I am just about done with my 2nd, and final, pregnancy. Griffin has definitely had some “kidsightful” things to say throughout this pregnancy but one sticks out the most.
I told him at one point that his new brother Liam moves around inside of me much more than he ever did. Liam moves like crazy and though it’s cool at times it is quite uncomfortable.
One day while driving Griffin to piano class he said, “Mommy, it’s gonna be a pattern! I didn’t move that much, Liam moves all the time, and the next baby won’t move as much like me.” I thought this was adorable that he was thinking this way but quickly informed him that mommy wouldn’t be having anymore babies. He wondered why and I explained that we are older and my body does not need to go through this again.
I followed this with telling him that if Patrick and I find that we want another child one day we could adopt. This led to me explaining to him what adoption was and how some kids don’t get good parents and need good parents to adopt them. As he was processing this he concluded, “ok well if we adopt we can’t adopt a brown baby because he wouldn’t look like us” to which I answered, “but honey we would love any baby no matter what color his skin was just like you love your friends no matter what color skin they have”. He understood my point and continued to process his little thoughts as we drove.
I took away two points from this exchange. One, children are exposed to the idea of differences at an early age by media, school, and society as a whole. They know there is a difference between “brown and peach” and it’s up to parents to teach them that our differences make us special and allow us to learn from one another.
Second, and most importantly, Griffin was already worried that if we adopted a “brown baby” he or she would feel left out if because they “didn’t look like we did”. It’s as if he had an understanding that it might be challenging for a little brown baby to acclimate into our family because of our cultural differences. This realization made me both sad and proud. Sad, because I don’t want him to think that it’s not ok for families to have different cultural backgrounds, and proud because he was able to think of how our hypothetical brown baby would feel living in our family.
What’s the “kidsight” I gained from this? I was reminded that even though Griffin is exposed to different cultures and has thus far embraced them with open arms, the journey of exposing him to diversity and differences will never be complete. This is a journey that I will gladly guide him on as his momma!
Kidsights 