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Thread: Diversity?

  1. #11
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    @ nschildcare no it was not clear from the beginning that they were on a wait list. Moving forward I am going to try really hard to do more screening but still there is only so much we can do. This dcm told me just a few weeks into her son being here that she had an interview at a centre where he had been on a wait list. Which honestly I didn't need to know and I didn't really appreciate the fact that she told me she was shopping around while I was hard at work transitioning her child although I do appreciate the ample notice, sometimes I have found she just says odd things sometimes.

    I am thinking now too that I can understand trying to be more sensible towards having more "diverse" materials, I am open to that but at the same time I don't think that would have been a deal breaker since it's really not like dcm would actually see any of this material on a day to day...

    All I see when I think of a daycare center is a giant room full of kids everywhere and I don't see how that is the better bargain and how that is more "elite" but hey it's a personal preference I guess. Making something into an institution makes it better apparently!

  2. #12
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    I have a funny story actually. I had a boy in my care for a year. He was a handful (I mentioned in a different thread how his parents worked non-stop and he was starved for attention whether good or bad). He was hard to handle and took up a lot of my time and energy. Looking back he took so much out of me and away from my group. I cut our art/crafts down to once a week because he was so exhausting. The funny thing is his parents took him to a center so that he would have more of a pre-school type setting with more arts/crafts/learning type environment. Funny thing is once he left my care I had so much more time to do those types of things with my group and actually enjoy doing it again. I felt so sorry for the girls in that center lol!!

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  4. #13
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    I can understand this dc mom in a way. My kids are biracial and when I had them in daycare I looked for a daycare with a mix of races/ethnicities. I felt it was important for them not to feel different or singled out during those early formative years when kids build their self-esteem and sense of self etc. I also worried about discriminatory comments being made, even unintentionally, by the provider or family or the other kids or my kids being made to feel different. It is often totally unintentional...a remark about their skin colour or their hair, etc...but can have lasting effects on a child and become part of how they see themselves. I am not saying you, Fun & Care, have made any such remarks or anything like that, but only that I can see where the mom is coming from. Racism is often very subtle, but all the little comments and remarks become part of the child's self image and the child begins to see himself/herself as different. Even small things like not seeing themselves reperesented in any dolls, books, posters, colouring sheets, etc can have a big impact.

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  6. #14
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    My husband is black and from Africa, so my daughters are half black. I very much understand that mother's desire to have her child in a more diverse atmosphere. Dolls and books are great, but having actual children to play with that look like you is important too - especially when you are in the minority. I want my girls to feel like they belong in every sense. It made me feel a sense of relief when I visited my daughter's school that she will be attending this fall and saw that there were many different types of children there. My daughters have darker skin and much different hair than the other children in my care, and I feel it is important for them to be around other kids (and adults) that are like them so that I can help ensure that they can have a positive image of themselves and good self esteem.

    I wouldn't take their departure personally, even though it does suck to lose them. I don't know if I would have made the same decision as they did, but they obviously felt it was important for their child's welbeing.

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  8. #15
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    I have some of those books too...the ones about different family models. I also found a couple books at 10, 000 Villages called 'Mama Do You Love Me' and 'Papa Do You Love Me' depicting conversations between children and parents in Nunavut and Africa...very cute books. I've been recently getting into books about gender identity, which is kind of neat too. 'Can Princesses Wear Hiking Boots' is one I want, and 'My Little Boy Princess' (something along those lines). Also....at that same 10, 000 Villages shop, I got a bunch of really cool instruments from different countries and a wall hanging of children from different countries holding hands around the earth. It's made out of an oil drum in Haiti. There are lots of little things that can bring cultural diversity into your daycare, even if all your clients and you are Caucasian.

