Dear POC parents: I have 2 lily white girls, age 4 and 6. Until the last week or so, the only discussion of race we’d had was “how you act and the color of people’s heart is what counts” and “we all look different in some ways.” They get it but are also capable of more. We’ve now started talking about how different races came to this country, including age-appropriate descriptions of the slave trade (eg treated badly/meanly/hurt not whipped and raped) and Native American dispossession, and...

... how people still treat people of different races poorly. Serious question: Are your kids (and you @sleepovers etc) ready for super awkward questions from our kids? Eg “Were your mommy and daddy slaves?” I don’t know how to balance teaching them and encouraging them to be inquisitive without them being inquisitive at awkward times. I don’t know how to balance those questions becoming y’all’s burden to answer or damaging your kids’ self-image. Or worse, what happens if my kids weaponize their newfound awareness of differences with race-based namecalling during inevitable playground squabbles, not realizing that it’s very very different than calling someone four-eyes or poo-poo head (which also aren’t acceptable but seem to have lower risk of causing long-term damage).

Yes I realize my kids and us wading through awkward situations pales in comparison to the talks y’all have to have. We just want to do the best we can.

Unpopular opinion here, but you’re probably my doing more harm than good. They are too young to understand the nuance of systemic racism and bias. They are innocents at this point. Simply modeling good behaviors and intention and focusing on stamping out your own bias as an example to your kids would be a more useful expenditure of time.

Disagree. Not being racist isn’t sufficient. We do all the things you mentioned too.

Representation in the right light matters too. I’m careful with showing my kids a variety of tv shows or movies that have POC as protagonists that are shown in a good light. Though that’s actually really limited even in 2020... have a few good black protagonist ones like black panther or men in black international that are kid friendly, but I haven’t been able to find Hispanic or asian ones for them so it’s been a bit of a struggle.

I think you are on the right track OP. Our instincts as parents are to shelter our children from the bad parts of life—not talking about difficult events or realities. But children need to learn about these things—they can’t recognize the bubble they live in if we spend all our time keeping them inside of it. And they will be woefully unprepared to end racism as adults if that is the first time they are exposed to it properly. They instead will have spent all of their lives learning that it “isn’t a thing” because it wasn’t part of the white community they grew up in. Being a nice person and telling your children discrimination is bad is table stakes—Im going to assume everyone’s going to do that. That doesn’t really make you virtuous, it just makes you a human being in the 21st century.

If you want your kids to grow up understanding (and rejecting) the insidious nature of unspoken and inherent bias then you’ve got to do a lot more. Don’t raise another generation as unwitting participants in a system we’ve inherited.