I don't like God

I'm not sure how much advice I can give because we are at the VERY early stages of our process, BUT, I do have a very good friend going through an interracial adoption and they have had some what of a tough time with this exact same situation. For me, I would tell him that God made everyone special and unique and no skin color is yucky. People of all skin colors have differences - white skin comes in many shades as does brown. I can understand what he is feeling - being different from his family but you could remind him that its not what he looks like that matters - its whats in his heart and thats love! God loves us no matter what we look like. If we all looked the same and acted the same life would be REALLY boring! I hope this spurs some thought as to what you might be able to do or say to him, but at the very least, I hope you know that from this post, someone is there and listening and cares. All the best!

I completely agree with the comments below. Both my DD and I are African-American, however my skin is darker than hers... One day we were looking in the mirror and she made a sad face and said, I wish I were more brown like you... I initially brushed off the comment and made an off-hand, "oh one day when you grow up type comment" when I realized that wishing to be more brown was just as disturbing as wishing to be lighter. I changed my response to an exaggerated "really??? I think your skin color is super beautiful!" I got a little smile, but she did say... "I still want to be more brown". It's a work in progress... Your son needs someone who looks like him to admire, and affirmations from you on how awesome he is...

Jesus Loves The Little Children is a song most 4 year olds can memorize, so is that something he knows? Might help if he knows he's special in God's eyes no matter what the color of his skin. And at this age, things are sometimes easy to explain in the simpler ways of "God doesn't make yucky colors, think of all the awesome colors you love!! He loves them all!" (as an example) Sometimes all a little one really needs is a validation of what they feel and a way to see something bigger than them. It wows them to be shown things, kwim? As for hating God, I've had this conversation with my dd, (for different reasons) and sometimes I think we can't really convince them not to feel a certain way, but we can show the positives and keep showing them so they have something else to focus on in time. Then their feelings can change as a result of all that you've shown. (like the suggestion of role models etc. above)

That's awful! I'd ask him why he thinks brown skin is yucky to find out why he feels that way, & try to respond based on that. The others gave good advice.

A friend told me she found her daughter in the tub trying to scrub away her brown skin. After digging into it, she found out that it has been prompted by some particularly nasty comments from a classmate. Even if you're doing a good job there are outside influences that you can't control. I would dig into where these feelings are coming from and if it's external it should be addressed.

I remember hearing a speaker a year or so ago who is a transracial adoptee and has also done some research on TRA for her doctorate. The most common thing she had come across in terms of what transracial adoptees wished their parents had done was tell them more often how beautiful they were. I've heard this from kids raised in bio and same-race-adoptive families who feel the same way, but they have the benefit of similar characteristics to people they love and think are beautiful. It's tough, because we don't want kids to only focus on looks, but kids need to know that we think they are beautiful. Same-race role models are one way of helping; what other ways can you think of, in addition to making sure he has adults and kids of color in his life, to let him know how beautiful you think he is, and to make sure he gets that message from others as well?

First of all, don't panic. Little kids say things all the time that can cause us to worry, but really aren't nearly as serious as we might think. That said, I know exactly how you feel because, 19 years ago, my son, Thomas, said essentially the same thing. At the time, he was the only one in our family who wasn't white and I was afraid he was going to grow up traumatized by that. He actually said he wished his skin could turn the color of mine, but pretty much the same thing. It really concerned me. I told him I'd be very sad if his skin turned the color of mine because I thought his brown skin was beautiful. He didn't say any more about it. Then, a few days later, he was in the bathroom yelling, "I need help wiping!", just like his daughter does, now. I went in and helped him and said, "OK, your bottom's wiped!" He got this horrified look on his face and asked, "What? My bottom's WHITE?" I said, " Oh no, your bottom's still brown!" He literally heaved a sigh of relief, and never said anything about not liking his brown skin again. By the time he was in school, he started having white friends tell him that they wished they had brown skin, like his.I think telling them that we think they are beautiful is very important and also to remind them that people come in all colors. One thing I did was make sure that we always had people of different races represented in the art work in our house, the magazines we kept around, the dolls and other toys, Christmas decorations, etc..Ruth, I would love to know more about the study you told about. Do you remember the woman's name?

I can't remember; I never read the study, just heard her speak. If I can come up with it I'll certainly let you know.

I have always known the story of Acts 8, Philip and the Ethiopian. But this year I studied Acts and learned that prior to Philip being on the road and meeting up with the Ethiopian he was enjoying great success in Samaria. But God called him out of Samaria to travel this road, I think just to meet this Ethiopian. God loved this Ethiopian so much that he sent Philip to answer his questions and lead him to salvation. Also, some say the greatest honors given to a human by God: 1. Mary, to be the mother of Jesus and then 2. Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus' cross. Cyrene was a large town in North Africa and he was most likely some shade of brown or black. It is difficult to know for sure becuase the Bible does not use race to describe anyone. Ethnicity/Origin/Believer/Non Believer = yes, but never color. Jesus loves ALL the children of the world. We are ALL created in his image.

Thanks for all the replies...it took me a while to come back here because its so hard to read the words my precious little boy said to me. You all gave me amazing advice. I told my little boy to look around while were at church and see all the people around us- brown, white, "red" (he says I am red) and that God made all these people and they are all beautiful. That night, I pulled out all our books with brown characters and a favorite, "We're Different, We're the Same". I will make a greater effort to expose him to AA people and culture. I can do better in this area. My son is an absolutely beautiful child...but HE needs to feel pride in who he is, and I will do whatever I need to do so this happens.

