My daughter said something today that truly horrified my wife and me. Our daughter is not quite three, precociously verbal, and extremely observant of what's going on around her. She talks about music, can name perhaps ten classical composers, and can regonize the difference between Bach and Mozart by listening, can tell Jazz from Rock, and can distinguish between ella and sarah. She knows her numbers, letters, and the major viticultural regions of france. her favorite is a nice "cote du rhone." she understands a fair amount of french, and although she speaks very little, she will respond appropriately to questions or directions in french, and sometimes in spanish as well. in other words, she a fairly wordly toddler. her long time nanny, from west africa, is pregnant and only working part time. a friend of her nanny's, also from west africa, is filling in. both women are tall, elegant, smart, and take very good care of our children. our daughter is extremely attached to her nanny, and there have been some issues w/ her adjusting to someone new taking care of her, mostly manifesting it self in her being a little sullen when the substitute first arrives in the morning, or sounding too over joyed on learning her regular nanny is coming the next morning. today, she took it to the next level. after the substitue arrived this morning, our daughter was in her room with my wife, while the substitute was in the next room, feeding our son. it's not clear if she heard the conversation. our daughter told my wife "she didn't like" the substitute. she's said this before, and we've questioned her about it, told her it was rude, she has to be polite, etc. She says the substitute is mean, but i work at home and have never observed anything that could be remotely construed as mean. the substitue is a bit more reticent w/ the kids, and doesn't engage them in quite the same wonderfully dynamic way as the regular nanny, but she's kind and by the end of the day everyone alsways seems happy. this morning my wife asked her "why don't you like" the substitute? Our daughter: "I don't like her dark skin." My wife: "What do you mean?" Our daughter: "I want a nanny with lighter skin." needless to say, my wife immediately shut the door and gave our daughter a very stern talking to, pointing out that her regular nanny has darker skin than the substitute, she can never say things like that, you can't judge people by their skin color, it makes no difference, etc...she then sent her in to say good morning, and the rest of the day has been fine. I wonder where this kind of thought comes from in a three y/o. certainly she's never heard it at home, and she goes to an almost self-conciously racially diverse pre-school. her teachers are latino and asian, and every child she hangs out with, w/ one possible exception, has a black nanny, mostly african immigrants. we have gay friends of both sexes, some with children, and it's all been unremarkable to her. in the past she's made comments about so and so's dark skin, even saying about one of my best friends, "i like his dark skin!" perhaps she's just testing us, as she does in so many other ways, finding her limits. it's safe to say there's almost nothing she could have said that would have horrified us more.
well, she doesn't read yet, and her TV is pretty much limited to sesame street, which come to think of it, is pretty liberal!
Basso, I'm sorry to hear that. I don't have kids yet myself, but I really don't know how I would respond to that either. Sounds like you handled it pretty well though, and kudos to you for that. --rhad
thanks- she is a challenging child. i don't think we're the best parents in the world, although we do try. perhaps this is just part of the terrible twos, and kids do "say the darndest things." i have trouble believing she just came up with this one on her own, but maybe she did.
There ya go! Damn Big Bird! Somebody ought to cut the entitlements this country gives to fake yellow birds!
Basso, keep in mind that just because a youngster talks like an adult, it doesn't mean that she thinks like an adult. She likely was just trying to rationalize her preference for her regular nanny with the logic of a three year old mind.
Humans by nature group together with people that they feel comfortable with. The most basic level of this grouping is by color. During the filming of the original Planet of the Apes, all of the actors/actresses in costume hung out and ate together according to whether they were a gorilla, oranguatan or chimapanzee. No one them do this, they grouped together on their own and never mixed. They appeared to do this at a sub-conscious level because none of them realized they were doing it. Having a young daughter, discussions on how to treat others comes up often. Already passed the "I don't like her because her skin or hair is different".
Pardon this observation but it seems like her contact with minorities they are primariliy subservient to your family
only if you believe that teachers are some how subservient, which we don't and don't treat them as such, and only if we treated the nannys as servants, rather than as valued, trusted employees, who are practically members of the family. it's true, i don't habg around with a lot of minority friends, but they are a part of her life.
this is an excellent observation, and i think you're probably right, although her choice of rationalization was troubling.
Maybe because the nanny doesn't look like her mother. She is only three. I guess government efforts for a diverse environment makes some sense....
Basso, as you said the kid is observant. A steady diet of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and exposure to the GOP of the South. The message gets out.
