Why I train white parents to talk to their non-white children about race

As an adoption counselor and a multilingual practitioner, I often have the pleasure of working with dynamic, multi-racial families.  In my life and in practice, I strive to actively welcome the important topic of race.  But I grew up in a family that never broached the topic.  

My single mother was in some ways ahead of her times as an actively anti-racist white woman.  I was raised in multi-racial neighborhoods and socially, I was surrounded by immigrants of many different cultures.  For that I will be eternally grateful.

However, having lived her life in a white body, my mother wholly lacked the sophistication to initiate me into my own racial experience.  My mother was a recent immigrant with limited English -- her own marginalization was a constant subject of discussion.  The U.S. was on the tail end of the Cold War, and some people did not hold back in their hatred of the Russians (which she was not).  She told me I was an “Amerykanka.”  An English speaking American -- so, no problem.  

My first inklings of my difference came from the unkind comments of strangers and acquaintances.  I began to notice that people never assumed that I belonged with the blue-eyed blond woman who was my mother.  I endured dozens of versions of the “Wait, that’s your mom??” comments.  I did not yet know the term microaggressions, and it would be decades before I was able to process the complex emotions I had around our racial difference.

By my tweens, I became hyper aware of the ways in which my features and coloring did not resemble my Polish family.  I had no words to describe this strangeness, this otherness within my own people.  I felt blindsided by my racial difference, like I was the last to notice.

When I work with adoptive or mixed-heritage families, I can sense a discomfort with broaching the topic of race.  I feel so much empathy for these parents; usually their resistance to talking about race comes from a good place.  These parents possess a love that sees no racial limits.  They fear that in talking about the racial difference, they will make it more real.  They would prefer to live in a world of unifying rather than differentiating.  

Nonetheless, you cannot protect your non-white child from their initiation into the world of racism.  It will happen.  The question is whether they will feel alone in this, or supported.  If race is not a topic of conversation in the home, it will be difficult for a child to share about microaggressions at the dinner table.  A child might feel like they are imagining things.  In our racialized and sometimes divided country, your child needs to feel like you are their ally. 

A big part of allyship is a willingness to talk about race.  I urge parents to ask their children open-ended questions.  I train parents to listen non-defensively to their child’s stories.   White allies are lifelong learners of race; your child is the expert on their experience.

Learn more about Natalia here.