My epic parenting failure, or, Hey, have you seen my little Black girl? Do I get a do over?

I had a huge ah ha moment late last week after my last post on race, where I talked about how I have avoided calling Annika "Black."

For all my thinking on the topic of race, my education, my professional experience, my friendships, and my discussions with Toyin, I thought I had figured this one out. But I realized that I was doing exactly what the research says is a big no no. My avoidance of calling Annika a Black girl is exactly not what I should not be doing.

In NurtureShock, the research shows that White parents who avoid discussing race, thinking that will make their children colorblind to skin tones, actually achieve the opposite effect. Children can clearly see that other people have different skin colors. Just like anything they are curious about, they want to talk about it with their parents. But the avoidance of discussion sends the message that it's not okay, which sends the message that Black people are not okay. The authors of NurtureShock found that parental avoidance of skin color discussions sent the message to their children that they did not like Black people.

I thought that since I had discussed our skin colors with her that was enough. I thought that my willingness to talk about race with her would open us to conversations throughout her life. But children pick up on subtleties that we don't even think about. There is power in what is not said.

The thought that I might have sent any negative message to Annika about her skin color worries me. I think she's still too young to have picked up anything that complex. But then again, I don't know. She amazes me constantly with her new remarks and thoughts. Just last week she has started to say, "Mama, I got an idea."

Holy crap! You've got ideas??? When did that happen?

So, even though I knew that having a Black daughter would open me up to various viewpoints throughout her childhood, I thought I was on the right track. I had heard over and over, my Black friends saying that it was tiring to always be labeled, "The Black guy/woman." But those viewpoints were coming from adults who understand the complexity of human language and thought behind it. They've already figured out their racial identity.

After I wrote that post, I thought, "hmmm, this sounds like maybe I think that there's something wrong with being Black." That's not the case at all. (Seems like that should be obvious, but what the heck.) In fact, since having Annika, I think I have become even more colorblind.

When I look at Annika, I really don't see skin color. I mean, I see it. I see her. I see that she looks the way she looks. What I mean by colorblind is that I don't assign any qualities to her based on her skin color. I don't jump to her skin color as a defining quality because I see so much about her to describe to the world. So,  the experience in the sandwich shop was a bit of a jolt to me to view Annika and myself through that colored lens, once again. I don't know why it keeps being so shocking to me that people see us that way. When I told Toyin about it, I noted that never would have happened to him, the confusion about what racial qualities his child would have. It's not like I expect everyone to notice our similarities, or even that I expect people to assume anything other than what they do. It's just surreal, to view us through a stranger's eyes, and notice the differences that I don't see.

I see Bi-racial families and children all the time now. I notice them the way I noticed pregnant women when I was pregnant. I always assume that they are blood related, not adopted, even though I know logically that some of them probably are. But then again, it's logical to assume that some homogeneous-looking families have adopted kids, yet, I don't think to wonder about that.

And as I continue to notice other families who have made the choice to love others with different skin tones than themselves and to procreate, it warms my heart to know that by the time Annika is an adult, there will be even more muted tones in the world. Not because I think there's anything wrong with purity of culture or skin tone, but because it means that the world is becoming even more colorblind, as families gain more and more colors. It's not that we won't see color, but we will see past the color because of being close to people who don't look exactly like us.

It makes me happy to think that future generations will see things differently than past generations and hopefully, when Annika is an adult, maybe it would never even occur to her that there are associations with calling her daughter or son Black. Because even if she choose to procreate with a person of lighter skin color than herself, her children (if she has any), will for sure still be Black.

Or hell, maybe we'll have come up with a new name for it by then. As long as we continue to think it's all good and we're all just people underneath our outer shells, I suppose it doesn't really matter how we label each other.

For now, though, I need to get more comfortable with saying "my Black daughter." I will use it interchangeably with Bi-racial. And even though I see all of our similarities, I suppose I need to get comfortable with the fact that most people, at least initially, won't. They will see a White woman, with a Black kid and wonder if she's adopted. Or when I shout out that I'm looking for a little kid, I should assume that most people will think I'm looking for someone with blond hair, or blue eyes.

