Reply to My daughter is the only white girl in her grade: ask me anything

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "My daughter is the only white girl in her grade: ask me anything"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are you for real? You honestly do not think that your child can tell the difference between her and the other kids? Kids see skin color even when they are toddlers.

You are deluding yourself that you are somehow being super liberal, or open minded, or awesome, or whatever.  The other kids who are there - their parents may not have any choice where they send their kid to school - income and ability to move may hamper their school choices but it doesn't mean that they would not take the chance to move to a better performing school, a school with less FARMs rates, a school that was actually diverse.  The other parents are likely to look at you and not think you are some beacon of open minded liberalness but are just dumb for making such a bad choice for your child when you have the privilege and ability to make a good school choice.[/quote]

OP here. I know she can tell the difference between herself and other kids. I'm just not sure that race is one of the important differentiators to her at this point. I don't think she walked into first grade and thought, "Wow, I'm the only white kid in here." I suspect she walked in and thought, "Hey, it's X, Y, Z friends from last year."

School choice in this city - or the illusion of school choice - causes people to make big changes in anticipation of problems that may never actually occur. I do not believe in doing that - for myself or for my daughter. I have a job that I like, where I am paid well and the work is interesting with interesting colleagues, but I could make more money at other organizations or in other roles. I choose to stay here, where everything is fine, despite these other, potentially better opportunities. Things are great here now, but maybe my awesome boss will retire and I'll get a terrible new boss. Maybe this year's holiday bonus will be tiny in comparison with last year's. Maybe my company will close down in 10 years. Are any of those good reasons for me to look for new jobs, given that none of them have occurred, but they MIGHT?

We didn't have a chance to send her to a different school. This is the school we got into, in the neighborhood where we live. Yes, we could move, but it would upend our family life to do so and I don't feel that's necessary since as I have mentioned several times throughout this thread, SHE IS DOING FINE WHERE SHE IS. I don't understand why this is hard for you to believe or accept. She's learning, she's happy, she's got friends, I have friends there too, and I think it's stupid to leave a situation that is working well for everyone in anticipation of it working less well. [/quote]

New poster here, and I'm only up to page 15!
I wanted to share what my 7th grader said in May.  At 8th grade graduation, I said, "Wow there are so many multiracial families in 8th grade. I never knew that since its not our grade."  And he said to me, "What is 'multiracial'?"
So what if he didn't know the word multiracial, never heard me say it before?   Because he IS multiracial.  Kids can be colorblind, even as to themselves.
So, to all who think color matters to kids, that kids are aware of it, the answer is: in many ways, no it is not significant to a child. It is all about the IMPRINTING done by their role models.
I find nothing wrong with raising the conversation/starting the thread. Nothing freaky about it. If it makes anyone uncomfortable, please don't read my post!
PS, if you are wondering why I commented on the 8th grade, it was because we were unique in 7th grade.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics