At what age will children become aware of ethnic differences and how will you handle their questions?

Question

I'm just curious how other people think on this subject since I already know how I want to raise my son. He is mixed race and we live in a very diverse community. As far as we can see there will be nothing new to him and questions will be handled truthfully and respectfully. I want to raise him not to see or judge people according to their race or ethnicity but by how they treat others.

Answer 1

My son is mixed race too. I'm white and my boyfriend is hispanic. Our son is almost 3. I definitely agree with you on the subject about being honest. I'm sure kids whill have questions and the best we can do is to tell them the truth, and raise them to be non judgemental of other people.

Answer 2

Two of my children are biracial, and I dont think that most people even recognize it. I live in a small town, and there are not alot of black people (my husband is mixed, so my children are 1/4 black). My middle son, is mixed and no one would ever think he was because he is blonde haired and has blue eyes. His younger brother by blood, has dark hair and black eyes, he is darker than my husband. I think at this time, most people are ok with biracial couples, and dont think too much of it. Alot of people are biracial and I think that it is getting harder to tell that people arent just white or black or whatever. I do worry that my children will have a hard time relating to the "black" culture and that they wont grow up experiencing both ways of life. Im not real worried that they will be made fun of or treated differently, I am more worried that they will lose thier heritage and not recognize how special they are to be part of two cultures. Hopefully, my children will never have to hide their heritage, I hope they can come out and be proud of who they are. Good luck, and I think that as long as you treat your child with respect, he will also treat people different from him with that same respect.

Answer 3

I have a 2 black godchildren that I love as if they are my own. My oldest godchild now 13 and my daughter were born 19 days apart and grew up with one another. Almost every day they played together and there was never an issue on "race". My daughter wanted black barbies, my goddaughter wanted the white blonde haired barbies. No big deal right? At age 4 my best friend sent my oldest godchild to Head start, we picked her up after wards one day all went to the lake for a picnic and my goddaughter looked me right in the face and said "we cant be friends" I asked her why and her response floored me she said "because your white and I'm black". Apparently she heard that at school! Anyhow long story short I told her if we couldn't be friends she needed to find another way home because I only let my friends in my car. She stood there crying but I was not about to budge on this. I told her the color of our skin shouldn't keep us from being friends. I took her home told her mom and her mom said to her "your not black your brown and your godmother is not white she's peach"! To this day when you ask my godchild what color I am she will tell you peach, when you ask her what color my sister is she'll say "poke-a-dotted"..lol just thought I'd share my story with you. I think its stupid people still judge others by the color of their skin.

Answer 4

I have 5 children 3 of mixed race afro american and white, 2 are hispanic and white. My 5 year old notices that her sister is darker but never question why, unfortunatly at schoold people can be very ignorrant a teacher approached my 11 year old daughter while walking with her 5 yr old sister her comment was oh thats your sister but she is white. My daughters reply was yes she is white but she is still my sister. They have never questioned why they are different than the rest they have the best sibling bond ever.

Answer 5

The same way i was taught. I was about 5 when i realized there were people with darker skin. And thats what i was told. Some people just have darker skin, but we're all the same.

It made sense to me, so i never considered it from that point on. I didnt even know about racism until i was in 3rd grade, I had a little black girl who was my best friend. And the recess teacher used to yell at her for playing certain things, but not at me, even though we were side by side doing the same activity. She cried and told me its because the teacher was racist. I had to ask my mom what it meant, cause i thought it was rediculous that someone would not like her because her skin was darker. I didnt believe her at all. She was right though.

But yeah, when our child realizes there are differences it'll be address the same way it was to me. As something totally normal. Like people with different color eyes or hair... different colored skin.

Answer 6

I think in many ways race is really not an issue to families. This is what my nine month old thinks:

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He's a budding typist. But seriously, I think the less we assume that the color of our skin makes us different the less our children will.

Answer 7

You are abs correct, do try to keep the poisonous racial thoughts from his mind as long as possible.