Here on DadWagon, we tend to think the worst of our children. From mean girls to pathological liars, we look upon our crotchfruit with not entirely equal parts fatherly affection and mounting horror.
So I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that my daughter, Sasha, is a budding racist. Let me elaborate: She’s not prejudiced in the way that leads some children, say, to condemn all people of a certain race. But she certainly exhibits a strong strain of unconscious affective prejudice.
Example A: Yesterday, we had a cookout at my place. Weenies on the grill, loads of kids hacking through the garden, grown women drunkenly mistaking other people’s husbands for their own. You know, the usual.
At one point, my wife, Jean, had to go upstairs (because she’d made one too many such mistakes already, and I gave her a timeout), leaving me alone with Sasha—who instantly burst into tears. She was inconsolable, rejecting my embrace entirely, until… she spotted one of our guests, Beverly, and ran toward her, arms outstretched, and sat quietly on her lap until Jean returned.
Why such spontaneous affection toward someone she’d never met before? Because (and okay, this is only a theory) Beverly is, like Jean, Asian. Taiwanese, to be specific, but I doubt Sasha can tell. Or can she? What is going through her little mind when she glances around a yard full of adults, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mommy, who might very well have vanished for all time? Maybe this is just a natural and logical response, and not racist at all: If in the absence of one thing, pick what it most closely, outwardly resembles.
And you know what? I kinda get her. I mean, in Jean’s absence I myself have been known to spend time around other Asian women*. So maybe it’s genetic?
*Though of course, none of them can possibly substitute for my wife. Duh!
I took my 1 year old son to a friends birthday (held in the courtyard of a bar – Hi Matt!). At this event, quite out of character with his budding stranger anxiety, he happily ran to and hugged a woman who was a stranger to him and to me. She was appropriately impressed with his adorableness so it was okay. Said stranger was a very dark skinned South East Asian, who shared very general physical features with a dearly loved African American caregiver at his daycare. At the time I had the same thoughts about him connecting the two women because of race. This gives me some cause to feel smug and superior because we live in a diverse urban environment where safe and love is not limited to a single ethnic category. It hasn’t happened again, so maybe kids just do weird things sometimes.
My 11-month old twins are the same way; but one is much worse than the other. My wife is Vietnamese, and girls totally gravitate toward Asian women–men not so much. My parents spent the last week with us, after not having seen the kids since they were a month old. One of the girls warmed up to Grandma & Grandpa after a day or so, but the other one continued to burst into tears every time Grandma looked at her. To make matters worse, my wife’s sister came to visit, and the twins clambered all over her as my mom slowly died inside.
My husband is Chinese and it is not uncommon for my 3-year-old daughter to point at random short haired Asian guys and ask, “is that Daddy?” She says it’s because they have short black hair but it makes me laugh every time. Of course she’s also often convinced that random older women with long grey hair are my mother so I guess they just gravitate towards the most obvious features.
@Beta Dad: Your Grandma has not been with your twins for so long (10 months)and what do you expect how your twins react to a mostly stranger with different physical features. That’s natural. And it’s easy to understand your twins are at ease with your wife’s sister. Just tell your Grandma to spend more time with her grandchildren. That’s her fault.