Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

In a comment, AlisonG asked:

I’m curious about how you talk to M and L about Asian appearance. My daughter (Chinese) is 2.5 and I’m searching for terms for her skin colour, eye shape, etc. that don’t come across as racist or offensive. Any suggestions?

I mentioned this in one of the previous posts, but I thought it might be good to elaborate on it a little.

We talk quite a bit about being Chinese or Taiwanesse or Asian and what that means.  It is just a regular part of our day-to-day conversation.  I suppose it might sound weird in other families, but in our house, it is was it is.

For example, last week we had tofu for dinner and this was the conversation:

Mr. A: “L sure is a good Chinese girl! She loves this tofu!”

M: “Do all chinese people like tofu?  Because I like this one but I don’t like the brown kind (dried tofu).”

Mr. A: “Oh, not all Chinese people like tofu, but in China people eat a lot of tofu.  Even if you don’t like tofu, you are still Chinese because I am Chinese.”

M: “Well, that brown kind is yucky.  I like RICE because I am Chinese, right Daddy?”

Mr. A: “Lots of people in China eat rice, that’s for sure.  The rice we buy comes from China.  People in China eat a lot of rice, but they also eat a lot of noodles.”

Yada, yada, yada.  (I should note that I often let Mr. A handle these conversations about what Chinese people are like, because I think it is his perogative to define “chinese” not mine.)
M doesn’t really have a handle on racial identification based on appearance yet, which is why I was so surprised by the park thing.  We have tried to discuss it with her, but she doesn’t get it.
I just went and asked M to tell me what Chinese people look like and she said this:  Black hair, kind of dark skin, and Chinese clothes (?!?).    I asked “What about you? Your hair isn’t black?”  She agreed that her hair isn’t black, then she said her skin is a little dark and she “knows Chinese words, silly!” so she is Chinese.

Then we ran through some examples of other people with brown skin and black hair who are not Chinese.  She could tell me the ethnicity of kids from school who meet this description (Japanese, Indian, Mexican/Germanese etc.) because they talked a lot about this at her school*.
Then, when we went over examples of other people whose ancestry she didn’t know, she was clueless.  For example, yesterday a friend and her son came to visit and they were both South Asian (but born here).  When I asked M what they were, she said “English.”  When I asked why she thought that, she said “Because I have only ever seen them in America.”  (Which totally  makes no sense given she has only known the vast majority of people in her life in America.)
I think she isn’t yet ready developmentally to grasp the subtleties of visual racial clues, unless they are very obvious or accompanied by another language/accent. I need to get out my book on raising multiracial kids and see what she is developmentally able to grasp at this age.

We usually let M lead these conversations and tell us how she thinks people look.

I just asked her if she thinks there is anything different about people’s eyes and she said “The colors? Oh, and also the size.  L has little eyes, you have big eyes, I have medium eyes.”

I thought maybe she was trying to talk about Asian eyes as “little” but then I asked her to elaborate and she said “L has the littlest eyes, mine are bigger, yours are bigger than mine, but Daddy’s are the biggest because he is the biggest person in our family!”

So I think she was actually talking about the size of the person’s body and head, not the shape of the eye.
Also, I think the distinctions between white and Asian will be less obvious to our kids because they see so many people of both groups intermixed all the time (in our family, extended family, their friend’s families, etc.).  It definitely isn’t unusual for them to see a white dad, Asian mom and 100% Asian kid in one family,  white mom and two Asian kids in another family or all Asians in a single family.  So I think no one really stands out as “different” in those to categories for her.

*There was also some negatives to this conversation happening outside our control.  For example, her teacher Mrs. Kim told the kids that “Koreans have white skin.  People from India have brown skin.”  So even though there were Indian kids and Korean kids in the class with *very* similar skin tones, they were being told that one was “white” and one was “brown”.  That isn’t exactly how I would have handled that situation, obviously.  I would have had each kid define their own skin color.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

When I decided to take M to the park, I was a little concerned about what might happen.  Sure, I wanted M to learn that she was being silly.  At the same time I didn’t want M to have an opportunity to hurt the other little girl’s feelings, which seemed like a definite possibility given M’s very forthright declaration of not wanting to play with someone who was “different” because she had “brown skin and braids”.  I was planning on very closely monitoring the situation.
As soon as we entered the park and the little girl caught sight of M, she headed straight toward us.  As she ran up, M said “HI!” but kept on doing what she was doing.   The other girl didn’t say anything.   M continued playing (and narrating her play to me and L) and the little girl continued following her wordlessly, always staying about 6-7 feet away.  The lack of interaction was a little strange.

M decided she wanted to swing, so M, L and I headed over there.  The little girl stuck right behind M, still not talking.

When we got to the swings, I decided I would talk if no one else was going to.

“So, what is your name?” I asked.

“Molly.”  she said.

“Hi Molly, this is M and L.”  I said.

“How old are you?” M asked, “I am five years old!  My birthday is on February 9, 2003!  What year were you born?
“I’m three.” Molly said.

Knowing that Molly was three, her lack of conversation made a lot more sense. Molly was only about an inch shorter than 5 1/2 year old M and she really looked 5.  As soon as we found out she was only three, it was clear she was just acting like a three year old who really likes big kids.  As the mostly one-sided conversation (from M) continued, I also concluded that Molly may be bilingual due to the way she was putting her sentences together and a slight accent.  (I am guessing her parents were from Africa, but I don’t know.)

