"Mommy, You Are Brown"....

The library has a wonderful selection of books on this very topic. "The color of us" is a good age appropriate book that discusses a little girl who goes around the neighborhood and notices that everyone has a different skin color. Some like dark chocolate, some like cinnamon, some like a peanut butter cookie...
I hope this helps.

Hi Alina,
We dealt with this a few months ago (and there is actually a post about it from mid-June (the 14th maybe?) called "talking to kids about race" if you feel like going back and reading the 22 wonderful responses I rec'd.

I am white and my husband is black. My son was noticing the difference in our skin colors. One day he said "mommy, is daddy's skin black?" I was speechless. Sure, it was something I knew that we would need to talk about, but I didn't know what to say. I actually got out crayons and showed him that daddy really wasn't black (he's more brown) and I wasn't really white (more tanish-pink) and when God mixed our two colors together, it made his skin color as well as his brother's. I was very clear to point out that there are all sorts of different skin colors in the world and that we are all a different shade of beautiful. God made all of us different, but we are all the same on the inside. Some people have short hair, some people have long have straight/curly hair. Tall/short . . .you name it, but we all are the same on the inside.

Don't make a huge deal about it. Color doesn't mean the same to kids, they are just making observations. Use it as a teaching experience.

Good Luck,
B.

Alina,

I bought a package of various browns/skin colored crayons from a store called Lakeshore in Palatine. They have a location in Chgo. too. You can get these crayons from other educational stores too. I like to have this package of crayons available for my kids to color with so that all the people they draw are not the same color on their paper. My daughter has two dark skinned dolls too and she is fair skinned. We read a lot of books that have people of various ethnic groups in the pictures. You could also ask at your library for suggestions on books for this topic. I would just acknowledge you have a different shade/color of skin than him and move on and not make too much of a big deal out of it because what matters most about a person is his/her overall character. I hope this helps.
J.

my son is 4 and notices the same thing. i am hispanic and my husband is white, my sister is egyptian and very dark. he will comment that she is brown, and he is white. we try not to make a bug deal about it, and notice other things that are different too. like what color shirt or pants, or favorite things different people have. he is growing out of it i think, we just try to recognize that factually, he is correct, but that there are many other things that make people different as well as the same. mine also thinks that daddy is "browner" than i am , so it might just be a male identifing thing. good luck!

Wow! Isn't it cool that we are different?? Look at the flowers, they are different colors too. So are puppy dogs, kitties and all sorts of things! How pretty your skin is and your brothers skin is unique too. And isn't it cool how you look like me and he looks like dad??
In our family we have blonde hair and blue eyed kids, brown hair and brown eyed kids. Some have tons of freckles, some don't. Some are really tall and some are very short. (with 8 kids there is a varity) What a wonderful world we live in that there are so many wonderful different people!
Maybe when you are out in public look for someone who is interesting to look at (notice I didn't say pretty!) and comment on how wonderful they are to look at. Wow! That person has awesome hair! Wow, what pretty eyes that person has! Neat, look at her feet! Even people that society considers not good looking can be special. =) Hurray to diversity!

I would say the same as one of your earlier posts. Just don't make a big deal about it and point out some other similarities. My situation is I am a single M. and my daughter has noticed everyone around her has a M. AND daddy except for her. She is 3 now but when she was 2 she said to me (as she watched Caillou) "M. I don't have a daddy?". I knew she was stating it as a fact and as a question just by the look in her face. That's what they do at this age. Caillou was talking with his daddy (as he always does) and as I looked to see what she was watching she knew I knew why she had asked. She then went on to say "M., why don't I have a daddy?" I simply stated "some boys and girls have mommies, some have a daddy and some have a M. and daddy". She pointed out a few other things that some other boys and girls have and don't have and that was that.

I gave her just enough to understand and accept differences at her comprehension level. I hope I helped in some way.

I think that his comments are totally age appropriate. At 4 kids are classifying the world around them. When he makes the comment on skin color I would say yes, but then point out other similarities and differences such as eye color, food preference, or language spoken. That way skin color becomes one of many ways to classify people. It will also indirectly lead him to realize that skin color does not determine other traits.

Good Luck,
J.

F. I just had this conversation with my friends youngest son this weekend when he walked over and asked me if I was white. Race may not be important, but it is a fact of life. The most important thing is going to be to make sure he understands that. His natural curiousity is going to have him noticing these differences....my daughter is also mixed, so I will be going through this in just a couple short years. I can say from experiences with my friends children that they outgrow and it is no indication that they are feeling like one color skin is better than the other just that it is different....I like to explain it to them in terms of other things like height, eye color, hair color or types of animals like birds...it may not be the same but if everything were the same the world wouldn't be as fun.

Hi Alina,

Our daughters are Chinese; we are white. I recommend you read your kids a paperback called "WE All Are Different." You can get it at Amazon, and if you click the "used" button, you can find a copy in almost new condition for very little. We've explained to our daughters that it doesn't really matter what a person looks like on the OUTSIDE, it's what's inside that counts, and that your children are always in your heart!

E. M., Chicago

I would agree with the other posts that at this age it is more observation than anything else. I also wanted to recommend a wonderful book called "The Skin You Live In" which celebrates all the many colors of skin that people have but also talks about how you are more than your skin.

I have three adopted children two of which are half siblings and are hispanic. Our other oldest child is primarily caucasian. The two little ones are too young yet to realize that they look different, but our older child is six and does. It's normal for her and she doesn't seem to think much of it yet. She did really notice in her first year of kindergarten that some kids were "brown" and some were not. That came about during African American Heritage month. We just explained that God makes everyone differently some with light skin, some with dark, etc. but we're all the same underneath. She seems to accept that.

I would guess that at 4 your son is merely making an observation not a judgement. Growing up in your family skin color differences will be normal and part of everyday life as they are in ours.

Hi,
I was just working on this too because I have a son adopted from India and two white bio kids. I was stroking my adopted son's leg which is so soft and I said "wow, you really have beautiful skin." He said, "why I'm black? I want to look like her" (pointing to blond, blue-eyed sister." I was also speechless even though I have thought about this a lot and knew we'd have conversations like this. I ended up saying "isn't that so cool? God is so creative. He knew beauty comes in all colors and shows us more of what he looks like by giving us different kinds of beauty in different colors." I also gave him a little science lesson in talking about how darker pigment in skin can protect against the sun in different parts of the world where the sun is hotter and so God was also trying to create protection as well as beauty. Finally, I said "I LOVE your skin color and sometimes I wish I were the beautiful brown you are. We do both have brown hair, though and bigger eyes."

Hope that helps?