It doesn't sadden me, in case anyone is wondering. I will never ever wish that Annika looked any differently than she does, or that we looked more alike on the surface. I see who she is, that's what really matters. But it's also important to communicate all of this to her.

So, by saying it to others, I will essentially be telling her that she's gorgeous, inside and out.

In between hair is "good"

When I was a kid, I never liked my hair. It was fine and wavy, so it curled funny, but it wasn't curly. I didn't have thick, straight hair. I didn't have curly hair. It was just wavy and weird. I always wanted thick, straight hair. OR, curly hair. What I had was in between.

Being Bi-racial, it is likely that Annika will feel this way about herself on many fronts. My goal is to ensure that she doesn't feel this way about her hair. 

I've come to terms with my hair. I'm okay with it now, but I also know that it will never be the long, luscious locks I dreamed of as an adolescent and 20-something. If I had been taught how to care for my hair when I was young, I might have had the chance to make it as beautiful as I wanted it to be. The potential was there. But now I don't have the desire for those beautiful locks as deeply as I once did, nor do I have the time to keep it up. 

Annika has lovely hair. As it stands now, she has relatively "good" hair. She has nice curls, that aren't too tight. If it stays this way when she's older she will be able to straighten it without using relaxer. That's fine and dandy, if that's what she wants to do. But I don't want her to feel like she has to straighten it.

I want her to like her hair. It is beautiful, thick, curly hair. I have known plenty of curly-haired women in my lifetime and most of them have hated their hair at some point in their lives, if not for most of it. My goal is to make sure that Annika has a good relationship with her hair, understands it, cherishes it, uses it to help her feel on the outside, like the lovely person she is on the inside.

That was always my goal, but I recently watched Good Hair, a documentary by Chris Rock about the Black hair industry. Frankly, it scared me deeply. To some it might seem that I am weighing Annika's self-esteem too heavily on her hair. But I know how women work in this country. Hair is important. I want it to be a source of satisfaction for Annika, not part of her sense of worth, but a source of pride.

But this movie left me wondering if I will be fighting against destined, lifelong discontent with her hair.

See, I always knew that Black women did things to their hair that White women didn't do. I knew they used weaves and straightened it. (Sure, White women do that stuff too, but it's not as pervasive.)

What I learned from this film was the extent of the pressure Black women feel, from the rest of the world, to do that stuff to their hair.

They are deeply unhappy with the basic nature of their hair. Tight, curly, afro-like hair is not considered, "good" hair. Good hair is considered to be relaxed, wavy or straightened and silky hair.

The film focused on three areas. How women feel about their hair; where the weaves come from; and the hair dressing industry.

The documentary presents the nature of the industry where hair dressers are rock stars. These rock stars will help you have "good hair," if you can afford it.

A yearly hair show is put on to sell the latest and greatest hair products. They hold a talent portion where the most talented hair dressers show off their hair cutting skills using circus-like skills. This is just the entertainment portion of the show, designed to draw customers in. The rest of the weekend is used to hawk the latest products. These products will help you have good hair. Because, apparently, natural hair is not "good."

Interviews with celebrities who talk about their weave and being addicted to the "creamy crack" (hair relaxer) prove that even the most successful women have hair issues. Once you start relaxing your hair, it is almost impossible to stop.

Women skip paying their bills in order to afford hair weaves that cost thousands of dollars. Rock interviews men who talk about how they are not allowed to touch their woman's hair and costs them intimacy because they feel like they can't get close enough.

All of that stuff was distressing. But the most distressing part, to me, was an interview of a small group of young Black businesswomen. All of the women in the group had straightened their hair and styled it in the way Caucasian women typically do. Except one of them.

She had sisterlocks, which is hair twisted to look like dreadlocks, but neater looking.

I thought her hair was cute. I didn't think she looked any less professional than the other women.

However, the other women disagreed. They told her that they thought her hair looked messy and she looked unprofessional. She was told, by her own peers, that they couldn't imagine her sitting in a meeting with other professionals. They also agreed that if they were hiring for a job, they might not consider her because of her hair.

I don't fault those women for judging her so harshly. What scares me is that they are right -- about how other people would view her. They know better than I do how the world views them. They were simply restating the message that had been sent to them for their whole lives. 

