As a Talk Early blogger, I share this story with the support of Responsibility.org, an organization encouraging our kids to lead healthy lives through early communication. Today we’re talking about the importance of friendship and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask a question that has been heavy on my heart: do mixed kids need mixed friends to cultivate a healthy biracial identity?
Sitting in the front passenger seat with the car door open, her legs dangle as they did when she was a toddler, toes barely touching the sidewalk. I lean down to wipe her legs and feet, removing as much sand as possible while my mind soaks up the beauty of the afternoon. Watching babies dance in ocean waves under the California sun never gets old. I stand up to meet her eyes and pause – goodness she’s beautiful – then kiss her nose and advert my glance to her hair. Beach days are fun, but the aftermath is not. Tonight would end with at least a couple hours of conditioning and detangling. I tell her as much and that pretty, little nose scrunches up in disapproval before she crawls into the back seat to buckle up.
Moments later, my daughter asks, “Do you think Amanda will have to do her hair for a long time too, Mama?” The question had little to do with hair and hit me like a ton of bricks. Do I think Amanda and her mom would have a late night combing sand out of her beautiful coily curls? Yes. Was I amazed how, much like our own friendship, Rebecca’s and my kids instantly connected in such a casual, intimate way that I had not seen in other friendships? Yes. And, more to the point, do I believe my mixed kids need friends that look like them? Yes.
Related: Our Ultimate List of Mixed Kids Hair Products
Fostering Friendships as Mixed Kids
We’ve had a tumultuous school year. In some ways it was great, but in other (big) ways, the friction of living as a black person in a white world is challenging. My babies are growing up in a progressive area of Southern California and go to a Dual Immersion school (meaning, their day is primarily taught in Spanish), yet the amount of teasing related to race, skin color and hair texture has been relentless. Even my Kindergartener was on the receiving end of “cotton hair” or “poop emoji” comments. Despite progressives wanting to tout their “color blindness”, it was made very clear that my brown babies were the odd men out time and time again.
I guess that’s a huge motivator for us to spend the summer months in Costa Rica. After watching my kids flourish in Cuba blending into the predominant culture, I want more opportunities for them to grow up without standing out so much. Being different all the time can be exhausting.
But you know what? Raising mixed kids is not black and white! I’m super proud that my mixed kids are learning a lot about resilience, how to have a growth mindset and cultivating courage to speak out for what’s right. Even still, I have to admit, fostering friendships with other mixed-race kids (especially those with Latino heritage, like Rebecca’s family) has gone high up on my priority list for a few reasons.
Mixed Raise
Biracial Identity Issues
I am totally aware that race is not the only factor that creates identity issues. Body image, gender identification, issues with anxiety are just a few areas that can impact a kid’s perception of self. I wish for all our kids to be supported in their pursuit of self-realization and awareness.
But when it comes to raising multiracial kids, there is no way I’m allowing “poor mulatto” underpinnings to hold my babies back from leading a wildly successful life. So while we can’t control how the world sees them, my husband and I intentionally parent to circumvent the most perverse biracial identity issues. Specifically, the pressure to choose one race over the other, one parent over the other, one culture over the other, one language over the other. The thought that biracial kids have to constantly be at odds with their identity is not an idea I am willing to accept.
When my mixed kids have friends who look like them, with mixed families that look like ours, embracing cultures and language like ours, my kids see a REFLECTION that they wouldn’t get otherwise. They can explore the complexities of friendship without the added baggage of “otherness”. My husband and I raise our kids to love their blackness – our black is indeed so beautiful – but I can’t ignore that when my little girl meets a friend with kinky, curly hair and a lighter skinned mom, a feeling of belonging surges within her. She isn’t the only girl with sand in her curly hair.
Related: What to Expect When Expecting Mixed Newborn Babies
Focused On Growth
I also think pursuing reflection friendships this summer is a priority because, honestly, I’m so sick of parenting against racism. It gets old! The first time my sensitive girl was teased about her skin color and/or hair texture she was devastated. I have never adulted so hard in my life. But by now we do a collective eye roll – that’s how often it happens and our process was always the same: she tells us, we examine the difference between prejudice and racism, we reinforce steps to take, authorities to tell and mantras of self-love to recite… then we keep it moving. Negativity will not find a home here. Surely there are more important life lessons we can be focused on, such as growth, kindness, courage and problem-solving.
Summer Friendships That Feed The Soul
I don’t want to make it seem like my mixed kids are local outcasts in our community; they both have loving and supportive friends that came from a school year of experiences. My daughter loves her school friends! My husband and I also love our neighborhood, in no small part because its a place where he can walk the dog around the block without fear, our police department is diverse, as is the socio-economic makeup of our area. It’s a quiet, safe place for our kids to grow up and we are very grateful for that. What I’m saying is that I’m not sure it gets any better for a middle class, Black family in America, even if we don’t always feel like we belong. (If you love where you live too, please let me know!)
But I’m so ready for summer! I look forward to growing in my own friendships and bicultural identity. I’m ready for a respite in the hard knock life of raising kids in public school. And I hope that these mixed kids continue to foster a friendship that explores so much more than their collection of races, like their love of horses and classical instruments, and that my babies relish in that amazing, fleeting feeling of belonging…. if even just during the summer.
