The day she found out she wasn't white

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day (soooo many people forget that he was a Junior. That his father was Martin Luther King) I am reminded of this article by my college friend and much-loved author, Lisa Papademetriu, The Day my Daughter Realized She Isn't White, published in the Washington Post November 3, 2015.

Now, to me anyone who doesn't have a dark brown skin color is White.  But that's just me. To the rest of the world, anyone who has skin color even slightly different from them is "other."
(I read somewhere that Asians consider themselves white and think of us as pink.)

So, as you celebrate this day off from school (or day off from work that some people have) think about how children learn about discrimination, and about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message.

Lisa Papademetriu's latest book is A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic.

A first dinner

The 10-year-old just 'cooked' her first dinner for herself and my husband, Wednesday evening.
She microwaved leftovers, sliced an apple (we have an apple slicer/ corer), added small raw carrots, put the whole thing, with ice water, onto a tray and served it in the living room. She and my husband then watched the evening news while they enjoyed their dinner.

(Me? I was working the evening shift at the library.)

I'll have to say that, when my husband e-mailed me to say that he had been banned to the living room while all these preparations were going on, my first thought was the memory of the first time she prepared breakfast for us.
Breakfast in Bed.

When the 10-year-old was 4 or 5 years old, we woke up to a paper plate being handed to us.
"Wake up! Wake up! Here's your breakfast."
(in those days, she was disgustingly cheerful in the early mornings -- not like the grumpy morning teenager she's turned into.)

We opened our eyes to see -- Sugar Sandwiches on a plate.
That's right. Two pieces of bread with lots of sugar in the middle.
(Yes, I had to wash the bed sheets that day to get all the sugar off the bed.)
-wendieO