to be upset at racism accusation due to dd1's comment in town.

[PrincessScrumpy]

dd1 is 3 and said loudly "look mummy that lady has a chocolate face." The woman heard and said " nice to see you training her to be racist already!" I was really shocked. dd didn't mean offence it was an observation that her skin colour was the same as chocolate. She's only met a few people from other races due to us living in the West Country but I've always explained skin colour in the same way as hair and eye colour being different.

She did say it once before about Tiger Woods on TV but I decided to ignore it and not make an issue. dd now is asking what racist is and I don't think a 3yo needs to know - they don't see colour as a issue or feel superior etc. Left me shaken and actally quite cross. I really think the lady was being oversensitive.

Just told dp about this thread and he came at it with a rather leftfield perspective: how come this three year old doesn't know her colours yet? Does she call soil chocolate, and, I dunno, grass apple colour?

Also I wonder if the kid got the idea that grown ups thought it was sweet when she called Tiger Woods a chocolate man, and tried it again.

Not really usual, she did not call the woman that. Young children come out with strange things. I am sure the op did not tell her to refer to dark skinnmed people as having chocolate face

It seems an odd thing for a child to say to me

I can understand look at that fat woman etc

but maybe its because I live in an urban area ,where different coloured skins are the norm

I dunno ,just feels wrong to me

Its not about 'understanding differences' - she just pointed out that she is brown just as a child might say 'look at her hair.' If she had said 'I dont like that lady she has a chocolate face' then that would be different.

The woman overreacted but at the same time 3 is a good age to explain 'we dont point and talk about people around us. If you want to say something about someone but youre not sure then whisper it to me.'

I doubt she remembers the Tiger thing as it was a year ago and she was 2 but no we didn't laugh then either as I have stated.

dd knows all her colours - I presume it comes from the fact that when she eats chocolate she often gets it on her face and it reminded her of that. She tends to be descriptive and often compares things saying "that's like such and such" so it imo was just unfortunate.

I apparently pointed out a fat man to my mum at the age of 3 (very loudly). Mum was horrified but luckily he found it funny - he was our new vicar!

not really usual the girl was merely making an observation as they usually do. For a 3 year old the colour brown would be associated with chocolate. Actually some Afro/carribean people refer themselves as not being black but chocolate colour. I have seen some dating posts in the paper with dark skinned men describing themselves as being chocolate coloured.

Hmmmm. The woman's response was unreasonable given that dd is only 3 and therefore it is very likely that she meant to cause offence. The remark was made through ignorance not malice. That said I am shocked that when she made the Tiger Woods remark you did not comment or try to explain why it can be hurtful to comment on someone's appearance/that his skin was not like chocolate, it is human skin exactly the same as that on her face etc. YABU in not addressing issues as and when appropriate. Has your dd never watched Cbeebies, Balamory etc? If you do not encounter people of different skin colours and races in day to day life then you should ensure that she at least gets some education from other mediums.

Is Tiger Woods black then?

very UNlikely that she meant to cause offence!

OP, I really feel for you. In rural areas without the breadth of racial variation that is the norm in big cities, it's a challenge to know how to prevent little children from making loud inappropriate remarks when they see different colour skins.

For all our efforts, what happened to you could easily have happened to us. To be accused publicly of teaching your child to be racist is awful.

Reading this thread as a west country resident it makes me sad that there is such a lot of presumption about racism in this area. Insularity is taken to be racism. Therefore people of non white races apparently choose not to come here. Therefore it continues to be an insular area. QED.

From your last posts, I think you are at fault. Your child makes an ignorant remark about the color of a person's skin and you ignore it. When your child swears, you would ignore it.

These are opportunities to teach your child what is right and wrong from the outset so it doesn't become a learned behavior. If you say nothing, they will think its ok to keep saying it. Each time they say it, you keep saying that it is wrong to say it.

As I've said before - I did ignore Tiger thing but I have had the conversation about different people - skin, hair etc. She has a Chinese boy at nursery and I don't think it's even occured to her but for whatever reason, this woman stood out to her.