M continued to chatter on and on.  Molly answered her questions occasionally.  M tried to explain an imaginary game that she wanted to play to Molly, but Molly didn’t always follow M’s rules.  I reminded M a few times that Molly was only three and M adjusted her play.  They ran off to the slides together and played uneventfully for another 10 minutes, until we had to go home.

On the way home, I reminded M that she had said she didn’t want to play with Molly before because she looked different.  “Well, that was before I knew her,” M said.  We talked about how silly that was and that Molly ended up being a good playmate.  We talked again about all our friends who had differences and how they are different.  (We have continued to have this conversation over the past few days.  M seems to enjoy it.)  We also talked about how M might feel if someone didn’t want to play with her because she was Chinese or had brown hair or was a girl.  M agreed she would feel sad and she didn’t want to make other people sad.  Then we went home and she went to bed.

Sorry to disappoint the folks who thought there would be some big, dramatic ending to this story, but it was real life.

I will be honest and say some part of me hopes that the original issue came up because Molly was only 3 (but looks 5) and didn’t play the way M expected her to.  Mr. A said they had talked a little before M started to ignore her, so it could be possible.  That doesn’t explain why M would blame Molly’s hair or skin color though.

The truth is I don’t know where this came from.  M does have some friends who are Black and she has made friends with other Black kids in the park easily recently.  There were no African American kids at M’s preschool, but there were a number of very dark-skinned south Asian kids.  While M could tell me where every classmate’s parents immigrated or ancestors originated from and their skin/hair color, she had never placed any good/bad value on it to my knowledge.
I know I shouldn’t have been so surprised that this would happen, but it caught me off guard.  I felt like we are trying to do a decent job of being anti-racist in our parenting.  I think talk a lot about race and ethnicity in what I think is an age-appropriate way.  I am realizing that we have talked a lot about differences, but not much about discrimination.   I think M has shown us it is time for us to broaden the conversation.

Maybe we haven’t done enough in our day to day lives either. Maybe it was a mistake to send M to the preschool where the ethnic mix was mostly Asian, white and hapa.  We knew we were sacrificing other diversity, but I felt like it was worth it for M to come out of preschool with a solid understanding of herself as (half) Asian and knowing other kids who shared that experience (which she did).  I don’t know.

While I am not proud of this situation, but if I had neglected to share it here, it would have been really hypocritical after all my talk about being anti-racist.  Even if we parent in a perfectly anti-racist way, our girls will be out in the world being influenced by people/things out of our control.  We are trying to use it as a learning opportunity.

We just have to keep plugging away, I guess.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

“Ok, M, we are going back to the park!” I said.

Even though this was a strange turn of events at 7:20 pm, M didn’t seem to mind.

“You know, M, you said something before that made me think of a story.  When Mommy and Daddy first met, some people said ‘I can’t believe you two are friends!  You look so different!’ but we said “Don’t be silly!  Looking alike doesn’t have anything to do with who is a good friend!’  and Mommy and Daddy became best friends.  We ended up getting married!   Weren’t those people silly?”  I said, possibly a little bit of desperation in my voice.

M looked confused.  “But you and daddy DO look alike,” she said.

Hmm.  This presented a problem.  In previous discussions, M had indicated that she has a very difficult time recognizing the physical traits that people generally use to differentiate between Asians and people of European descent.  (In part, I think this is because she currently refers to herself as “white skin,” but she has some of the other traits.  We have had other recent conversations about “half Chinese” and her confusion, but that would be a different post.)  So we spent a minute or two talking about how some people think Asians’ eyes look a certain way, skin tone, and hair color.   It still didn’t seem like she was getting that Mr. A and I were viewed as different from each other, so I decided to change stories.

“M, do you remember meeting my friend Amelia?  Do you remember what she looked like?”  I asked.

M described my friend’s brown skin and very short hair.  M has always been fascinated with Amelia’s very, very short hair.
“Amelia and Mommy look very different, don’t we?  Amelia has dark skin, because she is from Africa.  Mommy has lighter skin because my ancestors were from Europe. But we are still good friends, right?”

M conceded that yes, we are friends.

“Don’t you think it would be silly if I never talked to Amelia because she looked different from me?  How would I know she could be such a good friend if I never talked to her?”  I asked.

“Yes, she is your friend and she looks very different!” M said, “She has really, really, really short hair!”

“And she has dark skin,” I said, afraid M was trying to change the subject.  “I have lots of friends who look different from me and you have lots of friends who look different from you.  Can you think of ways our friends are different from us?”

Then we ran down a list of our friends, naming each one and describing something that was different than ourselves.  We talked about different hair color, skin color, different languages people speak etc.

“And look at F!” I said, “You are friends with him and he is a BOY! That is different from you!  He has a PENIS!”

M looked at me and said, “Mama, let’s keep potty talk out of this conversation.”

So then I told M I was surprised to hear her say she didn’t want to play with someone because she had different hair and dark skin.   “She could be a very nice girl and a good friend.  Just like all our other friends who are different from us. You will never know unless you talk to her.” I said.

Just then, we rounded the corner to the park.  I saw a little girl who was about M’s age with dark skin and braids playing on the playground.  I took a deep breath and we headed toward the slides.
(To be continued)

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

The other night, Mr. A took the girls to the playground after dinner.  When they came home about 45 minutes later, Mr. A whispered “Uh, there was an incident at the playground…”

This is what he described:  M and L were playing at the playground and a little girl seemed VERY interested in playing with M.  The little girl was Black, with dark skin and many braids.  Usually, M is happy to play with anyone who will talk to her (particularly girls about her age), but not for some reason not this girl.  Mr. A said M consistently ignored the little girl, despite her clear interest.

