The Brown Boy at Swimming Lessons

James said something the other day that has had me thinking quite a bit.  Every Monday since early June, I've taken him to "Tiny Tots" swimming lessons where we are both in the pool together.  The lesson is half an hour long and there are lessons after ours is done.  There is an African-American mother and son who arrive a couple minutes early for that next lesson each week and James has asked what they were doing sitting at the side of the pool.  I told him that it was their turn for swimming lessons after our lesson was over and we said hello.  On the way to swimming lessons on Monday, James asked me, "Is that brown boy going to be at swimming lessons tomorrow?"

It is a little hard to infer exactly what he was asking. James's conception of time is pretty similar to the Doctor's.

For example, yesterday we went camping a long long long long ways away.  That would be last summer on Madeline Island.  If he is talking about the future, he will try to be specific and say things like, "tomorrow this morning."  So my assumption is that he was simply asking if the boy was going to be at swimming lessons later that evening.

My mind was reeling, though.  Was he possibly expressing his hope that the boy wasn't going to be there that day?  Was he hoping to see him in the near future?  What was it that made James think about the boy?  For that matter and probably more fundamentally, what does James think about the brown boy?

While we live in one of the most diverse cities in the upper Midwest... it is the upper Midwest.  While we are always seeing people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world, the fact of the matter is that a pretty large majority of the people we have any meaningful interactions with on a regular basis look an awful lot like us.  Even at James's pre-school, most (not all) of the students and staff are various shades of white.  That is not to say that we don't see people that look different than us.  Be it at the co-op we do much of our shopping at, playing at various parks, etc. we are in a city with people from around the world.  So he does see them and he does notice them, apparently.

I also spent some of my young years growing up here in St. Paul.  We lived for four years in married student housing next to the St. Paul campus of the U of M, and we lived in married student housing in Fargo for three years before that too.  My elementary school years in married student housing is one of my most valued experiences and most formative experiences growing up.  Off the top of my head, I remember having friends from Nigeria, Lesotho, Iran, Malaysia, Peru, Madagascar, Bangladesh, South Korea, India, and Japan.  I'm probably forgetting a few countries too.  The community was wonderful, with parents looking out for each other's children, children playing anywhere and everywhere.  I suppose we must have thought about and talked about different races and cultures, but I don't ever remember it being an issue.  I wouldn't say that I was ever especially informed about any one culture in particular, but I think the mere exposure to other cultures was a valuable experience.

Looking at a few articles (did you know that you can look at and read JSTOR articles for free?  Wow!), it seems to be the consensus that a pre-school child's concept of race is pretty-well developed.  Differences are not as superficial as clothes or even other physical characteristics such as weight, suggesting that they understand it is a fundamental thing and something they think about.  I suppose at this point in time that there isn't a whole lot I can do to foster a positive view of children who are different than he is.  He is observing, and developing his own understanding of how the world works.

Perhaps all I can do right now is to give James the opportunities to meet other children and adults who look different than he does.  We have favorite playgrounds in our neck of the woods, but there are other neighborhoods in the city too where he is more likely to play with Somali or Hmong children.  Maybe we make it a priority to go to the festival put on by the Coptic church next week or to other cultural celebrations in town.  The opportunity to be curious is something we should take advantage of and we really do have a lot of opportunities like that here in the Cities.  I guess I should be thankful for that.

I am also thankful for curious, learning, developing, pondering, growing children, and the chance to watch that happen.  Maybe I can't guarantee that James will be a raging humanity-embracing liberal, but I guess I can open some doors for him to go through when he's ready.

Bed now... brain not working coherently any longer.

Of course, your thoughts and insights are welcomed.