Colour talk with a 3.5 year old

[curiouserx2]

Mums of mixed race children, what do you tell them when they ask about colour?

I started to say that they're brown, but it doesn't sit well with me. Society will call them black. I just want them to feel positively about their beautiful skin especially as we're in a predominantly white area. I talk positively about being black, give them black books, dolls, praise their curly hair and spend more time with my black family but feel like I might confuse things.

Tbh I get called I'm brown in regards to colour of my skin I'm mixrace also

So you refer to yourself as brown now? What did you think growing up? What were you told?

I just said black in every day conversation. Mine are teenagers now and they will tick the box in forms that is the most accurate but say black is someone asked them.

I guess my initial thoughts are that with a child it's quite literal. They were pointing out (via nursery's 'all about me' week) that they weren't the same colour as me or their dad. So I said no you're brown. I guess I'll leave it at that but furnish it more when their older. I just don't want their esteem eroded. I want to instil pride in their difference when most children don't look like them.

Appreciate your answers all.

I can't help but feel that you aren't instilling pride by almost skirting around the facts.

'Your skin is brown because mammy has black skin and daddy has white skin so you are a mixture of both of us.'

I always made sure they knew other things they had inherited from each of us. Like my temper or daddy's eyelashes. That sort of thing. So it isn't about skin all the time.

It is tricky, there's no doubt about it.

You are, in my opinion, mixing up in your own mind, the colours black and white in a literal sense with skin colours. White people aren't white. Not white like a sheet of photocopier paper.

www.amazon.co.uk/Violet-Tania-Duprey-Stehlik/dp/1897187602

My dd absolutely loved this book about a mixed race girl. The mum was red and the dad was blue and the girl was Violet and when she started school the other children asked her why she was Violet.

There isnt just white or black in regards to colour, some people call me caramel complexion others just say I'm brown... I am brown not black

I tell my children they are black, I am mixed race their father is black. I don’t say brown and tbh I’ve only ever heard Indian people refer to themselves as brown.

Race and colour are different...

I was answering the op where she said society will see them as black which I agree with my children are black they are only 1/4 white so will be considered black. Me I never refer to myself as brown I would say olive skin tone if describing my complexion and mixed race when asked what colour I am / race as people usually use that to mean to same thing ime.

There is even an old song called brown skinned girl and the girls race is black can't remember who sings it

I tell my daughter she is half mummy and half daddy, so caramel coloured.
I also told her she had the same skin colour as Jesus and she said obviously therefore she has the best skin tone 😂😂😂😂😂

In all seriousness though, she has a black nanny and I make sure that she is surrounded h as many children as I can who look like her!

I am not olive skinned so I wouldn't refer myself as olive skinned...mixed race comes in different colours and my sons dad is black and I am mixrace, my sons race is black but the colour of his skin is brown

Agree.

'Society will call them black so I tell them they're black.'

Society may also call them the n-word or other words, will you tell them that's what they are too?

If you want to call your Mixed race children black, that's your prerogative but don't claim to call them something because society will call them that. It doesn't follow because you don't call them everything society does.

I'm Brown skin all day, everyday (Society calls me black, I call myself brown. Guess which one I care about and is more important to me?).

It's Beyonce.

And I'm not mixed race either. My race is black, as society says. My skin is brown.

But then if your son is brown as in the colour then surely so are you? Unless you and your partner are in the literal sense the colour black and white then I think you're conflating different questions and answers.

Mixed people will come to their own understanding of their identity based on all manner of things, a lot of them will also experience a feeling of lack of belonging (too white for Black people, too Black for white people), a mother, who if non-Black struggled with understanding some of the issues their offspring will face as a result of their Blackness.

I'd suggest avoiding colour in the literal sense because if he's brown and you describe him as such despite him having a Black mother and a white father then what's to stop his young literal mind logically concluding that he can describe others he may come across as 'yellow' or 'bright pink'. I'd say do what you are doing and can do to reaffirm him and his heritage(s), so that he doesn't feel alien to either as he's growing up.

Also, you know what colour they are. How mixed race are they? How black is one parent, how white is the other, how black is the mixed race child. How mixed is the school your child is going to go to?

Society will call them black.

Will it? I guess sometimes, but lots of mixed race people would call themselves mixed race / mixed heritage and would also be seen by others as such..

I think you can teach them to be proud of their heritage and appearance without preempting how they chose to identify themselves. I also think that mixed heritage is one of the fastest growing groups in the UK, so hopefully not feeling line you quite belong to either group will less of an issue for their generation.

I hope you don't mind me posting. Can you talk about all colours as well, so do they have any other friends ... that way it's not just about 'black', and also Indian, Chinese etc The conversation could be part of a wider context, then start to bring in more about their specific heritage

Society will call them black.

Not necessarily it depends on what your child looks like as an individual and who is doing the classifying.

For example my DD is called "brown" while a girl she is in childcare with is frequently called "black". They are both mixed but to people who aren't aware that mixed black/white children can have different shades of skin, hair texture, etc they don't see that.

In addition to that my DD has a few other children in her childcare who look similar to her. This includes some who have been mistaken for her siblings who while mixed aren't black/white.

I just want them to feel positively about their beautiful skin especially as we're in a predominantly white area

The fact you live in a predominantly white area is your main issue. There are lots of posters on BMN who refuse to move to a predominantly white area with their children as they know how it can easily screw their self-esteem to nearly always or to always be seen as different and treated as "other".

Genetics doesn't work like that.

Our children identify as black, that is how they are raised. My culture (I'm not British) is an influencer in our home too but not as much an influence as being black is. I do wonder, how their experiences will differ growing up as they are very different in skin tone.

My eldest is very much treated as a black boy with all that entails. He is very proud of his black heritage and identity.

My youngest (raised in the same way) mis so far having a different experience. He is treated as the 'exotic' one by society rather than as a black boy. I can see him getting comments like 'we don't mean you, its the rest of them' type thing.

He came home from school the other day saying that they were drawing portaits and the teacher said he had used the 'wrong' colour for his face. I asked what colour he used and he said 'dark brown'. I asked what colour the teacher had told him to use and he said 'peach'. I was livid, for a myriad of reasons obviously. He is not peach! He identifies as black and so picked the colour that he felt was him. A stern email sorted that out, it led to a conversation that, I hope, will lead to improvements. It transpired that a Chinese little boy had been told that he was not 'peach' (the colour he had chosen) But that he was yellow!!!

Before I had my children, I was incredibly naive. I thought they would just be mixed 'the best of three worlds' etc. But that has not been their reality.

I am so grateful for the unconditional love and support my children have from our black family and friends. It is the one safe haven where they feel they truly belong and which have shaped them into the confident and proud boys that they are. It must be so difficult to raise mixed race children without this. How to care for their hair and skin, how to have 'the talk', how to approach conversations with racist institutions. The list is endless and my inlaws have been there every step of the way.

OP was asking in regards of skin colour, not heritage /race