“I think she didn’t want to play with her because she was Black!” Mr. A whispered, “I didn’t know what to do, so we just came home.”
As you can imagine, this information made my stomach drop.  I immediately flashed back to the many, many conversations I have had with M trying to avoid this very situation.

I decided to try to find out more info.  I casually asked M if she made any new friends at the park.

“Not tonight,” she said, refusing to elaborate.

“Oh, weren’t there any kids there who were your age?” I asked.

“There was a girl…” M said, “But she was DIFFERENT so I didn’t want to play with her.”

(That loud thunk you just heard in your imagination was the sound of my jaw hitting the floor.)

“How was she different?” I said, very afraid to hear the answer.

“She had BRAIDS,” M said, “Lots and lots of braids.  And her skin was very dark.”

So there it was.  There was no way to pretend that M was avoiding the girl for some other reason.  She just laid it all out there.

“Huh.” I said and backed out of the room to confer with Mr. A.

“OMFG!?!?! Did you hear what she said?? What the F-ITY F  F F?!??!?!?” I hissed.

“She said THAT?!?!” he said, “What are we supposed to DO?”

“Well, we damn well have to do SOMETHING.” I said, “Was that girl still at the park?  Maybe I should talk to M and take her back over there so she can learn that she is being ridiculous?”

After a quick discussion, that is exactly what I decided to do.

(To Be Continued)

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Items I forgot to add to vacation by the numbers:

2.5 - hours of precious internet connectivity (wireless at the beach was VERY spotty) I wasted surfing the Jon & Kate plus 8 controversy websites.  Who knew that Aunt Jodi had been wronged and her sister was blogging in her defense?  Seriously, that is 2.5 hours I will never get back. 

9 - number of comments/looks that confirmed my mother’s dislike of people sharing all their personal dirt on the internet (when I was discussing the JK+8 shenannigans with my sister).  Ahem.  Glad she doesn’t know about this here blog, eh?

3 - number of people who could not refrain from commenting/staring at L in Charleston.  The first time, it was annoying.  The second time, I was visibly agitated by the gushing old lady.  By the third time, when a woman pointed rudely and called her very uninterested son’s attention to L at the aquarium and said “Look, Brendan!  Look at that baby girl!  Doesn’t she just look like a little doll!  She is just like a little china doll!  Just look at her!  Look at her!”  As if L was a fucking display like the fish.  Just as I was beginning to stomp over to tell her she was being rude when I saw my mom obliviously walking in my general direction.   My mom is NEVER someone who approves of a scene, no matter how justified.  So I stifled my rant and just moved to block the moron’s view of L.  These kind of interactions rarely happen at home, so I am wondering if my fine-tuned keep-away, what-do-you-think-you-are-doing-don’t-you-know-staring-is-rude and don’t-bother-my-kids vibe is only effective with a Midwestern audience.

16.25 - dollars earned by M on our trip.  The first day, I gave her 40 quarters.  Every time she whined, complained, threw a fit, or misbehaved, she had to give us a quarter.  I thought for sure she would come home broke, so I also gave her an additional 5 quarters every day.  It worked like magic.  The most quarters she lost in a single day was 3 and that was on the trip home when she was suffering from a bout of low blood sugar.  I also gave her 6 post-its to use when she wanted to ask “How much longer until we get there?”  Every time she asked, she had to give up a post-it.  After all the post-its were gone, she had to start paying a quarter each time she asked.  She only used 4 on the way to the beach and 2 on the way home.  For each post-it she didn’t use, she got another quarter.  Money was a good motivator for M, that is for sure.  A trip without whining was worth every single penny we spent.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

 Does this quote really add anything to the story?  I mean, sure, the guy may have said it, but does it have anything to do with anything?

“The neighbors are Asians — they don’t complain about anything,” Mr. Marinescu said. “And even when the kids play outside, it’s quiet.” 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Found in the NY Times:

De-emphasis on Race in Adoption is Criticized.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Earlier today, I was trying to figure out why the school thing is bothering me so much this week. 

I think it was triggered by receiving M’s preschool class photo.  I couldn’t help but figure out the ratio of white kids vs. kids of color.  It was 11:14  (13 of them Asian or hapa).  In other parts of the country, it wouldn’t be such big deal to find a class that is over half Asian.  But in the midwest, that is a really, really high percentage of Asian kids. 

Being at this school has been great for M.  All three of her teachers are from Korea.  She has classmates who speak Korean, Chinese, Japanese, German, Hindi and Spanish at home.  Just yesterday, M came home saying “Mama! Can I bring one of my Chinese books to school?  Mrs. Kim asked us to bring in a book that is not in English!  I told her I have Chinese books!  I will bring one!  She said GREAT!”  M is excited to show off her Chinese and several of her classmates also attend her Chinese school.  M sings a few songs in Korean.  She talks about the different skin colors in her class with admiration.  The year end picnic is a multi-cultural feast.

I can’t say we haven’t had our issues with the school.  There have been a few times when there were culture clashes between myself and Mrs. Kim, but overall it has been good.  It has been a place where I don’t have to worry that M will feel out of place.  

