Fatherhood: The Changing Dream

Being the father of two bi-racial girls has been the most amazing, rewarding, and challenging experience of my life.  In many ways, I am sure my experience is no different than most parents.  I get tremendous joy out of watching them grow, laugh, and learn and reach breaking points when my emotional capacity is tested by their poor youthful decision making and behaviors.  What is different for me than some people is that I am white and my daughters are black.

Navigating this difference has been a huge part of my parenting experience.  It actually started before I had found a partner or became a father.  I have long dreamed of being a parent, but the daydreams of my future children always involved white children.  They did not have faces or names, but their race was pretty clear.  I had not ruled out partnering with a woman of color or having children of color, but that never factored into my parenting daydreams.  It was not until I fell in love with their mother that I started to change my mental picture.  That change initially created a great deal of stress for me.  Part of the daydream of having children is that they will look like you, but this new daydream involved children who would racially look anything but like me.  I am not sure if it is right or wrong, but I mourned the loss of that original daydream for a period of time.

My girls not looking like me has been regular source of challenge, growth, and learning for me.  When it is just me and one or both of them out in public we sometimes get stares or looks of curiosity.  This is not shocking as we are not something folks in the Minnesota suburbs see everyday.  It rarely bothers me as I am sure I have also gazed curiously at other people that did not fit the narrative I had in my head at that moment.  I do wonder if my girls also notice those looks and what, if any, meaning they make of the situation.

The most difficult element of parenting has been how their environment is already teaching them that being white is better than being black (or bi-racial).  I have actually never heard someone say that to them and they certainly have not heard that at home, but it is clear they are getting the message.  When my oldest daughter was four she started to complain about her brown curly hair and wished she had straight hair like me and the white girls in her preschool.  She also repeatedly said that she wanted skin like my mother and I.  Last week was the first day her younger sister, now also four, mentioned that she wished she had hair like me and the white girls in her class and pointed out that she, her sister, and mom are the only brown people in a vacation picture of my extended family.  At the age of four both of my girls not only noticed how they are different, but have also assigned meaning to that difference that white is better than black.  This video captures this experience is a very powerful way, the part from the middle on is like a punch to the gut.

Intellectually, this is not surprising and is even expected.  Before meeting my partner and becoming a parent I read a powerful book called The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism.  A group of researchers studied a large multiracial childcare facility to better understand what children know about race and the meaning they make of racial difference.  Their findings were powerful and shocking.  At the ages of 3, 4, and 5 kids already understood racial difference and status very clearly.  It was better, cleaner, and smarter to be white.  One small child of color was found trying to wash the brown off their skin.  A white child was heard using the N word in appropriate context.  When the parents were brought in to discuss the N word situation, the childcare providers asked them what is happening at home that this child would use that word and the shocked parents asked the childcare providers what is happening at the daycare center that their child would use that word.  Just like with my daughters, there is no obvious monster teaching this stuff to them.  Kids are sponges that soak up what the culture gives them through watching adults, institutions, media, and peer interactions.  The culture sends a very clear message, even in 2013, that being white is much better than being anything else, including being black.

Why this happens is no mystery, but is certainly complicated.  What to do when this happens is another question completely.  In the moment, I try to reassure my daughters that they are beautiful and wonderful the way they are and that people actually want to look like them.  People spend hundreds of dollars a year on curling their hair and darkening their skin, which does bring them some comfort.  While this is true, I also know that if getting perms and tanning resulted in being treated like a person of color in this society that neither would be very popular for white people.  As my oldest daughter has aged we have started to discuss racism and racial difference in greater cultural context.  This is a difficult task.  The conversation needs to be developmentally appropriate and is designed to help her understand the world, but not create a self-fulfilling dynamic of feeling powerless or less than regarding the world around her.

I love being the father to my children.  I love every part of who they are including their hair and race.  What I do not love is the messages they receive about their race from the world around them.  It is also not lost on me that my siblings and white friends who have children are allowed to have very different conversations with their children around race and might avoid conversations like the ones I have.  I do not resent that, but it is part of what makes our journeys as parents very different, much different than the journey I dreamed of having.  The beauty of life is that you are allowed more than one dream and now all of my dreams involve my beautiful daughters getting as much joy, happiness, and fulfillment out of their lives as possible and me doing whatever I can to help make that happen.