Why It's Time To Talk to Our Kids About Race No Matter How Young They Are - My Response To Trayvon Martin

In general, my goal for these posts is to chronicle my life with Owen in a funny way, talking honestly about the rough patches of parenting but the murder of Trayvon Martin has made me think more seriously about what it means to raise a son. I have some friends who were recently joking about how the hard part about having sons was that you ended up losing them to a future daughter in law.  I'm pretty sure that I will be an awesome enough mother and mother in-law that this will not be the case but I guess there's always a danger.  I told them I was banking on my son being gay so I just get another son, though I guess their would always be mother to contend with. (Assuming he had one, he could have two dads too. . oops I digress.)

My husband's worry for our son is that he will be so sensitive that the world will be hard on him.  I'm not sure where this fear comes from, perhaps the fact that Owen kisses his stuffed animals on the mouth or blows kisses at people on the television if they are crying, or seems to stop people on the street who look lonely and wave until they smile.  I am not entirely convinced my husband's fear won't disappear entirely when the terrible twos arrives.

I do worry about raising a son in New York City.  From my experience boys can sometimes be the target of other boys just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Yes, girls fight too but it generally seems to be personal.  But in the light of both Trayvon's death among other recent incidents I have thinking about how grateful I feel to not have the added burden of having to worry about the effect the race of my child has on his likelihood of being the victim of a crime.  Yes, I still worry about cars and deadly animals and freak storms.  I will probably worry about SIDS until Owen is out of high school.  I worry about traffic accidents and poisoned Halloween candy even though we mostly walk in the city and have yet to go trick-or-treating and even when people thought old men were poisoning Halloween candy it wasn't really happening.  But in general the only time I worry about the color of Owen's skin is when we are outside and he rips he hat off and I have to worry about his super pale baldie head burning in even the modest March sun.  And while that IS a considerable worry as we come from a long line of skin cancer sufferers, to say that that is my "white woman's burden" is somewhat ridiculous.

What happened with Trayvon Martin is devastating but sadly not an isolated case. While our country has come a long way in regards to race, we still have a long way to go.  As white parents, especially those who identify as being forward thinking, who regularly expose their children to different cultures, who talk about politics and morals, it is easy to think that our kids either do not need to be taught about race or that talking about race does not need to be explicit.  But as books like "Nurture Shock" (Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman; Twelve, Hatchett Book Group, 2009) show, white parents are not talking about race, or at least not in a way that changes attitude or behaviors.  (Read the chapter "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race.") White children still tend towards associating positive traits with people who look like them and negative traits with people who don't. This is a problem.  Sure, eventually this problem will be solved when white people don't exist anymore, and yes this day is coming even if it won't happen in our lifetime.  But that seems like a lazy, irresponsible solution.

The most powerful thing we can do as parents is to make sure that we don't create the George Zimmerman's of the world.  Or even if are to give him the  deepest benefit of doubt and take a step further back, that we don't create the world that gave space for his fear to feel so real.  This is our moral obligation.

I don't purport to be saying anything particularly new or daring.  I don't claim to be above or beyond racism in any way.  I am most decidedly not naive enough or egotistical enough to think that my talking about race will magically make it disappear for my son's generation. But I do think that sometimes as parents, especially white parents who consider themselves 'aware of race' that we do not address it directly enough.  We do not talk about it in a real meaningful way. In general, parents offer vague comments like, 'race doesn't matter' or 'anyone can succeed.' This does little to change children's perceptions. One study in the Journal of Marriage and Family 2007 shows that our of 17,000 families with kindergarten students 45% do not talk about race at all and if you look just at the white families that jumps to 75%  (Bronson & Merryman 2007).

75% is not acceptable.

So while you might not be able to change the mindset of a neighborhood watch person miles away or change the mentality of police who still racially profile, or individuals who do the same, what we can do is teach our children about race.  Use this incident and others to make a difference in some way.   Telling kids that skin color does not make a difference does not make a difference.  We need to be explicit and real.  Kids do respond.  And start talking now. Kids are never too young.

Now to be clear, I don't think I can have a completely meaningful conversation with Owen today.  As advanced as I think he is, he's still mastering words like "water" and "milkies" so I don't know if it makes sense yet, though my mom claims she gave me a very meaningful lecture about the birds and the bees when I was four.  She said she wanted to get it out of the way.  And while I think perhaps her approach was a little off (sorry Mom) I also think that maybe she is on to something.  If we start talking about it freely before kids can really understand, it will not be as hard later because we will be so used to it.

So when the story came on the news again last night, I told Owen what had happened and why I thought it was wrong.  And because I'm still hormonal (yes, I know it has been a year) I explained to him why I was crying and how I hope so much he would be safe always and how I felt so much sadness for Trayvon's mother. I'm not sure he got it but it does not matter.  He will some day.