Today, we were talking about earwax. (Aren’t we always talking about earwax?)  M wanted to know why I use Qtips and not the earstick.  I explained that all my ancestors are from Europe and Europeans usually have sticky ear wax.  Then I explained that Mr. A’s relatives were all Asian and most Asians have dry ear wax.  I could see the little wheels turning in her head:

 ”But what about me?  My ancestors are from Europe AND Asia?  But my earwax is dry!  It isn’t like yours!  I must have the Asian kind, it’s dry.  But I have brown hair like YOU Mama.  And your hair is like the the hair in Europe!  So some of me is like Asia and some of me is like Europe!  Wow!”

(And seriously, she is so FIVE right now. That all came out as one huge, enthusiastic run-on sentence.)

“Yes, you have ancestors who are both Asian and European.  You are a mixture of both kinds of ancestry.  What do you think about that?”  I asked.

“Oh, mama. It’s so GREAT!…..Can I watch a show now?”

The older she gets, the more time she is going to spend at school.   I just hope she will always feel as comfortable with herself as she does right now. The older she gets, the less we will be able to protect her from the big bad world out there. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I have been thinking a lot about this post. 

It looks like (fingers crossed, knock on wood) we are not moving and we are going to stay here for the forseeable future.  And with that, I know that both Mr. A and I are unwilling to move to another neighborhood in search of more diversity for the girls.  I won’t bore you with all the reasons for wanting to stay where we are, but mostly it is because we just really, really love our neighborhood.  

So I wonder, are we throwing the girls under the bus because we really like to walk to the pub and the icecream shop? 

If I knew that the girls would feel REALLY angsty about there not being enough diversity (only 8-10% Asian diversity and another 10% of other kids of color) at their school, we might consider it.  But if they are only going to be moderately angsty, we would prefer to stay.

I also wonder if the more Asian-y stuff we do (Chinese school, Mr. A’s Asian organizing work, close relationships with our extended family & friends) will somehow counter-balance the school thing?  Or is it just a nice side thing, but not going to make a difference in the long run?

I don’t know.

It would be one thing to make this selfish decision if I didn’t know I should worry about it, but I do know.  And I am concerned.  But we still don’t want to move to a different neighborhood.

So, despite my better judgement, I am putting these thoughts out there.  Even though I know I will feel defensive about the responses it may elicit.  I am admitting that we are a little selfish and our kids may pay for it.  

We are not perfect parents.

So there it is, the truth.  That is what has been on my mind.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Whoops.  I meant to save that last post as a draft.  I didn’t realize I had posted it until I got a couple comments.

It was the beginning of me trying to figure out how to address the 5 posts I had linked to.  It wasn’t anything but my first thoughts and I was finding the whole topic rather clunky. 

Whatever.   I will leave it since it seems to have been posted for an entire day anyway.  Maybe I will figure out what I wanted to say later.

In the meantime, here is a link to a NY Times article about the attention mixed-race kids get in China.   I am not sure why this qualifies as news, but it was a familiar topic to me.

Now I will go back to enjoying the first leisurely weekend we have had in long time!

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Since Mr. A and I started talking about moving, we spent a lot of time trying on different lives.  We would imagine what our lives would be like in different cities.  It was interesting to try to figure out how we could keep the good parts of our lives here and improve on the areas where we weren’t completely satisfied now.

In all that talking, one of the few areas I am not satisfied now is the lack of Chinese language instruction options for the girls.   We have cobbled together a passable arrangement of Chinese lessons in our home (1.5 hours per week for M), an hour of review with FIL, and Chinese preschool language class and Chinese dance class taught in Chinese at the local heritage Chinese school.  None of the classes are taught by professional teachers and it is extremely unlikely that the girls will becoming fluent with these efforts.

Another issue we hoped to address if we had to move is finding a more diverse neighborhood than the one we currently live in.  There is a surprising number of Asian/white families on our street, compared to the larger neighborhood (One family with a hapa dad & 2 hapa kids, One white mom with two adopted Asian kids, One mixed couple with a hapa kid, and our family out of maybe 10 houses.)  But the neighborhood is pretty white.  The neighborhood school is about 20% kids of color which probably means 3 kids per class of 20 kids on average.   This isn’t the best diversity percentage in the area’s suburban schools (the only schools Mr. A would consider) but it could be worse.

But even though these issues are at the top of my list if we move to a new city, there isn’t much we plan to do to change them if we live here.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

This morning, Mr. A called his dad to remind him to come over at noon to help M practice her Chinese like he does every Sunday.  Today was a little different because as soon as he answered the phone at 10 a.m., FIL said “Today is TEST for M at Chinese school.  You start studying NOW! I will come over early!  She has TEST!”

FIL showed up a half an hour early at 11:30.   He immediately started lecturing M about the importance of studying for her test.  At one point, Mr. A wandered in to the lesson and found M messing around.  He also gave her a lecture about the importance of studying and doing well on her test.  M seemed unimpressed.

(Can I just interject here and point out that we are talking about a PRESCHOOL class!  She was supposed to memorize about 20 characters and write them when the teacher called out the words.  While learning 20 characters seems reasonable enough to me, putting the “test” label on it seems like a bit much.)

So M marched off to Chinese school for her test.  After her language class, I met up with her to take her to dance class.  M was carrying a big stuffed polar bear which was some kind of prize for doing well on her test.  She proudly showed me her paper and she received a 110.  (110 was weird because she missed two characters, so maybe some of them were bonuses or something.)

