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Original poster

Do your children have good friends of a different race?

67 replies

TheDullWitch · 05/10/2006 13:44

Or are their friends mostly same as your family? David Cameron says racial communities should stop leading parallel and separate lives. But haven't we always?

OP posts:
KellyKrueger1978 · 05/10/2006 14:49

we are a mixed race (indian/white) family tho dd and ds are from prev relatioship so are white. dd seems draw to making friends who are asian. In her prev school her closest friends were south indian tamil speakers. She would come home playing at indian weddings, going round and round the fire! now we are in an area that is less multi cultural she is most friendly with a little girl who I know is muslim from her name, but no idea of background. last year she was close to a chinese girl, but they moved away. I have no idea why this is. She doesn't really mix with black or white children very well.

singersgirl · 05/10/2006 14:49

Not really now, but that is just chance because of the make up of their classes. DS1's best friend when we lived in Singapore was from India and he had a pretty multi-cultural group of friends overall, as you'd expect living abroad.

janinlondon · 05/10/2006 15:18

Yes - lots of different races and cultural backgrounds. But then we chose the school partly for this reason.

Katymac · 05/10/2006 15:23

DD has only just met girls the same age & (similar) colour to her.

She hasn't decided if they are gong to be friends or not.....she would like them to be but thinks they might not be despite the colour thing

Which I think is quite grown up of her (she is nearly 9)

BettyBatShapedSpaghetti · 05/10/2006 15:29

No as we live in a very white area. However they do have quite a multi-cultural family with mixed race relatives.

speedymama · 05/10/2006 15:36

I wonder how many friends the children of Slimy Cammy Cameron have that belong to different races? In fact, how many friends does he and his cronies have that belong to a different race? I can't help thinking that a lot of the traditional Tory blue rinse brigade who attended the conference would sell their house as soon as a non-white like me bought a house next door to them.

Listening to his speech I kept thinking about the British ghettos that are popping up all over the South of France and Spain. The funny thing is, a lot of these people move to these countries because they think there are too many immigrants in Britain. Stupid as well as ignorant methinks.

ingym23 · 05/10/2006 15:36

Nope. And we live in a "culturally diverse" part of London....

DS is only 2.5, though. I expect once he starts going to school that he'll mix with different races, which is only a good thing in my books.

When DS was quite young, I took him to baby yoga. It was held in a community hall that was divided into two rooms. All the white, middle class mothers and their babies went into one room, and everyone else, into another. I was astounded....

I have found that the activities that I have taken DS to (like Gymboree, NCT coffee mornings, local playgroup, baby yoga, Musical Bumps) just have not attracted non-white, middle class women and their babies. I am thinking this is because the women I have mixed with generally do not have family support nearby (most of us aren't even from the UK), so maybe we have to "mix" more? Or maybe they have their own baby / toddler groups?

Would love to read others' thoughts on this....

lockets · 05/10/2006 15:38

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CheesyFeetcomingtoGETyou · 05/10/2006 15:59

No. We live in rural Lincolnshire and there are very few non-white families around. Afaik all the kids in dd's nursery are white and everyone we met at mum & baby groups is white too.

There are large Portuguese and Baltic populations here and also one or two Chinese families but I don't ever seem to have crossed paths with any of them. I wonder why.

Vindaloo · 05/10/2006 16:03

DD 2.6 yrs is mixed race, we both have friends of a different race.

Does David Cameron and his gang?????

hoxtonchick · 05/10/2006 16:03

yes. we live in a very racially mixed area. it's very mixed class-wise too. ds makes friends with everyone .

bluejelly · 05/10/2006 16:11

Yes 3 best friends all different races.

CalifornifamousFANGjo · 05/10/2006 18:12

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

misdee · 05/10/2006 18:15

nope. i am afraid not.

in dd1 class there are no children who are black, and one child who is part indian. and he is a boy and dd1 doesnt play with boys.

we live i na predominatly white area, which also unfortunatly has a lot of racial problems in some parts of the town.

Gobbledispook · 05/10/2006 18:17

I guess this is all just about where we happen to live and the social demographics of that area. I don't think any of our children choose to gravitate toward different races, or away from them - it's generally who they are 'thrown together' with in school isn't it?

TwigTwoolett · 05/10/2006 18:19

haven't actually thought of this before but yes ... although his best mates just happen to be the same colour as he is

FioFio · 05/10/2006 18:19

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joelallie · 05/10/2006 18:54

No. But out of a school of about 300 only a handful are non-white. DD is friends with the little mixed-race girl in her class but I don't think they are best mates. DS#1's class is 100% white.

Headteacher is Asian and a Muslim. Unusual round here.

janeite · 05/10/2006 20:38

11 yr old dd's best friend is Pakistani Muslim. She has Greek, Chinese, Jamaican and Brummie friends too!

minx69 · 05/10/2006 23:50

Erin is only 27mths old and already she has several muslim friends, a south african friend and a mixed raced friend.

Kids dont see colour, they see other kids.
Its their parents and society that teaches them the "differences" and the prejudices.

Oliveoil, sounds like simple colour association to me, at playgroup age they still see things in their most basic forms ie, the sky is blue, the trees are green and her friend tara is brown.

jodee · 05/10/2006 23:53

Yes. ds's best friend is half Taiwanese.

suzywong · 05/10/2006 23:56

My children always ARE the good friends of a different race, IYSWIM

HRHQueenOfQuotes · 05/10/2006 23:58

"Kids dont see colour,"

I don't totally agree with that......they do see colour - but not in the same way as adults. When DS1 was little (under 2) he used to shout 'daddy' at every black man he saw walking down the street (boy did I get some looks LOL).

Then on holiday recently DS2 (nearly 3) looked at a picture in my FIL's house of two white women and exclaimed "Look there's another two mummy's".

When DS1 (now 6) got back from holiday and we were talking about it, he mentioned how many people there were that "looked like daddy" and not many like mummy (I think we'd been there a week before he saw any other white people LOL).

As to his friends - don't really ask him what 'colour' his friends are - although I do know that his current "best" friend (and has been since January) is white.

edam · 06/10/2006 00:00

Yes. Will be interesting to see what happens when he goes to school - this is an overwhelmingly white area (suburban commuterville near London). His current friends are either family friends or neighbours.

My mother believes strongly that young children don't notice racial differences in the way that adults do, based on her experience. My sister once described a class mate she wanted to invite to her birthday party, from the red ribbon in her hair down to her socks (very white and frilly) without mentioning that the little girl was black - just hadn't registered.

edam · 06/10/2006 00:02

LOL at QoQ's ds shouting 'daddy' to every passing black man, can imagine that was embarrassing!

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