First, assure him that, even though he is currently mad at God, God loves him and will always love him, just as you love him and will always love him. Then ask why he thinks brown skin is "yucky" and tell him how you think his skin is a beautiful chocolate color or some other positive way of describing his skin tone. If he can articulate why he thinks brown skin is yucky, you should be able to deal with the response. Maybe he has heard kids making racist remarks, either about him or about someone else, and you will need to start talking about racism. Maybe he is just feeling "different", because there are no other Black kids in his class or in your neighborhood, and you will need to find some Black families elsewhere, to become part of your child's social life. And so on. Sharon

We have a black little girl, will be 5 in August. She has been with us over two years now. I am white and my wife is half Hispanic so is a little brown. Saw your post on your four year old and thought wow sounds like our little girl. Will I be white when I grow up? will my baby be white? I want to be white. These pop up pretty regularly lately. We tell her she is beautiful just the way she is. We try and talk about colors, I am vanilla, her mom is mocha, shen is chocholate, we wish we could have her color skin..... I think it is part of figuring it out which they have to do. Amazing how big of concepts they think about! We do not have the answers butvarevlooking for them like you are. When we first heard her say this kind of thing it did make us sad. As time goes on and we talk about it more it seems better for her and us. We do live in a very diverse neighborhood and our church is diverse, including biracial families, so we are lucky there. But I can see when we are at a family thing and she is the only black person why this would be hard to figure out. I joined up just today looking for other parents with black adopted kids.. It is amazing what I was unaware of and what instill do not know about how the blacks and whites see each other!

I just remind myself all the time of what my 25 year old bio daughter said about her 3 year old adopted black brother.She's worried that when she has her own babies that they could never be as beautiful as he is with that beautiful milk chocolate skin he has :)

DH is very dark...so who knows what Peanut will wish-to be darker like dad, to be lighter like mom-probably at different times some of both and some of neither! A good friend's son started making such comments. About the same time we sent them a Christmas card with Peanut's picture. Her son started asking all kinds of questions about Peanut-first thinking it was a photo of himself...then "are we from the same country?" (they're not...Peanut is from here). We have started spending a lot more time together, and it seems to help-even though there's about a six year age difference. He'll ask me questions like "did he live with you when he was six months old?" Yes. "I lived with Mommy then, too!" it never dawned on me that a baby who looks more like him (who also is adopted, and also has a white mom) could have that kind of impact. But he's looking for similarities, and Peanut had some of those similarities. Good luck to you.

Oh man....this is a tough thing to go through. But it's COMPLETELY NORMAL. They all express it differently, but it's normal. My son told us he didn't want to be brown he wanted to be white like us. Here is how we handled it. I have NO idea if it was right or not, but I will say he seemed satisfied and was happy the next day. So the first thing to do is to remember to LET THEM GRIEVE. Don't make them feel bad for thinking that way by saying "Why would you feel that way, how could you say that!?" It's always a knee-jerk reaction I think for us to say that but don't. Sometimes they just need to cry it out. It DOES suck that they don't look like us for them, they want to, we stand out, they love us and want to look like us. I think this is even normal in transracial families by birth. So, while I talked with him I didn't force it. I told him it was okay to be sad, and just to remember he is no less for his brown skin. Then I started talking more. I talked to him about other people who are brown and we love (his daycare teacher, our friends, his brother, etc). But I knew in reality it's not that he hates brown skin in general, just HIS at that moment. So then I started talking about how we are similar and yet different. I told him daddy and I are both white, yes, but what color is daddy's eyes (green)? What color is mommy's eyes (brown)? What color is your hair (black)? What color is mommy's hair (black)? Do you think mommy isn't as pretty because she has brown eyes and daddy has green? Do you wish mommy had green eyes? How many eyes do you have? How many eyes does mommy have? Again, this just helped him (in my view) to really sort out the similarities and differences. Then I talked about some of his heroes who are black. Baseball players, poets, etc. How proud his culture is (just a little, he is just 5 and doesn't really "get it" yet). I talk about how strong the black race is and talk more on that. Then I ended it with telling him that his brown skin is a part of who he is. I tell him that he is beautiful and that his brown skin is part of his beauty. I tell him that mommy and daddy love him just the way he is and we would be sad if your skin changed because it's part of who you are. You know, just things like that. I didn't say I wanted to look like him, or I wish I had brown skin, because the point of the whole talk is to be happy with who you are. BUT really, throughout the whole thing, I just let him grieve and cry. I rubbed his back, hugged him, told him that it's okay, and let him talk to us. Just remember saying you don't like brown skin and want to be different (no matter how they say it, in your case it was blaming God) is normal. It's not something you do or don't do. People who are extremely racially proud and consistent still go through this, ESPECIALLY adoptive families with two white parents because they just want to look like us. I even had three of my AA friends say the same thing happened with their kids and they are a full AA family. Oh, I also feel like this is the first step to knowing they are ready to learning more about their race and starting the learning with them about their race and the pride that goes with it. Don't forget to teach them about racism too, they need to be prepared. :) I hope this helps!