Complicated

When I was little, I loved music. I still love music, but back then I really loved music. And nobody ever said that it was because of the colour of my skin.

A white kid who is good at music (and lots of white kids are good at music) is never told that it's a racial characteristic. People never said to my mother 'oh well of course little Claudia loves to sing! She's white! It comes totally naturally to her!'

I think you can see where this is going.

Lately I've been thinking about complexity. I don't like the fact that sometimes, people think they know about my kids, when they don't know my kids. From what people say to me, sometimes I get the feeling that white kids are allowed to be complicated, and infinitely variable. Black kids, on the other hand, are expected to be good at music. And running.

And guess what? I think that my kids are pretty musical. And maybe it's genetic, but there's also a good chance that it's because I make sure that the three of us spend time singing and dancing together every. single. day. Probably, it's some combination of the two and there's no way of unpicking how much belongs to nature, and how much to nurture. If they do have this talent, I want to celebrate it because this talent will be part of what makes them who they are: what makes Blue, Blue, what makes Pink, Pink. Not because Blue and Pink are black.

I have no idea, yet, whether they will be good at running; they are still at the drunk zombie stage of walking. If it turns out that they can run quickly, I can tell you now that will be nothing to do with me. That will be because their mother or their father could run quickly. Or, maybe it skipped a generation and it was one of the grandmothers who had this skill and passed it down. But if it happens, it's going to be something that came from their family, not from their race. I think there is such a big difference. And so I don't want anybody assuming anything about what they're going to be 'genetically' good at, unless that person knows their first family.

We humans have small brains, and we live in a big world. It's understandable that we want boxes to put our thoughts in, and use then use those boxes to put people into. But I think that one of the best ways we can show respect to other people is to allow that they are complicated. Even if our stereotypes are 'positive' stereotypes, I think stereotypes are always demeaning, because they stop us seeing a whole person and only let us see a cardboard cutout, and who wants to be a cardboard cutout? I think this goes for more than just race, although race is what is making me think about it.

I've said before that I think adoptive parents run the risk of talking about Ethiopia as if it is a theme park, and Ethiopians as if they are always a nation of beautiful, friendly, cheerful people. We certainly met beautiful, friendly, cheerful people while we were in Ethiopia. But we also met a few who were surly, a couple who were lazy and at least one who was deeply depressed. (We even met a guy who wasn't good looking. Shocking, I know). They certainly were not all singing and dancing, and I think some of them even wanted the latest consumer goods. It seemed to me that it was a country full of people just like me, really. Different from each other. And complicated.

And complicated is what I want people to expect of my Ethiopian children. Maybe, in some kind of grand cosmic joke at our expense, they will turn out to be musical and fast and that will be the sum of their talents. But maybe their youthful tunefulness will turn into tone-deaf caterwauling as they grow; maybe they will be as slow and uncoordinated on their feet as I am. More likely, they will be averagely musical, and averagely speedy, and the gifts their first parents have given them will turn out to be totally different: gifts for listening, for storytelling, for comedy, for chemistry, for climbing trees. We can't know now, and we don't need to. I want them to be able to develop into who they are, free of expectations.

I just want people to let my kids be complicated.

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One more thing: I'm going on a blog break for the next month. I need to spend my writing time on this supposed book, and if I don't say here that I'm taking a break, my resolve will crumble. See you soon!

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