“Who are you?” the girl asked my daughter.
“She is my sister!” my eldest declared, fingers extending around her little sister’s arm.
The girl blinked back at her, “No, she isn’t. You’re white, and she’s black. You’re lying!”
I watched her lips respond, callousness invisible, but confusion clear as day. The wince on my daughter’s face rippled into my heart. She had never been accused of lying before in her five years of life, and I could tell she was hurt.
This kind of questioning was becoming more frequent on the playground now that their peers were kindergarten-aged. I held my breath as I wrestled with whether or not to jump in. I tried to unclench my fists. The reality was that both of my daughters would have to learn how to deal with these kinds of interactions.
I paused as my eldest retorted, “Don’t you know that families don’t have to match?” The girl seemed satisfied with a shrug, and the three of them turned the conversation over to being fellow princesses on great adventures.
I can’t rescue them from hurt feelings and awkward interactions. After all, I’ve encountered plenty of those in my adult years! I can’t rescue them from curious kids on the playground who simply don’t know any families like us. I can’t rescue my daughter from the ongoing grief of being adopted, and the questions that inevitably lie in our future. But I do know that right now, my eldest is proud to declare, “Families don’t have to match.” And my youngest sparkles when she says, “I was adopted. I’m chosen, loved, and precious!” when I ask her who she is.
Even as I instill a love that knows no boundaries in my children, this kind of reaction to their beautiful sibling relationship can still have emotional repercussions. Children who see other types of families represented in books, media, and families around them—with varying abilities and appearances—can build empathy and understanding.
You can teach children the power of words and the message that sisterhood can belong to us all by checking out these books:
Sisters First by Jenna Bush Hager
Thank You God by Sarah Bradshaw
A Family Like Ours by Frank Murphy
Families by Shelley Rotner
I Believe I Can by Grace Byers
All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon
Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke
More More More, Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams
by Jennifer Toscano 
