bi racial family

[ash83]

HELP. i am part brazilian part white,my husband is asian so are children are bi racial. my three year old son came to me very upset today at playgroup.an older boy asked him why he had brown skin and his little brother didnt.i told him to tell him that he was chocolate like daddy and his brother was coffee like mummy.was this wrong? how can i explain to a three year old that he is bi racial and that means skin color can be diffrent? has any one got any advise?

my ds has a real thing about his hair being a different colour to mine, but its the same as his dads. he tells people all the time that he has the same hair as his dad. i know its not the same but at 3 i thinks its enough to say that some children look more like mummy and some look more like daddy.

well thats what i thought but he was so upset bless him i didnt no what to say(it actually upset me)my mum told me it was a lovly way of putting it so that cheered me up.it got me angry though that the other childs mother just said to her son its because hes black.i thought this quite ignorant and wanted to slap her

Ash83 we are three-racial family, father is scandinavian, i am half-half, neither blond nor dark and our adoptive daughter is african. She also came from school telling me some kid called her black. I took a black marker drew a spot on her skin and asked her if she still thinks she is 'black'. I explained to her that chocolate brown skin is the most beautiful skin that there is and mami would love to have it also, then allowed her to paint me all over my arms with brown paint. When she talked about me being 'white' i took a sheet of paper and placed it on my skin ... is mami white? No, mami is light chocolate brown, while you are a bit darker chocolate borwn. We ended up laughing at all those things. I also picked pictures from the net where kids of different colors sit together and smile and explain to her that 'different' is interesting and nice. Being the same is just booooring

Ash I work in the civil service and we are told that the only appropriate way to term anyone non-white is "black"

I am white but I get very annoyed by this, because many people are NOT black, and would not describe themselves as black.

I got hauled into my managers office for describing one colleague as dark skinned. I had explained she was caucasian but looked as though she had a tan and was dark skinned. Apparently this is NOT acceptable. Apparently i should have descibed her by her other features NOT her skin colour, or described her as simply black or white. She was an average looking woman for goodness sake, and had i not descibd her skin tone to my friend she would NEVER have got who I was talking about.

So it is possible that the mother of this other child thought she was being correct and polite in calling your son "black" because, sadly, this is the way the state is governed

Hope that helps, and sorry for the rant.

i'd explain it how it is.

so daddy looks like this and mummy looks like this. when mummy and daddy make a baby they mix all bits of themselves together and out comes a baby. so if the mummy and daddy don't look the same then their babies won't look the same. this could be if they have a tall daddy and a short mummy or a ginger haired daddy and a brown haired mummy.

for dd this means she has blonde hair like her dad but brown eyes like me.

i wouldn't talk about chocolate and coffee tbh. there are lots of children's books about such things if you hae a quick search on google.

Same as ruddynorah. Just tell it like it is.

There's a lovely childrens publishing company called "Letterbox Library" (google it). I'm sure it will have a story book to help.

it just took me by surprise and didnt no what to say to him.its funny because now he will tell everyone that he is beautiful choclate like daddy.this is such a sore topic because i didnt want him to grow up thinking that he was ugly because he had brown skin.thanks for all the lovly comments.if he was older i could explain it to him but as he is only three im not sure that he really understands

bees - Could you elaborate what "white" is according to Civil Service? I suppose Arabs, Chinese and Japanese would be considered to be black then.

I'm half English and half Middle Eastern, I got teased a lot at school for being darker (I've since faded lol), especially once kids parents realised that my Dad was middle eastern, they encouraged their children to call me names because of my Dad's origin . All of this PC is ridiculous but so is this racism. I remember being told to call 'black' people black as it was rude to say coloured, but then a month later was told off for desbribing somebody as 'black' (because as bees mentioned, this person was also quite average and our school was quite uni-cultural) as they preferred being called coloured!

A 'coloured'/'black'/whatever man once told me that to call them black is the best option if you have to say it but to call them coloured would be silly, as a white person is more coloured than they are. White people go red when embarrassed, brown in the sun, green when they're sick, white when their faint, ad so on, a black person stays black, so we're technically the coloured ones

Ash, from what I remember of your birth story your ds is amazing. Your explanation sounds lovely - chocolate and coffee. My dd is 3 too and she is obsessed with physical characteristics - hair colour, genitalia but not yet skin colour!

I come from a mixed background, I think you son will be fine. He will understand from seeing his parents - you might all have a range of skin tones but you can still pick out daddy's eyes or mummy's hair. This will help hold it together in his mind. We are all a mix - of parents and wider family. Skin colour is only one part of this.

I have never heard a black person say they don't like to be called 'black'. I include myself in this. Nor have I heard a white person object to being called 'white'. Equally, no black person I know likes the word 'coloured'.

I do love all the statements on this thread about beautiful chocolate skin, though. The skin thing sadly is an issue, and whenever it comes up with my DS (also multi-ethnic - white father) I hope I remember all the positive things you've all written.

OP - good luck with explaining to and encouraging your DS.