"Your skin is the colour of poo"

[Defrump]

Hello all, I've been on other boards but first time here with name change. I'm very happy with my partner and he has young children who are mostly lovely. Except the younger one, aged 4, has started commenting on my skin saying he doesn't like me because I'm brown. I'm Asian. I found it shocking and upsetting but ignored as he is young but then he said my skin is the colour of poo and mud.
I would have thought school would be teaching about diversity but my partner says the comments might be coming from his ex. What would you do? It does make me feel quite differently towards the child. I have talked to him about being kind to people of all different colours but he keeps saying he hates brown people!

Google "parental alienation", OP. You and your partner might want to start keeping notes of these incidents with a view to getting legal advice.

nash.co.uk/parental-alienation/

Hmmmmmm
How long have you been with him?
If the child is 4 and having poison dripped by his mum, then you have a lot of miserable years ahead and should perhaps consider leaving.

Also when a small child comments observationally on brown skin colour, you have to consider the connotations of the word and the motive behind it. If he’d said your skin was like chocolate, well chocolate is nice. But he said poo - which is considered smelly and dirty and much more offensive. Also mud is something we get rid of from clothes/shoes (unless that child has a particular liking for playing in mud then it’s negative). When my teen was 3, he commented on a black person’s skin colour (a friend not a random person) - went up to her and talked to her directly and asked her why her skin was like chocolate. Although I was embarrassed, it was clear that he was not being nasty and she was not offended.

Although he is obviously being fed racist stuff, I would more generally consider it it be bullying stuff. If it wasn’t your skin colour (or if you manage to turn the racism around), it would be your job, your mannerisms, your looks, your car, your height or weight, anything really that bullies pick on. His mum sounds like a bully and having older kids now, often the bullies are copying their parents. Parents who make no effort to stop it. There were 2 boys in my ds’s class - one a sort of sporty “jock” and the other a nerd with glasses. When called in to try and stop the bullying, the mother said that her son was in the right because the bullied child was weird and her son’s behaviour was fine.

you need to be very careful with 'parental alienation' as it isn't really recognised by the court system (unless things have changed significantly in recent years). Mum in this case isn't alienating against the parent either - although of course there may be an impact on the child's relationship with his father as a result of what is being said about the OP.

No clue what you should do, but you have my sympathy it must be extremely hurtful.

No excuses at all my son would most certainly have known never to say this at 4 as I have mixed raced siblings.
Your DH needs to educate him asap and make it known that this is totally unaccepatable behaviour.

That poor little boy. His mother is completely failing as a parent.

Try not to let it affect how you feel towards him. He has no ideas of the consequences of what he's saying. He's just being used by a deeply irresponsible mum.

Your step son might be too young to understand what he's saying but children of colour who are his age are not too young to experience racism. I remember comments from that age and I wasn't too young to know what was going on as the person on the receiving end. This needs to be nipped in the bud before he starts repeating things like this in school or nursery.

A 4 year old doesn’t come up with this by themselves, obviously someone has told them this and they repeat it.

It doesn’t necessarily have to come from ex, even grandparents could be behind this but it’s not your job to sort that out. Your dp needs to grow a pair and deal with this.
Yes the child is only 4 but nobody should have to put up with racist remarks in their home, doesn’t matter if it’s coming out of an adults or a child’s mout, racism is not something you should have to tolerate. That said please don’t blame the child, they don’t know any better which is all the more reason why your dp should step in here.

Well, so far partner has not addressed this issue. The little boy was first calling daddy "a liar who broke mummy's heart"

This is so obviously coming from his mother, as are the comments about your skin colour. That poor little boy. Imagine if he says something like that at school, I think schools have to report and record comments like that!

I think your partner needs to step up, have a word with the mum and tell her that he will be in big trouble if he says things like this at school and she needs to be encouraging him to be nice about people. If it doesn’t stop I’d go and have a chat with school and tell them what’s going on and you’re worried he’s going to repeat it.

Partner also needs to speak to the child to tell him how bad it is to say horrible things about how someone looks.

Teaching about racism and other ethnicities is a parenting job rather than school job.

Your partner needs to step in sharpish. Schools have to record racist incidents and telling another child that their skin is the colour of poo could very well be recorded as such an incident.

It sounds like the ex is dropping poison in his year. There is nothing that you can do about the ex as she's an adult who chooses to act this way but your partner needs to stand up to this kind of thing. The longer he's tiptoeing around this kind of thing, the more the ex will feel confident about escalating her unreasonable behaviour and as his son gets older, he risks the younger one acting the same since there's no repercussions from his dad.

I think that school is only one of the places where children learn about kindness and acceptance , but the first place should be home. You are guessing and assuming that the mother is not teaching this lesson but you know with certainty that your partner is not teaching this lesson.

Given that the older sibling does not respond in this fashion, it may or may not be something that his mother is specifically saying. However, if she has associated her pain and his father's leaving with you. The child may easily have associated pain and negativity as being caused by people of colour.

It is your partner's obligation and responsibility to be proactive in teaching his children about politeness, kindness, acceptance, or even just tolerance of others.

This child has 2 parents , one of whom is clearly conveying her hurt and pain to the child and the other is standing on the sidelines and criticizing. Neither is being a good parent.

You can buy books on diversity. There are some very good children's books on the topic. However, in your place , I would find his father's failure to act as or perhaps more off putting than the mother's behavior.

