by Patrice Farmer<\/a><\/em> SELF-ESTEEM- As a child, I remembered what it was like not to understand who or what I was. It came out of the protection my mother tried to give, in not explaining my (multiracial-ness) or my bi-racial brother, and my mostly monoracial sister, who we were. There was a time, in Elementary school, when everyone asked me if my father was an Arab, (I was light skinned, long blondished brown hair, and hazel eyes). I had no ideal so I stated yes. My brother, who was beaten up and called Chico as a child, told my mother and she chastised me, never explaining exactly what my father was or even what she was. In those days, it wasn't fashionable to explain or understand Mixed-ness, despite the fact that my entire family from the 1700's was a multiracial family. My uncles, all except one (although he married a mixed woman) all had children with white women. My cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great, and great-great were all mixed. If they were not, they did!<\/p>\n When I grew up, I gave birth to a blond haired, blue eyed, white skinned child from an Irish American. It completely changed my life! I went from the child that had a door slammed in her face, because the kids thought she was white, to a light brown skinned mother of a white multi\/bi-racial child. As a single mother, it has been even tougher on me than if her father had been in her life. One statement I have constantly heard since the birth of my daughter, from family and others is, "She's going to grow up confused." Confused? I don't see myself as confused. I know my mixtures and am very vocal about, despite the growing number of anti-white\/anti-mixed sentiments I encounter on a nearly daily basis. I still have a very high self-esteem level.<\/p>\n It seems more healthy (self-esteem wise) for a child to understand all of whom they are, instead of choosing to acknowledge one race over the other. Too many mixed children have low self-esteem due to the pressure from racial groups in trying to force the child to pick one race without acknowledging the other. What can a parent of multiracial children do to instill pride into their children? I believe that the keys to this are ten simple steps to instilling pride and self-esteem in a Multiracial Child:<\/p>\n Tips For Raising Mixed Kids<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) From birth, understand that no matter what color of skin the child is, they are a mixture of races that should all be acknowledged. <\/p>\n 2) Introduce the child to various foods\/music\/books of their cultures. <\/p>\n 3) Discuss their identity with them early. (It's better for a parent to explain what they are, than for a child or adult to point it out in a devastating fashion.) <\/p>\n 4) Sit down with a child, and cut out pictures of various peoples and write a story or book about how they feel. <\/p>\n 5) Expose the child to others that look similar to themselves. <\/p>\n 6) Condemn other parents, teachers, schools,etc. that try to label your child. Let you and your child label themselves. <\/p>\n 7) Teach self-esteem. Teach your child to be proud of who they are, what they look like, the hair they have, the color of eyes they've been given. <\/p>\n 8) Raise them in a non-jealous environment. Teach them that someone with characteristics they wish they could acquire, should be admired and not desired. They were given what was meant to be theirs-(Hair texture, Eye color, Skin & Color, etc.) They should think of other people as being unique, just as they are. <\/p>\n 9) Introduce your child to aspects of their culture. Take them to an Irish Dance, a Gospel Revival, etc. This will make them well-rounded and feeling apart of their cultures. <\/p>\n 10) Include as much family as possible. Even if not all family members are apart of your child's life, find someone who will be. Ex: Single white mother of half black child. Find a African American person to be apart of that child's life, and vice versa.<\/p>\n In involving your families\/friends, your child will have a greater understanding of who they are and have a healthy level of self-esteem! <\/p>\n Patrice Farmer is moderator of Mixed Families at Onelist.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Copyright © 1999 Patrice Farmer and The Multiracial Activist. All rights reserved.<\/font> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/li>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Raising Mixed Kids to Face the World by Patrice FarmerJuly\/August 1999<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":344,"featured_media":5816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[217,5],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patrice-farmer","category-tma-articles-and-commentary","tag-the-multiracial-activist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2001\/08\/Articles-and-Commentary.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-5y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2878,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/2878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
July\/August 1999<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAlso by Patrice Farmer<\/h3>\n
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