Anonymous wrote:I live in a small town, which is mostly white. On Friday I took my 3 year old charge to the public pool. There was a girl swimming there who was black, and very dark skinned. My charge looked at her, then asked me why her skin "looked funny." I said matter of factly "because she is black," and I said that everyone's skin is a little different in color (I pointed out that my skin is slightly darker than my charges skin, even though we're both white). My charge kept saying very uncomfortable things, even going so far as to say that black skin "isn't pretty." I said I thought her dark skin was very beautiful, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Later that day at the park we saw a cute little Hispanic baby and I pointed out how cute he was, even though his skin was a different color than ours. I also pointed out a couple of characters in my charges picture books that are black, and said even though our skin might be different colors, we're all normal people with feelings on the inside. My charge listened, but somehow didn't seem convinced.
Is there anything else I should do? Should I bring this up to MB? That incident made me feel very uncomfortable.
A nanny here, bored. It's normal that children ask about color it happen righ about 3years old when they start to learn about self. He just saw a different color and want to know why some children have darker color. It's simple. Everyone have different color and some white skin can be ugly just like some black skin can be pretty. Maybe he was not satisfy with what u said but it's always nice to read books about diversity so children learn and understand.