After Mr. A and his dad left, M couldn’t stop talking about her test and the stupid bear prize.  I was only half listening when she said “Mama, when I forgot how to write the words, GongGong (FIL) let me see the my practice paper.”

What?!?  Surely, I had misunderstood. 

But when she was asked a few follow up questions, M confirmed that when she didn’t know the answer, FIL let her look at a paper with all the characters on it.

I mentioned to M that looking at the answers during a test is called cheating.  Her only point of reference for cheating is the Junie B. Jones book “Cheater Pants.”   Once I said “cheating” she clammed up and wouldn’t talk about it any more.  She knew that cheating is bad, but she clearly still didn’t understand why she wasn’t supposed to look at the answer sheet when she needed to know the answer.  I will talk to her about it a little more in the next couple days.  I did a miserable job today because I kept laughing (because the whole situation is completely ludicrous) while I was trying to explain why cheating is bad.

Mr. A thinks if we asked FIL why he helped M cheat, FIL’s answer would be “It was a TEST.  She needed to get a good GRADE!”   I am also reminded of a story about FIL when he was growing up.  I think there was a story that he had tutors or servants who did his homework for him. 

I also think the fact that both Mr. A and is father seemed incapable of keeping a preschool test in perspective and were at all concerned about her “grade” says a lot.  Mr. A thinks it is very funny.  I am more than a little appalled that M has been taught to cheat on her very first test ever.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Due to the unseasonably warm weather today, I took the girls to the park before M’s swimming lessons.  About 50,000 other parents had the same idea, so the playground was packed.

As I was pushing L on the swings (and simultaneously talking to Chicagomama on the phone), when a little boy who was probably about 7 years old tugged on my sleeve.

“Hey LADY!  Hey Lady! Do you ever watch Jon and Kate Plus 8???”  he asked.

“HUH?  The TV show?  Why do you want to know if I watch that show?” I replied.

“Well, uh, because that girl with you..” as he points at M on the next swing over, “…she looks like Mady on that show!!!  I wondered if you are babysitting for Mady?”

“Oh! No.” I replied, “She is my daughter her name is M.” (M is not short for Mady fortunately!)

“Ohhhh.  I love that show.” said the kid, clearly disappointed.   Then he walked off. 

The truth is, M got a haircut last week and she actually does look a little bit like Mady on Jon & Kate Plus 8.  Or rather, both M and Mady look mixed Asian and white and have hair of a similar length.

A few minutes later, the kid’s mom came over and apologized to me for what her kid said.  She said she had told him not to ask us, but he did it anyway. 

“Well, my husband is Asian so M is biracial,” I said, “ The kids on that show are biracial, too.  I can see why he sees a resemblence.” 

“Yes, well I told him not to bother you!” said the mom.

I wasn’t especially bothered by this incident (actually, I thought it was kind of funny), but it was the first time I felt like another kid was identifying M as something other than white.  The mom seemed rather embarrassed by her kid and also by my pointing out the race thing, so that kind of confirmed it in my head.

The conversation did not seem to interest M at all.  She was focused on trying to get me to follow her agenda and spot her on the monkey bars.  We have had a crazy day today, but I will ask her tomorrow if she heard and if she has any thoughts about it.  She also occasionally watches Jon & Kate plus 8, so she will know who he was talking about.

It was going to happen sooner or later, I guess.  I should probably get a little more proactive and start talking to M about how she can answer these questions herself.

Edited to add: I realized after I wrote this it isn’t the first time another kid has questioned M’s race, but the other times were by Chinese/ Chinese American kids trying to figure out if M was Chinese too, even though she doesn’t speak Chinese as well as they do. That was in the context of Chinese school so it wasn’t very surprising.  Today’s thing kind of caught me off guard.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I know I am a little late to the party on this one, but I blame extreme sleep deprivation and exhaustion.  Better late than never though.

A short while back, I linked to the New York Times Adoption Blog thing.  There has been a lot of discussion online about the problematic nature of the post by Tama Janowitz and the fact that the Times has chosen to censor the comments of adult adoptees. And don’t get me started on the problematic nature of “if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks.”  YUCK.  But there are many smarter, more articulate bloggers out there who address those issues. 

I want to talk about something else that rubs me the wrong way about that piece.  Something I hear a lot from adoptive parents who live in big cities on the east and west coasts: The idea that living near a lot of diversity will somehow insulate your kid from the fact that he or she is transracially adopted.

As Ms. Janowitz says:

“It may be that having a child of a different ethnic background from yourself is more difficult in other parts of the country. And certainly that may lead to problems. But In my neighborhood in Brooklyn I see black women with half-Asian, half-black kids and I see kids with dark skin and blond hair — the mother is white, the father is not…So here in New York City, we haven’t attracted too much attention.”

Ms. Janowitz also goes out of her way to mention the

“book in which many Midwestern Asian adoptees now entering their 30s and 40s complain bitterly about being treated as if they did not come from a different cultural background.  They feel that this treatment was an attempt to blot out their differences, and because of this, they resent their adoptive parents.”

As if the ”Midwestern” is synonymous with “all white.”  And also that the problem (as stated by Ms. Janowitz) would not be the ignoring of the different cultural heritage?

I am not going to sit here and pretend that the Midwest is hugely diverse.  In some places it is, in others it isn’t.  That isn’t the point of this post. 

