Red and Yellow, Black and White
by Denise Sproul

In teaching our children and modeling for them what it means to be color blind, it is important to make the distinction in our parental minds between racism and curiosity. When we moved to Virginia and had a lot fewer racially different people immediately around us than we did in Orlando, I was actually concerned because I wanted our children to be comfortable and familiar with people whose skin was darker than theirs. They will notice those differences, and will also notice if our reactions are natural or uptight. If, when your child asks, "Why is Benjamin's hair so curly?", you blush, they will learn to treat secondary differences as primary. They will instead hopefully notice if the distinctions we make about people we see in the world are based on whether they are the seed of the serpent or the seed of the woman. That's a difference that matters. Whether a woman honors her husband or not ought to catch our children's attention far more than the color of her skin. We should all strive to value what God values, because that is a distinction that matters, not only to pursue being set apart, but also to look for opportunities to let our lights shine. Our children will follow our pattern. Racism is caught, not taught, but is caught far more often than it ought to be. We think more soundly on these matters than we act.

Socialization is, both sadly and strangely, a common buzzword linked to homeschooling. Those who object to keeping our children at home will raise this objection more than any other. This article is not meant to prove that socialization happens quite abundantly and thoroughly with homeschooling, thank you very much, but it is meant to demonstrate that the kind of desirable socialization that happens with homeschooling should exclude any hint of racism. It's fine for our daughter Delaney to notice that her friend, born in India, but raised in Virginia, has beautiful dark skin. We don't want to squelch her noticing the obvious. More importantly, we want to teach her to think biblically, in light of I Corinthians, where it tells us that all those in the body of Christ are differently gifted. We want to teach her that some are knees, some are ears, some are toes, but all are useful and necessary for building God's kingdom, and you can't tell which is which by their skin tone. We should desire that all our children know that their brothers and sisters in Christ, though they may do things differently or have different strengths and weaknesses, are still their brothers and sisters in Christ. Pointing out that their eyes are shaped differently is irrelevant, at worst, and a sign of God's delight in variety at best.

In teaching our children to value others' gifts and not dwell on things that are not essential issues, there are myriad ways this plays out. We don't reject child A because she doesn't follow our family's rule B — that you don't say, " stupid." We recognize, and teach our children to do likewise, that different families do things differently. This doesn't make them outside the kingdom of God. We also teach them that this difference does not require us to change or ‘fix' family A. It seems as if this can be an especially difficult task for children from three to six years old. They tend to see things in much more black and white terms (no pun intended). More important than teaching our children not to apply our family's rules to others, we make sure not to reject other families who sing different songs or eat different food. However, neither do we seek to be culture-less, with no habits and preferences that link us to our ethnic roots. RC is always asking our dinner guests and resident students about their ethnic background and their favorite ethnic food. Sometimes it takes a while, particularly with younger students who are new to our home, to understand the question. They might look at him like he's out to lunch until he starts prodding with more questions like, "What kind of meal do you ask your mother to fix for your birthday?" or "What was your favorite non-American food that you ever ate in a restaurant?" By learning these things about others, we learn more about who they are. We also teach our children who they are and to celebrate who others are. Some cultural differences are moral (such as celebrating Kwanzaa or Hanukkah) and thus we are obligated to reject multi-culturalism per se. We teach them to reject the things that our Lord would reject. We don't say, "Oh, that's nice, it's part of your culture, so that's O.K. for you to do." We teach our children to not strive to be hip in the eyes of the world by acting like moral ugliness is just a neutral color. Some cultural differences, though, are just different colors on the canvas. We have to teach our children to distinguish between these two options, being first diligent to do it ourselves. We have to teach them, as we must teach ourselves, to be deliberate.

The balance we always need to strike is helping our children to understand who they are as children of the King. Our battle is not with another skin color, or another ethnic heritage. Rather, our battle is with another worldview. When our children understand that they are Sprouls, they understand that what defines them is their relationship to Jesus. He is the One who makes us who we are, a set-apart, holy people. And now, seven-and-a-half years after we arrived in Virginia, God has placed numerous children of different racial backgrounds in our church and larger community. These, like the Sprouls, fear no man, and fear God. These, like the Sprouls, don't much care for haggis. But, these, unlike the Sprouls, don't feel the need to try the haggis anyway. Seeing these wonderfully diverse children whose families do things differently than ours does has had God show me once again that I needn't have been concerned when we moved. As long as we are a part of God's economy, as long as our loyalty is to the kingdom of God, we will have what matters in common with those around us, and will have different tastes to delight us. We will be one with many, and with many we will be one.