Help! My 4.5 DS has just said he prefers Carrie to David (Popshop) because of her skin colour

[giantkatestacks]

Yesterday my ds and I were watching Popshop when he suddenly said that he liked Carrie better than David cos she had the same skin colour as him. I was a bit shocked because he has never seemingly noticed race before - we live in a multicultural area and he has black friends and teachers.

Could one of the other children at his school said something in the playground?

I just said the usual - 'well everybodys the same and we all look different and thats no reason for liking or disliking anyone' but I was really quite shocked.

Has anyone else got any better strategies for dealing with this?

perfectly normal thing for a kid to say. just say 'well it's ok to like people a different colour too...Carrie likes David so much she's married to him' (unless of course he's 14, in which case, he's probably harbouring BNP tendencies!)

my little brother answered the door to my best friend when i was about 14. she was very dark, and he was about 3. he ran round the house shouting 'aaarrrgghhhh a monster!' (he'd never seen a black person before)

Thanks. I hope to god that I'm not watching popshop with my son when he gets to 14 - now that would be frightening ;-)

think it can be normal for their age as kids tend to identify with what is similair to them. WE found it very interesting that when ds started school nursery his first 2 friends were a little boy with glasses and a little boy with red hair..of course ds is a redhead with glasses.

Just dont make an issue of it.

Ds(4) said that he did not like John Barnes, on strictly come dancing, becasue of " his colour".
I was very shocked and embarrassed. Becasue he used to be best friends at his old nursery with the most beautiful little boy who was black. And his new best firend called Kishon is of Indian decent.
I was like, where has this come from, but he was very definite.
I just played it down , by saying "oh well I like John barnes, we are all different colours", not knowing what to say/where to put myself.

thats what I found really weird about it because he has never noticed colour before - we have never referred to it and neither has he - though he has talked about disabled people and other differences.

I sort of naively assumed that as we were in such a multicultural area that he wouldnt see it but I guess I was wrong. he didnt refer to the colour btw just that Carries skin was 'the same'. he refers to his black nursery teachers by their hair colour or by their t-shirt colour and not by their skin colour...

refers to his black nursery teachers by their t-short colour when he cant remember their names that is - not routinely ahem...

Ds1 (4) prefers one of my friends to the other because of her hair colour. They like what they like - as long as they don't get the idea that someone is better because of it, they can have their personal preferences, surely?

Also I really think they grow out of it. It's like little girls and their preferences for blond princesses, isn't it?

Yes I suppose so - but would you pull him up on it if he said it to your friends face? That might be acceptable about hair but not about race shurely?

And Ds watches football with daddy and has not said anything about the many black footballers, so I don't know whats wrong with poor old John Barnes ?

lol ditto David really (Sid has never got that reaction)- although did John Barnes have a white partner - maybe the contrast is what enables them to see it on the telly...good god its getting worse...

But it's not, to him, about race. He has not IDEA what a race is, except that you might run one! It's purely about colour to him.

Yes, I would pull him up on it, though, because it's a personal remark, ditto hair!

Carie is also more colourful and nicer to look at. i.e make -up, red hair.

I used to really fancy David in his silver catsuit days

I remember DS2, when he was about 4, saying he didn't like X because X had brown skin. I was appalled and hit the roof - when I'd calmed down I explained it as being like me saying I didn't like his teacher because she has blue eyes, or I didn't like him because he has blonde hair. It's never been an issue since - I think there is just a natural antipathy towards people who are in any way "different" at that age which they quickly grow out of.

He's provided you with a perfect opportunity to educate him about it - low-key, at this age, but useful.

he did say he liked carrie BETTER not that he didnt like david because of his colour, subtle difference maybe?

personally i love the skin tone of asian people rather than "white" people but that doesn't mean i'm racist against my own colour or anyone elses!

I think it's a perfectly honest and innocent statement of his preference in this one case. Best not make too big a deal about it because we all risk passing the race hang ups of our generation on to our kids. You wouldn't have batted an eyelid if he's said he likes the black colour better after all.

Since having kids I've found it really silly saying 'black' by the way because, as my kids point out, it's not black but various shades of brown as I am not white but pinkish.

The language is still polarising and, well, black and white.

At his age he probably has no concept of race, or racism - he was making a purely aesthetic judgement, or identifying with someone similar to himself.

If he said he liked one character more because they had the same eye colour as him, or curly hair like him etc you wouldn't be worried would you?

Years ago(I'm old!) when my son was about 8, I asked him the name of the only black girl in his class. He looked baffled and after I had described what she was wearing that day, he said "Oh you mean Rachel with the plaits!" Obviously the plaits were of much more interest than the colour of her skin. Made me feel quite small