to invite 'brown' children to dds party

[onebadbaby]

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?

'And even about why the brown kids might not be playing with the white kids.'

Why is that then?
I don't know a school where racial segregation takes place at 4

It is utterly normal IME for children to dislike things which are different.
The best way to make those children seem "not different" is to invite them round. Also, get to know some of their mums and arrange play dates. It helps my DD make friends with people if she sees that I am friendly with their mothers.

Skin colour is a funny topic with kids. My 4 year old is as white as me but because she tans as soon as the temp hits 15 degrees she calls herself "a brown girl" and sneers at us pinkos.

DD1 went through a stage of this as well, not at children but saying she didn't like her darker skinned dolls, saying she only wanted the blonde haired blue eyed ones, saying she wanted yellow hair and crying as here's is more brown than her sisters.

We had the talk about different skins and hair and eye colours and she is a bit better now.

A new Asian family moved into our street and she has made friends with them she did say "they have darker skin than me but we are still friends"

I would invite the whole class.

My ds, then aged 4, talked quite a bit about not liking the new children, two sisters, at his CM. When pressed as to why he didn't like them, he 'didn't like their skin'.

Ds is white, CM & her dc are Pakistani, new mindees are black.

Of course, the real reasons he didn't like them were a) they were new, taking up CM's time, & he was jealous & b) they had formed a cosy girl gang with CM's dd, previously his best friend & were excluding him!

I think you just have to tackle it head on - I just told him in no uncertain times that that wasn't a reason to like or dislike anyone, let that sink in, & then we discussed why he really didn't like these girls, & how he could deal with that.

When she was 3, dd1 suddenly declared "I don't like black people".

We were about to move to St Lucia...

She is still a bit funny about skin colour (I have NO IDEA why!) and again said something about not liking children who were "black" the other day. I pointed out to her that all her best friends were black.

No, apparently they are brown!

So I'm still not sure who these "black" people she doesn't like are...

Anyway in answer to your question, are you sure it's not a cultural thing rather than colour thing, but the best way for her to describe it is based on their skin colour? The "brown" children at school probably are different from her, which perhaps makes her wary of them.

Only by finding things in common - eg that they all like birthday cake, will she realise that they are not all bad after all.

So go for it, invite them all!

You are doing the right thing.

I agree with capricorn, some prejudices, in spite of our best intentions somehow seep into our children's minds. For example, my dd will say she thinks breastfeeding is disgusting and she was bf until she was nearly 3!

All we can do is try to make them see the feelings they have for what they are.

my son used to cry if he saw and any other person who wasn't white, it was very embarrasing, espcially when it first happened at work, ( 80% different than white ) he was 3 months, and literally stopped and started between white people and non white people.
It stopped when he was about a yr old, don't know why, but i will keep this in mind for the future.

Personally at that age I´d only be having 5/6 best friends for party.

And inviting a whole class invariably means that children who are not wanted by the birthday child will be there.

But if it a whole class party then there should obviously be no exceptions.

Invite away, onebadbaby, I certainly would in your shoes.

I still remember rubbing arms with my best (black) friend, as I had asked her if her skin colour came off, and she said no, does yours? I don't think so, I replied, lets try it and see. I suspect now she was humouring me, I was only 6, she was 7.

I remember being a bit scared of people who looked different, as they might talk differently, I might not be able to understand them, and they might even eat different food! Horror of horrors! But at about 5+ I grew out of it.

I promise I am relatively normal now and not into 'national socialism' or anything.

I live in London and ds (3) goes to a nursery where at least half the carers are black and the kids come from every corner of the world. So he has been exposed to different ethnicities since the age of 1 (well before that too as we have extended family that are not white - and the first face he saw was the Ghanaian midwife!)

I will be curious to see as he gets a little older if he does go through this phase.

