But, given some of the statements he's made lately, I need to be more proactive and find age appropriate ways to answer his questions and address some of the things he says, like:
"Oh that guy is gonna win because all brown people are good at basketball." (We had a talk about labeling)I've composed something several times and it's always ended up disjointed with no logical flow. I'm taking Steph's suggestion and throwing it all out there, totally at random. Warning: it makes no sense AT ALL.
"Whoa, look at all the brown people in this movie."
"Mama, you're the most beautifulest mama ever, even though your skin is different from mine and daddy's." (Which is funny because DH is totally pale and DS isn't)
A new boy started in DS's class this week. I met the mom and the son. They are black, and darker than me.
DS saw him and grabbed onto my leg the way he does when he gets shy. I asked what was wrong and he said he didn't want to play with him because he looked weird. I took him outside and asked why he thought that.
"Because his hair is so curly."
"Yours is too."
"But his is really curly."
"You know who has the same hair? Papa [my dad] and Uncle D. And if I didn't use my curling hair (that's what he calls it, cute no?), mine would look that way too."
I told him that wasn't a nice thing to say and reminded him how he felt when his classmate told him his skin color was stupid. I said he didn't have to be friends with N, but he couldn't not be his friend just because he looks different from DS.
This one was hard. I was disappointed in DS and a little hurt too. After all the times we've said to him that families come in all different colors, shapes and sizes, his reaction to this little boy was surprising.
When the boy in DS's class told DS his skin color was stupid, we had a long talk about how that made him feel and what to say if it happens again.
But the situation made me feel like I had failed DS somehow. I know it is my responsibility to expose DS to the African American side of his heritage, and I don't take that responsibility lightly.
I want him to have pride. I want him to know the history. I want to show him the cooking pot our great great (maybe one more great) grandmother used as a slave (my mom uses it as a planter) and have him understand the significance.
I want him to know that in our family, we have one of the first black cowboys and one of the first blacks to own a business in Missouri.
I want my son to grow up happy and secure in the love of his family. I want him to be friends with whomever he chooses. I want him to be in a relationship with whomever he chooses.
Being in a bi-racial relationship hasn't been an issue for us, unless someone else made it an issue. We know raising a family might have its challenges. But, we figured that when the time came, we'd deal with it and now that the time is here, I feel strangely unprepared.
When DH and I were dating, one of his cousins said, "No fair. If you guys get married your kids will be the cutest ones in the family." It bothered me at the time because I wondered if she thought that's why I was with him, to have attractive offspring.
And when DH was still in active duty, after seeing my picture one of the guys told him it was "cool" that he was with me.
I can't talk to DS about what it's like growing up bi-racial because that's not my experience. I hope he doesn't have to go through some of the things I did, but I fear he might.
He's also going to face his own challenges like people asking "what are you?" and having to decide which box to check under "ethnicity" or to make his own category.
When we would visit family in St. Louis, the friends of my cousins nicknamed me Proper. As in "She talks so proper." It was strange because we were all in school. They took the same English classes and learned how to conjugate verbs the same as I did. But I spoke differently and sometimes they made me feel bad about it.
I don't want my son to feel ashamed of being smart and articulate. I don't want someone to finally meet him in person after only knowing him from phone conversations and say, "I didn't know you were black," as happened to me.
When I was younger, maybe junior high, after my parents divorced my dad would ask me about school and my friends and he's want to know if any of them were black. I understood why he cared. But to me, friends were friends. And I didn't want to be friends with someone just because we had the same skin color.
I've never had a big circle of black friends for the simple reason that there have never been enough of us in the places I grew up to make that circle!
The same is true now. There aren't that many black faces in DS's school. Part of me wants to find a play group or sports team we can join so he can have more exposure than I did. But that seems so contrived.
