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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask what ethnic /cultural mix are you childrens friends

169 replies

Fusedog · 07/04/2014 15:09

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

OP posts:

NigellasDealer · 09/04/2014 10:16

Why does anything else enter the equation?
for their cultural enrichment need you ask?
actually i would be seriously fucking insulted if someone wanted to befriend my child on that basis.

ikeaismylocal · 09/04/2014 10:20

I'm not offended by your opinions ohmergerd I'm just telling you that bassed on my personal experience you are talking bollocks.

How can everyone have access to a friendship circle with a wide range of races, cultures and religions if the local community is 99% white? The few people with different backgrounds would have to give up their jobs and spend their days socialising with white people just so the white people are not neglecting their kids.

ikeaismylocal · 09/04/2014 10:22

Oh and ohmergerd despite being very white and middle class the children in the community I grew up in didn't ostracized people who were gay or who had asd. Why do you choose to bring you children up in an area with such vile views?

JacktheLab · 09/04/2014 10:41

So to sum this up, another way for some people to feel smug and better than others just due to the area they live in and who they know....

My son is two so he doesn't really have friends at the moment but when he has his own friends which he chooses I just hope that he chooses them for the people they are on the inside and not for their ethnic diversity!

5feralloinfruits · 09/04/2014 10:44

they are all white british,,they dont know any children who are not white british really,which is odd to me as in grew up in an area which was completley the opposite!

My husband has friends who are from Poland and Hungary and one of my friends in Bulgarian,but they dont have children.My kids dont go to school but when they did there no non-white british people there either,and there isnt in the home ed group either.

chipmonkey · 09/04/2014 11:31

It's surely all to do with the type of person you are. I grew up in an area which was Irish Catholic, small smattering of Protestants. There was one Indian girl in my class but I didn't realise at the time she was Indian. We were four years old and played together, . It was only when I was an adult that I looked back and realised that people would have thought we were ethnically different. Did she enrich my life more than an Irish Catholic friend? Not at all! We played ring a ring of roses, fgs!

My parents, however were liberally minded. The values they imbued in me were simply that people are people. As an adult, I have friends who are black, white, gay, straight. My children have a mix of friends from different cultures, due to an increase in immigration. As far as I can see they interact with all of their friends in the same way.

Bigotry is a state of mind.

WilsonFrickett · 09/04/2014 13:09

Well exactly chip and I very much hope that's the values we're communicating to DS. And on a personal level I very much miss the diversity of our old area. But going shopping for diverse pals like some sort of crazed Brangelina is not how I choose to fill my home, lovely and welcoming though it may be.

Guineapig99 · 09/04/2014 13:16

DS is white-Uk/Irish & his close nursery friends are white UK, mixed UK-Indian, Uk-chinese, UK- African, Uk-Scandanavian, Uk- Russian, UK-Canadian & Uk -USA, UK-French, Uk-Thai, Uk -Greek.

Poppet45 · 09/04/2014 13:18

Please god may I refrain from keeping tabs on the ethicity of my kids friends to prove how broadminded and liberal I am.

NigellasDealer · 09/04/2014 13:19

i second that poppet i mean is it even that interesting - how do people know the precise ethnicity of their kids' friends anyway? do they ask?

MadAriadne · 09/04/2014 13:22

We're in London, so inevitably there's a huge mix. White,British Asian (Indian and Pakistani heritage), black/white (African and Caribbean heritage), Chinese, Japanese, various European cultures inc Dutch, Italian, Turkish, Scandinavian. Many 'culturally blended' families, including ours, so it's a rich experience. That said, dcs hit it off with friends because those friends are, well, friendly!

Mitchy1nge · 09/04/2014 13:23

it bothered me enough to seek out other incomers of whatever persuasion when I moved to Suffolk, my multi-coloured brood were like flashing beacons every time we went anywhere

Mitchy1nge · 09/04/2014 13:25

I mean, old ladies would stop me and commend me on the marvellous job I was doing like an early Angelina Jolie

and nastier ones pressured the person I was buying a house from not to sell it to me because of property values

MistressDeeCee · 09/04/2014 15:21

Im a black woman, most of my friends are black (shock horror). 1 good friend who is white, I met her through another friend. She comes from a village outside Melksham somewhere, and now lives in Fleet.

Given that she grew up seeing no black people whatsoever where she lives and won't really be seeing black people in Fleet, will she?..should I have thought 'uh oh, monoculturalist alert!!' and declined to be friendly with her on the basis that she grew up in a totally white area and therefore wouldn't possibly be able to mix? Should she have said 'nope' to the idea of us being friends, as the rest of my friends are black? I mean, is there a 'race & friendship form' out there that Ive somehow missed?

OP along with others who think like her should mind their own business re. who is friends with who. & the boasting from some who are oh so liberal their DCs probably have a collection of friends from every nation including Papua New Guinea is just 'cringe'. (Im not including anyone who is just listing their DCs friends and hasn't gone on to be all 'worthy' about it) Who decided we all have to be 'rainbow' in order to exist alongside each other anyway? Im glad my parents had better things to do than intervene with my childhood friendships on the basis of race.

PamSco · 09/04/2014 18:14

My boy has a blue friend (humpty), a yellow friend (duggy). A red friend (James, he's vain but lots of fun) and a saucepan he sleeps with which is green.

I'm concerned he is too narrow in his choice of playmates. So I'm going to follow ohmergerd's advice and not let him be extremely disadvantaged in this global society. How do I ship in some small brown children into this here white town?

Children are colourblind. It is YOUR attitude to pigeonholing people that creates a racist attitude.

Seriously people....

PamSco · 09/04/2014 18:15

The "YOUR" is generalised btw not specific to anyone.

MoominMammasHandbag · 09/04/2014 18:36

Same as Chipmonkey. I grew up in a little welsh village in the back of beyond. I'm nearly 50 and I only recently realised that the beautiful black haired girl who was my childhood best mate was half Asian. My Mum was like "Duh". But kids are generally quite oblivious I think.

Staceroo · 09/04/2014 20:09

Sh*t, I'd better draw up one of those equal opportunities forms so I can get all of dds friends to fill one out declaring their ethnic background before I let them round for tea!

halfdrunktea · 09/04/2014 20:17

DS doesn't seem to have got into friends yet (he's three) but at his nursery there are a couple of Chinese girls and one boy who has a white English mother and Pakistani father. The rest are white British AFAIK.

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