Yesterday, I took Julia on the Needham commuter rail, which, just for the day, was posing as the Polar Express, taking children who had purchased a "golden ticket" on a ride to West Roxbury (aka the North Pole) to meet Santa. Needless to say, she had a blast, getting cookies and hot chocolate, a little goody bag, singing Christmas carols, and hearing a live reading of the book "The Polar Express." We had a host/conductor in our car who is from West Roxbury and who speaks with a very heavy Boston accent. I guess the sound of his accent must have reminded Julia of her CD of "Make Way for Ducklings," because when we got off the train, she announced to Ethan joyously, "Daddy! And GUESS who was on our train, talking in a microphone? TED KENNEDY!"
Today was another kind of Christmas adventure for Julia, as the church school got a visit from Santa and little gifts both from him and from their teachers. She was so excited during the car ride home that she couldn't seem to stop chattering for a moment. She spent a lot of the ride pointing out every little thing she saw out the window, including a family walking through Harvard Square: "Mommy, look, it's a whole dark family!"
Now, I have not really talked much about race with Julia, aside from saying that God makes people in all different colors and sizes. She has never really seemed to observe a great difference in people with different skin color than our own, and I have been happy to see that she just accepts everyone for who they are, despite differences in skin, hair/eye color, gender, age, size, etc. However, I decided, after her comment about the "dark family" that today might be the day to talk about the acceptable terms used to describe different racial backgrounds. "Those people who had the really dark brown skin are African American," I said. "There are many different terms to describe people of all different colors." I then talked about how we could be termed "Caucasian," and how sometimes people use the words "black and white" but that really, those aren't accurate descriptions of the colors of skin. I talked about all shades in between dark brown and peach and explained how there are many different terms for different cultures and skin tones. I finished off by saying something along the lines of, "Isn't it wonderful that God gave us so many beautiful colors in the things that grow on Earth? Just like plants and flowers and fruits come in all different colors, so do people, and it makes our Earth so colorful and beautiful." Julia's response to this attempt at describing racial differences in an accessible, loving, accepting way? "Mommy, um, I know a kind of skin that NOBODY even has a name for it, and it's kind of black colored, and people don't know what to call it, so they call it CHICKEN POX BEARD! Isn't that silly, Mommy?"
Oy.
Later on in our drive, Julia announced with delight, "Mommy! I just saw TWO losers, so that must be a mall!" I affirmed that we were driving through a strip mall of sorts, and then, since I had already handled one big lesson on terminology, decided it was time to explain that those "losers" are in fact called "mannequins," and that a loser is really a term for a team or a person who is not the winner. Phew. Knocking all kinds of subjects off my list of things to explain to Julia.
Apparently I did *really* well, seeing as after we got home and I began telling the story of seeing two losers to Ethan, Julia chimed in with her correction, "No, Mommy, AFRICAN AMERICANS!"
All I need now is for her to tell someone that her mommy taught her that losers are really African Americans and I get to look like the worst mother on earth. (And on a beautiful earth filled with so many different colors, at that!)
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