I dropped off K late this morning. Free play had ended and they were already doing circle time. The teacher was holding up a picture of a teepee and telling the kids about Indians. As I walked out, I heard K asking, "Did they live a long time ago?"
K knows a little about India. We have a book about it. He knows that it's so far away that you have to go on a plane for a whole day to get there. He knows we have family there and that his grandparents grew up there and recently returned from a long visit. He knows that some things in our house come from India. But I'm not sure if we've ever used the term "Indian" to describe anything or anyone.
Tonight I might just have to blow K's mind by informing him that HE is an Indian.
I'd love a transcript of that conversation. I've discussed skin color with P, but given her BFFs at daycare were Ethiopian and Chinese, it wasn't much of a deal. The hard part was trying to describe our skin color: she did not believe we were white (well, we really aren't) so I think she may look for kind of pink-beige on the forms when the time comes. Because that was all I could come up with.
ReplyDeleteWe occasionally mention skin color in our house, but mostly in the context of comparing all of our family members' differences and similarities. (K's hair is all different colors like Daddy's, but darker; mine is black. K and I have the same color eyes but Daddy's eyes are different. I have the darkest skin, Daddy has the lightest, and K is in between.) Since the three of us have such different coloring, K doesn't seem to notice skin color in others. Actually, he doesn't seem to register people's physical attributes at all. If you ask him to describe someone, he usually will tell you the last thing he saw them wearing, or the toy they were playing with.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - the concept of people being "white" and "black" is totally weird and we haven't talked about that yet. The other day he did mention that someone had a "black face" and I repeated "black face?" (I was honestly confused, not trying to make a point, since as I mentioned, I've never heard him mention anyone's skin color before.) He said, "Brown face." Anyway, maybe he is becoming more conscious of these things.
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