Hey everyone, time for a not so warm and fuzzy ‘here are pictures of fun things we’ve been up to.”
As many of my ‘real life’ friends know, I read a few blogs. I read blogs written by adoptees as well as blogs written by Original Mothers and adoptive families.
This post is specifically going to talk about race and some of my perspective of what Wim and I accepted as part of our responsibility when we ‘chose’ to adopt children from China—when we ‘chose’ to adopt children who are not the same race as we are.
But, in all honesty, I think ALL parents need to consider race more seriously and address it more heads-on with their children—simply because it needs to be eradicated.
In this post I will likely make specific reference to a person’s skin color. I am sorry if this makes some of my friends and families feel uncomfortable, but I hope you continue reading anyway because what I feel what I am writing is an important topic and what I am going to write about does really concern me.
Recently there has been a lot of discussion regarding a blog post by a white adoptive mom who posted to her own public blog a picture of her 5-year old adopted Chinese daughter. The picture is posed so that her little girl is pulling her eyes back in the manner most typically associated with children who are not Asian teasing children who are by making fun of their eye shape.
The adoptive mom writes in this post that her daughter started making this gesture with her eyes on her own after noticing pictures of a Chinese family in a book she was reading. She pulled her eyes back and said something to the effect of, “they are Chinese like me.” The adoptive mom thought it was cute—took a picture and posted it.
It wasn't that long ago that many were outraged by the Miley Cirus photo for which there was an attempt to bill as 'innocent' fun.
When some people, adult adoptees, some who are Asian, posted to her blog explaining that this gesture is hurtful and why—the mom was dismissive and basically told people to lighten-up. Her daughter didn’t make this gesture in a racist manner and that it was innocent.
Yeah, maybe it isn’t any of my business or the business of others, but she chose to post her daughter’s picture on her public blog—and in so doing--opened herself, her actions, and that of her family for public discussion-- as do all of us who have public blogs and as I am now doing.
I completely get where this mom is coming from—to an extent. Her daughter very well may have come up with this gesture all on her own—not having seen or heard some other person use this gesture to describe Chinese or Asian shaped eyes.
What bothers me is that there is no mention of using this instance as a teachable moment to talk to her daughter about how others in the world perceive this gesture and how she will most likely, at some point in her life, see this gesture directed at her in a hurtful, demeaning way. I am also bothered that this mom comes across as being so completely dismissive of what a few other people tried to explain to her.
I also tried to post a comment to her blog, but my comment, for some reason, would not post.
In my opinion, not using this situation as a teachable moment is negligent (whether intentional or not) and I feel that regardless of whether or not this was an innocently made gesture by this little girl, by not addressing how the majority of society interprets this gesture—this mom is setting her daughter up for ridicule later in life (probably not too much later at age 5) as well as setting her up to potentially hurt someone else.
I can recall a rhyme from my days on the school yard to the tune this rhyme, “Japanese, Chinese, dirty knees, look at these.” You pull the corner of your eyes up and then down to make them narrower, you point to your knees, then to your chest.
Gabrielle and Xavier had a similar rhyme they brought home about 6-months to a year before we adopted Josie—so these types of rhymes are still current!
As a child, I had absolutely no idea that this was a mean thing to do nor was it being directed toward any specific child that I can remember. I sang the rhyme for my Mom and she explained it to me. I didn’t do the rhyme anymore.
Ditto with Gabrielle and Xavier.
It is our job as parents to teach our children about demeaning gestures especially those they are likely to encounter—it is our job to prepare them to deal with the hard cruel world. Just because something is cute when they are young, does not mean it will always be cute and we have to teach them what is appropriate, what can be interpreted as mean, etc.
The word of choice by Clara Rose these days is “poopy.” Oh how she loves to say “poopy.” It is her adjective! She tries to use the word “poopy” before all nouns followed by spiels of giggles!
“Look at my poopy hat.”
“Mommy got poopy hair.”
“Josie got poopy socks”
And, she is CUTE! Really, she is 3-1/2 and the way she says poopy is cute, the giggles afterward are darling and infectious---
But, it isn’t appropriate. As her Mom, I have to tuck away the smiles at her cuteness and explain to her that we don’t use bathroom words unless we need to use the bathroom. That is part of my job as her mom—to teach her appropriate behavior.
Two years ago Josie was counting the days of the week using her fingers. Wednesday, the third day of the week was the big middle finger. Oh she was cute—and let’s face it, by Wednesday—most of us feel that way ;-)
But, we all know how that gesture is interpreted, so we had to gently guide her away from holding up that one middle finger—despite how cute she was.
As a white mom to two daughters adopted from China and as a stepmom to two biracial teens, it is my responsibility to address race issues, comments that are made or heard, with all the children and young adults in our home. And these topics DO come up—we hear about situations of someone being told, “When I think of Spanish all I picture is dirty Mexicans.”
Any guesses what kids do with the word Nicaragua?
This is just what we hear.
I wonder how much we DON’T hear.
Back to the eye pulling gesture—please, and I probably don’t even have to write this for my friends who visit my blog—but this blog post and ensuing discussions really does concern me—please address these kinds of topics with your kids.
There are basically only two ways our kids are going to learn about racism, demeaning actions toward them for being Chinese: 1) We teach them and educate them and try to equip them to address it; 2) They encounter it from other kids, teachers (YES), and others in the world.
I can pretty much guarantee that item number 2 is going to happen—only we, the parents can make sure our kids know about it and prepare them to deal with it.
3 comments:
Maybe we could get Josie to put up her middle finger in a photo like this, or am I missing the point? :)Today I tried to coach the girls to put their pinkie to the corner of their mouth after doing something naughty - like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. They resisted. Then Josie put up her middle finger and said, "How about this one Dad, what does that mean?"
Wim
Here here. I just dont undestand how people can not see that this gesture, not matter how "innocent", has harmful sequela.
As a mother who lost a child of color to adoption, I want to express my appreciation for you willingness to read/absorb points of view that may prove challenging.
In appreciation of this post. Thank you.
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