I Didn’t Expect Looking for Anti-Racism Resources for My 5-Year-Old to Be This Messy
Last Tuesday, we were at the neighborhood playground, my daughter Mia was chasing a plump pigeon that stole a piece of goldfish cracker, and suddenly she skidded to a stop in front of a Black woman pushing a stroller, pointed right at her arm, and yelled “MOMMY WHY IS YOUR SKIN BROWN LIKE MY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE?” I wanted to disappear into the bark mulch right then. I mumbled some stupid apology, grabbed Mia’s hand, and the woman just smiled and said “It’s okay, I’ve got a 3-year-old who asks the same thing about white people’s ankle socks for some reason.” That didn’t make me less embarrassed, but it made me think: I can’t keep fumbling this. I need actual, age-appropriate stuff to talk about this with her, right?
So I started looking. First, I scrolled through all the pinned resource lists in the mom groups I’m in. A lot of the recommendations were for books that sounded great on paper, so I put a bunch on hold at the library. First one I picked up was a children’s biography of MLK, and it had a full page photo of fire hoses being turned on protestors. Mia leaned over my shoulder while I was flipping through it before bed and went “why are those men getting sprayed? That hurts. Why would anyone do that?” I slammed the book shut and told her we’d read it when she’s bigger, then stuffed it in the return bag that night. Way too much for a kid who still has nightmares about the vacuum cleaner.
Next was the generic all-are-welcome picture book where all the different colored kids hold hands under a rainbow. It’s fine, I guess, but Mia flipped through it in two minutes and asked if we could read the How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight book instead. It’s all so vague. It just says everyone is special, which is true, but it doesn’t answer the questions she’s actually asking. She notices when her friend from preschool has braids with beads that look different from her straight blonde hair. She asks why our Chinese neighbor eats rice every night and we eat pasta three times a week. Pretending none of that difference matters, that we all just “are the same” feels like a lie, right? That just teaches her difference is something you don’t talk about, which isn’t what I want at all.
I posted my question in that mom group, like, “does anyone have actual recs for a kid this little? I’m striking out.” And of course the first comment was some lady saying “kids don’t even see color until you teach them, why are you pushing politics on a 5-year-old?” I wanted to argue back, but I just closed the app. It’s not like she’s totally wrong, I guess? Mia doesn’t see color the way adults do, she doesn’t carry any of the weight or hate yet. But she sees difference. She comments on it, loud, in public. That’s just what 5-year-olds do. Why would I not name those differences and talk about why they’re okay, instead of telling her to be quiet and not look?
Then, the best thing I found came from Ms. Rita, the librarian who’s worked at our branch forever and knows every kid by name. I was checking out three more dinosaur books (we have at least 17 at home, she still needs more) and I mentioned I was striking out with this whole anti-racism resource hunt. She didn’t pull a fancy new bestseller off the front display. She walked me back to the picture book section, pulled out a tattered little paperback called All The Colors We Are, and then grabbed a pack of 12 multi-cultural skin-tone crayons from the desk drawer, the ones they use for after-school crafts. Said “this is what I give my grandkids when they ask. Kids don’t need lectures, they need to touch and look.”
That night we sat at the kitchen table after dinner, colored each other’s hands. Mia colored my hand with the medium brown, her hand with the light peach, drew Mr. Tony, our next door neighbor, with the deep brown. She kept saying “look, mine is pink like my piggy bank! Yours is tan like our golden retriever!” It wasn’t a big lesson. No one talked about systemic injustice or anything. We just talked about how everyone’s skin is a different color, just like everyone’s eyes are different shapes, and that’s just how people are. It was way better than any of the fancy books I’d gotten.
Last weekend we went to the children’s museum, and they have that new exhibit where you can try on traditional clothes from different countries. Mia pulled on a bright blue sari and wore it the whole time we were there, pretending it was a mermaid tail. A woman who was there with her granddaughter stopped us and said that was the exact same color sari her mom wore to her wedding back in Delhi. We talked for five minutes, Mia got a mini peanut butter cup from her, and that was that. Again, no lesson, just a normal conversation with a normal person.
I still don’t have it figured out. I still bought that popular “Anti-Racist Baby” board book everyone was talking about last week, and Mia just uses it as a coaster for her juice cup. I still freeze sometimes when she says something loud and awkward in the grocery store. I don’t think there’s a perfect resource that’s going to check all the boxes, honestly. The people who act like you just need to buy the right 10 books and you’re done are lying. It’s just small stuff, every day. Pointing out when the princess in the cartoon isn’t just white, saying it’s not okay when her friend says someone can’t play on the slide because their skin is brown, coloring hands, trying on silly clothes at the museum. That’s all I’ve got right now. I’m probably messing up half of it. But it’s better than standing there embarrassed and wishing I’d done better later, right? (Word count: 1182)
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