Nurture Shock

Came across this article today, "Even Babies Discriminate" in Newsweek. I have their book Nurture Shock on my list and thought it was a very interesting article. Although I grew up in a pretty sheltered area… we now live in a very diverse area. The area we live in has a great mix of people from Asia and India especially. During Awsumb’s Kindergarten year the only other two girls who were Caucasian were from Sweden. In the end we all just want the same things for our families and that is for them to learn and grow and be safe and happy.

I haven’t really talked much with Awsumb about race. One family that was close us to when Awsumb was born was Philippine. Awsumb spent a lot of time with this family. I do remember Awsumb thinking they were all his brothers and sisters, and us adults giggling about it because he looked so different than the rest of the kids because his skin is so pale. Even my own family teases me that Awsumb and I are pale because we live in the Northwest. Then in school he made a best friend right away with a little boy whose parents were from South Africa. The two were inseparable. I didn’t think he noticed or thought anything about race. I thought maybe because of the area we were raising him, because he was getting to know people from all over the world, that maybe it didn’t matter to him. This article suggests otherwise.

I found the study about the blue and red t-shirts very telling. Our children do notice differences and are waiting for clues to learn how to interpret them. Ignoring differences could allow them to group and classify people who look like them as good simply because they look like them (called essentialism). Much to think about… I have been inspired to talk more about his subject with Awsumb.

And you can bet I will be back to talk about Nurture Shock.