The Skin She's In

I'd been wondering when skin color would come up - when Mira would ask a question or make an observation about her brown skin, in our otherwise-pasty family. I was kind of surprised it hadn't come up already - she's made some pretty astute observations about Randy's "scratchy face," my dad's bald head and my own "soft tummy" (that's kid-speak for flab), but hadn't said a peep about skin color.

Until last week. She was looking at her arm (her beautiful, perfect little cinnamon arm) and she said, "I don't like this brown stuff." I said, "What brown stuff?" (because who knows? - her arm might very well be covered in marker, peanut butter, mud or something worse. And we will never speak of that again.) She said, "I don't like this brown skin." Oh, how that wrenched my heart! I smiled and said, "I do. I love your brown skin," and readied myself for a discussion about her skin versus my skin. But instead she declared, "I only want blue skin. Or purple. I only like blue and purple skin." Where to go from there?

I asked her if she thought a lot of people had blue or purple skin (we'll leave Barney and hypothermics out of this) and she considered that for a minute. "I don't know..?" Then I told her that mostly people aren't blue, and everyone has different skin. I said, "Your skin is brown because you're Ethiopian, and Ethiopians have brown skin." I thought this might make sense to her because we frequently talk about the fact that she's Ethiopian (granted, it's often in contexts like, "There's an Ethiopian streaker running through the living room," or "Just because you're Ethiopian doesn't mean you can drink my coffee," or "Someone bit the top of my Chapstick off and I suspect a three-foot-tall Ethiopian."

She pondered my explanation and then asked if our neighbors are Ethiopian. (Well, no.) How about her classmate Kate? (Um, no, Kenyan actually.) Her friend Rhianna? (Ah no, Somali.) OK, so my explanation was as clear as mud. (Is mud Ethiopian?) At this point, true to three-year-old form, she abruptly lost interest in the topic and asked if she could wear Gracie's jewelry.

Certainly we know this topic will come up again (and again), and it may be a rockier conversation as the years go by. She may wish for light skin, straight hair...

Or she may have other cosmetic aspirations.