Diana’s extended family on her father’s side is multi-racial. She has cousins who are lack, and this diversity enriches the entire family. We’ve always told Ollie that these cousins who are black are simply his cousins finding no need to explain the subtleties of their familial relationships. More important to us, is that Ollie sees her cousins, her uncles and aunts, and all of these wonderful people simply as family.
So a couple weeks ago, Ollie mentioned, “I noticed something about cousin Michael and some of his siblings.” I immediately thought that Ollie would tell me how he noticed the fact that they are black. Instead he replied, “All of their names start with the letter ‘m’!” I laughed at myself and confirmed that this was true. Everyone in that immediate family does in fact have names that start with the letter “m.” “Is there anything else you’ve noticed that interesting about some of these cousins?” Ollie looked at me blankly. “Well, they have a different skin color than you,” I prompted.” “I know, they have different skin, but so do you and mommy.”
Some people argue that we shouldn’t talk about race and ethnicity with young children because “they don’t see race.” This is not actually an argument, but rather an expression of ignorance or discomfort about talking about these issues. I’ve heard that kids sees race, and I know for fact from my son Ollie sees race, because from the earliest time he could express it to us, he’s observed that me and Diana have different, hair and skin color (my wife is Caucasian, and I’m Chinese).
We’ve explained to Ollie his ethnic heritage. He has an amazing and wonderful background. He’s a decedent of immigrants on both sides. My parents came from Taiwan in the late 1970s, and Diana’s paternal grandparents emigrated from Wales a generation earlier. We culturally identify as Chinese, which leads to some semantical confusions. We are from Taiwan, but my parents speak Mandarin Chinese. And some interesting conclusions. Last night Ollie concluded that everyone in Seattle, where my mother lives speaks Mandarin, since my parents lives and speak Mandarin themselves. And then he made an interesting logic jump. He’s Chinese, there are black people in his family, therefore maybe black people are Chinese. Yes, that’s ridiculous, but more than that it’s encouraging and wonderful.
It’s wonderful that my son thinks about his race, is making conclusions (even incorrect ones) and is asking questions about his identity. I’m not sure how to address all of his questions and ideas, but that’s okay. I don’t need to have all of the answers, I think the most important part is that I listen. Part of me wants him to get it right, but there’s time for that. He can’t understand all of the nuances about racial identity, so I can let him have some misconceptions, in the same way I can let his spelling not be perfect, and his handwriting be a little messy right now.
Some of the most important conversations we have with our kids are the messy ones, and we rob our children of important moments when we don’t talk about things because of our own discomfort.
We see race, our children see race. That’s not a bad thing. Not talking about race, making children internalize that there’s something wrong with the way we they see people is not good for our kids. Only by encouraging our children to express what they see as beauty, and learn to frame it as such, will they learn to accept and love others and themselves, in the challenging and important work of racial identity development.
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