Would You Leave Your Kid In An All "One Race" Daycare?

[frgsonmysox]

That makes me so sad. I'm Hispanic even though I look about as Irish as they come. I take after my mom and not my dad. Chris's family doesn't know he married a Hispanic, or they'd disown him. To this day they've never met my family.

I try to raise my kids to be color blind

[3kidzmama]

My daycare is made up of Caucasian, African American, Native Americans, Hispanic, and Asian children. Of my own children, two are African American and one is Caucasian. My hubby and I are both Caucasian. We have a very diverse family and a very diverse business, yet we live in a predominately white town. We get a lot of the multicultural families because they feel comfortable with us and they know that we won't treat their children differently just because of skin color.

[PolarCare]

I don't suppose I would.

My children aren't all the same race, so I guess an all one race daycare wouldn't take us. I wonder what excuse they would give us when they met my Aleut kids...

[lpperry]

There is not a whole lot of diversity in my specific area. In the schools I grew up in, there was no diversity at all. So, yes, I would send my kids to a daycare/school where the kids were all one race. However, I wouldn't go searching for a daycare that only took ________ kids. I would find the best program and it wouldn't matter to me what the race of the kids are.

I have a small daycare and all the kids happen to be white. It's just because of the area we live in.

[Solandia]

I would choose my child's daycare based on how I felt the provider will care for my child. When I put my own girls in a home daycare, they were in the care of an excellent provider who was African American...mine were the ONLY white kids in the daycare. I didn't realize that until we had met everyone over the course of a couple of week in care. This was in a very 'white' area like 98%, and she was the only licensed AA provider in a city of 20K. The kids loved it there.

I live in a different town now, and the town demographics are about half white, 40-45-ish % hispanic, and the last few percent are everything else. Our community is about 10% non-English speaking. But I have only white daycare kids. The lonely hispanic kid that I do have is mine (a foster child). Much of the hispanic community here live in multi-generational homes, and outside child care is rarely needed.

[Sunchimes]

I had a family turn me down because I didn't speak much Spanish.

[C'est la vie.]

I've worked in an all First Nations centre, my daughter attended as the only non-native child.

I now work in a centre where about half of the children are caucasian, the other half are Asian, Indian, Jamaican, African, South American, Phillipino, European, or any blend of the above. I find segregation offensive. I'm not even sure how I feel about people thinking they need to be kept separate from the general population. There are however differences in beliefs around child rearing. What I like best about it, is that of the 70 families in the centre, every single one, including new immigrants, has embraced Christmas, It's very cool to me that all the parents just want to bring the special holiday to their kids, regardless of race or religion.

[spud912]

I've never even really thought about it, to be honest. My children are mixed (bi-racial if you want to be politically correct), so I guess it automatically is "multicultural."

[youretooloud]

I can't imagine trying to control the race in my daycare.

But, if you live in an area where there is little to no diversity, there's not much you can do. I would choose the best daycare for my family, not the one with the most diversity.

My friend has a white daughter, and he has her in a 99.9% Navajo daycare center. His daughter is the only white person in the entire school. Everybody touches her hair because it's blonde.

But, it's affordable, it's close to his house, and she's happy there.. she doesn't know she's the only white kid there.

[Unregistered]

Well, I would...but I would leave her in a mixed race daycare too. It just doesn't matter much to me. I have mostly had all white kids in my daycare. It's just happenstance, even though I live in a racially diverse area.

Same here. One neighbor daycare has lots of African American kids. Next door neighbor daycare has none and has never had one in 8 years simply b/c she has never interviewed an african american family. I think if you make a big deal out of race it becomes a big deal. I would send my kid where ever I was comfortable with their care regarless of the other kids in care.

[Michelle]

I totally agree with all of you and Daycare, that was a wonderful thing you did for your daughter!
Wish there were more people like you!

I don't know why these provider friends do this. (it's actually against licensing regs.)
I have also been seeing a lot of care.com ads saying " Muslim preferred" and Filipino preferred .. It's actually really sad that these families could be missing out on some awesome providers that would be willing to learn about their culture and make their countries food dishes just for fun and a learning experience for the other kids.

[Heidi]

!!@!

I wish we had more diversity here!

We moved from Madison to Timbuktu 10 years ago. Quite a change for my children. My older boys (21 & 19) have a much different perspective than my younger ones (14 &11).

In Madison, I had children of all different ethnic and social backgrounds. Here, it's pretty much vanilla!

I remember when I would take a wagon full of children on outings. 7 or 8 children, all under the age of 5, blond, hispanc, mixed race, and black. Inevitably, a sweet elderly person would smile and ask "are they all yours?'


"uhh..yeah"...I wanted to answer. "I boinked EVERY GUY in the neighborhood!" yeah, I didn't actually say that.....

[Sunchimes]

I had two of my kids in a double stroller. One blonde and one mixed, with dark hair and hazel eyes. They are 3 weeks apart in age. One nice little old lady asked me if my granddaughters were twins. I didn't laugh out loud, really I didn't. Ok, I almost did. Is that even possible?::

[Michelle]

I had two of my kids in a double stroller. One blonde and one mixed, with dark hair and hazel eyes. They are 3 weeks apart in age. One nice little old lady asked me if my granddaughters were twins. I didn't laugh out loud, really I didn't. Ok, I almost did. Is that even possible?::

actually yes, it has happened.
A fertility clinic messed up and implanted a black mans sperm along with this white woman's husbands sperm and she has black/white twins!

[Sunchimes]

Definitely a mess up.

I was thinking maybe they could be twins and one took after the mom and one took after the dad. But, not in this case. ;-)