I've no experience of this from a race point of view, but I've had several 3-5 year olds come up to my DS and says "he has a funny lip" "whats wrong with his lip" etc (DS has a cleft lip) and its surely that theyre just saying what they're seeing... kids are honest until they learn from adults what you do/don't say etc, and the other meanings that things can have.
Maybe I'm being naive but at 4 I'd be inc;ined to believe the OP's DS was just being descriptive, and perhaps the kids in question haven't been very nice and that's why she doesn't want to invite them

I'm going to go against the majority here and say YABU - it's her party, she should be allowed to invite who she wants. At 4 it is most likely the reason she doesn't want to invite someone is that they haven't been nice to her (maybe they speak in their own language and she feels left out). However, it's her party and she should be allowed to invite her friends, she shouldn't have to have everyone there.

Anyone remember this really appalling Sesame Street song, with the message that things that are not the same don't 'belong'? There are negative messages everywhere, even in places you might never suspect. (Thinking also of the assumption that Santa Claus would always be white from Exexpat's link)

(DD1's first best friend was a little boy from Haiti who lived in the next apartment; their take on skin colour was that his was very dark brown and hers was pinkish peach. They discussed minutiae like this quite a lot together; both were quite early readers and had wide vocabularies and an interest in details, and both found a good few adjectives for DD1's sunburned shoulders and freckles, the precise colour of the little boy's palms, etc. DD4 and her bff also discussed what exactly their skin colours were, and concluded that DD4 is a part-time-light-brown-girl, as she inherited the tanning gene that skipped me but was bestowed in abundance on the rest of my family.)

@Marthanxiety I'm really not that sure if Father Christmas being white is anything other than a historical legacy dating back to the time when the concept was invented. And anyway, you occasionally get black ones when it's men in grottos at shopping centres.

It reminds me of yesterdays G2 article "Why don't black people go camping?" - one can get a bit TOO fixated on questions of race...

DD only ever made one comment about skin colour when she was growing up - and of course it was said in front of the childcarer and her DH, who were black. DD was 4 and had just been at a safety fair and was fingerprinted. She and childcarer's 4yo daughter were discussing it, and DD said "you are so lucky, you are already dark so you wouldn't have to have that yucky ink put on your fingers like I did!" Childcarer and her DH apparently thought it was hysterical - they were still laughing about it when I came to pick up DD. I was mortified as I was worried they might think it was offensive or something. I'd never made any type of comment regarding their colour, as it was simply a non-issue to me. That was the only indication ever that DD had even noticed their skin colour.

Santa Claus St Nick was probably Turkish so very likely had brown skin tiny.cc/lipyo

Also a lot of people think that St George was Turkish too, not sure the BNP would celebrate that fact. tiny.cc/47wov

My first memory of being aware of race (not sure what age, very young though) is realising some children were black, and then really wanting to 'have a black friend because then they would be pretty'.

Also used to wonder why I was called 'white', as I was clearly pink! (I didn't like pink very much, come to think of it, which might be why I fixated on wanting to be black for a while as a kid. Although I was a bit of an odd child. )

The thing is that children's media pretend to be balanced, but they're not. Charlie and Lola, for example - Lola has a black friend, yay. But Lotta is Lola's sidekick. She's perpetually following along in Lola's wake, never quite as good. It really bugs me. (I like Charlie and Lola, but not that aspect - plus there is also quite a strong "boys are rational, girls are imaginative" thing).

Father Christmas at school Christmas Fair was black this year (one of teachers dressed up). Nobody batted an eye. Can't imagine anyone organising it considered it as a problem.

I have to admit that my 4 year old is starting to notice skin colour. He hasn't been negative about it but he is interested.

I had tears from him one night as it wasn't fair because he wanted a 'brown face'. I used it as an opportunity to explain that we all have things that are different about the way we look (hair, eyes etc) and what we all have makes each one of us look special and unique even though really we are all the same.

I think he understood but he is still fascinated by people with different skin colours and people from different countries. The country thing was started though by gaining a polish cousin (my brothers dsd) who he adores. I think other countries and cultures have taken on an a somewhat magical status. Interestingly though, he has never commented on the skin tone of his other cousin who is half asian.

If you are able to, I think I'd just go for the whole class option.