I don't believe dd thinks her face is made of chocolate - I think she was comparing the colour.

Reading this thread as a west country resident it makes me sad that there is such a lot of presumption about racism in this area. Insularity is taken to be racism. Therefore people of non white races apparently choose not to come here. Therefore it continues to be an insular area. QED.

Also, when non white people walk down the street, little children shout CHOCOLATE FACE at them, and their parents don't challenge this?

Frankly its no different to commenting on blonde or red hair - something that is outstandingly different.

Where I come from overseas there were no black people. I remember when they began to arrive one of the local children picked up his hand in a shop and wanted to know why his hand was black and his palm was pink! Natural curiosity. And no, she wouldnt have ever seen a black person on account of there being no television or mainstream media other than the radio either.

Now many races have moved to the place and have integrated and married in tothe local population.

Personally I cant be doing with people with chips on their shoulder.

I've heard (from super nanny and bahaviour mags) that if you react to swearing it can make it worse as the dc gets a reaction. As dd has gone a year without saying anything like it again, and yes she has seen all sorts of people and isn't completely isolated I felt it was the right thing but as I said I did talk about how people look. At 2 I felt she was too young to understand and ignoring it seemed to work. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm sure everyone on here makes perfect calls all the time.

Maybe dd was hungry, Princess?

Do you have a total ban on sweets? Perhaps if you let her have a bit of choccy now and then it would stop these cravings?

yeah because I said that

OP, you obviously don't think you were in the wrong and despite many people saying they feel it's wrong, you continue to defend 1) your actions at that time when actually unless you were shoveling in a sausage roll, you had every opportunity to respond instantly. If my child mortified me in public, the response would have instant and without thought. And 2) you didn't correct her the last time she said it and it doesn't seem as if you will in future either
so

YANBU

There, are you happy now.

My family live in the west country, we are all from London but they moved there 10 years ago (they are white).

Me and OH used to spend all our holidays there but before my family moved down we stopped going. 3 out of 4 times we spent a fecking fortune staying at basic places (typical UK set up) we experienced obvious and fecking outrageous racism.

Heres the thing. The places we stayed were not owned by long term residents but fairly new arrivals.

I can honestly say in all the years we have been going down there we have never experienced racism from yer average west countryer.

I got sick of giving my money to fuckers who would send us bills for 'fumigation' and the woman who went crackers when my OH turned up two days after us and called the police

Leaving aside whether you really want to bring your child up as if by Jo Frost, Supernanny does not say don't react to swearing to mean 'pretend they haven't said it', she means don't go ballistic. Kids have a sense when they're swearing that it's naughty, so you decide not to 'rise' to it - when your dd said Tiger Woods had a chocolate face, she wasn't to know it was wrong unless you told her, and if you had done so she might not have shouted it in the street now.

To me it's not about a 'call', it's just obvious - when a child says a black person has a chocolate face, you correct them!

Welcome back to your thread OP!

Hully, you are being mean.

When my 5yo BLACK niece was visiting from her (very white) home country, she threw a panic fit on meeting her first black man. She said his face was dirty. The man took it as a racist insult and was very nasty to both the child and her white mother.

Children come out with stuff. This gives us an insight into how they're seeing the world, so we try to educated them on the issues as they come up. It would have been better if OP had done this when the Tiger remark came out - but the other woman couldn't know she wasn't the first to be thought 'chocolate' by the child. She was wrong and intolerant, imo. But, hey, shit happens.

All a child really needs to know is that it's rude to comment on people's appearance.

Why do you think it doesn't seem I'll correct her in future? I did correct her this time as I've said and I did react facially, spoke to dd briefly but thought it was a conversation for at home not middle of shop with screaming babies. As I said we have had a deeper chat about it and I don't expect dd to say it again.

Feel like I'm saying the same things - yes with hindsight I should have corrected dd the first time but she was 2 and it was a call I made at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Still don't class myself as racist but clearly others do. Fine, not much else I can say.

princess you don't go overboard but its your job to correct your child. I would not have done it in front of the lady, but waited for later to tell her that it was not very nice commenting on someones apprearance and about different skin colour.