The things a 4 year-old says...

Last week when I was picking up Jake and Riley from their after school program I commented to them how much I really liked their after school teacher. There was a small group of children around me who heard me say this including Brooke who looked over at the teacher and then at me saying, "but she's black!" I was shocked and appalled at her response. I immediately wanted to grab my children and leave so I could have a little conversation with Brooke. I turned to her and said, "Brooke we like all good people we don't care what color their skin is." To this comment Brooke says, "We don't like BLACK people." All I could think was where did I go wrong???? A rag-a-muffin of a little girl next to us then says, "we don't like black people in our family either." I quickly told her, "well we do!" The whole way home I tried to explain to Brooke and the other kids that all people are our Heavenly Father's children and that we like all good people regardless of their skin color. Later that night when it came time to read a book I made sure that book was one of our many children books that have a black character in it. I really wanted to drive my point home to my children that we like all people. The very next day we were in the same gym picking up Jake and Riley and the teacher approached me with some paperwork she needed me to sign. Brooke was holding onto my hand and watching this teacher very intently. When Miss Tiffany bent down to say hi to Brooke I got a little nervous as to what would be said next. Brooke looked right at her and said, "we LIKE black people in our family." She chuckled and said that she liked white people too.

That could have gone a lot worse....