By: Cyndi Whitmore

Last night I was reading with Daija, and after a few rounds of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom she got out another favorite… Grandfather Twilight. I read it to her once and then she flipped through a few pages. On the last page, the dog and cat pictured in the story are curled up asleep. She said to them ‘Good night… I love you…’ then kissed them/the book. When I read it to her again, on the first page you see the door to Grandfather Twilight’s house in the trees, and she reached over and put her fist on it. I asked her if she was knocking, and then she knocked. I ask her sometimes if she can identify objects (where is the moon, where is the cat), after she pointed out to me ‘him glasses’ a couple months ago (there is a picture where the book he’s reading at the beginning of the story is placed on a table with the glasses he was wearing on top). So anyway, instead of asking her to identify objects, I asked her on the next page, what G.T. was doing, expecting her to say something about him reading. She answered ‘him sit chair’ and so I asked ‘What is he doing in the chair?’ and she said ‘him read story’ babble babble ‘him cat’ (cat was curled up on the back of the chair). In the next two pages G.T. unlocks a chest and takes out a pearl, and she told me ‘him lock’ ‘ him keys’ and ‘him open.’ Then the story continues without words and he walks through the forest to the beach, with this pearl growing each step. He releases it into the sky above the water. At this page, Daija reached out and pretended to snatch the big pearl from the sky and said ‘gimme my moon.’ I asked her if she wanted the moon, and she pretended to snatch it again and claimed it as ‘her’ moon. Then the story shows G.T. walking home, and when he approaches his house in the trees, Daija reaches out her fist again, and I realize that she was not knocking… she’s pretending to open the door. She is developing such an imagination!

By: Cyndi Whitmore

One of the most interesting things I found in this little exercise is that Tyler refers to diety as either ‘They’ or ‘She’, but not as He. He’s a UU, no doubt about it.

• Why did God make mothers?

So they can feed children, keep them safe, so they can, um, I don’t know what else.

• How did God make mothers?

They created one, and then that one made more of them, and they created more mothers.

• What ingredients are mothers made of?

Blood, skin, and bones.

• Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

Because She thought you were much nicer for a mother, instead of any other mother.

• What kind of little girl was your mom?

She was a cheerleader, and that’s all I know.

• What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

I decided to just leave this one alone.

• Why did your mom marry your dad?

Same here.

• Who’s the boss at your house?

Mommy.

• What’s the difference between moms and dads?

That the mom is a girl and the daddy is a boy, and the mom grows long hair quicker than the boy does, and some fathers don’t have long hair… and fathers cut their hair more than girls do.

• What does your mom do in her spare time?

She plays games with us.

• What would it take to make your mom perfect?

Working with me on my homework, helping Halle with some stuff, and that’s it.

• If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?

The trouble for me… the me trouble… she wouldn’t get me in trouble any more.

Cyndi Whitmore

By: Cyndi Whitmore

Scenario: My sitter is black. Priscilla has been babysitting for me since Tyler was 2 mos old. So as not to deal with the hassle of receipts, I pay her by check with the note “childcare” and the dates covered in the memo section. Every month for 3.5 years I’ve written her a check drawn on Wells Fargo Bank. Almost every month for the last two years she has been cashing these checks at the same branch. On the third of this month she went to the branch and dealt with a white male employee whom she’d never seen there before. It so happens that while she was in the bank, I was at the drive-thru teller getting cash. The teller asks me, as my cell phone is ringing, if I’ve written a check on this account recently that someone might be trying to cash… I said yes, my sitter, check # such and such, for $XXX. She’s says OK, just checking… of course I miss the cell phone call. After I finish my transaction I leave and check my voice mail. It is the bank employee my sitter was dealing with, calling to verify the check. He leaves a number for me to call him back. I got his message within 5 minutes of him leaving it and called the number back, twice… the first time letting it ring for about 3 minutes, the second time I let it ring for nearly 4 minutes. He never picked up the phone… but kept my sitter waiting there until the branch closed (over 20 minutes). She had her ID, she was fingerprinted, my account had over $2000 in it, and if the nimrod had scrolled back through my account, he would have seen that a check for that same amount is cashed (usually at that branch) between the first and fifth of EVERY SINGLE MONTH. After speaking with her later that evening I find out she was not able to cash the check and that she was told by this employee to come back tomorrow but that she’ll need to make sure I’m at home because they will still need to verify the check. Well, since I had dance class the next morning I called their 24-hour customer service to find out a) why she hadn’t been able to cash the check and b) to ask them to note in my account that I had called, been verified through their automated system, and given the OK. I never got a satisfactory answer for the incident. At first it was pointed out that the check was for a large sum.  I pointed out that a) it may have been a large sum, but it’s certainly not an unusual activity for my account, and b) that I write a larger check every month for my rent and have never had a problem there. They said, well, it’s because she tried to “cash” it instead of depositing it… I pointed out that she “cashes” it every month since she’s never had a checking account the entire time I’ve known her. It was pointed out that I’d recently had a couple overdrafts… I laughed and pointed out that that is not new or unusual activity either… I am terrible at keeping track of my check book, they make a fortune off of me in NSF fees, and should be perfectly happy to suck up to me for making them easy money. Then I was told that it would not be possible for them to indicate anything on my account and I would indeed have to sit at home in case they needed to contact me. I had a fit… and it took two or three steps up the hierarchal chain AND me pointing out the potential race issue before I finally got someone to say they would call my branch the next morning and make sure my sitter would be able to cash the check.