At issue is whether having ambient diversity makes up for the fact that a child is being raised by parents who A) don’t share his or her cultural heritage and B) are of a different race.  It also doesn’t make up for the fact that that child lost his or her birth country.

Diversity is GREAT.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think it is hugely important.  But I also think that what goes on outside your home is nowhere near as important as what and who are INSIDE your home.

My youngest daughter is adopted from China.  She has a white mother who does not share her cultural heritage and who doesn’t share her race.   In my opinion, she is fortunate that she has a father who DOES share her race and who has a similar (though not exactly the same because his family is from Taiwan and he was raised here) cultural heritage.  

In addition to the natural diversity of our family and extended family, we go out of our way to make sure our children have lots and lots of people in their lives who are Chinese or Chinese American, of color and adopted.  Our family prioritizes these choices, but they also come very naturally because of who we are (or maybe who Mr. A is) and the other priorities in our lives.

Does all this diversity negate the loss inherent in L’s adoption?  

No.  I don’t believe it does.

Even with a father of similar heritage and the same race, I don’t think it is enough. 

Even with the Chinese lessons (or Chinese immersion school), Asian preschool teachers and classmates, hongbao, mixed race/Asian families on our block, and moon festival celebrations, it isn’t enough.  Even if we take L to live in China, it won’t be enough. 

None of that will erase the loss that L will feel because she was adopted. 

It won’t change the fact that her adoptive mother is white and will never be able to relate to many experiences in her life. 

It won’t change the fact that she lost her first parents or her birth country. 

It won’t change the fact that he or she is a person of color in a country steeped eye-brow deep in white privilege.

You may live in New York or San Francisco, but if you are the white adoptive parent of a child of another race, you better accept the fact that your choice to adopt is going to have an impact on your child.  You need to accept and acknowledge that as a white person, you will recieve white privilege your child will not.  You need to get really comfortable with the idea that your child might not be grateful that you “saved” them from a developing country or a poverty-stricken family. 

It doesn’t matter where your live or how good your intentions are.  Adoptions is about loss.  Seeing a lot of brown people on the street isn’t going to change that.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Mr. A and I are very aware that differences in educational philosophies may prove to be one of the biggest challenges our relationship will face.   I thought I would ask Mr. A’s take on the school question in the previous post. 

I explained the two school options: Mandarin immersion vs. More Diverse school with less Asian kids. 

Me:  “So, What do you think? Would you choose the Mandarin program or the more diverse school?”

Mr. A: “Is the more diverse school a good school?  What do their test scores look like?”

Me: “Are you serious?  I don’t know.”

Mr. A:  “Well, knowing what I know about the district with the Chinese school, I know that other school isn’t as good.  Obviously I would pick the better district.  The Mandarin program would be beside the point.”  (Mr. A and I are somewhat familiar with the district with the Chinese program.)

Me:  “Why? You wouldn’t care about the diversity? Are you chosing the other school because it would have more Asian kids?”

Mr. A: “Diversity is nice and all, but the quality of the education is the most important thing.   I am choosing the school that offers the Chinese program because I know that it is overrun with Chinese and Taiwanese parents who have VERY HIGH STANDARDS for education.”

Me: “Obviously, you realize you are like a walking, talking example of the high-pressure Chinese parent.”

Mr. A: “Clearly.”

Me: “So if the best school had zero Asian kids, you would still pick the best school?

Mr. A:  “In what city would the very best school have no Asian kids?  I find that hard to believe.  If the school is the best school, all the Chinese parents would move there.”

Me: “Point taken.  So what if there were only 20 Asian kids in each grade of 400 kids.”

Mr. A: “Yes.  20 kids would be enough if it was the best school.”

Me: “But that is only 9 other Asian girls for them to be friends with!”

Mr. A: “9 is enough to have a few good friends.  Education should be the priority, not friends anyway.”

Me: “Ok, so back to the Chinese immersion issue:  If you were in the district with the immersion program, would you pick that school?”

Mr. A:  “It would depend.  Do they teach math the Chinese way?  That rote memorization is bullshit.  The American educational system has clearly demonstrated its superiority in creating great thinkers.  Math is the foundation of all academic success… ”

Me:  “But Chinese would be a really great skill to have!”

Mr. A: “Not at the expense of their academic foundation.  If I could talk to someone and see that the child could recover and learn to think in a creative and entrepreneurial  way by college, then I would consider it.  But I am not going to jeopardize my child’s educational future just so they can learn to speak Chinese!  There are 1.5 billion people in China trying to get into American colleges and they all speak CHINESE! What kind of advantage would Chinese language offer?!?”

So there you have it.  Mr. A’s thoughts on school choice.  Do with it what you will.  I should also add that he walked around mumbling about math skills and creative thinking for the rest of the evening. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I received this question via email.  I hope the person who wrote it doesn’t mind that I am answering it on the blog, since I took out the identifying information.  

Here goes: 

We live near an area which has a Mandarin-English immersion program through the public school.  I am thinking of moving to that district because of the program, but I am concerned because though it has an awesome Asian population, it has hardly any Latino or African American residents.  Currently we live in a nearby town, which has a fairly good mix of ethnicities.  So is it worth it to give that up in order to help my kids be bilingual (something that probably isn’t going to happen with a once-per-week class)? 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

A while back, I read this post over at Mighty Maggie.  It was like a little flashback to how I felt when M was a tiny baby.  As soon as she was born the importance of her half-Chinese/Taiwaneseness was the cause of much angst and handwringing for me.   How could it have never occured to me that this would matter?