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  10. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by sunnydays View Post
    I can understand this dc mom in a way. My kids are biracial and when I had them in daycare I looked for a daycare with a mix of races/ethnicities. I felt it was important for them not to feel different or singled out during those early formative years when kids build their self-esteem and sense of self etc. I also worried about discriminatory comments being made, even unintentionally, by the provider or family or the other kids or my kids being made to feel different. It is often totally unintentional...a remark about their skin colour or their hair, etc...but can have lasting effects on a child and become part of how they see themselves. I am not saying you, Fun & Care, have made any such remarks or anything like that, but only that I can see where the mom is coming from. Racism is often very subtle, but all the little comments and remarks become part of the child's self image and the child begins to see himself/herself as different. Even small things like not seeing themselves reperesented in any dolls, books, posters, colouring sheets, etc can have a big impact.
    Yes, my girls constantly have strangers commenting on their hair and then often trying to touch it without asking first, which just makes them stand out as being different and a curiousity. These people don't realize they are the hundredth person to do so, and that it affects my girls' self image. So when they are around my husband's family or other biracial/black kids it is nice that they do not stand out. This is so hard to describe exactly how it feels, but having that sense of wholy belonging is such a good feeling.

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  12. #17
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    Yes Amanda...I know exactly what you mean. People often have very good intentions...many times it is a positive comment...but they are still singling the kids out as different by remarking on these things...things they would not likely remark on on a white child. I do not take kindly to strangers touching my childrens' hair just because it is curly and they want to see how it feels. These are all little things in daily life, but they add up. That's why I can understnad the dc mom's decision.

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  14. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by sunnydays View Post
    Yes Amanda...I know exactly what you mean. People often have very good intentions...many times it is a positive comment...but they are still singling the kids out as different by remarking on these things...things they would not likely remark on on a white child. I do not take kindly to strangers touching my childrens' hair just because it is curly and they want to see how it feels. These are all little things in daily life, but they add up. That's why I can understnad the dc mom's decision.
    It's funny you should comment on the compliments that people make about your children's hair and touching it. My children are Caucasian and my daughter has red spiral curly hair. Comments are made about it constantly wherever we go and when she was much younger people would stroke it, SERIOUSLY!! People would always comment when we were out as a family that she didn't look like either of us...way to go genius!! Now she doesn't have the racial obstacles being white, if that's how I can describe it correctly, of feeling accepted and akin to her peers. I don't compare my daughters experience to yours as the same thing but just an example of how children crave unbeknownst to us for acceptance and quite often don't like to be singled out, even for things that are uniquely beautiful or any other reason. My daughters personality would have her reaction be to be very upset that people would constantly comment on her hair, and it got to the point where if anyone approached her she would pull back in revolt. She learnt after many years that these people meant no harm and just simply thought it was beautiful. I tried to teach her to accept the compliment but to know that it was perfectly okay to use her voice to politely ask people not to touch her and when people paid her a compliment instead of letting it get to her to show gratitude and thank them. I just wanted to point out that while this isn't quite the same thing, I can only imagine what it must be like for your kids as it was tough on me to see my daughter feel so awkward about her appearance.

    I remember my son putting me on the spot in a food court when he was 3. We were in the line up and I'm just paying attention to my son, not looking at anyone else and suddenly he exclaims, "Oh my goodness mummy, look at how black that mans face is!" Thank God I was ready for it, don't quite know how but I was. I immediately turned to him and replied to him that we are all unique and different looking. I noticed that this man had a young boy with him and I said to my son, "maybe that little boy thinks you are funny looking because you are so pale looking. That's what makes our world so great that we all look different on the outside but we are all the same on the inside." The man looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled at me, it was like a secret high five and I was actually happy that my son said what he said because it was an amazing teaching opportunity. He did nothing wrong and didn't deserve scoulding, but it seems to have stuck with him because now he always comes home and tells me about the kids who are picked on for being different and how he speaks up for them and hates bullies....."They are so dumb Mom!" Proud mom of my boy

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  16. #19
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    Brightsparks, I have had many people tell me that I don't look anything like my girls, and had people ask where I "got them" (as in I must have adopted them). So I know how you feel, it hurts to have that said to you when you know that you created them. But I know they are wrong, it just isn't as obvious as having the same colour hair.

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    This might sound ridiculous, let me know if it does,but I sort of understand the whole being "different" thing. I have freckles, and a LOT of them and boy did I get teased when I was younger and made to feel different on a daily basis. Try having kids at school calling you sh*t face everyday...yep but did my mom take me out of school and try to find a school with more freckled kids? Of course not. Did my mother in law do the same for my husband because he was super short throughout his childhood and got teased for that on a daily basis a well? Of course not!

    All this ethical stuff is hurting my brain!

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