Curly Mama

By: Cyndi Whitmore

Last night while at my sister’s band concert someone came up to me during the intermission and complimented me on how pretty my kids are, and I thanked her.  Then she asked, right in front of Tyler, who has a mind like a steel trap and never forgets a damn thing, “are they half-breeds?” I sat there in stunned silence, thinking…

Oh, no she didn’t…

I couldn’t even think of what to say – it took me off guard because she wasn’t white or old.  See, I’ve learned to anticipate this stupidity from my own race, or maybe from an older person of any race (my grandpa loves my kids, but to this day refers to black people as “colored” -like his own skin is transparent or something!  Last time I checked we ALL had color).  Once I got my jaw off the floor, I told her that they aren’t half anything; they are children -whole, complete, beautiful children. She didn’t get a chance to say anything else. If Tyler hadn’t been with me I would have let her have it, but he picks up so much, and I didn’t want to call any more attention to what she said.  Surprisingly, he didn’t hear her original question at all; he only caught my comment.  He smiled at the woman and said “yes, I’m a beautiful children.”

I’m not sure I handled that in the best way, but that was the most graceful approach I could think of at the time. I don’t have a huge problem with people asking me if my kids are biracial, but the term “half-breed” indicates something less than complete, or unacceptable, and that word seriously offends me and for me is in the same category as the n-word… now that it’s happened I’m wondering if I overreacted, but then I think that since so few people do act, it’s almost necessary for me to overreact to stupid comments like that just to make up for all the people who let it slide.  This is the first time that a stranger has made an insensitive comment to me (I guess it’s never happened before because Tyler is so fair).

I had another first last night, too.  Another lady came up to me and asked me if Halle was my baby – I thought that was a pretty dumb question and laughed and said “no, she was so cute I snatched her from someone outside.”  It hit me after I got home that she might have been assuming that Halle wasn’t mine, that I was a babysitter or something, because of the difference in our skin color.

By: Cyndi Whitmore

SOOO… I’m a thirty-something Unitarian Universalist/urban/professional/hippie/ghetto/trailer park/country/antiracist/pro-choice/standing on the side of love/1983 station wagon driving/single/ADHD/volleyball/boxing mom of three multiracial children and three bad-ass dogs.

I live in the 7-11 Fight Back Neighborhood in South Phoenix, also known as SoMo or South Mountain Village. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the only part of the city where houses were sold to Blacks, due to restrictive covenants throughout the rest of the city. It is the only Majority Black neighborhood in Arizona, a state in which, according to the 2007 Census, only 6% of the population is Black. South Phoenix is also home to a large Hispanic community, and recent development has brought an increasing number of White families to the area.

Development is not what brought me to South Phoenix. Three of the most beautiful kids on the face of this planet led me here, first as an occasional visitor and eventually as a proud resident. That choice confounds White folks, and perplexes many Black folks too. One friend pressed me,

But what did you think before you moved here? Did you think it was a nice neighborhood?

No, I never thought that. Like just about any transplant, I had been indoctrinated long ago that South Phoenix was a part of town to be avoided completely. Years ago, when I was a mentor with Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Arizona, I took my Little Sister horseback riding at South Mountain. Unfortunately, we got lost in the maze of one way streets downtown and I hadn’t had the foresight to have a) written directions, b) a map, or c) a full tank of gas, before venturing into that part of town. If I hadn’t been I was afraid I was going to run out of gas and be stranded in the hood in the days before everybody and their dog had a cell phone, there’s no way I would have gotten out of my car. I was convinced I was going to be shot in the time it would take me to get five bucks in gas (this being back in the days where five dollars in gas was enough to get you OUT of South Phoenix).