Once There Was A Little Boy Named Owen - Or How Owen Found His Parents

Once there was a little boy named Owen.  Well he wasn’t named Owen yet and he wasn’t really a little boy either.  He was just a little soul floating around in the universe waiting to find the right home.   He had been looking for quite a while but finding a family was important business and he wanted to do it right. 

Each day Owen would visit different places and people to look for his home.   First, Owen went to visit a farm in Idaho.  There he saw a big family with lot of kids.   And there were all sorts of animals.  Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun and Owen thought it sure would be neat to get to live near all those cows.   But as Owen counted up the kids one, two, three, four, five, he started to think maybe it wasn’t the best for him. “I don’t think I want to be number six,” Owen thought. “In fact, I’d really like to be the number one, so I better keep looking.”  So off Owen went, after one last look at the cows. 

Next, Owen went to Dallas Texas.  He heard someone say that everything was better in Texas, or was it bigger?  He wasn’t sure but he decided he might as well check it out.  He swooped down into one yard where he saw a couple living in a BIG BIG house, with a BIG BIG pool, and three BIG BIG cars.  Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said things were big.  Even the lady’s hair was BIG BIG BIG.  Owen smelled some delicious things, like BBQ and queso.  The couple looked like they were having fun too, which might have had something to do with those BIG BIG drinks they were drinking.  But all this big, big, bigness made Owen feel a little anxious. “ I’m just a little, little boy”, he thought. “All this bigness is just not for me, I better keep looking.”  So off he went.

After that, Owen went to California where he saw a nice young couple living right near the beach.  Owen was pretty hopeful about this.  He had a feeling he was REALLY going to like the water.  He liked the sound of the ocean and he thought it would be fun to run his fingers through the sand.  Owen watched the couple for a while and they seemed to be having a lot of fun.    They had a garden in back where they grew lots of vegetables and fruit which they used to make a big dinner.   Then Owen heard them talking about their plan.  They planned to move from country to country each year, surfing the big waves and living off the land.  Owen thought it would be nice to travel but changing homes every year seemed like a little much.  “I think I might like to stay in a place a little bit longer than that,” Owen said, “I better keep looking.”  And away he went.

Next Owen went to Alaska.  He had heard that Alaska really was beautiful and boy it was true.  The air was clean and the glaciers glittered in the sun.  He saw a nice couple there who lived in a nice little house right at the foot of a mountain. There was a head of an animal hanging on the wall which didn’t seem as nice as having a live animal in the yard.  He watched the couple sit down for dinner and boy did the food look good.  The table was piled high with fresh fish and bread and a huge salad.  But as dinner went on, Owen noticed the couple did not talk at all except to say, “Pass the fish please.”  They seemed to enjoy being quiet.  Owen guessed that was okay but he thought, “That’s not for me.  I think I need a little more noise.  I better keep looking.”  So off he went.

Owen went from place to place to place and saw so many different people and things.  And so many times he was tempted but something in him wanted to keep looking.  Finally he went to New York City and right away he loved it, with all the different people and sounds, and things to see.  And he was floating around and he saw this man and this woman walking down the street holding hands and talking to each other.  There was something about them that just seemed nice.  Owen moved in a little closer to hear what they were saying.  The woman was talking.  She said, “Hi baby, if you’re out there, we would really like you to come live with us.  We have some really great things to offer.  True, we have a few things that could use a little work but overall we’re a pretty good deal.”  Owen looked around to see who she was talking to but he didn’t see anyone else.  “Maybe she’s talking to me,” he thought. 

“So, baby if you come live with us, we promise that we will have a lot of fun,” she said. “We are creative and a little silly and we love to play.  We’ll sing songs and read books and make art.  We have good imaginations and will try to make magic wherever we can.  Sometimes I have too much of a temper and I’m not so good at organizing things but I can write you stories and sing you too sleep.  Also, I’m a really good cook and I sure know what to do with a banana.  We don’t exactly have perfect jobs and we only have a little apartment and we may not be your most traditional family but we love each other so much and love you too.  We promise to let you be whoever you want to be though we sure hope you’re not a Republican and you don’t join a cult. Please baby if you’re out there, we would love for you to come to us.”  They went on talking a little more about what they had and what they didn’t but Owen didn’t need to listen anymore.  He knew that this was his family.  He liked how they were so busy looking for him and how they talked about what they had and what they didn’t.   But most of all, he just felt like he was supposed to be their little boy.  For him, there was nowhere else he would rather be.  And he decided to stop looking.  He painted a little splash of his soul across their hearts so when he went back up into the universe to wait for the right moment to return, he would be able to make it back to them. 

And that is the story of how Owen found his mommy and daddy.