At the beginning, it was a struggle for this white girl to figure it out.  Somedays I wanted us to all move to China or Taiwan so M could really be fluent in Chinese, even if she didn’t look so Asian.  Other days, I was convinced it just wouldn’t matter to her at all.  Poor Mr. A, he would occasionally speak up and try to settle me down, but for the most part he patiently let me weeble and wobble my way along.  Oh, I still blush when I think of some of the awkward moments of finding my footing and figuring out where our family belongs.

Four years later, I don’t feel like we are zigzagging along our course at all.  I feel like together, Mr. A and I have decided what our priorities are.  I think in the beginning we had to talk a lot about these things because we were new to our city and didn’t have any real community to speak of anyway.  What was the community that we wanted for our kids?  How much effort should we put into finding places that fit our priorities?  What were we willing to compromise on?

Last week, we went to a picnic for the local Chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA).  We walked in and right away we saw some acquaintances.  M struck up a friendship with a little girl who happens to be adopted from China with a Chinese American dad and a white mom.  L ran around like a maniac and little old ladies pinched her cheeks and spoke to her in Chinese.  M said hello in Chinese and the older folks told her how smart she was when she read a poster hanging on the wall.  We ate almond pudding and purple sweet potatoes.  The old man at the barbeque kept trying to force us to eat more.

The thing about it is, it was a lovely day at a picnic that just happened to be thrown by a Chinese organization.  Four years ago, I would have felt horribly self-conscious.  Now, it was no big deal. 

We also went to the Chinese School Moon Festival celebration last Sunday.  It was chaotic, but it was still a very fun event.  We ate rice and chicken and mooncakes and pizza.  We sat with friends whose wife is from China and the husband is Chinese American, another friend from China, and a friend with two daughters adopted from China.  As I watched L running around like she owned the place, I was so grateful that going to Chinese stuff is just par for the course.  It is just one of the things that our family does.  We are just another face in the crowd. 

I know that there are people who read this blog who think that Mr. A and I (or more likely you probably think it is all me, though I can assure it is not) focus on the Chinese stuff too much.  Maybe it would be too much for other families, but right now it is working for us.  More importantly, I think it is working for our girls.

As I said in Maggie’s comments, M is  beginning to form her own understanding of what it means to be Chinese, Chinese American, and Asian American –the best part about it is she is forming that opinion based on personal experiences, not popular culture and stereotypes.  She isn’t learning it in a vacuum either.  She is figuring it out in a preschool class where lots of kids are mixed race or Asian.  She is figuring it by spending time with the aunt and uncle she adores, at Chinese school, with her Chinese tutor and by spending time with family friends whose families are like ours in some way or another (be it families of adoption, mixed race families, families with ties to China or Taiwan).  Maybe there will be a day when M says it is too much, but right now we can tell she is thriving even when there are areas where she struggles like Chinese school.

For the most part, L is oblivious to all of this.  In her daily life, she sees many Asian faces.  I would also guess that about of the people she is familiar with (i.e. recognizes them) are Asian.  I hope that this will mean there is never a day when L looks in the mirror and is surprised to see an Asian face in the mirror.  I am so grateful that this is just a fact of the lives we are living and we didn’t have to begin finding our comfort zone with a newly adopted baby.  L’s transition home was hard enough, at least in this one area we could feel like we were on solid footing. 

Even more important than the faces she sees, I feel so fortunate that we have three friends from China, all of whom have taken a special interest in L.  These friends are all very kind and patient with M too, but they fawn over L and shower her with extra affection.  (These same friends have also been invaluable in helping us figure out the best ways to collect more information for L, offering to call, email, and translate whenever we need it.)  The nice thing though, is that these individuals are just friends….who happen to have originally lived in China.  We hang out with them the same way we hang out with our other friends, we have playdates, cookouts, and take our kids to the zoo. 

Back when we first moved to this midwestern city, I was afraid we had moved M to a place where she would never see faces like hers or where mixed race families like ours were few and far between.  The way it has all played out, that couldn’t be further from our reality.  It is all just no big deal at all.

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I could have sworn that there was a question in the open questions thread related to this, but for the life of me, I can’t find it.  If that was your question, I must have accidentally deleted it.  If this didn’t answer it, repost the question and I will try again.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I do believe I was giddy with the freedom to spend a big chunk of time with my computer once M went to her Nana’s house.  Two posts in one day!  The gloriousness of it! 

In retrospect, I should have just held my tongue a little longer.  

It isn’t that I regret what I said.  I will stand by that. 

I am regretting that there was a trainwreck happening and I jumped in and made it bigger. 

That wasn’t cool.  There was nothing to be gained by throwing in my $1.75.

So I unpublished the posts and am stepping away from the computer for the moment. 

Nothing to see here, folks.  L and I will be out swinging in the yard.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

This weekend was the first day of Chinese school this year.   This also meant it was time for another one of the bi-annual arguments about Chinese school between myself and Mr. A.

On Saturday, Mr. A asked what I thought we should do on Sunday.  “We aren’t going to have time to do anything, ” I said, “Chinese school starts tomorrow.”

Then Mr. A let out a big sigh and rolled his eyes.  I would have been annoyed anyway, but M was sitting right there within sight of Mr. A’s dissing of Chinese school, so it was completely unacceptable.

A very predictable argument followed in which I reminded Mr. A that it is his fault that we mess with Chinese school in the first place.   I also reminded him that we had already revisited our committment Chinese school about a month ago when I filled out and sent in the registration form.

