To ask what ethnic /cultural mix are you childrens friends

[Fusedog]

My son is black British he has

Polish
Mixed raced black/Asian
Mixed race d black/white
Pakistani
Sheikh
Latvian
And this lad from Peru

White

Just a non thread really but was talking about this with my sister all my nephews friends are black not a big deal but I defo thik he will be poorer for it

My children are 4 and 6 and we live in a small, affluent village. Their friends are all white British, a couple Irish. We are also white British. Their school is not diverse at all, mainly white British.

Just heard a news report about the Royal visit to NZ. Apparently Prince George is going to have a "play date" with 10 babies born within a couple of weeks of his birth date to first time parents.

Not just random babies, they have been very carefully selected.

One baby from same sex couple, one from single parent family, one who has Samoan parents, one where both parents are both rocket scientists or something. Can't remember the rest.

I don't think people racially profile (unless you mean the royals). You just notice?
I was recently discussing with one of my DDs how she can't "do" accents. Apparently she tried to do Irish and it came out as bad Indian, her Indian friend got offended the other Indian student sitting the other side of her didn't. We discussed how it was "more of a betrayal" to her Indian friend, and that her friend could express herself more freely (they have known each other for 10 years).

My children are 3 and 8. Their friends-group is 99.99% white British. They know a small handful of white Eastern Europeans. There are about half a dozen non-white children at their primary school.

I wish it was more culturally diverse where we lived as my eldest son always reacts very oddly when we visit large towns or cities and regards anyone as different to him (ie who looks very different) with apprehension and I want to change that.

Kind of a pointless thread,not getting the need to brag about your kids friends.

Kids are just friends with who they are surrounded by and able to play with.Most in my experience don't even notice ethnicity or culture.

Are those of is in non ethnic diverse areas supposed to move?

all of my kids friends are from the same ethnic group and religion as we are. Not because we refuse to mix with other people but because there are no other people to mix with. Can't really do anything about that.

I'm bringing them up to see people as people who are just the same as us, so hopefully they're not suffering some massive parenting fail because I can't find an ethnically diverse group of people to introduce them to.

Not a clue to be honest. Some of his friends are obviously a different race to ds, but I don't know which, and don't care. I don't see how it matters?
His best friend is a traveller and ds is always moaning that we aren't because he wants to live in a caravan and play in the woods whenever he likes! (it also annoys my bigoted mum who thinks they are going to steal him and sell him in Romania )

I think this thread has been very interesting. Good on the OP for starting it. It's my firm belief that children who experience a mono cultural upbringing (whatever the culture or ethnicity or faith involved) are seriously disadvantaged in today's global world let alone the future. Indeed I have met head teachers who worry for their secondary school pupils who are ill equipped to compete in the world because if their narrow experience and ill ease with cultural/ethnic/faith differences.
Grandparents & Parents averse to change and clinging to the ethnic/faith/cultural divisions of previous centuries to provide themselves with the comforts associated with familiarity, are doing their future generations the same disservice as the parents who don't bother to keep school attendance up, or encourage their children to read books or who feed them a diet of junk food every day.
It's the underlying assumption and prejudices associated with the attitude that finds diversity threatening or scary or just undesirable, that has dragged this country down. We're rushing up catch up in terms of changing the national curriculum to give our children multi lingual skills and struggling to adjust to a new world order because we haven't had the forethought to embrace the amazing richnessness of cultural diversity in this country during the 20th century.
Some of the comments on here that talk of adulthood being time enough to mix with people of different backgrounds are quite frankly astounding. I really feel for your children.
We live in a rural village in one if the Uk's most rural counties. My 2 DDs friends are British with ancestry that is Welsh, English, Irish, Scottish, Chinese, Pakistani, Nigerian, Indian, Jamaican, Egyptian, Polish, Ukrainian, actually too many different nationalities to rake over here... We're regular church goers but they have friends with no religious affiliation Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish and Buddhist friends.
As a result of this thread I've been thinking how this could possibly have happened... But then I realised that DH and I are very open minded, we have friends from every background, invite lots of different people into our home and have probably passed this on to DD. Happy for them as they're at ease wherever they go in the world.

