The Heart Breaking

There are moments, as a parent, when your heart actually breaks.

Some kinds are the good breaking - the moment a child is born, the day one comes home with you, the first time he calls you mama. The kind of breaking that expands your heart to love more than you thought you ever could.

Then there are the other kinds. The kind of breaking that makes you sweat and scream and makes you cling harder and closer to the cross than you ever thought you'd need to. The kind that comes with loss and illness. The kind that comes when your child is wronged or hurt by another. The kind that you cannot prevent. The kind that makes it clear that you, ultimately, have no control.

There was a moment this week.

It was one I knew would happen at some point. I knew they were words he would hear. I didn't know how and when they would come and I readied myself for it the best I could.

But there is no way to truly be ready to hear your own child tell you that someone told him his skin is "ucky, ucky" and that it "looks like it has poopoo on it."

At the ripe old age of 3.5, my son now knows what it feels like to be othered because of the color of his skin. And not just othered, but othered in a negative way. Last I heard, describing someone as the color of poop was not a compliment.

And I know some people might read this and have one of the following reactions.

(1) It was a little kid. He or she didn't mean any harm.
(2) Your son might be making it up. Preschoolers aren't necessarily trustworthy.
(3) That's not prejudice, it's just a childish observation.

If you thought one or more of those things, I'm going to ask you to pause for a minute. To ask God why your first response was skepticism or dismissal.

And honestly? If your first response isn't sadness or shock or anger, I really hope that you and I can grab coffee soon. We can't hash out what's going on through facebook. Seriously, call, text or email now and let's chat.

Because here is the deal.

I sat on my son's bed with him. I asked him how his day at school was. And anyone who knows him, knows that he is exuberant. Lively. Spirited. Funny. That his normal reaction to anything that goes wrong in his day is anger and frustration.

He is almost never sad.

But this day? This day, he told me a story. THIS story. And I asked him how it made him feel. He said he didn't know. My child is not one to be without words. But his body language, friends. His shoulders were slumped. He had trouble meeting my eyes. I asked him every question I know to ask a preschooler to discern whether he is telling the truth or making up a story. (Particularly given some recent encounters with his holding the distinction between fantasy and reality fairly lightly.) He stuck to it. He used the same words every time. And he was sad. He laid on my chest and, friends, oh friends, he told me that he wants to be white so no one says that to him again.

And my heart broke into a million pieces.

As a transracial adoptive parent, I knew this would happen. I know that it's actually normal for children to want to look like their parents. I didn't panic. We will work through that part of it. Every day.

But I held him. I held him tight. I hurt with him in his pain. And I whispered words of love and beauty. I told him that this little friend was wrong. I didn't tell him that child didn't mean it. I am not going to lessen the impact of what he was feeling. I can't know the intention of why that little child said what he did. Even if I did, intention doesn't matter in this case. In this case, my son heard that he was different and that that difference is bad. That made an impact on him. And it won't be the only time hears it. Next time the words might be worse.

Please hear me loud and clear.

IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

What we teach our children from day one makes a difference. The books we read to them. The churches we go to. The ways we choose to give them language (or not) to understand that God's image resides beautifully in all backgrounds of people. When we teach them these things, we aren't teaching them to "see color" as so many people put it. Science has proven that from the tender age of six months, kids see it. It is our job as parents to help them understand it.

Why in the actual world would we leave them to make their own judgment call on this when the world around them has spent thousands of years making the wrong judgment calls on this? Why would we leave something that has the power to cause so much hurt up to a child to figure out? Why would we possibly trust them to get this right when generations of people have othered and murdered and stolen from others because they have gotten it wrong over and over and over again.

I don't know this child and I don't know his parents. I know my son's teacher and I am grateful that she was upset about this. That she was the opposite of dismissive. Grateful that she brought in pictures of her own children who don't look like her and showed them to my son and affirmed his beauty and worth. Grateful that she is the kind of teacher who recognizes it as part of her job to talk about this. Not all teachers would.

You want to know why I say what I do and write what I do and lead groups like I do to talk about this? You want to know why I am working with a friend to develop a PTA training for parents on how to talk to their children about race? You want to know why I cared about this long before I had two black sons who would experience it firsthand?

Because I had friends, close friends who told me the truth.

Because I saw my own biases and lamented and confessed and ask the Holy Spirit every day to keep rooting them out and changing me.

Because I learned to see that this was all over scripture, from day one, and that God's heart breaks for injustice more than I can ever understand.

Because I have a deep hope that if we can change the conversation in this next generation, that maybe, finally, we can start to see some change.

And because of those things, I speak. I speak to children and to adults about what I believe to be true - that God intended our differences to be beautiful, to reveal the vastness of his character, but that the world uses them to divide. I hold my own kids tight and attempt to undo the messages the world is sending them. And not just to undo them, but to replace them. To replace them with the truth that they are beautiful and precious and loved in His sight. That their color is on purpose. That my white son with his blond hair and blue eyes is beautiful and made in God's image. That my black sons with their curly dark hair and brown eyes are beautiful and made in God's image.

God doesn't make mistakes. So many people think that colorblindness is the Christian way to respond but I haven't found a single scripture to support it.

The world is not colorblind, my friends, and neither is God.

So friends, let's wake up and listen. Let's tell our kids the truth when we hold them tight.

And then watch them change the world.