My three-year-old has around seven baby dolls and always chooses to play and sleep with the same two — a black doll and a white doll. She won’t give them names and refuses any names I suggest, instead only referring to them by their colour.I’ve noticed that if she’s playing a game that involves confrontation her black doll is always the aggressor. I’ve been thinking about the movies we watch (most noticeably Tangled, which features a dark-haired evil witch and an innocent light-haired princess) and am realizing that there’s a direct correlation between bad and dark in many of them.
I’m sure my daughter will grow out of this, but I don’t want to ignore how she’s playing. I would love advice on films to watch, play suggestions, or stories about how other parents have dealt with similar situations.
What age-appropriate conversations and play suggestions can I start to challenge my daughter’s conceptions about color and goodness? — Jenni
Whenever you’re dealing with big social issues, it’s important to see what the “adult issue” is. In this case, you see your child making associations based on the racialized world she lives in. She sees dolls, and one looks “good” based on what she’s seen around her. Kiddos don’t think in abstraction. They don’t know about mainstream media or systems of oppression. You have to meet her where she is at and work from there.
Try breaking up the “good” and “bad” binary in general
Talk about how when she is naughty, she usually feels upset, hurt, angry, unheard, or needs something. Talk about how other people doing “bad” things might be in the same place. Make this happen when you play with her (“why do you think the doll is acting like this? Maybe they need a turn with that toy!”). Find stories that don’t make villains in conflicts, or have a dialogue about the ones that do. My favorite is to talk about witches getting hiccups and accidentally doing hurtful spells. It’s silly, kids like it, and it doesn’t make witches scary.
Watch Disney movies at your own risk, and talk a lot about them
They are going to tell you a princess is generally a rich, white, powerless pretty lady. They are going to have offensive stereotypes and totally re-write history. That doesn’t mean they are off limits. Every piece of mainstream media will be problematic in one way or another, and we cannot raise our little people in a media-free vacuum. It means you break that down and talk about it in a meaningful way with your kiddo so they can keep doing that in their lives.
How do you talk to your kid about differences?
My daughter is growing up with parents who have a strong judgement-free policy, but we don't have the ability to introduce her to every type... Read more
Make sure that your kiddo is exposed to protagonists that are not from the dominant narrative
Get books featuring people of color (and women and queer folks and disabled folks and so on) as the primary protagonist without being focused on race. Go to community events like art festivals and story times that do the same. Expose her to many identities outside her own, and do it regularly. That way she doesn’t learn to be a voyer, she learns to be an active participant in diverse community and see people from other identities as role models/friends/teachers, etc.
Talk honestly about race, racism, and privilege
You don’t have to do it all at once. This is a lifelong journey. I like the book “All the Colors We Are” because it is bilingual and doesn’t presume white as “normal” as a way to start gears turning. Read books with honest history (they make them for all ages). It’s okay if these are sad or scary things to deal with. Kids can have those emotions, too!
This is a lifelong process
Help this little person think critically about “good” and “bad”, help them find ways to critique things around them, give them a real rich understanding of history, and role models from many identities. And keep conversations going. There’s a reason there are sooooo many comments here, and that is because people WANT to have these conversations, there just isn’t space most of the time. A loving home is a pretty rad place to start critical consciousness.
You might also be interested in…
- How do you talk to your kid about differences?
- I was born multi-racial and didn’t realize it until I was 6
- Our child’s grandparents are Israeli, Syrian, German and Irish — how do we include their traditions without forcing the ideas on our child?
All this talk of Disney is totally reminding me of this:
http://laughingsquid.com/brutally-honest-disney-movie-posters-edited-to-highlight-tropes-and-stereotypes-in-disney-films
Just be a bit careful when you talk about the black VS white-issue with your kid.
Many times kids don’t even think about skin-colours untill some grown up (with good intentions) start talking about how black and white is just as good. It’s then the children sees that “oh yeah, I am WHITE and my friend Betsy is BLACK”.
By giving skin colours too much attention, we ourselves create the gap between Black and White skin, instead of it being just Skin.
Remember, too, that at this age kids find ANY reason to sort their friends. Or their toys, or whatever. Many three year olds, when given a basket of colorful beads, will sort them into piles of matching colors. This skill is totally normal at this age as they learn to notice similarities and differences. While this doesn’t address the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ connotations you mention, have you also considered her views on gender? Or age? Or ______? If she is given a girl and a boy doll, is the boy the dominant one and the girl the passive one? Or does she like girl dolls because she herself is a girl? Yay! This doesn’t mean she’s sexist, right? Just that SHE HERSELF identifies with the doll. There isn’t anything wrong with that. Kids have complex brains and as adults we need to be reaaaaaaaalllly careful not to overlay our ideas/fears/agendas on their discovery. Have you actually asked her why the one doll is the bad one?
My point in asking this is often adults place ideas onto children that the children have no consideration of. Yes, maybe your daughter saw something where the dark character was bad. Does she transfer this to dark people? When you’re at the market and a person with darker skin passes, does she hide (in the same manner that she hides from EVERY adult or just this ‘dark’ adult?) Does she actually transfer this to people or just dolls?
Children will naturally group themselves with ‘like’ children. “Oh, you have green shoes? I have green shoes. We’re best friends. You, you have red shoes, I’m not your friend.” This ISN’T shoe-ism or anything discriminatory in the sense we currently define discrimination. To discriminate means to notice differences; we intentionally teach kids how to do this ALL the time. (Socks in this drawer, shirts in that one, no don’t mix them up, coats over on the hook, dirty clothes in the basket.) It’s natural for kids to practice this skill with their daily items, too.
The most important thing I think you should focus on is treating ALL people with kindness, and getting to know them before you decide if they’re one to separate yourself from. There are great multicultural books you can read together; focus on the positive things you each see on the pages. Have fun and pain the dolls (if they’re plastic) all sorts of colors. Dye them if they’re fabric. Create different characteristics for each of them. Focus on their character traits more than their visible, observable traits. (I know this might be hard with the dolls specifically, so maybe use this to when reading stories.) When reading, ask her to point out things that aren’t simple like color or size. (Can you find the character that is feeling sad? that is feeling happy? that misses her daddy?)
As an adult, I am never fazed by anyone’s race, gender identity OR sexual orientation. I put this down to growing up in the Deaf community, where we had people of all sorts. They were never judged, or discriminated against (at the very least, not in front of kids) because the important thing in the community was deafness and language as a bond.
That is why when I grew older and went to hearing schools and such, I was astounded to hear racism, sexism and homophobia was a thing and people actively discriminated against these things along with audism (discriminating/being oppressive towards D/deaf people).
So my point here is maybe, the best way to NOT associate ‘dark’ with ‘bad’ is to be around people outside of your own race and interacting positively. Unfortunately, with that said, I know it can be hard to do so, especially with the media always portraying bad things as dark.