Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect my white dd not to be an ethnic minority in her own country

506 replies

squatchette · 07/09/2007 13:26

First of all i would like to make it clear that i am in no way racist.My childrens father is half asian (although he is also an irish catholic too).
Anyway today i was late dropping DD2 at pre school and i got to see her whole class for the first time.This is when i was shocked to realise that she is the only white child in her class.
I think i was shocked as we don't live in a particularly ethnic area or so i thought.I read in the schools ofsted report that 40 % of the kids in the school speak English as a second language.
At first i thought it would be good that she can mix with children of different races and i am all for a diverse society.However something about the fact that she is the minority has worried me.AIBU?

OP posts:
superalienstitch · 08/09/2007 23:42

my kids are not white. althought dd is so fair that if it werent for her dark hair, she would be mistaken for being caucasian, (whatever that means) dc2 is so dark, and in the sun, he turns almost black.
but english is their first language. i am not from england, or th e uk, but english is my first anguage. english is spoken at home 98% of the time. grandparents etc everyone.

looks can be very very decieving.

superalienstitch · 08/09/2007 23:46

pcsmum, how sad. but tbh, i have no hope. cliques exist in schools about all sorts of things. race, culture religion sound better reasons than post code. the size of your house. the cars youdrive? or the gym you attend etc etc
sounds like youare doing a wonderful job. keep at it though, and you may find some momwho isnt going to follow the herd and go baa . you may then have a friend for life, rather than just a timepass mom.

bunsen · 08/09/2007 23:51

Yes, a lot of people from all over the world speak english, some as a second language, but bear in mind, with the new children to the shores, it is not just a case of language, it is what the children were taught at their old schools. It is the same when a child moves from one part of the country to the next, the sylabus changes and they have not covered the same things. When I was growing up, there wasn't a great deal of movement of families, now there are plenty moving around, whether due to entry into the UK, or families moving around to be near new places of work. There will always be a drain on the teachers when half the class are playing catch up with the schools sylabus.

UCM · 08/09/2007 23:54

I have been thinking about this and I am trying to cast light on how I would feel.

For starters, I want my children to be educated in a class where the parents/children are of a similar culture.

So no I don't think you are racist.

If I wanted my children to be educated in Islam, I would convert and join a mosque.

I think that we are losing sight of what is our culture in this very challenging example.

Lets turn this around and say that if it were a school in Italy and suddenly there were 29 pupils who were French and one Italian, the parents of the Italian would kick up.

superalienstitch · 08/09/2007 23:54

bunsen, years ago, when i taught at a school in croydon, i had four kids in the class who had very little english before they came to school, the uk etc different levels of schooling etc. tbh, they were far easier to teach than some of the 'local' kids were.
just my experience.

UCM · 08/09/2007 23:56

You can't tell me that the class, are being taught assembly where you sing hymns and stuff like all things bright & beautiful..

then the harvest festival

Easter as in bonnets

Christmas

superalienstitch · 08/09/2007 23:57

ucm, ou are forgetting that quite frankly the mosques in the uk are dangerous places. for example, i am terrifed of sending my kids to the mosques. all known terrorists have sprung for the west. and god knows what they teach them there.
actually, this isnt really what this trhead is about. suffice to say, that i am very happy my kidsa re learning about all cultures as stated in the National curriculum!

nachomama · 08/09/2007 23:59

I don't think that this is troll thread. It's the kind of thing one hears all the time. I have just been reading Race by Studs Terkel, an oral history book compiled in the US in the 90s. One woman from the Deep South, who daily fights her own prejudices, said something like "You can't come up from the garbage can without the smell of stink on you"-- point being: in a society in which racism has for years been entrenched, comments like these do not necessarily arise out of malicious racism, but of conditioning. Hopefully this thread will make Op think more deeply (YAIBU, maybe?) and others too.

superalienstitch · 08/09/2007 23:59

ucm, my muslim kids do the hyms, though not as much as dh used to do. as he sas, singing some hyms never hurt anyone.
we regularly do the harvest festival . our school collects food for the elderly. my kids and i are always involved with this
easter bonnets are the bane of springtime.
and christmas. well, i just adore christmas.
and my kids are lucky, because they also get eid. twice a year! its presents all the time for them.

bunsen · 09/09/2007 00:04

Yes I appreciate hat you are saying Superalienstitch, you cannot put everyone in the same neat slots, yes that would be every 'ist'. Some kids are clever and attenive, they may speak many languages, which is a talent in itself, some kids have no intrest in school at all. But the education system is going down the pan as far as I can see, parents will want the best chance for their kids and there must be a drain on schools with the high influx of immigrants, thats all I can see. It's not a matter of how clever kids are indiginous or otherwise!

