Why blog it now?
The incident I’ve been blogging about happened months ago and the fall-out happened weeks ago. So why blog it now? Well, because Madison brought it up and frankly it’s been on my mind (like crazy) since it happened.
She misses the wife in question and she misses the kids. She wanted to know why she didn’t see them anymore. I told her because we didn’t want to be around [husband] and that [wife] & [husband] were a package deal. (I think she knows that [wife] is angry with me, too, because lord knows we’ve talked about it often enough around here — poor Brett helping me process the thing to death.) I said, “Do you remember why I’m upset with [husband]?” And she said, “Yes, because he said…”
Me: Do your remember what he said?
Madison: You say it.
And you know, I didn’t want to say it. I wanted her to say, “I have no recollection and would rather skip over here and play with my dollhouse and smile all the live long day!” I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to say it because she couldn’t remember and wanted a reminder or if she couldn’t bring herself to say it. And I was hoping it was the former and that I could find a way to wriggle out of it. Like, “Oh! She doesn’t even remember! I’ll change the subject!”
This is where the goodness of blogs come in. I thought about Susan Ito and John Raible and Jae Ran Kim and Sang-Shil Kim and all the other transracially adopted adults who have shared their stories. If I changed the subject, she would take on the shame and there’s no way that I want my daughter taking on any shame from this. I knew I had to be the one to say it so I did, I repeated what he said and my daughter screwed up her face, shoved her forehead into my arm and started to chew on my shirt.
“He doesn’t like me because of my brown skin,” she said. “Does he not like [his child]? What about [his child]?” Then later, “YOU like brown-skinned babies!”
For the next 24-hours she’d bring it up randomly. She’d talk about how mean [husband] is because of what he said. Mommy, remember what he said? And why did he say it? Why was he mean? Then we’d list all of the grown-ups we knew who are nice and NOT mean. Because, I told her, most people are nice but some people are mean. It’s how the world is. We are lucky to have so many nice people around us and the mean people? Well, once we find out they’re mean, that’s the end of that!
I understand why parents don’t want to address this stuff because I don’t want to address this stuff. I want to pretend that she’s over it, totally forgot it, has moved on with her life and that it’s not even a blip on her radar. But I agree with you all that our reaction is the only thing I can control and that she needs us to say it out loud and react in no uncertain terms. She needs to know that we have a zero-tolerance rule about this and that there are no do-overs for racism and that we are always unequivocally on her side.
One of the first people I talked to about it was Pennie. For one thing, she knows these people and even if it hadn’t involved Madison I likely would have told her ‘cuz, you know, we talk about my friends and her friends and our dealings with them. But I also told her because she’s Madison’s first mom and because she’s an African American woman and so I doubly value her input. Being naive, what surprised me was how not surprised she was. Sad, disappointed, angry — yes but surprised? No.
My white world (myself included) had this “but she’s so young! why does she have to deal with this now?” sad reaction but my of-color world had this “ahh the inevitable has happened” resignation and sadness reaction. So when Madison asked me to say it, I channeled the mothers of color who I know (online and off) and knew they wouldn’t try to get out of it. They wouldn’t squirm and try to pretend it didn’t happen or try to distract her, they’d say it and face up to the truth, which is that it was said, my daughter heard it and yes, she still thinks about it.
(What prompted this was having a fall-out with a park friend — someone she barely knew — who said something 4-year old mean, which made her remember every mean thing anyone ever said to her finally landing on this one and focusing on it like crazy. This is the first time she’s brought up her concerns about the other kids in the family.)
(One more thing — the reason I password-protected the other post and not these latest ones is because the password-protected post got into other family members reactions and I wanted to keep that un-googled.)
So this happened before the time when Madison overheard the mom talking about slippery feet in dance class, right? Do you think it factored into the strong reaction she had in the dance class?
Please don’t feel obligated to answer if it’s too personal. I’m just thinking about it because it seems to me that’s part of why we parents need to be such zero-tolerance/pro-active/immediate responders about stuff like this. Because it bleeds into situations (like the dance class) that seem innocuous.
P.S. I do hope you write about this for Anti-Racist Parent.
Omigosh, what people put kids through. Unbelievable.
But VERY believable. Pennie’s reaction is the one that says it all, I think - the lack of surprise tells the story very clearly. This is something children of color deal with all the time.
I appreciate you sharing how you channeled mothers of color - that is excellent advice to every parent of a child of color.
This whole thing makes me sad, sad, sad. But your words are wise. Inevitable it is and a thousand times better to say it right out and let the grief come now. Let’s take these three rules for dealing with any kind of bully:
1. “once we find out they’re mean, that’s the end of that!”
2. “we have a zero-tolerance rule about this and that there are no do-overs for racism and that we are always unequivocally on her side.”
3. “They wouldn’t squirm and try to pretend it didn’t happen or try to distract her, they’d say it and face up to the truth, which is that it was said, my daughter heard it and yes, she still thinks about it.”
When you do this you are arming your children and yourself for the worst anyone can throw at you.