Still Learning

Long before we adopted two dark-skinned children, I was introduced to anti-racism training. For the past 30 years, I’ve attended lectures and workshops that point out the inequalities in our culture: the peach-colored Crayola crayon that is labeled flesh, as if all flesh is rosy; the high incidents of harassment of African American drivers and the disproportionate number of people of color who are incarcerated; the many ways that the playing field is unequal for immigrants who are not white; the myth that “hard work” will pay off for someone other than white males.

Perhaps it was because I felt well versed in all of this that I imagined that we could, even should, raise dark-skinned children. As experienced parents, we had some idea of what we were in for. We also knew we would face different challenges but, with the arrogance of all new parents, we felt we were prepared. Most new parents believe ourselves to be smart and competent, and we are, but the road of parenting is long, and it is fraught with good days and bad. Before we have children, we imagine that enough love will solve any issue, and that we can protect our children from, or at least prepare them for, what the world will dish out.

And then we learn.

We learn that raising humans is a difficult job under the best of circumstance. We also learn that there are no best circumstances. It takes a village to raise a child, but sometimes the village is dysfunctional. Money and privilege ease many of stresses of childrearing but can create others. Co-parenting is awesome when it works, but awful when there is conflict between the parents. And a peaceful and supportive home life doesn’t cure the warring madness of our culture.

My black son is a beautiful, loving, happy kid. He’s also impulsive and a total wiseass, traits not unknown in our family. Although from time to time his desire to get the laugh gets him into trouble with his parents, as it has with his siblings before him, I would say he gets in more trouble with teachers and coaches than his equally impulsive, wiseass white peers. Can I prove it? No. But my intuition says that if there’s trouble among a group of boys, the majority of blame will land on Lewi.

I don’t want my kid to get a free pass; bad behavior must be addressed, and we work hard to try to impress this on Lewi. So far I have resisted the temptation to associate the color of his skin with higher expectations. I hate to tell my kid that, because he is black, people will judge him differently on pretty much everything, from his behavior to his work ethic to his intelligence to his speech. Because I know it is true, I feel that I must tell them. But it breaks my heart to know that this boy who I love more than my own life will face this sort of discrimination as long as he lives.

As Lewi gets older, I anticipate that the discrimination will be more overt, especially among people who do not know him. Right now he still lives a little bit in the bubble: he is known at school, at church, in our neighborhood, and so people cut him a little slack. But as he moves into larger schools with higher expectations, it is doubtful that the same grace will be extended to him. And I am terrified of what might happen when he gets his driver’s license, when he will be essentially loose in a world that does not care that he is an amazing human but will pull him over, repeatedly, for driving while black.

Seven years later, I confess that I still do not know how to parent my black son. I sometimes wonder if we did the right thing in adopting, in bringing black children into a culture where they face the kinds of prejudice they face here. That said, I know that, on a small scale, my calling is to speak to that prejudice, to try to live into and create the change that must come, to help those in my circle to see what I see, and to give Lewi a space to grow and thrive. I feel small and inadequate in the face of this calling, as I have with every aspect of parenting. But I think I can still learn.