Skin Colour

Yesterday in the van:

Matthew (sigh):  "I really wish that I had brown skin, Mom.  Like Seth and Lizzie."

Me:  "Oh yeah?  Well, brown skin is beautiful.  What makes you wish that, Matt?"

Matthew:  "It's just so warm and shiny and it just looks good.  And it would make us all more the same."

Lizzie:  "That's true, Matthew.  Sometimes I wish I had peach skin like you and Mommy and Daddy."

Matthew (somewhat incredulous):  "Why?"

Lizzie:  "Just to be the same, I guess.  I love brown skin, but we know more peachy people than brown people and sometimes I want to be the same as them, too."

What a lot of content in a few short sentences.  I'm glad that Lizzie loves her brown skin (that hasn't always been the case), and I could hear in both of them the sense of attachment that was being expressed because, of course, sameness is one way that we attach to those that we are closest to.

We ended up talking about the ways that we are similar to each other and the ways we are different; the kids talked about what they liked and didn't like about brown skin and what they liked and didn't like about peach skin; we talked about the colours of the world and the colours of people in our community and the colours of people in our circle of friends; we talked about being a unique family because we represent a world of colour and how good it is that each of us has at least one other person in the family who is the same colour; and we talked about what it is like to be the colour less represented in a community.

Always interesting conversations going on in this household!