Then, Mr. A tried to get all lawyer-sneaky.  He tried to claim his sigh was because he is so marginalized as a non-Chinese speaker by the administration at Chinese school.  This would be an interesting argument, if we had not A) already dealt with this issue barely 3 months ago (see previous link), B) discussed it last month when we chose which classes in which to enroll M, and C) if it wasn’t a total load of CRAP. 

Marginalized MY ASS.  Mr. A wasn’t annoyed about Chinese school because he is marginalized, he was annoyed because it is long afternoon of wasted time.  I am also unenthusiastic about spending hours in a school hallway waiting, but I don’t make faces about it in front of M.

Needless to say, we had our argument and then M went happily off to Chinese school on Sunday.

As usual, Chinese school whipped up a lot of thoughts for me, but they will have to wait for another post.  The shorties are restless and I am tired. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Every time I write a post about our parenting choices, I brace myself for the inevitable comments that make me feel defensive.  I realize this is completely silly, because OF COURSE different parents are going to make different choices, even if they are in the exact same circumstances we are.  If I stop writing about things because other people do things differently, what the heck would I have to write about?

That being said, I do want to elaborate a little more on our decision to help our kids learn Chinese.  Hopefully, I can do it without seeming defensive.

Many moons ago, Mr. A and I had several conversations about what priorities we wanted to make for our kids.  Obviously, a good education was high on that list.  We also decided that we wanted our kids to have an opportunity to gain the following skills: 1) play an instrument 2) master a physical activity or sport and 3) learn a language other than English.

Yes, we are THOSE kind of parents.  We are totally comfortable admitting that our kids will be highly involved in a variety of lessons because we think it is good for their brains and their bodies.  We also think that all these activities teach discipline and other important skills like teamwork and respect for other cultures/countries.

Because it is easiest to teach a kid another language when they are very very young, we chose to start that first.  Chinese was the obvious choice, not only because our kids will be of Chinese/Taiwanese heritage, but also because Mr. A has a pretty extensive knowledge of Mandarin (while he wasn’t fluent, he was definitely proficient back in the day). 

The only problem about teaching our kids Chinese while we live in our mid-sized Midwestern city is a lack of resources.  There is no Chinese language preschool, there are no small private Mandarin classes at language instruction schools and there is certainly no immersion program at any of the local elementary schools.  

(As an aside, had we stayed in San Francisco, we would almost certainly have enrolled M in all of the above.  The truth is, if we lived in CA, we would probably have been much MORE dedicated to making her learn Chinese than we are here).

Because there aren’t any toddler classes, we found M a private tutor when she turned one.  She met with her first tutor for about an hour a week for the first two years she took classes.  When we switched to a new tutor, she has two hours of lessons a week.  Two hours a week was definitely NOT burdensome for us, especially because the tutors came to our house.

In our town, there are two weekend Chinese schools: the Mandarin mainland one and the Mandarin Taiwanese one.  The Taiwanese one is much smaller, I think.

Since A’s family is Taiwanese, you would think that we would send our kids there.  We chose the Mainland one because Mr. A is an accent snob and wants his kids to have a Beijing standard Mandarin pronunciation.  (That is also why both our tutors are from Beijing…His choice, not mine.)

Another reason we initially started at the the Mainland Chinese school is because they had a Chinese dance class.  We were just talking about starting M in some kind of physical activity when one of her classmate’s mother at preschool told us she was going to take the Chinese dance class there and we should look into it.  M is kind of shy, so having a classmate in her class seemed like it would help her get adjusted.  I asked Mr. A if he thought a Chinese dance class was Chinese-stuff overkill, but he didn’t.  So into Chinese dance class she went.

After 3 months in Chinese dance class, we found out that M could take the first level Chinese class, even though she was only four (the registration materials said she had to be five).  Since we were at the school on Sundays anyway, we signed her up to help supplement her Chinese lessons.

Honestly, I think Chinese school has been fun for M.  She only complained a little at the beginning about the language class, then she found a little boyfriend (who is also in her preschool) and it seems all good.

The only problem we have with the school is Mr. A and his issues with the school’s adminstration and pedagogy.  Mr. A and I have talked a lot about his issues in the last couple days.  We revisited our decisions about our priorities and decided he needs to just get over it already because we still think it is important for M and L to learn another language–specifically Chinese. 

(Just to be clear, our conflict was over the school not over the choice for our kids to learn Chinese.)

I could go into another whole post about how I think the parenting choices we are making and the resources we are collecting will help insulate our kids against the same kind of racial-identity angst that Mr. A grew up with in the Midwest.  That is another long post though, so I am stopping here.

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On the topic of the word “Hapa”, I addressed that in this post a while back.  I use it mostly for convienence while writing, but I also like the fact that the previously negative connotation is being lost as many mixed-race Asians are claiming the word and embracing it as a positive way to describe their experience and identity. (For example, just last night I read the book Hapa Girl).  “Hapa” is a term that the small handful of mixed-race/asian adults I know IRL use (interchangeably with other words) to describe themselves, so it doesn’t seem odd to me to use it in this context.  

For the record though, we don’t tell M she is Hapa.  She is still trying to figure out Chinese and not Chinese.  She isn’t developmentally able to grasp being two things at once just yet.  When she is old enough, M can decide what she wants to call herself.  I think it is nice that there are a lot of options available to her.