In 1996 I gave birth to my son, and began to realize how limited my own social circle was. Even though my early childhood was spent in diverse environments where I’d had friends of all races, by the time I got pregnant, I was like most White adults –in a social circle nearly devoid of diversity. The only Black people in my life were my boyfriend and his friends. Three years later, Tyler’s dad moved to the east coast, taking not only himself, but also Tyler’s social network. Tyler’s sitter was Black, but that didn’t exactly feel like a point in my favor between the social implications and her being the only Black person with whom I had any kind of friendship. I found myself, time and time again, frustrated with the bulletin board resources for parents of multiracial children. When questions came up about raising multiracial children with a healthy identity, particularly for single parents, White woman after White woman would comment, “Well, his father doesn’t really identify as African American so I just don’t worry about it.” I wasn’t buying that… but clearly, if I wanted my child to have a healthy sense of self, I was going to have to broaden my own white-washed world. Talk about a conundrum: how exactly does one go out and make non-white friends? I mean, you can’t just walk up to an acquaintance and say, “Hey, I’d like to invite you over for dinner because I think it would be good exposure for my child.” How self-serving and entitled is that? When a fellow parent from a bulletin board I frequented during my second pregnancy realized how close our offices were and suggested lunch together, I wouldn’t even let myself be hopeful that our commonalities (she also had a multiracial child born in 1999) would be enough to bond us. I was sure I would somehow alienate her with my silent desperation. But some things, however “too good to be true,” are meant to be. A sisterhood was born between two of the most unlikely candidates: a 25 year-old White Unitarian Universalist liberal who spent the second half of her childhood in a rural town where almost all of the Black families lived on the same block (referred to as “Nigger Alley” on a not-so-infrequent basis), and a 38 year-old Black Christian woman who grew up in the inner city and later confided that she once had a low opinion of interracial dating.

Less than a month after we met in person, Arria invited me to Thanksgiving dinner with her family after I cancelled plans with my own because my mother’s husband made a racist comment about my children. Over the next two years, I spent more holidays in South Phoenix with her family than I did with my own. In 2001, I enrolled my son in kindergarten. I noticed immediately that he was the blackest kid in his class, and possibly in the entire kindergarten. That’s saying something, because Tyler’s complexion isn’t much darker than mine. There didn’t appear to be any Black teachers, and I never saw more than a handful of Black students. Tyler’s dad was living out of state, and I worried again whether summer and winter breaks with his father would be enough to give him a solid sense of his “culture of colour.” I wondered where my children were going to see realistic, much less positive, portrayals of Black people to combat the negative images that are presented in media. I knew that no matter how close we had grown, my “token Black friend” wasn’t going to give my children the community I wanted for them. So, in 2002, halfway through my third pregnancy, we moved to South Phoenix. A lot of folks questioned my sanity (and some of them still do).

Despite all the issues in South Phoenix (and I know we have them), I’ve fallen in love with this community. I had to make a heart-breaking decision to send my children to a school in a neighboring suburb four years ago, but for the three years prior, I loved the many teachers and administrators I met in our home district who had attended Roosevelt schools and had come back to teach or become a principal. I love that I have a favorite checker at the grocery store and we know each other by name and ask after each other’s children! In many ways, South Phoenix is a small town in a sprawling metropolis, where you are more likely than not to run into someone you know at the gas station. Beyond that, living in a community where I am in the minority has forced me to see the reality of white privilege and denial, concepts that were previously theories I acknowledged but understood only in academic terms. People have occasionally applauded my “altruistic” decision to move to a predominantly Black neighborhood, but I see it first as one of the most obvious examples of my white privilege, and second, as much of a blessing to me as it is my children. I believe, or at least desperately hope, that making my home in this community has better prepared me to nurture these children whose flesh is of my flesh but is not the same color as my flesh.

I’ve blogged for almost a decade, and over the last couple of years I’ve become increasingly passionate about the objectification of multiracial youth, white privilege and denial, media portrayal of the community I love, and how racially divided our society is. We may work together, and our children may go to school together, but we are still profoundly divided in so many ways. In the dozen or so years since I started fielding the “What are they” questions, and particularly since moving to South Phoenix, I find myself talking about White people like I’m not one of them. A high school classmate recently made a comment, “Call 9-1-1… somebody stole our White girl again.” Arria shook her head as she laughed, saying, “The White people never HAD you.” I’ve been accused of everything from thinking I’m the great white hope to thinking that all White people are racist. I tend to say things people don’t expect to hear out of someone who looks like me, and every now and again I feel compelled to climb up on a soap box or two… I love to hear from readers, so please feel free to leave comments.

