(Small digression before I even start the post, which has GOT to be a new record-- I have 6 blog followers??? When did THAT happen??? :D Yay, thank you guys for your support! It makes me all the more motivated to keep blogging during a difficult time.)
So, my son, King Of Echolalia, brought home the phrase, "'Cause that's how God made you" from school the other day.
I was a mite concerned. Wonderful Husband and I want to raise our Wonderful Son to think critically, not to mindlessly accept pat, cop-out platitudes as explanations of how and why things are. Also, WS is SO good at imitating voices that I knew exactly which of his class's educational assistants said it. I know her to be a very religiously-minded woman, but I also esteem her as a responsible educator, head and shoulders above SO MANY educational assistants that I have encountered, with classroom sensibilities on a par with trained teachers. This made me wonder what had prompted such a, well, a cop-out response, and one that evoked religion in a public school, no less!
There was some questioning, in the indirect, inductive manner often necessary to prompt ASD kids to remember and cough up the detail you're specifically asking about. I never got it out of him myself, but Wonderful Husband uncovered the root of the matter.
He was asking her WHY he is beige while all of his friends are brown.
I am inescapably reminded of the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk," in which he cries, "YOU MEAN I'M GONNA STAY THIS COLOR???"
He is one of, seriously, five caucasian kids in his large elementary school. He wants to look like Frederick Douglass when he grows up. I hope he isn't getting a complex about his superficial differences. (He should save it for a complex about his GEEKERY, like the rest of us!!!!! KIDDING, kidding.)
Knowing the question really made me understand both the EA's response, and the fact he asked HER, not me. Because if he had asked me, I would have obsessive-compulsively babbled about phenotypes and molecular genetics. The kid is five. He has NO respect or care for things too small for him to see.
So! Since CLEARLY I can't rely on my own lecturing capabilities, and would REALLY super-rather dislodge the "'cause that's how God made you" explanation from his developing mind, can anyone suggest a resource or way of explaining stuff like skin color and eye color and hair color that DOESN'T compel him to reply mid-way with, "Are you done talking yet, Mommy?" :D
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6 comments:
We had similar experiences with our 6 year old Turkey. All his neighborhood friends were brown and he isn't. We just told him that everyone was different. Then I compared my pasty, fishbelly white arm with his lightly toasted one and said "see?". And then compared it to my wife's green arm. She's Greek, so I guess technically it's an "olive" complexion, but there's definitely a green tinge. Anyway, when shown the very distinct differences just in his own family, he wasn't really concerned with the differences with his friends.
I'm holding off on the evolutionary advantages to various levels of melatonin in the skin depending on where the various phenotypes evolved for next year ;-)
As a pasty person of western european heritage who has to examine every mole under a microscope to make sure it's not melanoma and slather on the SPF 90,000 just to avoid turning into a cooked lobster, I've never understood the supposed advantages to lighter skin.
Perhaps this would be a good way to get him to exercise his observational powers. Ask him what color skin his friends' parents have, and compare that to yourself and your husband. Show him pictures of someone like President Obama and his parents. Let him draw his own conclusion.
Actually, that's the way you and your husband made him, not God. ;) 'Cause that's what parents do, make babies!
Years ago when my son asked, "Why are some people black?" I just said that people usually look like their parents. He hasn't wanted any more explanation than that.
How about, "Just like Skittles, people come in all different colors and flavors."
Simple enough to me!
this is funny ! i'm not a kid person but they are funny!
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