My 4 children are White British.

The eldest is at secondary school and her friends are an even mixture of White British, Indian and Black British.

The younger 3 are still at primary school and are the only white children in their classes. The vast majority of the children in the school are Asian, mainly Indian. My children have no white school friends, although they do mix with white children at their little church youth club.

We live in Surrey and DD1's friends are a mix of English, Irish, Polish and another Eastern European country that I can't remember, German, Filipino, Italian, South African.

It's a Catholic primary and it always makes me laugh that they are perceived to be so insular. There is far more of a mix than at most of the other primaries in the area.

oh for goodness sake! My DH and I are perfectly open minded and welcoming to people from all backgrounds, but there just aren't any where we live for our kids to mix with. I'm almost 40 and I've never even met someone myself who is from eg the middle east. I've got one acquaintance who is Nigerian. I don't even personally know any people from Eastern Europe. And as for religion, I don't personally know any Muslims, and as far as I'm aware I've never even met someone who is Hindu, Sikh or Jewish.

You'd think by some of the comments on this thread that it's because I'm some raging bigoted xenophobe, but it's just the reality of where I live. The only way I could make friends with people from a different background would be to uproot my children from all that they are familiar with, and their wider family, all for the sake of proving how non bigoted we are. What would be the point in that?

and to compare my lack of multicultural friends for my dc as being on a par with me not being bothered to make sure they attend school is just ridiculous. And rude.

it's my firm belief that children who experience a mono cultural upbringing (whatever the culture or ethnicity or faith involved) are seriously disadvantaged in today's global world let alone the future.

I disagree. I was brought up in a middle class small town in Devon. All my friends were white English and middle class, not because my parents encouraged it or discouraged friendships with children of other nationalities, races or religions but because there were no children who weren't white and middle class.

I have lived and worked in different countries around the world, I currently live in Sweden, my dp is Swedish and ds half Swedish. I have learnt to speak and write Swedish well enough to be able to start a university course in Swedish next year.

The majority of my friends are not British.

Many of the kids I grew up with live abroad despite their early exposure to different cultures.

there are so many different aspects that come in to play here. Where one lives is of course a significant part of that as has been mentioned many times. For me another issue is the fact that I am an immigrant (albeit it a european immigrant in a european country) and have met a fair number of other immigrants at least in part because of that.

However there is an awful lot of 'chance' in there as well. I have 2 aquaintances from north america, neither is white (1 latino, 1 native american). One of them is a very very good friend, the other simply an aquaintance. Thats got nothing to do with race its simply the normal way of friendship. Why have I got no white north american friends? well I've met a few but no friendship ever developed. Why have I got no black (or other ethnic descriptor) north american friends? I don't think I've met anyone in that 'category' in a social situation. I'm certainly not ranking the north americans I meet by racial descriptors.....

Are my childrens lives enriched by ethnic diversity? Well diversity in general gives a wider life view, they are used to hearing lots of different languages and get to try a wide range of food for example. But their lives are more enriched by their friendships than the ethnic (or other) diversity of that friendship iyswim.

I don't think its rude to suggest generically and not in relation to any poster per se that I feel that a complacency about living monoculturally is on a par with not sending your children to school regularly. It's just my view. I won't be offended of you're astounded at that, just as I hope you're not taking offence because I don't think like you.
That's probably one of the great things about mixing widely with people of differing perspectives. You learn how to discuss your differences without being offended and can learn from each other and enjoy each other's company, and still be very different.
I've encouraged my children to embrace difference for that reason. Both girls were the only ones on their primary classes to (voluntarily and with no social engineering by me or any of the mothers concerned ) invite the emerging as gay boy DD1 and the boy with Aspergers dd2 to play and parties. These two British English boys were picked on by the more narrow minded children and their parents were avoided or slightly excluded from the mummy sets. As far as my DD were concerned they were just their friends. Kind, funny, generous children who they wanted to share their time with. If you're open to difference it's activist ku not very difficult to find. We live very rural and have had no problem finding nice friendly people to hang out with from a wide range of backgrounds. Our lives are enriched by this and just like access to a good education I'd wish such enrichments for all.

