raising bi-racial children

I apparently hadn't given enough consideration to the reality of raising bi-racial children.  By the time my twins were born six years ago we had a truly blended family and home life in quite a quirky way.  I had already six children from my first marriage, my ex's family and I remained very close and they even accepted my new husband as a part of the family; we adopted a barely teenage boy who was half African American and half Puerto Rican; the house was always full of neighbor kids of all backgrounds and cultures. 

My husband is brown and I am white, of European decent.  He doesn't know what nationalites his ancestors are so I use the term brown as it is his preference.  When we became pregnant, the subject had come up of course in conversation between friends and even between my husband and myself out of fear that the children may have issues out in the world with prejudice.  I was told by many that it was certain to happen and to prepare myself for it.  What I wasn't prepared for was that it would sneak into our home.  It entered through what I would have thought to be the most unlikely source...the twins themselves.

It was sorta funny at first with the games they came up with on their own.  I've mentioned before the time we were in the mall and Anthony had to jump onto the light tiles because he's white and Ashley had to jump from dark tile to dark tile because she's brown.  I didn't say anything at the time - it seemed innocent enough, right?  But this game they played at the mall was more and more a way of identifying themselves.  Soon, they decided Ashley would have chocolate ice cream and he would have vanilla.  She'll have chocolate milk 'cause its brown and he'll have strawberry because its not.  By now I've mentioned to them from time to time that everyone is their own color - nobody in our family is exactly the same color, although ironically, Ashley and our "adopted" son are too close to detect a difference. 

Today, we were walking in the store parking lot, the twins; one of their older brothers, Josh; Josh's girlfriend; her nephew, and me.  Anthony announces hey we are five white people and one brown!  Mind you now they are bi-racial TWINS, and the other child is Mexican.  Ok... enough.  Time for me to start asking questions I think to myself.  His skin is pale and hers is carmel colored, true and while they aren't insinuating that one skin color is better than another by any measure, my concern here is that they not make more of an issue out of skin color than it deserves, but they seem to be more aware and focused on this difference between them than I am comfortable with.

I've asked if there has been any conversation in school about people's skin color, or if classmates have made comments.  Their responses were "no".  It may just be a game with them and nothing to worry about because they are also very focused on the differences between boys and girls, even definining certain colors as boy/girl colors beyond blue and pink.  Did you know red is a girl color and yellow is a boy color?  This was decided because red is Ashley's favorite and yellow is Anthony's.

I've only started to investigate this phenomenon that has entered our home.  I've just started reading the book Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria written by Beverly Danielle Tatum, Ph.D.  (I'm so aggravated with myself for leaving it in my drawer at work... I got so busy that I forgot I brought it.)Hopefully that will give me some skills to help to guide them to a healthy way of developing their identity that doesn't focus so much on skin color.  I mean, I want to live in a world where that is only as important as eye color or hair color when describing an individual.  I can't expect that to happen if it's not even happening in my own house... can I?

I'm open to advice and I guess posting this to ask for advice, support, or anyone that can identify and comiserate (sp?).

the city can recover

Springfield is different because times are different. I can remember when I was a kid and about 3 out of 4 mothers of my friends were home at least most of the day. Today 3 out of 4 mothers are at work (or higher - I don't know the actual statistic, this is just my observation). We aren't there when they get home from school and some don't even have the luxury of making/receiving a phone call at that time depending on the nature of their job. The financial cost of after-school care can sometimes be too high and is only subsidized to what... age 13? The child needs the supervision until much older. Parents often opt to leave their kids at home to save the money for frivoulous (obvious sarcasm) things like rent, food, lights, and/or heat. Lacking adult supervision, these kids find comaradarie with one another during these hours which may begin innocently enough, you know their parents, they know you, and all is well until even just one "cool" kid enters the picture. It doesn't take much of an imagination nowadays to see what can and does happen.

Combine the lack of direct parental supervision during these couple/few hours a day with the drastically reduced "teen friendly" establishments in general that we enjoyed as kids on weekends, i.e., the local bowling alleys, skating rinks and neighborhood theaters, etc... and the activities the kids are turning to for fun or necessity don't involve a hand-stamp if you know what I mean.

The city desperately needs to advertise more aggressively the free after-school programs there are and establish more locations for parents without their own vehicles. Maybe even start seeking donations from businesses and citizens to help subsidize child care to an older age? Someone taking a risk and opening a business with the teens interests in mind would be great too.This won't solve all the problems by any measure and will actually take years to realize the benefit to the city at all but the peace of mind would be realized by the families before the end of the day!

I'm just babbling...