I see things differently than the rest of the world, which can be a real pain in the ass. When I looked at that woman I saw a lovely, professional-looking, young woman. I thought she had pretty hair. But most people won't see her that way.

This isn't really about hair anyway. This is really about the message that hair sends. When a Black woman doesn't straighten her hair and chooses to wear it closer to her natural texture, it sends the message, "I refuse to conform with your standards. I am an independent and autonomous thinker. I like myself."

These kinds of messages scare people in the professional world because it means that deep down, they won't be able to fully control this person. It also means that this person might just be strong enough to rise above you. People who choose not to fully conform are threatening to society because they might not accept the status quo. They might want to make changes. And we all know how most people hate change.

When it comes down to it, this isn't really about Black hair either.

I was in high school during the 1980s. During that time, no woman, White or Black, left their hair "natural." White women permed their hair to make it curly. We all used tons and tons of product and varying combs, brushes, hot rollers, curling irons, flat irons to make us look like we were more closely related to alien life-forms than humans.

I remember the ridiculous feats I had to go through every morning when I was getting ready. Don't even get me started on how much money I spent on hairspray.

I had one friend who knew her hair was close to being "done" when her curling iron started smoking from the hairspray.

Even though I consider myself to be pretty low maintenance these days, I still color my hair. I like the way it looks. I don't feel any pressure to do it. When  I started coloring my hair, I didn't feel pressure either. It was one of those, "sure, what the hell" kind of moments when my roommate was putting some color on her hair.

But I got a lot of attention after that. So I continued. It became part of my regular routine. It became a part of myself -- this idea that my regular old self was not as lovely as this fake part.

It's something I haven't even given much thought about, until now. Now that I have a daughter, who has beautiful, natural, curly hair. Hair that will be seen by some people as messy, or ugly, or not "good."

When women are given the message that their natural features aren't beautiful, it affects self-esteem. Sure, in an ideal world we wouldn't care what other people think. But what other people think does matter. Because it affects your ability to get a job, or get a loan to buy a house, or a car. It affects your ability to prove yourself in certain situations because the first thing people see about you is your external. If they don't like what they see, they won't bother to try to see the internal you.

But you know what? The world is wrong. Black hair is beautiful. It is "good." Fuck hair relaxer that has the potential to burn your skin and blind you. Fuck hair weaves that are stolen off of Indian women during temple sacrifices.

The world is wrong. Annika has good hair. We all have good hair.

Mommies and Daddies can be different colors

I've been waiting in anticipation for opportunities to talk to Annika about race, as recommended in NurtureShock. (I know, I know, if I love it so much I should just marry the damn book.)

Last week an opportunity presented itself that just screamed for a conversation. I was pretty excited about it since the other conversations have been more like, "Hey Annika, what color is your skin? What color is Mommy's skin?"

The opportunity arose while we were playing with Annika's Little People family. I bought a house and family figures off of Craigslist. It was a White daddy, White mommy and White baby. I had mentioned to a friend that my plan was to find some Black Little People to supplement the set, so she gave me a couple of Black females from her son's toy collection since he never plays with them and wouldn't notice them missing.

I've given a lot of thought to the types of toys Annika plays with. For instance, I anguished over buying her domestic toys like a play kitchen and a toy vacuum because I wondered about the implications. I've gone out of my way to make sure that her doll collection represents more Black dolls than White. Even though she doesn't seem to care much for cars I've added some to her toy collection so that she has access to "boy" toys as well as "girl" toys. She has a huge collection of Duplos, and she has a large animal collection.

Before I had kids, I sometimes wondered why people made such a big deal about the types of toys their kids played with. For instance, the idea that Barbie gives girls poor body images, or that boys should play with cars and girls should play with dolls seemed to me like people might be over thinking the influence of their childrens' toys. But since then, I've learned that toys and play are an extraordinarily important part of a child's life. 

As I learned in Playful Parenting, (another one of my favorite parenting books) play is how children form their thoughts about the world around them.

PP's author, Lawrence J. Cohen writes, "Play is fun, but it is also meaningful and complex. The more intelligent the animal, the more it plays. Unlike slugs or trees, every human learns new things about the world, and themselves, though discovery and practice. Some of this learning just happens automatically, by virtue of being alive, but much of it happens though play."

