I am linking up with my friend, Mom's The Word to participate in her Monday meme, "Making Your Home Sing Monday." It's a day when we share what we are doing to bless our families in our home. If you would like to join in, click here.
Friday night the boys and I took Joe out for his birthday, his birthday isn't officially until tomorrow, but we took the weekend to celebrate. While we were out we saw a man riding a bike, and he just happened to be African American. Well Joe Braden stopped to inform us of the "black" man on a bike. So this made me ask the question, "What do we tell our children to call people of different races?"
I do not want my children to see people for color, gender, body type or any other thing that we label people with. I want them to look at people and see God's handy work. I want them to love everyone no matter their race, ethnicity, social status. I want them to simply love everyone, because that is what we are called to do.
So when this happened I just looked at Joe Braden and said, "Who does Mama tell you we love?" He looked at me puzzled and said, "everyone?". I then said, "yes, and because we love everyone we don't see color." Then he wanted to know, "well what do I say?" This brought me to the above question. So to make my home sing this week I am going to re-enforce the fact that we love everyone, and try to come up with what I should have them say! Any suggestions?
8 comments:
Great lesson! I guess just 'man' would suffice?
I remember my little son mentioning one time that his friend had brown skin and he had white and he wondered how that happened (to much sun?).
We did the same as you with our kids. Just told them that God made everybody and we were all the same, just the outside might be different.
Some people are tall, short, thin, not-so thin, and some have darker or lighter skin. Some have red hair, blonde hair, brunette, etc.
Kids don't see color, they just see friendships.
oooooops, forgot to thank you for joining us today! What a great post!
We're a really tall family...and that has always been my starting point with the kids...we don't deny our tallness, nor do we deny people's skin color, but we don't put a value judgment on it. When they're little, they are point out something they see as interesting or unusual and they are finding a way to differentiate traits they notice. It is no different than them saying "hey, look at that girl". It is up to us to make it a matter of no significance. Having said all that, it is still hard when they do it cheerfully loud in a grocery store...weight, color, disabilities, they notice them all!
Good post!! Good question!
When we have to describe or talk about someone to our kids, we have never used their ethnicity. We we always say, "Oh, you know guy/girl that was wearing the red hat."
That has rubbed off of them, and now they do it.
Great post! I'm not sure if we've ever really addressed this issue in our house. I'm going to have to pay attention now and see how we do handle it. Maybe I'll talk to hubby about it. He always knows these things.
Thanks for making me think!
Hope you have a great week!
We haven't addressed this issue yet either. Ther friends she's had an opportunity to play is very diverse and Gillian doesn't ever point out the difference and I don't honestly know if she notices them. We have talked about how people are all different and that's what makes us special. I agree just saying that man, woman, girl or boy would work best. If more clarification is needed I would use an item of clothing the person is wearing too.
When my oldest was younger he called them chocolate people. I don't really make it a discussion until it needs to be one. I feel putting the pressure on it makes it seems like there needs to be a reason when it shouldn't be one.
Post a Comment