By: Nina Roux

I started researching acupuncture when I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS.) The short explanation of PCOS is my ovaries aren’t releasing eggs; they are instead remaining on my ovaries and turning into cysts. I had been told acupuncture was good for fertility, and I put it on my “to do list.” In the meantime, my doctor put me on metformin (it’s a generic version of glucophage.) Apparently, for some women, when they are treated for insulin resistance with metformin, their hormone levels become more balanced (in my case, I was over producing testosterone, and under-producing estrogen). Once you’re all balanced, your ovaries start releasing your eggs, and you’re ovulating and having regular periods.
Metformin was working! But I am a horrible pill taker, and to remember to take something three times a day, month after month for the foreseeable future created feelings of dread and defeat.
I finally followed up on finding an acupuncturist, and the short of it is that it has changed my life. I am of pretty hard-core German and English pioneer stock, so it doesn’t freak me out to have needles sticking out of my eyelids, the top of my head, or anywhere else –especially when the pay-off is so great.
First I noticed I became more regular. My digestion and elimination quickly became something of which Dr. Oz would be proud. Next I noticed that I was falling asleep easier, had more restful sleep, and woke up feeling more rested.
On a deeper level, I am gaining a profound understanding of my history with food and eating issues, and how those emotions and that emotional history is tied to my metabolism and to my hormonal imbalance – yes indeed, everything is connected.
But the most important result: ovulation! This last cycle was the first normal one in my history without the aid of drugs. And as I come to understand my body better, and it seems to work better, I feel my confidence growing, and I know I’m a little closer to achieving my goals in the most natural and organic way possible.

By: Hibah Yousuf, CNNMoney.com staff reporter

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stroller maker Maclaren announced a recall on Monday that affects about 1 million umbrella strollers that can reportedly amputate or lacerate children’s fingertips.

So far, the company said there have been 12 amputations across the country. This happens when children get their fingers stuck in between the stroller’s side hinges while it is being opened or closed.

The South Norwalk, Conn.-based company announced the voluntary recall in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and advises customers to stop using the products manufactured in China sold since 1999 at stores including Babies R Us and Target.

Consumers can contact Maclaren at 877-688-2326 or visit www.maclaren.us/recall to receive a free repair kit.

Maclaren said the kit includes hinge covers designed to fit all Maclaren strollers.

The recall affects the following models, which range in price from $100 to $400: Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, TechnoXLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno, and Easy Traveller.

CNNMONEY.COM ARTICLE

By: TAMAR LEWIN

Parent alert: the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those “Baby Einstein” videos that did not make children into geniuses.

They may have been a great electronic baby sitter, but the unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect.

“We see it as an acknowledgment by the leading baby video company that baby videos are not educational, and we hope other baby media companies will follow suit by offering refunds,” said Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has been pushing the issue for years.

Baby Einstein, founded in 1997, was one of the earliest players in what became a huge electronic media market for babies and toddlers. Acquired by Disney in 2001, the company expanded to a full line of books, toys, flashcards and apparel, along with DVDs including “Baby Mozart,” “Baby Shakespeare” and “Baby Galileo.”

The videos — simple productions featuring music, puppets, bright colors, and not many words — became a staple of baby life: According to a 2003 study, a third of all American babies from 6 months to 2 years old had at least one “Baby Einstein” video.

Despite their ubiquity, and the fact that many babies are transfixed by the videos, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time at all for children under 2.

In 2006, Ms. Linn’s group went to the Federal Trade Commission to complain about the educational claims made by Disney and another company, Brainy Baby. As a result, the companies dropped the word “educational” from their marketing. But the group didn’t think that was enough.

“Disney was never held accountable, and parents were never given any compensation. So we shared our information and research with a team of public health lawyers,” Ms. Linn said.

Last year, lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the full purchase price to all who bought the videos since 2004. “The Walt Disney Company’s entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development,” a letter from the lawyers said, calling those claims “false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children.”

The letter cited estimates from The Washington Post and Business Week that Baby Einstein controlled 90 percent of the baby media market, and sold $200 million worth of products annually.

The letter also described studies showing that television exposure at ages 1 through 3 is associated with attention problems at age 7.

