To ask you to help me teach my child about race and culture?

[HoorayForMe]

Hello,

I hope this is okay. My son is nearly 2 and is white British. Where I grew up was a very multi cultural society and growing up we learned about different cultures, religions etc. Where I currently live is predominantly white British. Whilst a lot of people I know who grew up here aren’t racist, some are. It’s usually not deliberately nasty, but if often rather ignorant (which of course I dispute and discuss where possible).
I don’t want that for my child. I want my son to grow up understanding race, culture and religion, but I worry that only mixing with white British atheist/Christians, he won’t ever really develop that. I can read him books, show him videos and talk to him about it, but I’d love some support on how to do this. How do I talk to my child? What good books are there that we can start introducing him to? And will it be an issue if he never mixes with other cultures, even if I do all that I can to teach him myself? In school I remember learning all about Eid and Ramadan etc from the children who celebrated those things. He won’t get to do that, so will he be naturally less tolerant?

Why would he be less tolerant for relative lack of exposure? I was brought up in a 99pc white area with Daily Mail reading parents and I've managed to question and overthrow most of that crap (still working on it obviously)

I once had a very worthy woman in a playground tell me she couldn't possibly send her child to the local school because it wasn't diverse enough.

I suspect her definition of diversity was there wasn't enough 'nice black children' as there are plenty of children with neurodiversity, lots of Chinese and Korean kids, a few Europeans and Americans.

Personally I'd focus on raising your son a feminist. Feminism, womens rights/sexual inequality is never spoken about in school whereas racism, lgbtq..., cultural diversity and religion are all spoken about all the time. Believe me your son will learn plenty on those topics when he goes to school.
Well that's my experience of having a child in school for the last 9 years.

I think it is a bit intense to be honest.

Books and toys … by all means, make them diverse but the primary function should be enjoyment. And a lot of them aren’t particularly well written anyway.

I don't think she wanted her kids to learn about Chinese or Korean culture for some reason?

Yes read by all means but genuine understanding/ appreciation and tolerance of difference comes through our interactions with other people. So at his age ideally he should see this reflected in your friendships. If he can see that your friendships and relationships are diverse then surely his will follow to some extent - I say this because under the age of 8 children tend to develop friendships through nursery / school / school parents and you will be the one to facilitate this. So inevitably it is about whether you are ready to develop a genuinely diverse network of friendships and relationships for him to emulate.

Don't know what happened there!

most of these are white authors 🤣

the primary school that my daughter went to got twinned with an all white primary school from a notoriously racist area on the outskirts of town. this was an exercise to help combat racism in kids. the white kids had to write a letter about what they had learnt....'i really liked the Black girls, they were nice. I was suprised, I thought they would all be angry' (an actual example). pretty gross from my point of view but I think it was deemed a success in challenging racism, by all the white school staff. maybe you could suggest something like this ......maybe leave out the letter writing part 🙄

I didn't explain that well...they came to visit a few times and played sports matches

but won't your child learn about eid etc at school anyway.
i thought that was part of the curriculum, and general knowl about cultural make-up of uk.