Kids are colorblind

Tonight as I tucked Ava into bed, I asked her what the best part of her day was.

She looked up at the ceiling, giggling. "It was definitely at school, when *Andrew was doing his show and tell about Buzz Lightyear and he got up and started doing a funny dance, saying 'To infinity...and beyond!' That was definitely the best part of my day, Momma! Andrew is so silly!"

Now, although Ava started at a new school just a few weeks ago, it certainly didn't take me long to put faces to the names of the other eight children in her small Pre-K classroom.  In fact, I'm sure I could name all of them with 99.9% accuracy if they lined up in a row. Ava, however, doesn't know this little fact. And so, with my own knowledge that "Andrew" is the only African-American child in her classroom, I decided to conduct a little pseudo-experiment on children & race, right there in bed.

"Hmmm, I don't think I remember who Andrew is-- can you remind me?"

"Sure Momma...ummm, he is the one with....the dinosaur shirt. Remember?"

"No honey, I don't. Tell me more about him?"

"Well...he always brings fruit roll-ups for lunch! And he likes to do the art station. Oh, and he has brown eyes, just like me!"

"What else?"

"Well...I don't know if it is nice to say this about Andrew..."

(I assume this is the part where she will awkwardly say something about his skin being a different color than her own..)

"It's okay honey, what do you want to tell me?"

"Well Momma...he sometimes has boogies in his nose!"

I smile and give her a big hug. "Ohhh, now I remember. He's the one who eats fruit roll-ups, and sometimes has boogies in his nose. So that's Andrew!"

"Yeah, Momma! Exactly!" she smiles, proud that she has conveyed to me which classmate she is referring to.

I give her a major squeeze until she tells me that my hug is squishing her, and a final smooch on the forehead.

"Night, Momma!" she says to me, snuggling up under her covers and closing her eyes.


I leave her bedroom and close the door. And immediately think to myself, if the rest of the world just start perceiving other human beings with the same innocence, acceptance, & color-blind lenses as my 5-year old, what a beautiful world it would start to become.