UCM · 09/09/2007 00:04

OK then, I shall be really honest and say that I want my child to go to a school where he will be taught Christian principles etc ( I don't even know what them are ) and learn about Jesus, God and stuff.

I would like him to celebrate the harvest festival, learn about WW2, do an assembly every morning with a few prayers and stuff. Also to really learn about Easter and the bible and Christmas and the bible as in the one I read.

I don't mind the learning about other cultures, but as a tax paying person of British descent, I want him to learn about the traditional stuff that I learnt.

If he wants to call himself Mohammed smith after converting to Islam in his teen years, then fine and dandy.

UCM · 09/09/2007 00:07

Stitch, Hi no more stalls then or are you doing one this year?

I just want to have my kids educated in the way I want them to be. Enough said already. I should not have to move boroughs to stop this.

But to the op, there is no way this is going to happen.

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:08

ucm, yo do not want him converting to islam in his teen years. definitly not.
in his twenties or thirties fine. but teenagers can be so easily manipulated by bad people pretending to be good people.
one of the things that ofsted used to say th emost was about the lack of prayer in schools, although i'm a bitout of t he loop now, and dont know if they still say that or not.
what you want sounds reasonable, but i dont think you will get it in your normal state school. catholic schools are your best bet there.

Desiderata · 09/09/2007 00:09

I would be deeply unsettled if my white kid (by virtue of coming from a long line of white kids in a white country) were to find himself the only one in his class.

I don''t want my kid to learn about Islam. I don't want him knowing about it, and I don't want him to absorb it. I think that organized religion, on that scale, is both thick and abhorrent. If my kid was being fed religious propoganda from any source, I would pull him from school.

And that includes white Christians.

As a society, the Brits have been expected to take on rather a lot, imo. Would you cut us some fucking slack?

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:10

hi ucm, [waves back} no not doing any stalls this year. in fact the whole crafty thing seems to be on a back burner at the moment. am hoping to get back into it in time for christmas, and eid. (which is in a months time)[rin]

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:11

desi, relax. the national curriculum tells the school what to teach. and that is waht they teach. there is no religious propaganda, because they are nto allowed to teach it. period.

bunsen · 09/09/2007 00:13

UCM that is how I feel, the english culture first and other cultures second, We are a Christian country. As a Christian country, we believe in democracy and allow others to practise their own religions, under our law. But we must not dilute our own culture and heretige.
Faith schools are topping the leagues at the moment, is that because the middle class parents who can no longer afford private school education are now going down the faith school route?

Desiderata · 09/09/2007 00:14

Thank you, alien. I am now calm

nachomama · 09/09/2007 00:15

Desiderada

Whoa. Easy, tiger.

At the risk of elevating your BP (or bnp), may I ask exactly what you have had to "take on" in order for the slack to be cut?

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:17

bunsen, church schools have always done really well.
dh wanted to send ds to a cof e primary because its the best in our area. iput my foot down as i didnt want to confuse my child any more than life will confuse him. iyswim. howeer, my cousins both went to catholic schools all thway throug secondry.
i think a big reason is that faith schools can be selective in thier intake. and are more likly toi be stricter at discipline. a good thing imo.

bunsen · 09/09/2007 00:20

True SAS, strict = not a bad thing, although, I wonder how the faith schools are at Science? I take it they don't teach the Big Bang etc?! Can't have it every way though!

MrsMarvel · 09/09/2007 00:20

"I was worried that my daughter being the only non asian muslim would be the odd one out"

Squatchette that clarifies your concern. I was one of three non-irish-catholics in my class and was not left out because me and the other three banded together. But I always felt that there was something missing - I can understand how you feel and I would put my child into a school with a mix of children rather than one with one dominating ethnic group - whether white m/c, asian moslem, greek or whatever.

UCM · 09/09/2007 00:21

It would be true to state that at this time, there are not 'Islamic SChools' or 'Jewish Schools' or am I wrong.

There are to my knowledge only CofE or Catholic.

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:22

must tell you this.
dsister, on a road/shopping area type place in pakistan. some asian bloke, born and bred in the uk, (the accent was the give away)probably third generation. was being rude andobnoxious to the locals. lording it over them. very rude. so dsister tells him to 'go back to your own country!'
this guy continues to be rude to her, and says amongst other things, 'terrorists come from pakistan'
so dsister says 'no, they all come from tipton!'
in the end, she left him to his obnoxiousness, as she decided to be the adult, and walk away fromhim. he was about 19ish.
we all thought it was really funny.

law3 · 09/09/2007 00:23

Political correctness has lead to a nation of hyper-sensitive easy to offend cry babies and people who are afraid to state their mind for fear of being hung, drawn and quartered.

She went on to apologise for not putting much thought into it and stating she is not a racist, but apparently stating you are not a racist, means therefore you must be a racist!!!

Everyone makes mistakes, being a bit niave doesnt make you a racist