family structure. But the question remains, how do we bring real-life diversity into our lives if it isn't a part of our communities? I don't want to feel like I'm taking my kids on a "Diversity Field Trip" - and I doubt other people would appreciate being "Asian/Black/Latino/Gay/Lesbian/Transgender/Person With a Handicap Exhibit A".

A recent post on ARP got me thinking about this whole thing again. The writer was talking about some images her five-year-old daughter had seen on the the television coverage of the RNC - video of Muslim men with machine guns. The girl asked her mom (the author) why people who looked like her Muslim friend wanted to "kill America". The writer examined, in depth, what an appropriate response to that question would be - in the end, the answer is simply "I don't know". But one commenter seemed to feel that she should have delved more deeply into the issues, saying that she would have taken her three-year-old further, perhaps discussinfg the function of armies and war.

Let me just say this: YIKES!

On a couple of levels, five (never mind three!!!) is not the appropriate age to introduce these issues to children, at least in my humble opinion. Firstly, children are very egocentric until they reach the age of six (give or take). American Muslims versus Muslims in the Middle East doesn't mean anything to them. All they have to go on is what they, themselves, know from personal experience - a Muslim friend or the guys who attend the mosque two blocks away. A child's only concern in that moment is whether or not her friend's dad is going to show up at her house tomorrow toting an Uzi - so I think the author's response was perfectly appropriate. Assure the child that the Muslims they personally know do not want to kill America, and then wait to see where the child takes the conversation. If she's satisfied with the answer, then stop. There will be plenty of time for a more in-depth discussion later.

But, more importantly, by introducing these issues too early we may be actually doing harm. As David Sobel says in his book Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education:

If we prematurely ask children to deal with problems beyond their understanding and control, prematurely recruit them to solve the mammoth problems of an adult world, then I think we cut them off from the possible sources of their strength.

And later:

Tragedies are big, complex problems beyond the geographical and conceptual scope
of young children.

By exposing our youngsters to issues that are too big too early, we run the risk of having them become apathetic, which is definitely not what we want. Remember how hopeless we, as adults, often feel when faced with the issues of environmental degradation, human rights violations, unhealthy cultural messages and mores, or cruelty to non-humans. Then imagine how much more hopeless our children might feel when introduced to these very same issues! One of the main elements of Humane Education and Humane Parenting is to provide positive choices. But for young children, positive choices are extremely limited, if not non-existent. Therefore, I believe it is best to hold off until children are older and more well-equipped, both intellectually and emotionally, to comprehend these issues in a meaningful way.

This is an issue I have seen discussed quite a lot recently. Articles in both Mothering magazine and Brain, Child magazine have addressed them in recent months. Obviously different children are different, and reach maturity at different ages. Certainly, there are perspectives on this topic that are different from mine, and I encourage parents to think long and hard about them before your child asks you The Question, whatever that question might be for him or her, and for you. But, when you're thinking about Your Answer, I hope that you'll consider your child's needs and readiness in addition to your own agenda with respect to the issue at hand. I don't use agenda in the pejorative sense here - we all have them, and we should have them - but we need to be aware of what they are and who they serve in the moment.

I'm back!

I've been absent from this blog for awhile because I was busy welcoming this little person into the world. My son, Harrison Herbert Francis DiNorcia ("Harry") was born on Saturday May 10, 2008 at 9:10 pm. However, just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about Humane Parenting - quite the contrary! I look forward to sharing more thoughts, insights and issues to ponder soon!