I think it's great that you're willing to tackle this difficult subject with your daughter. You are doing the right thing in responding to her questions. One idea is to pull out the family photo album and say, "in the country I come from _____, people have all different skin colors" and point out different relatives and talk about their skin tones. Then say "here in the US (or Berkeley!) people also have different skin colors" and talk about some people you know. then explain that the people we call "black" or "african american" (she's old enough to get these as synonyms) all came at some time from Africa, just the way you came from the Middle East, and the people we call "white" or European American all came at some time from Europe. Then point out that black people don't have black skin and white people don't have white skin (crayons might help here!) but point out the wide range of skin colors that go with every ethnic group. That way you're moving away from an essentializing (and false) notion of biological race toward an idea of ethnic group belonging, which may help your daughter as she forms her identity. However you choose to approach this conversation, take it in small doses, don't feel like you have to say everything all at once.

I am the mother of three boys ages 4, 2, and 6 mos. Both my husband and I are of Latin American descent. I was born in Guatemala and raised here in the states. My husband is Mexican-American. We both have dark complexions-- cafe-au-lait like. My children have not yet asked me about their skin color but I expect they will sooner or later. However, I have given this issue some thought and have had long discussions with my husband about it. I'd like to share some of these thoughts if I may. As someone else already said, it's not possible to bring up children to be "color-blind" in this place and time. Our children will be judged in part by the color of their skins. That is just a fact. But it is possible to bring them up to love themselves as they are and to respect and appreciate others regardless of their skin color. Like you, I am very conscious of the way our society tends to ascribe traits, such as beauty, to the lighter shades of skin. I don't know that we can completely undo this.

color of skin: The color of your daughter's skin is brown, as it is for very every living human on the planet. No one has skin that is literally black or white (let alone red or yellow); we are just all different shades of brown with varying undertones of red or yellow. If you could somehow line up everyone on Earth, ordering them from light to dark shades of brown, you would not be able to distinguish color differences between any two people anywhere on the line.

In response to a mother's concerns about her 4 year old daughter and her lovely brown skin, we have a similar situation at our house. My husband is Filipino and very brown, I'm caucasian, and both children are of obvious mixed ethnicity but nearly impossible to identify. My son is 8 and my daughter 5, and both of them went through a big skin color awareness when they were about 3 or 4. They were in a home-based day care with African American caregivers and mostly African American kids, and at that time decided that they were "brown" like their friends, and I was "white." Although I explained at the time that this was not exactly correct, they continued to insist it was, and that was fine with me. As they moved into preschool and school, they discovered the many variations of skin color and how many different places and reasons there are for this. They both know that their brown skin comes from their father, their Jewish heritage comes from me, that they are rich in many cultures and that they are unique - as are all the other children and people they meet. You are obviously teaching your daughter all the right things, and she will soon have enough awareness to understand the differences - and the fact that there are people in the world who choose to dislike people for their appearance or the country they are born in or their religion. I don't think it is possible to be color-blind in this country, but it is possible to acknowledge and enjoy the endless variety. The Bay Area, in my experience, is the best place to live and to raise children who are neither black or white, but a beautiful shade of brown. Feel free to e-mail me directly if you want to talk about this more.

I am the adoptive mother of two children from Guatemala, ages 7 & 3 who have brown skin (I am white). My older daughter began noticing that we looked different when she was around 3. I have always simply said "most people look like their birth parents -- eyes, hair, skin color, etc. You have medium brown skin because your birth parents' had medium brown skin, and I have lighter skin because my birth parents had lighter skin," which has satisfied her so far. I think you may be reading more into your daughter's question than is really there. Young children are very concrete thinkers, maybe all you need to say is "You inherited your darker skin from Daddy," and point out some other feature she inherited from you. When she asks about skin color and you answer by discussing beauty & "niceness" you are assuming she is making a connection between outward appearance and inner qualities, but she may not be. The fact that she has noticed that people come in different colors doesn't necessarily mean that she has noticed that they are sometimes treated differently or has come to feel that one color is "better" than another.

My response to your post is based on my experience as a "bi-racial" person (Puerto Rican & Indonesian, 2nd generation American) whose skin tone is somewhere in between cafe au lait and dark tan. :-)

I have had to address the issue of color with my son who is now 9 years old and African-American. He asked me questions about color when he was about the same age as your daughter.

In response to your concerns about addressing color with your 4-yr old old, now is the time. I recommend contacting Pact, An Adoption Alliance for a list of the books they offer for sell. Although your daughter is not adopted, they can help you. Much of their book list addresses issues specific to adoption, but many others are just great books that are *very* race-aware, due to the inseparability of race from the world of adoption, and Pact's willingness to working with white parents adopting children of color. One of this big issues in an adoption situation such as this is that parents must be prepared for questions such as the ones your daughter is coming home with.