So with that in mind, I watch how Annika plays. I knew that one of the ways we would begin to discuss race was through play. It is important to me that she has lots of play characters that reflect her own skin tones.

I purposely inserted these new characters into her Little People family because it reflects her real life, even though the skin colors are switched at the moment.

Anyway, Annika has a tendency to carry around tiny little toys and she had left the Little People mommy at Toyin's.

When she noticed that the White mommy was missing, she asked me, "Mommy, where's my mommy?" Annika calls every "my" these days, so I knew what she meant.

I decided to take the opportunity to propose to her that one of the Black female figures could play the part of the mommy. So I handed one of them to her and said, "The other mommy is at Daddy's, but you can use this one."

Her response was more ardent than I expected.

"That's not MY mommy!" She shouted, handing it back to me.

"Why can't it be the mommy?" I asked her. She looked confused by my question as if the answer was obvious.

"Is it because she doesn't look like me?" I asked, holding the girl next to my face.

"Yes Mommy," she said. 

Then I picked up the daddy figure and said, "This daddy doesn't look like your daddy," I pointed out.

She stared down at the White daddy with brown wavy hair and a sweater vest, as if she was realizing for the first time that he was very dissimilar from Toyin. After, all, he is holding a cell phone and wears glasses, there is some similarity.

"See, Annika, mommies and daddies can be any color."

"Oh!" Annika squealed.

"Do you want to use this mommy now?" I asked, handing her the Black Little People woman.

"Ok!" She said excitedly.

"See," I said. "Mommies and daddies can be all colors."

"Thass right," she said.

Learning how to chill

Several years ago when I was living in Detroit and working at a bank in Grosse Pointe Woods -- an affluent and very White suburb that juts up against Detroit's border -- I got a lesson about race that is coming in very handy right about now.

It's funny how life teaches you everything you need to know, before you need to know it.

The bank I worked for was typical in that almost all of the employees were women. However, there was a divider. It was race. At any given time, we were usually about half White and half Black, sometimes fluctuating higher on the White side.

When I first started working there, the racial divide did not strike me as very pertinent. I had worked with all various shades of people in my life. I had lived in Okinawa, Japan for three years on a U.S. Air Force base where I worked with more Japanese and Filipinos than Whites. (It seems in some areas of the world, U.S. military men have a penchant for marrying Filipinos, hence, the high number on base.) So, I believed that I had a little bit of insight as to what it was like to be a minority.

Having moved around the world and back, I had become acquainted with learning about cultural differences since I had left my small hometown of Abilene, Texas.

But in Detroit, racial tensions run high, even to this day.

When I moved to Detroit, I was a naive 26-year-old. I had had a number of friends who were of different races and skin colors, but for the most part, I was sheltered from any major racial divide growing up.

It didn't take long for me to realize the division at work. I was used to women taking sides with each other during the fights that are usually a result of a hormonal imbalance. But no matter who your friends were, the racial division was as clear as Moses parting the Red Sea when a the fight was between a White woman and a Black woman.

While living in Okinawa, my best girlfriend was a Black woman from Cleveland. In my naivete I told her once that I believed the United States had eradicated the problems with race due to affirmative action and desegregation. I informed her that with a few exceptions, for the most part, most Americans were no longer racist. She assured me, in no uncertain terms, that I was highly highly mistaken.

So, there's the background to my story.

At the time this happened, I had been working at the bank for a couple of years. One morning I was sitting in our drive through area -- a small isolated building -- with two other co-workers. One was a Black woman and the other was White.

The White woman was someone who I found particularly annoying for a variety of reasons. She had a cackling laugh. She was a know-it-all. She wasn't as smart as she liked to think she was. She told stupid jokes. Her husband was a dick, but she seemed to think he was god's gift to the world. For all of these reasons, I hated it when she began to speak.

So there I was that morning, drinking my coffee and listening to this cacophonous harpie. Somehow, she got on the topic of what ended her husband's career in the Army

Harpie: "So, yeah, my husband is not afraid to tell anyone off! He will tell you what he thinks about anything."

Me: "Really."

Harpie: "Yeah, let me tell you about why he got kicked out of the Army."

Me: "Ok."

