One of my children said something similar, but to me (I'm white) about brown people in general. We went out of our way to point out all of her friends who are brown - and there were plenty - as well as reading books celebrating different skin colors.

Interestingly enough, my other kids were horrified by the notion.

My kid made the comment recently that all bad guys are dark. I asked him to explain. He said in movies/Tv, the bad guys are always dark skinned, dark haired , dark eyed , wearing dark clothes or what have you. He wasn’t wrong. Media is a huge force. The implicit notion that the hero is always a blonde blue eyed white guy has got to go. Glad to see people are wise to that now

OP, did you ask him why he said that?

My three year old asked a woman with an extremely large and sharp nose, Why do you have that nose? The woman turned red and said it was the second time in a week someone had commented. We were mortified and apologized profusely. My daughter didnt understand what she had done. Years later— she is 8 now and very kind— we still tease her about it. Very little kids dont have tact. I still wonder if the woman got a nose job. She really needs one.

I think the bigger problem is that the preschool went out of their way to “report” this to you. That’s more alarming than a small child saying something that our adult sensibilities knows is wrong.

If a preschool shared every comment the four years old make, I’m sure you’d hear a lot of horrifying things.

He’s 4.

No biggie, mine asked when the fat one was going to have a baby

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So your takeaway from all this is to tell your kid that we shouldn’t say unkind things and that skin color is a sensitive topic?

You seem to have forgotten to teach that We're all different, but no color is better than another.

Instead you’ve taught that your color is better but don’t comment on it.

No wonder your kid says rude and racist things.

The only judgmental, uncharitable person on this thread is you. Why twist OP’s words around like a pretzel to make her sound racist?

Op, my daughter at that age once was walking right behind a very large woman on the street and said, “mommy, that lady’s butt is so fat!” No one else on the street. I never talked about weight, body size, etc. I was mortified.

We went through this when we moved back to the US from Asia when my little one was 3. We're white, but majority of friends were Asian, all his friends were Asian or mixed race. So that was a non-issue. But my son had never seen a significantly overweight person until we returned to the US. For the first couple of months he would loudly exclaim over the size of people we walked past on the street.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry about it! My daughter who is of mixed Indian and Iranian ethnicity was terrified of old white people until she was about 2 years old! She would cry like crazy whenever approached by them in public. Tan or brown people didn’t scare her. Go figure!

I remember a kid telling my (white) mom that she was very old -- mom was in her 50s. Kids just say the most random stuff and sometimes have no idea what they said means or implies.

When I (white woman) was in my early 30's I went to pick my daughter up from elementary school. A kid took one look at me, knew I was there for DD but wasn't exactly her mom, and yelled, "DD! Your .... grandma is here!"

The fact that you think this is the same as a comment on someone’s skin color speaks volumes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry about it! My daughter who is of mixed Indian and Iranian ethnicity was terrified of old white people until she was about 2 years old! She would cry like crazy whenever approached by them in public. Tan or brown people didn’t scare her. Go figure!

I remember a kid telling my (white) mom that she was very old -- mom was in her 50s. Kids just say the most random stuff and sometimes have no idea what they said means or implies.

When I (white woman) was in my early 30's I went to pick my daughter up from elementary school. A kid took one look at me, knew I was there for DD but wasn't exactly her mom, and yelled, "DD! Your .... grandma is here!"

Darker-skinned mom to mixed kids who look white and yeah, I got treated like the nanny by other moms when DDs were little and in ES, I got a lot of "are you really her mom?" and "you don't look like her" when I picked up from aftercare. FYI - moms at the playground are incredibly rude to nannies.

I'm an olive-skinned white mom to two kids with my very dark-skinned husband from Sudan. The comments my 3 year-old daughter's friends simultaneously shock me and crack me up, regularly. They are so innocent at this age. I think it is wonderful when they can talk about differences and point them out but they are obviously not being racist, just processing what they see in the world.