How about showing your daughter a globe or world map and explaining that you come from this area called the Middle East? Then point out other areas and say white people generally come from here and black people come from here and asians from here. Then if you think she can get the idea, explain that after a few generations these groups can get mixed together and you end up with all kinds of people.

I don't know if I have any good advice for you, but I can give you an example of what happened with my sister (7 years younger than me). We are Filipino, which means that our ancestry is very mixed - indigenous Filipino (a Malay people), Spanish and Chinese that we know of, possibly other influences. I came out looking more Chinese and fair (for a Filipina). My sister on the other hand came out more Filipina and very dark. When my sister was about 4 or 5, her skin started peeling a little - it was the end of the summer and I think she had just gotten too much sun. She was so excited and asked our mother if the new skin coming in would be white. She was (and still is) really sensitive about her appearance and always wants to look like everyone else. (we were living in a predominantly white community, with no other Filipinos). My mother was horrified, and started making more of an effort to try to explain our culture to her, and how we are different from the people we lived near, but that didn't make us any worse (or better) than them. She also started trying to explain why people are different colors - that it is a response to living in different climates, but I know this is hard for a very young child to understand. I'm not sure if it made my sister feel any better, she never really mentioned it again. But she is now a very well adjusted 22 year old who is happy with who she is.

My daughter, also 4, began asking questions about color last year. I am African American and white (light in complexion), and my husband is brown-skinned, from Jamaica. My daughter's complexion is somewhere between ours. We see both my parents and my husband's mother, and it seems that after these visits she asks the most questions. She can't seem to figure out why my mother is so light. She wonders why everyone on our street is brown. Unfortunately, she has already picked up negative messages about being brown, which we have tried to counter by explaining that it's what inside that counts. On the other hand, I have also tried to make understated references to the beauty of brown people. She has spent some time trying to figure out just who is brown, while I've tried to emphasize that we're all different shades of brown. She's not buying it ("*Grammy's* brown?!"). One time in conversation she grouped herself and her father together because they "match", and me and her brother together (our son takes after my mother). While I have been reluctant to introduce her to American understandings of race, I think her questions persist because she notices how inequality is patterned along racial, that is, "color" lines. She already sees that white standards of beauty are more highly prized, that our neighborhood with all its brown people is also poorer (a point she seems to always mention when she goes to her white friends' houses). What I am doing for my child is what my parents did for me: present positive images of the contributions made by "browner" peoples to American and world history, through trips to the library, friends, etc. I don't think this has to be done in a heavy handed way, but in a relaxed, almost ordinary manner. In my case, they emphasized African American history because it was virtually absent from our school's curriculum, and because they wanted us to relate to our personal history, but they also exposed us to other groups as well.

My daughter knows that she is beautiful. She is a Persian Doll for Holloween, with connected eye-brows, beauty mark near her lips, red blush and lipstick in an Iranian custom. she gets many compliments.

I'm envious of you that your community is so diverse. Where we live, on the Peninisula, most of the kids at my son's school are blond, blue-eyed, and very Whitebread, as people say. We could use an infusion of diversity here. The only African-American and Hispanic kids we have are bused in from East Palo Alto, so not only are their skin colors different, but their culture and socio-economic background are at the opposite pole. It's hard on them and hard on the other kids, but mostly (and unfortunately), the groups don't ever really mix.

I don not think that what you are saying is the total picture of your daughter's friends. She has all different kind of friend from veriaty of colors, you are getting a little more attention to her black ones. If you go back to her previous school, you would see she has white freinds, too. the only thing that I can think of it is that since balck kids may be more socially active and more friendly as thier parents are, they are getting more attention of other kids who are looking to get someone to play with.

You shouldn't take it too hard, when your child refers to the black teacher as her "mom". Adults tend to over analyze things and be overly preoccupied with things, and to feel insecure at the slightest provocation. Children are really very off-handed and playful, and don't attach the same significance to things that adults do. Your child will know who is their real mom, and who really loves her, regardless of what kind of "mom" game she plays.

My 16 year old told me the other day that when one of her friends saw me for the first time they told her, "I didn' know your Mom was white!" My children run the spectrum, from the most beautiful black baddomi eyed Persian beauties, to green eyes and blondish hair. You should see the faces as people try to figure out how they can place labels. :)

One of the things that I love about Iran is the fact that we have so many shades of color, and no real deep-seated hatred or racism. At worst, we have "lookism" (trying to look European) or predjudice - but no one is hanging anyone - I love explaining that to people. And I love the rainbow in our family - my sister and grandmother have bright red hair, my father has green eyes, my uncle has dark dark brown skin color, and the rest of us are somewhere in the middle.