In response, the Baby Einstein company will refund $15.99 for up to four “Baby Einstein” DVDs per household, bought between June 5, 2004, and Sept. 5, 2009, and returned to the company.

Lawyers in the matter refused to comment on the settlement.

Last month, Baby Einstein announced the new refunds — or “enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee” — but made no mention of the lawyers’ demands.

“Fostering parent-child interaction always has and always will come first at The Baby Einstein Company, and we know that there is an ongoing discussion about how that interaction is best promoted,” Susan McLain, vice president and general manager, said in the statement. “We remain committed to providing a wide range of options to help parents create the most engaging and enriching experience for themselves and their babies.”

The founder and president of Brainy Baby, Dennis Fedoruk, said in an e-mail message that he was unaware of Baby Einstein’s refund announcement and could not offer further comment.

An outside public relations representative for Baby Einstein said there was nothing new about the refund offer.

“We’ve had a customer satisfaction guarantee for a long time,” she said, referring a reporter to the company Web site. However, Baby Einstein’s general “money-back” guarantee is only valid for 60 days from purchase and requires a receipt.

In contrast, the current offer, allowing parents to exchange their video for a different title, receive a discount coupon, or get $15.99 each for up to four returned DVDs, requires no receipt, and extends until next March 10.

“When attention got focused on this issue a few years ago, a lot of companies became more cautious about what they claimed,” said Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But even if the word ‘education’ isn’t there, there’s a clear implication of educational benefits in a lot of the marketing.”

The Baby Einstein Web site, for example, still describes its videos with phrases like “reinforces number recognition using simple patterns” or “introduces circles, ovals, triangles, squares and rectangles.”

“My impression is that parents really believe these videos are good for their children, or at the very least, not really bad for them,” Ms. Rideout said. “To me, the most important thing is reminding parents that getting down on the floor to play with children is the most educational thing they can do.”

More on this article THE NEW YORK TIMES

By: Ernessa Carter

Interestingly enough, I received this Newsweek article from three different people, which I took as a hint that I should mention it on the ole blog. The article can basically be summarized as this: even if white parents think they are teaching kids not to see race, kids still see it, and not only segregate themselves accordingly, but also consider their own race superior. This is mostly because as it turns out when most white parents say that they’re teaching their kids not to see race, what they really mean is that they don’t talk to their kids about race. Like at all. And so kids come to their own conclusion, like that their own skin color is the best, and oh yeah, that their liberal parents don’t like black people.
Now I find this last point most interesting, b/c if you had asked me whether my parents liked white people when I was a child, I would have said no. Not because they didn’t like white people (I found out later that they both considered it a waste of time and energy to hate on white people), but because I never saw them with white people. They didn’t have any white friends and the only white people that ever came over to our house were invited by my sister and me.
So no, I didn’t think my parents liked white people. And I imagine that it doesn’t matter how liberal you are or what you say. If your kids don’t regularly see you with people of other races, then they’ll probably come to the same conclusion as the kids in the featured Newsweek study.
Oh, and another off-main-topic point from the article: the vast majority of people have a same-race best friend. I, myself, have a black best friend, even though my social world is mostly populated by white people, so I find this easy to believe. Contrary to what television and movies try to tell you, most people best-friend within their own race. Interesting, right?
But back to the main topic. The Newsweek article got me to thinking about how Betty will perceive race — especially since it didn’t mention interracial children at all. More specifically, I wonder if she’ll prefer one side over the other. I featured a video last month, in which a little biracial girl said she felt embarrassed when her black mother came to pick her up, b/c all of her friends’ mothers were white. I really, really don’t want Betty to be that girl.
But then all the handwringing of the article had me wondering about something articles like this never seem to consider. Just how responsible are parents for their children’s views on race?
Now I don’t agree with “not seeing race.” That view makes race seem like a pejorative concept, and I think it’s better to teach our kids to embrace as opposed to ignore our differences. However, I’m also aware that there are plenty of racists that don’t have racist parents and plenty of “one-worlders” who do.
If a stone-cold racist screeder like the terrorist who invaded the Holocaust museum couldn’t convince his own son to also be a racist, then how can we expect our children to embrace our higher ideals?
I can talk to Betty about race until I’m blue in the face, but in the end she’ll draw her own conclusions.
But maybe you disagree. Do you think that parents are responsible for how their children perceive race? And IR parents, are you scared that your child will reject or be ashamed of your half of her or his heritage. Let us know in the comments.

This is a blog from Fierce and Nerdy