Last week, my five-year-old asked me if “a King or a Martin Junior King” had died. She had all sorts of questions about where he died and how she saw signs from an old movie that said “Whites Only”. She did not really understand what that truly meant, and I tried to suggest to her how silly it was to prevent people with brown skin from going to a restaurant or the movie theater. She said that it wasn’t silly but that it was mean, and that she would put up a sign that said “Brown, Tan, White skin only”. I gently suggested that she should not put up a sign mentioning specific skin colors, but she told me that she wanted to make sure everyone could come.
I can only assume she even heard about this because her kindergarten teacher discussed the significance of missing school today. But her obvious confusion, fascination with his death in general (“I wonder where he was shot”), and general misunderstanding of segregation got me wondering. Would she have been better off not being told about MLK, Jr. until she could better understand the social injustice he fought to remedy and the tragedy of his death?
My daughter is blind to color differences. She recognizes that some people have brown skin and some have tan and some have peach skin, but to her, that is no different than the different colors in her crayon box or the differences among her many dolls. Skin color has no significance for her – and that’s the way I want to keep her. However, the minute we start discussing segregation and race issues, skin color takes on a new meaning. All of a sudden, it has significance because people have died because of the color of their skin. My daughter automatically loses that innocence and blind faith in others, and something that should be a non-issue becomes one by default.
I am not, in any way, suggesting that she does not learn about Martin Luther King, Jr., his message, his faith, his importance to our society. In fact, it bothers me that more companies do not close today – my own included. We should recognize the battles he fought for equality because they impact us all, no matter what color our skin. My concern lies in the fact that in an effort to explain everything, we force kids to grow up too soon. Maybe, if we allowed our children to retain their innocence and trust in everyone a bit longer, we would be fostering the very same virtues Mr. King espoused – faith, trust, color-blindness, equality.
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Kristi – I actually have that in my TBR pile. I WILL get to it one day!
Thanks, Ceri! You are right that kids are more resilient than we ever truly consider, and to her, segregation means something completely different at this point in time. She's my baby, and I dread her losing that innocence. I'm not an overly protective mother, but when it comes to my kids growing up too fast, then I protect that with every fiber of my being!
You should read “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. It relates to this post and I think you'd love it. It's laugh out loud funny sometimes too.
I understand what you mean. You want your children to know all about the world but, at the same time, you want them to remain innocent to the evils of it for as long as possible.
I think the way you handled the questions were great. I think as long as she knows that there are some bad people in the world who say that people are different because of their skin colour and that this is wrong, she should be fine. She'll begin to understand it more as she grows up. Maybe she'd prefer to put a sign up saying, “Everyone welcome!”
When I was about 8-9, I was waiting outside the dinner hall for my friends to finish their lunch. I started playing some silly schoolground game with a girl I barely knew. She was British born but of Pakistani heritage.
When my friends came out, I said bye to the girl and went to join them. They were all whispering, and then turned to me and said, “Ceri, you didn't touch the black girl, did you?”
I was so confused. I said, “No.”
Then they said, “Oh, that's good. That means you can play with us then.”
I didn't really understand how much of a big deal that was until I got much older. When you're that young, your attention doesn't really hold for very long on one thing so it's not a huge deal. It's only when you're older that you realise what people are like. Don't worry – your little girl will be fine. She has a very liberal-minded mother to teach her. 🙂