Harpie: "Well, his commanding officer gave him an order once and he did not want to follow it. Oh, did I mention that he was Black? Yeah, his C.O. was a Black dude. And so anyway, my husband told him he was not going to take any orders from a n--ger."

(Reminder that the other co-worker sitting in the room was a Black woman.)

I froze.

I could feel my whole body tensing for the fight I was SURE was about to happen between my co-workers. I was prepared to jump to the Black co-worker's defense and if it came to it, help her make a complaint to management.

Harpie was laughing and looking at me, waiting for the laughter.

I just stared at her.

I looked up at my other co-worker. She was counting money. She continued to count. She didn't flinch. I wondered if she had not heard harpie speaking. But I knew there was no way she could not have heard.

I said nothing.

Harpie continues laughing as if it's the funniest story she's ever told and the other co-worker never said a word.

Later I asked her why she said nothing. Did she not HEAR this bitch using the N word?

She laughed and she said to me, "Martha, you can't tell ignorant people anything. The best way to deal with shit like that is to ignore it. If you let it bother you, then they have won. See, they want it to bother you."

It wasn't the only time I heard that in my years of living in Detroit. But it was the first time.

That incident stuck with me for years and I would play it over and over again in my head. At first wishing I had said something, gotten irate, complained to management myself.

Then I would hear it again from various minority friends as the years went on. I began to accept it as truth, but it still didn't resonate with me because I am used to jumping up and down and screaming for justice. I like to get passionate. I enjoy arguments and debate.

Then this week, something happened that brought this memory to the forefront of my mind. When it comes to what people believe as truth about race (really about anything) you can't tell them they are wrong. Especially when it is an innocent gesture.

You see, the harpie didn't even see what she had said was wrong.

I'm starting to have flashes of what kind of racist comments I'm going to have to shield Annika from. Most of them will not be nearly as obvious as that harpie. Most of them will not realize they have said anything wrong. Most of them will not believe they hold racist attitudes. I know the harpie didn't think of herself as a racist.

I'm realizing that I will have to start educating Annika now to listen to herself when it comes to that feeling of, "I don't know why that bothers me, but it does."

I can't leave it all up to Toyin even though he will likely have had some life experience to relate to her on that level. I don't have that.

This week a remark in an online forum led me to have a conversation with Toyin about racial attitudes. He explained to me that just because people make missteps or just don't get it, doesn't mean I should get all fired up.

We also talked about the apathy I felt last week after the nanny incident.

He said something to the effect of, "Instead of getting pissed off, maybe you should try to educate."

To which I retorted, "Why, just because I have a Bi-racial child, it's now my job to educate people?" 

To which he quietly responded, "Yes."

Oh. Right.

So, I have decided to chill out over faux pas.

I have decided that apathy is not the answer. Neither is fiery anger. Because really it's all the same.

And now, looking back, I realize that if it wasn't for all my experiences and compassionate friends who took the time to educate me, I would not have the knowledge I have today.

Just like the birds and the bees, parents should talk about race

Annika has been learning her colors for some time now. She learned brown and orange pretty well several months ago For a while she confused all her colors, but in the past few weeks she's really gotten the hang of it. Since she understands now that she knows her colors, she's been excitedly pointing out the colors of things without being prodded.

A mama friend of mine, who is also a fellow Bi-racial mom, told me that her daughter started being curious about her skin color around the age of 2. So ever since Annika's new proficiency with colors and labeling them I've been waiting with mild and somewhat increasing interest in when she notices our skin color is different.

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting in the living room with our dog, Baltar, and she looked at him and said to me, "Baltar brown."

This was new, pointing out his color instead of the color of something inanimate. I wondered if she was going to notice her own skin color, and then mine. I still don't know what exactly I will say to her about our differences. I think at first I will be matter-of-fact about it and then as she ages and the appropriate times present themselves I will delve deeper into it.

Then she looked down at herself and said, "Annika pink."

She was wearing a pink shirt.

Then she pointed at me and said, "Mommy red."

Yep, I was wearing a red shirt.

I wasn't disappointed though. She's a little young to talk to about skin color yet.