I would find your partner's failure as a father and cluelessness as a partner traits ones that would not inspire me to have much respect for him.

@Sowhatifiam

you need to be very careful with 'parental alienation' as it isn't really recognised by the court system (unless things have changed significantly in recent years). Mum in this case isn't alienating against the parent either - although of course there may be an impact on the child's relationship with his father as a result of what is being said about the OP.

I was thinking more about the "daddy is a liar" comment but I take your point...

The fact that a FOUR YEAR OLD has said daddy is "a liar who broke mummy's heart" tells me all these negative comments are 100% being fed to him by a nasty ex. Your SO needs to ask himself whether he's comfortable with his son being raised to be a racist. Because I agree, he is four and doesn't understand what he is saying and that he is being hurtful. But one day he will, if he continues to live in that environment. And that's how racists and bigots are born.

The comments on this thread seem way too forgiving to me! Your SO needs to step in immediately

I totally agree with the above. It’s not SSs fault but he absolutely can’t say this again and your partner needs to talk with his ex for the sake of the child.

@Leonthelobsterl
Daddy may or may not be a" liar who broke mommy's heart" chances are that only mommy and daddy know actual and absolute the truth to that statement. However, there is no need or reason to have a 4 year old privy to the statement be it an absolute truth or a lie.

Both fathers and mothers both have an obligation to teach their children principles and values. It seems that neither parent is succeeding or even trying very hard to accomplish this job with this 4 year old.

The mother may be passing along her hurt and pain ( and we have no way of knowing or not knowing if during the relationship she experienced deception, hurt or pain) but we do know that a 4 year old should not have been her confidant. We know that for whatever reason the father is not proactively attempting to modify his son's beliefs. Hand wringing and criticizing his ex are not remotely effective actions and interventions.

This child is being failed by both parents in equal measure.

@Defrump

I have my own older child but no, no experience of being a stepmum to children of a different race. I mentioned school because I thought that's where they learn about being kind to different children. Partner says he will talk to his ex as he won't tolerate racism. So hopefully that will help me feel listened to and we will sit down together with the boys and talk to them too about being kind to people of all different backgrounds.

No, it's up to his parents. Both of them. And your partner IS tolerating it - he isn't parenting.

Firm no, positive (fun!) alternative, layer the attention on the alternative and no lengthily discussion of the negative comments (this would stick it in his mind and encourage him to say more often). When impulse control is so low (he is very young) and understanding limited (no racism chat as he may nod along but doesn’t have the processing power to link and apply in real world situations) instead: break the association, encourage positive behaviours and teach positive social stories (about race, colour differences,etc) parallel to his behaviour (so same day, but not immediately after, not mentioning his behaviour, etc)

This seems a good approach. Wherever he's getting it from, he's a young child, and if OP is the responsible adult at the time it is her job to teach him how to behave more kindly. He doesn't need to understand the history of racism to know you don't make rude comments about people's appearance, or that you can't tell if someone is nice from what they look like.

It will help if his dad is the one to speak up when he is there. I think DS is too young for dad to 'have a talk' at 6pm about something that happened at 3pm and it makes it a bigger deal than it needs to be at this stage. Better to wait for him to do it again and then jump on it quickly and briefly.

It might be worth the two of you agreeing some simple phrases you are going to use so you're both saying the same thing. For example do you ban comments on skin colour completely or encourage positive comparisons? I think either would be a reasonable first approximation at this age but it will help if you both say the same.

It really is his Dad's place to be addressing his bad behaviour. Please don't dislike DSS for it, he's too little to grasp it but your partner needs to put a stop to it.

Yes my partner is failing me which is very distressing. I know his ex has made a lot of comments about me to him which he has not repeated but it takes him forever to pick up the kids from her as she rants at him about all sorts of perceived crimes we have commit. He says he will not tolerate racism and will talk to ex and his son but I do feel he is being clueless. Will see what happens today.

I have literally just read this and I think it is very useful
In understanding why a child might say something racist and how to manage it. I think it’s worth reading before you accuse the ex of racism.

www.todaysparent.com/kids/preschool/do-you-think-your-kid-might-be-racist/

My DD told me last week that she didn’t like a girl at nursery because she has brown skin. I was horrified. I can absolutely say that she’s not learned or mimicked that prejudice from us, and at nursery her best friend is Asian, her favourite staff are all non-white and members of own family are mixed race. I guess I’d just assumed that having people of different races and skin colour around every day would be enough to normalise that everyone is different but the same too. What it did make me realise though is that I didn’t know how best to tackle it or to talk about race with my child.

The above article suggests it’s a natural part of a child’s learning about difference and their innate preference for those that appear most like them. It’s our job as parents to effectively educate them through this, and to have those difficult conversations head on.

Thank you that's helpful. Yes it must be an age thing though partner says older boy never expressed these feelings. Anyway we have a strategy now and will see how it plays out. No one is accusing the ex of anything we will just address the issue in an age appropriate way with the little lad.

@BaggaTDoubleTroubleDoubleG

I think they just say the most obvious thing about a person.
A kid upset my 5 year old and when I asked why all he would say is that because he’s got curly hair, it’s obviously nothing to do with that but that was the obvious thing about this boy who did have super curly hair

This book is excellent at having discussion with young children about skin colour and racism www.amazon.co.uk/My-Skin-Your-racism-empowerment/dp/0241512735?tag=mumsnetforu03-21