one thing

[boxofdelights]

One thing that fills me up to overflowing with love and pride for this child of mine is that she can acknowledge when she has done something racist. It hurts her self-esteem but she doesn't let that hurt stop her from perceiving the truth. In email earlier today, she wrote:

Umm I was waiting for the bus and there was this man in a giant trench coat and what google tells me is called an 'outback' hat smoking a pipe, with a blonde, blue eyed, clean looking toddler in a stroller. And I was trying to imagine him smoking in the house with that kid, and had difficulty.

I replied:

I find it hilarious/disturbing that the toddler's blondness and blue eyes get classified with "clean looking" as reasons why its innocent pure lungs should not get dirtied up with second hand smoke.

And she replied:

WOW I am so racist that's so annoying. [...] At first I was like 'no, it wasn't the kid being caucasian that made me think this...I was just including those details to give you a picture of the scene' but there are plenty of other equally extraneous details I did not mention.

Comments

[amaebi]

Bravo to both Nixie and you.

[hobbitbabe]

How admirably honest and reflective she is!

Also, the fact that you and she can have this conversation now illustrates how successful you've been as a parent in, I don't seem to have a good word for this, but not dragging out the "power-over" interactions any more than necessary, so that your daughter can take this comment from you in a similar way to how she'd take it from a teacher or good friend, without being fraught with reprimand and defensiveness.

I might make a comment like that now to our M (she's 26), but I probably wouldn't have been able to when she was 20-ish.