You are being so patronising, and goady.

First you're accusing me of failing my children, on a par with not sending them to school, because I can't magic up some (non existent where we live) ethnically diverse friends.

Then, when I point out how rude you are being, I get a 'there there dear, you wouldn't understand, because you're so monocultural, let the grown ups talk'.

You haven't actually suggested how I might encourage my dc to mix with these ethnically diverse people who don't actually live here? I'm all ears.

don 't let it get to you treaclesoda - you know many people who bang on smugly the loudest about 'enrichment' and 'diversity' are the very ones who would be running away screaming from real inner city areas the minute their children turn four.

I've never really thought about it. DDs school isn't very diverse I suppose, but she does have lots of 'different' friends.

DD 'looks' as English as they come, but is actually Welsh and has a mixed race father. I am a complete mongrel as I am from a travelling background and couldn't tell you what ethnic mix I am. I look white/boring English type, but know that I have a blood relative from Spain and another from Eastern Europe.

In her class she has:

1 Romany girl
1 Polish girl
1 Spanish girl (actually I think she might be from Argentina but DD says she is Spanish)
2 English girls
They are all white.

Of the 15 boys I only know a couple, but one is Irish, one Scottish and I think the rest are all English. They are all white.

There is a good mix of 'circumstances' though. From living in a caravan and travelling around the county (her mum has actually just settled), to children living in council/HA, to army accn (us), to box standard private rental/own housing and at the top end two kids who live in houses with ponies and paddocks etc!

The whole school is like that tbh a real mash up of the 'haves' and have nots'. We are probably somewhere in the middle. You can see the 'cliques' in the playground though - mainly where the women are concerned. The men are all friendly (DH has befriended one chap who owns a string of gyms/sports centres and another friend who uses DHs gym membership 'on the sly' because he can't afford it himself - they all get on like a house on fire).

I grew up in a predominantly white area and had very few non-white or even non-English friends. However now I have a mixed race husband, welsh ILs, and amongst my friends I have: numerous white/Brits, 4 black/Brits, two Chinese, one mixed race Chinese/Brit, one black Jamaican, one black Ghanaian, 2 Nepalese and one white Canadian. Two of my friends are 7th Day Adventists, 3 are Muslim and the rest I wouldn't have a clue!

They all bring different PsOV to the table and I enjoy spending time with them all.

ohMer that's some couple of posts. As the mother of a child with SN, he's not there to make you feel good about how open and welcoming your house is. He's a child, not a bumper sticker. And your second post was quite rude.

I don't "racially profile" them. However I do notice when DD is invited to Eid parties, the Vahsaki festival, passover meals, Diwali parties etc. I think its fabulous.

Her Nepalese friend went to Nepal during the last holidays and married the sun have a look here. When she came back she and her mum came in and told DD's class all about it - that's education at its best in my opinion.

Her French is improving quickly because her French friend often talks with her in French.

I could go on. Its not racially profiling its really enjoying living in a multi cultural society :)

pretty gobsmackingly rude actually. and incredibly smug.
'oh well that is because me and DH are open minded' what like the rest of us are closed minded bigots?
also to find "Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish and Buddhist friends" in what you describe as the most rural county in the UK is actually incredibel, unless you are specifically going out to find them, which frankly is insulting.

dusts of account

You know, we live in a small town in a semi-rural area of Sweden. My daughter, Half English, quarter danish, 1/8th Romany, 1/8th Polish is the only one in her entire nursery who's not Swedish. Where I grew up, about 10 miles from here, I was the only child in my class who wasn't blonde.
This is quite the norm in Sweden, bar in larger towns and cities.
Some how, our country seems to do just fine on the global scale of common decency, as well as being some quite well educated people, too. Not to mention all the travelling we do.

I think, as always, it's a matter of attitude of the parents and surroundings that make a difference, not the actual make-up of the demographic where you live, that decides how you turn out.

Nubian?? That's a new one on me!!

Havent got a clue.
They all have nice friends who are kind, considerate and thoughtful to each other and those they are in contact with.
They stay away from people who are unkind to them.
Why does anything else enter the equation?