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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to invite 'brown' children to dds party

103 replies

onebadbaby · 09/07/2010 10:19

This is probably in the wrong topic, but is anyone elses DCs racist. My dd age 4 seems to have a natural dislike of other children who are not white. She refers to them as 'the brown children' and doesn't want to invite them to her party. We live an area where there is a high percentage of people from pakistani and indian origin and several in her class at school. I hoped that mixing at school would help her have a better of understanding of other cultures, and she has learnt about different festivals etc, but she still seems to see skin colour as making the children different to her. I thought at this age she wouldn't even notice and would just accept friends based on personality. I have tried to explain that we don't choose friends based on colour, but on whether they are kind, or like to play the same games as you etc but it hasn't seemed to work. She says she "likes pink skin". I don't think this attitude is coming from the other kids at school as she isn't using racist terms or names, it just seems to be her own feelings which she is expressing, and it certainly hasn't come from me or dh.

Anyway, I have told her she has to invite everyone to her party- am I doing the right thing?

OP posts:
SylvanianFamily · 09/07/2010 10:26

yes, of course.

invite all the girls from the class.

HousewifeOfOrangeCounty · 09/07/2010 10:29

you are doing the right thing. My dc's had a phase like this, but moved on when they got a little older and more able to understand. So long as they get the right message from home it will all be fine in the end.

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:29

does she watch 'same smile' on cbeebies? my four year old is very tickled by the fact that we all have the same smile (although it does mean that we get a lot of questions about dentistry).
also, are you actually friends with any of the forrin mums? that's a major bit of modelling there if not...

gorionine · 09/07/2010 10:30

Not sure on this one. Do carry on teaching her thatskin colour does not make people nastier or better obviously you seem to be doing the right thing so far. Are they the only ones she does not want to invite or are some of the "pink ones" not invited either. Maybe she really does not get on with them and the fact that they have a different colour skin is just a coincidence?

I think we sometimes see adult reasons in things that are very inocent.

I remember being called after nursery by Ds2's teacher because he had said to her "can you come here woman?" and because we are Muslim she just assumed that was the way DH calls me and "he must have learnt it from somewhere!" and "it was unnacceptable!"

Except that DS told me full of tears that he had forgotten her name and "She IS a woman" ther was absolutely nothing ambiguous about it.

Before making to much of an issue just make sure exactly what your DD mean and then yes address the situation accordingly.

Ladyanonymous · 09/07/2010 10:31

"Foreign mums"

chimchar · 09/07/2010 10:33

can you help her to understand that we are all the same inside kind of thing.....

someone on here once said about cats...cats come in all different sizes and with different colours of fur. they are all cats underneath their fur....i like that, quite easy to understand for a little one.

the unwritten rule about parties in my kids school, is that in a class of say 30...its ok to invite everyone, or all of the same gender, or just 5 or 6 children, but not ok to invite 25 and not the others iykwim?

if the girls are not friends of your dd, then don't invite them, but for that reason alone iykwim?

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:35

haha you win, ladyanonymous. barely two minutes. lol.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 09/07/2010 10:35

Forrin is a technical for 'having a skin colour darker than standard Northern European pallor'

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:36

merci bien, coalition.

sethstarkaddersmum · 09/07/2010 10:36

yes, you are doing the right thing. You are teaching her that her attitude is not acceptable.

It's weird, kids and racism - some kids seem to be so unconscious that you get conversations where a child is trying to explain to their parents which child a particular one is and will be going 'He's the one with the red t-shirt!' and don't think to mention that he's the only black child in the class; then at other times you get kids of very anti-racist parents coming out with horrendous things. I have a friend who did a lot of anti-racism work professionally; she lived in Brixton and generally had a house full of artists, writers and academics of different races, and one day on the way to school her dd suddenly said, 'Mum, black people aren't as intelligent as white people are they?'

gorionine · 09/07/2010 10:37

I think what Aitch is saying is that children model their parents and if op has not got any friends with diffferent colour skin (does not matter how many of them live in the area if you do not actually engage with them) she might just think it is not ok to have friends with a different colour skin.

Said a bit clumsily because obviously, a lot of people with a different colour skin are not acually foreignersbut IMHO the thought behind it is correct.

Booboobedoo · 09/07/2010 10:37

I remember on Child of Our Time that they showed the children (who I think were a similar age to your DD at the time) pictures of children of different races and asked them which one they would like to be friends with.