Recent conversation at the playground after I picked up my daughter from her playgroup:

Me - "Hi Nick!" (to one of her friends, a Black boy in her class)
Nick - "Huh? How do you know my name?"
Me - "I'm Tasha's mommy! I know you from her class."
Nick - "Um, I don't know about that... You're white!"
Me - (Both a little surprised at his confidence and trying not to crack up) "Well, I am her mommy! And her daddy's Black!"
Nick - (looking still unconvinced) "I don't know about that..."
Me just laughing...

And then my daughter sometimes comes home with very detailed stories and my husband and I laugh about them.. It is all innocent. Like, "I was on the slide, and this WHITE BOY came and pushed me!!! And a Black boy was with him too!!" Oh kids. I love them at this age.

We are very open about our wonderful differences and our daughter melts my heart when she makes comments like, "We're all different skin colors, but that's okay!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Shall I tell you a funny story to make you feel better?

My White mother married my Asian father, back in the Jurassic era. When my mother's 5 year old nephew first met my father, he pulled at the corner of his eyes with his fingers to make them like slits, because that's what he noticed first about my father. That same year, when my parents visited my father's home country, my father's 5 year old niece first met my mother, and she pushed at the corner of her eyes to make them rounder, because that's what she noticed first about my mother!!!

They told me that story so many time when I was growing up, and I always thought it was hilarious.

Kids. What can you do?

Given the current context, your story isn’t amusing me and I’m not even Asian.

Asian here, and I think that's cute. We're talking about 5 year olds here.

It’s “cute” until your child is the only Asian in K and that’s how her classmates greet her.

I WAS the only Asian in K, honey.

PP here. The worst though is the lady who though I was the nanny but then apologized by saying she should have known because she watches Modern Family. Oy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry about it! My daughter who is of mixed Indian and Iranian ethnicity was terrified of old white people until she was about 2 years old! She would cry like crazy whenever approached by them in public. Tan or brown people didn’t scare her. Go figure!

I remember a kid telling my (white) mom that she was very old -- mom was in her 50s. Kids just say the most random stuff and sometimes have no idea what they said means or implies.

When I (white woman) was in my early 30's I went to pick my daughter up from elementary school. A kid took one look at me, knew I was there for DD but wasn't exactly her mom, and yelled, "DD! Your .... grandma is here!"

Darker-skinned mom to mixed kids who look white and yeah, I got treated like the nanny by other moms when DDs were little and in ES, I got a lot of "are you really her mom?" and "you don't look like her" when I picked up from aftercare. FYI - moms at the playground are incredibly rude to nannies.

Ugh I got a lot of this. My kids have very white names and look very white. Although I am pale, I definitely don't look white and I have a very ethnic Latina name. A lot of people just assume I am my children's nanny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Shall I tell you a funny story to make you feel better?

My White mother married my Asian father, back in the Jurassic era. When my mother's 5 year old nephew first met my father, he pulled at the corner of his eyes with his fingers to make them like slits, because that's what he noticed first about my father. That same year, when my parents visited my father's home country, my father's 5 year old niece first met my mother, and she pushed at the corner of her eyes to make them rounder, because that's what she noticed first about my mother!!!

They told me that story so many time when I was growing up, and I always thought it was hilarious.

Kids. What can you do?

Given the current context, your story isn’t amusing me and I’m not even Asian.

Asian here, and I think that's cute. We're talking about 5 year olds here.

It’s “cute” until your child is the only Asian in K and that’s how her classmates greet her.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So your takeaway from all this is to tell your kid that we shouldn’t say unkind things and that skin color is a sensitive topic?

You seem to have forgotten to teach that We're all different, but no color is better than another.

Instead you’ve taught that your color is better but don’t comment on it.

No wonder your kid says rude and racist things.

The only judgmental, uncharitable person on this thread is you. Why twist OP’s words around like a pretzel to make her sound racist?

Op, my daughter at that age once was walking right behind a very large woman on the street and said, “mommy, that lady’s butt is so fat!” No one else on the street. I never talked about weight, body size, etc. I was mortified.