But that episode and a Facebook exchange with another mom about brown-skinned dolls led to a reminder of a couple of articles I read last year that I loved and I wanted to share. Even if you don't have children, these articles are good reminders that we, as a society, are still not completely comfortable with the topic of race. But it's good to talk about it, as you will read.

The first article is an excerpt from the book Nurtureshock. The article talks about how children are inherently racist. Not that they hate all people of different color, but they naturally select people who are like their parents, gravitate to them, and unless they are told differently, they believe that people similar to them are the best.

Studies performed at University of Texas, in Austin, showed that White parents didn't want to talk to their children about race. Unfortunately, this is the wrong way to approach it. These parents want their children to be colorblind. Their intentions are admirable. But silence on the topic was found to give the children the opposite idea. The researchers found that these kids, who could clearly see the differences, took it to mean that their parents didn't like Black people, or they thought it was a taboo topic.

The next article is about a Black family who adopted a White little girl and the racist attitudes they encountered, especially the father when he was alone with his daughter.

My daughter is NOT the color of food

I think I finally get it. At least -- as much as a White person can "get it." And I'm even going to attempt writing about it, even though I'm not sure I can explain it.

Yesterday a White woman casually referred to Annika as "caramel-skinned."

She wasn't being racist or malicious. But in some ways that is exactly the problem.

She was reminding me that we'd met before and in her attempt to describe Annika she used the phrase. Likely it's her uber-liberal, supposedly open-minded way of attempting to connect to people of color without using such banal terms as "Black" or "African American."

I'm not a big fan of such terms as descriptors either. Not that there's anything wrong with saying them. What it comes down to is that they're overused, not that they should be changed to something less baggage-filled.

Living in Detroit for nine years, I got schooled in all the subconscious slights that we Whites/Caucasians make toward Blacks/African Americans.

It's not real racism. It's the kind of undercurrent that we (Whites) completely miss. It's so ingrained in us that it's normal that we don't understand some of the hostility we receive. Hell, a lot of the hostility that's doled out is subconscious and ingrained as well.

Toyin and I have had some pretty enlightening conversations about race.

But even so, since becoming Annika's mother, I have been on the end of such missteps by other White folks and actually felt the icky feelings.

When I was still pregnant I overheard a White woman telling a little girl that she liked her "puff balls."

She was talking about her hair.

I'm sure the woman meant no harm, but I was irritated as fuck by it. And I didn't even know the little girl.

Later on in my pregnancy I was taking a trip to see Toyin in Detroit. On the airplane I was sitting next to a White woman about my age and we got to chatting. She was a mother of two, so she was interested in hearing all about my birth plans and the father of my child.

As mothers do, we fell into talking about things that most strangers would not talk about, TMI subjects like poop, childhood bi-polarism, pregnancy sex, and then lice.

I had mentioned that Toyin was African, so she knew that I was carrying a bi-racial child.

When the topic of lice came up, I said, "Ooooh, that sounds gross. I so hope I never have to deal with that."

She replied, "Oh, no, you won't. They (lice) don't like horse hair."

I couldn't breathe for a few seconds. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. Did she just compare my child's hair to animal hair?

Yes, yes she did.

I stuttered for a few seconds and said something that passed for a response.

She looked uncomfortable. We talked for a few minutes to pretend like nothing had happened. Then we fell into a silence for a time.

She probably didn't mean anything by it. It was probably so ingrained in her upbringing and since I am White, she fell into the trap of saying racist things to other Whites without fear of indignation.

And in case you're wondering, as Toyin did. I did not misunderstand her. It just reminded me that it was a common comparison that I had heard growing up in west Texas.

So, back to the overuse of the terms, African American and Black.

Nothing wrong with it, when used correctly or in the right context. But as Toyin explained to me once when I told him I didn't see anything wrong with using them as descriptors he said to me, "Yes, but why does it always have to be the first descriptor. How often to you describe someone as the White person? You would use the hair color, or height or what color shirt he/she is wearing." 

This might seem benign to some. I can say that at some point in my life, it certainly did to me.

But now, as a mother, I have begun to see how what others think of you can define you in many ways. It takes a strong and mature person to fight against stereotypes and even then, people don't always manage to fight them successfully.

So, really, changing her descriptors to something that sounds sweet or delicious doesn't change the fact that you are using her skin color to describe who she is.