Brown haired white kids never in photos

[StevieChicks]

Just that really.
Seen the new school prospectus. Beautiful blond children everywhere, front cover and throughout, a few mixed race children, fewer black and Asian students (because racism) but without a doubt the least photographed children are kids like mine. Children with naturally brown, mousey or dark brown hair.
It's not the same as racism and I would not for a second think that this trivial matter is in any way similar to other discourses around representation. And maybe I have a chip on my shoulder from the eighties when I was never a Disney princess and had to be the evil witch. It doesn't feel like much has changed.
My son's hair is thick and dark brown/ black. He has very pale skin. I just don't see this as the desired aesthetic. The world still goes mad for blonde children.

My DS1 is dark haired and white and is the main image on the school website.

Depends...is the school in Sweden?

As a person with brown hair and eyes and pale skin, this is one of the silliest things I've ever read. And I got a main part in almost every play I was in at school and continue to be a main part in am dram productions now at 35, not once has my lack of blondeness held me back in any way.

Ok yeah a mix would be more normal I would have thought, but not in this case. It looked a bit weird. Most blondes here stay fairly blonde though.

My uncle used to work in a private school. When they were doing the prospectus photos they were always using the Asian or black students (there were very very few but they wanted to make it look more I guess) and the blonde attractive white students.
My uncle actually questioned why it looked like they only wanted the 'attractive' students, but was laughed off basically. Of course the other children weren't unattractive. But a lot were indeed brown haired white kids. Bear in mind the vast majority of students were white.

I think people can find offence in virtually anything.

Just been on my DC's school website and there is a picture of the chapel - does that mean they discriminate against all DC in favour of buildings?

That was my exact thought 😂

You would have been ok at my school! It was only redheads like me who never got to be angels. Not that I'm still bitter!

Lots of brown haired, pale skinned kids in my ds's school prospectus. The school where he was attacked with a knife, aged 13 and they closed ranks. I could not care less who is in the images.

Surely it depends what the demographic is in the school.
@MrsSunshine2b you obviously have acting talent, Olivia Coleman is brown haired and white.

My kids school doesn't use any pictures of the kids on the website or prospectus. I guess they must hate them all.

Why would this matter?

My kids go to a Catholic school and there are children of all ethnic backgrounds that attend. The only common denominator, (other than human) is their parents choice of religion.

FYI, mine are both brown haired and feature prominently on the schools website.

It varies area to area! If there're a lot of Anglo-Saxon or Viking genes in local population I guess there are more kids with light hair?

Blonde haired kids often darken later in childhood so what you see as over-representation of blondes is likely lots of blondes who haven't turned mousy yet.

Young children with pale skin and dark hair could be less common for above reason... mine have this colouring but I know very few other children with the same skin/hair contrast. Guess it's rarer? As a child in 80s/90s people always complimented my big dark eyes and dark brown hair, probably stood out as exotic!

I actually find pale, fair haired children less cute looking (aware I'm biased).

This is a new one for me. I have a black haired brown eye girl and a blonde haired blue eye boy. Never noticed anything like this!

90% of the kids at my children's primary school are black. My white, brown haired kid was in one of the main photos on the website for 2 years.

No, it's not the same as racism, and yes, you might have a chip on your shoulder.

There are plenty of underrepresented groups, but brown haired white children aren't really one of them.

It's something I enjoy and work hard at, but it does always amaze me the way (some) parents will find any reason why their child has been unfairly penalised by not being cast in a lead role, rather than the usual reasons:

• They are painfully shy and will clam up on stage
• They can't remember what they had for breakfast, let alone lines
• They/the parents have a track record of not turning up on time or at all for various things
• Another child was better than them.

It's rarely a declaration that the child is "untalented", I'd say it's much rarer that all the children on stage are talented, they are just reliable, confident and can remember their lines.

And it's definitely not because of their hair colour.

As someone with black kids in a very white school, we have the opposite problem. Racism is swept under the rug by the teachers and staff but they then want to push our children on all the school promotional material to show diversity. What matters more than the photos is how your children are treated at school - do they discriminate against darker haired/skinned children? Do they respond adequately to complaints or pretend that racist comments / bullying never happened? Do they automatically believe the white blonde child over your darker haired child without question?

That said, I don't doubt you that the person selecting the prospectus photographs may have had a blonde bias that day. But if your children are otherwise happy and treated well at the school, it doesn't seem to me that this is the hill to die on.

Just checked the prospectuses for my DC's schools out of curiosity.

Definitely not a thing at either of their schools.

What was surprising was that they both only featured thin kids, even though I know DD's school got the drama students to pose for the last set of photos and as a group they are a diverse-sized bunch.

Any images would need parental permission to be used. I always used to deny permission when mine were at school ( blond and brown haired) perhaps the schools just work with whatever images they are allowed to use.

@LateAF oh completely! Yes my friend stopped permission for her gorgeous son to be used by the same reason.
When I speak about my kids colouring not being included, I also think the Syrian, Kurdish, Italian and Spanish kids who are very dark haired. We're in an inner city, there is no excuse for the prospectus to look how it does.

Well thank the lord they're actually starting to represent mine.

Instead of the ones that represent myself.

👏

I've just checked my child's school prospectus and loads of brown haired white kids🤷‍♀️.
It looks like they picked the kids that were dressed in full school logo uniform and were nicely presented 🤣

I'm blonde - never noticed any difference in how I was treated vs friends with brown hair.

My dd12 has brown hair and brown eyes and never noticed her being treated differently to blonde kids either.

This is your issue, not "an issue".