Do Babies & Kids See Race?

Do babies discriminate between different races? Researchers say they do and that babies are more attracted to the faces of people who look similar to their own family.

While babies and children discriminate between the races more than we might think, parents are still acting as if race doesn't exist or as Steven Colbert says, "I don't see race." I can understand why parents might feel they have to tiptoe around the issue but that's not helping our kids figure out anything.

When Mom and Dad don't teach their kids what they really do think, the kids fill in the blanks themselves, researchers say. The survey of white children aged 5 to 7 showed that children of parents who were not prejudiced themselves said that "almost none" of white people were mean but that "some" or "a lot" of black people were mean, according to an article entitled "Even Babies Discriminate" in the Sept. 5 issue of Newsweek.

Just telling kids "everyone is the same," isn't enough, explains Researcher Briggitte Vittrup, of Texas Woman's University, in an interviewer on NPR's "Tell Me More" today. Parents need to go further and tell children that although people may look different and live in different places, they may be very similar and may like the same toys or the same TV shows.

With no guidance from parents, children pick up on negative messages on television and in society itself, Vittrup says.

When researchers questioned children about their parents' attitudes, 14 percent said their parents didn't like black people and 38 percent said, "I don't know," even when parents weren't prejudiced, according to Newsweek.

In fact, when researcher Briggite Vittrup of Texas Woman's University, asked parents to talk to their children about race, many white parents dropped out of the study because they were so uncomfortable. Black parents are three times more likely to talk about race to their children probably because they feel they should prepare their children for what their race might mean in today's society.

So it all comes down once again to talking to your kids and we can't wiggle out of it. If we want our kids to learn good values about race and a whole host of other topics, it has to start at home.


Photo from doctor2008.wordpress.com