As I recall (and it's probably worth checking on their website), they nearly all chose the blonde, blue-eyed girl. Even the little Afro-Carribbean girl did.

They reckoned it was all to do with the images in childrens' literature and the media.

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:39

i didn't say foreign, i said FORRIN. honestly, if you people don't speak MN i can't think what you're doing here.

MrsMiamla · 09/07/2010 10:41

when i was little (5 or 6) it was the birthday party of the Indian girl in my class. My mum was driving me to her house and we were having trouble finding the right address. Apparently I reassured her that it would be easy to find because the sun would be right above her house

oh and yes, i think you're doing the right thing by inviting everyone

Ladyanonymous · 09/07/2010 10:41

My youngest son is mixed race, I am white and English, his dad is English too but his mum (my sons Grandmother)is from Malaysia.

My other two children are mixed race too, they are white and so is thier father but he is not British.

My children have never questioned the fact that their brother is a different colour to them because it is totally normal.

We once had a friend of DD's round for tea who announced that DD had "a chocolate brother" at the dinner table. I just said "we don't say things like that in our house" - I know her mother who has made very rascist (unwittingly I think) remarks to me - so I kind of felt a bit sorry for the little girl really.

Are you sure your DD isn't getting this attitude from somewhere else in her life like a schoolfriend? Seems really unusal for it to be inherrantly built in.

Just carry on ignoring it. Don't make a massive issue of "making" her be friends with mixed race kids but don't allow her to avoid them deliberately either.

Ladyanonymous · 09/07/2010 10:42

I was trying not to be a spelling pendant Aitch

Ladyanonymous · 09/07/2010 10:44

So glad not as made about 5 spelling errors in my own post

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:45

ah, i see. i love forrin.
when people are actually foreigners i prefer to use 'from abroad' with an accompanying point 'over there somewhere' and a bosom heave.

Morloth · 09/07/2010 10:45

Kids do notice different skin colours, in the same way they notice hair colour/clothes etc.

My DS told me he didn't want to go to one little girl's party because she wasn't pretty and girls are supposed to be pretty. Seriously WTF?!

They make all of these weird connections/ideas and you just have to teach them that it is unacceptable.

With DS I pointed out that I am not "pretty" (am tall, muscular, OK looking), but that he loved me, he was horrified to find out that I wasn't pretty and I think started to understand that it isn't what a person looks like that is important.

He also asked a black friend why his skin was a different colour. Cue DH and I freaking out and our friend explaining about different races and how the environment can change people's skin over time, at least someone was sensible!

gorionine · 09/07/2010 10:46

Aitch you have to excuse me because I am indieed foreign (as opposed to forrin which I will add to my vocabulary)

Poshpaws · 09/07/2010 10:47

I would invite all the girls. Then if it turns out that some of the 'brown girls' are horrid, then you know why she may not have wanted to invite all. So all you would then have to do is explain that some children can be horrid, etc.

Must admit that I don't agonise over these types of issues - possibly because I am Black and my kids are mixed-race, so having to explain 'racism' is no biggie .

Remember, your daughter is very young. My nephew chopped and changed his mind every day for a while at that age as to who was better, Black or White...and he is mixed Black and White. Needless to say, DSis had a few conversations with him

Aitch · 09/07/2010 10:47
GetOrfMoiLand · 09/07/2010 10:49

Lol Gori 'can you come here woman'.

Blimey the teacher was a bit over zealous. ALL kids (iirc) at a certain age call people 'woman' 'man'. remember dd shouting 'man, man, man' at some bloke in a pharmacist, because she wanted to show him something.

smee · 09/07/2010 10:50

I think LadyA's got a point, as it's a bit odd for a 4yr old to come up with this unless someone's put it in her head. Not saying anything bad about your little girl here at all, as she's only 4 and am sure she's lovely, but I'd definitely not ignore it, not to make a big deal of it, but racism's so offensive that obviously she can't be allowed to think it's an okay thing to say/ think. Was curious as to whether it's a school issue - is there a divide at the school - ie white kids play together/ Asian kids play together? Might be where she's getting it from if so. If it is that, then I'd talk to the school about it.

Morloth · 09/07/2010 10:51

I much prefer "Woman" to "Lady" because I am many things but Lady is not one of them.