Teaching your kids to be thoughtful about race is not just a good suggested parenting practice — it's absolutely crucial. But for one mom, her overwhelming concern that her child is racist has caused the Internet to question her own thinking. That's because the kid she's worried about is only 4 months old. The mom wrote in to an advice column looking for ways to deal with her infant's "issue," but many are now pointing out that it most likely isn't the baby who has a problem.
In a letter written to Slate's advice columnist, the mom known as She Didn't Know Any Better! shared her concerns.
In a recent edition of the Care and Feeding advice column, the new mom explained that despite ensuring that her kid is exposed to "books and media with diverse characters," her daughter cried when she met someone who was African American for the first time.
"He had just finished telling me how much babies love him; then, my infant took one look at him and started crying," she wrote. "I gave a weak excuse about her being hungry, but it was pretty transparent."
Pretty … transparent?
Online, people were SHOCKED at the mental gymnastics this mom took to come to the conclusion that it was the baby who was making an issue over race.
To them the math just didn't seem to add up.
Some poked fun at her seemingly narrow-minded focus.
Another person speculated that this *might* be a case of the mom projecting her own discomfort on her kid.
And we all know that consuming diverse media is the same thing as not being racist, right?
Seriously, many people couldn't believe that this mom would blame her baby's tears on race.
And people were quick to point out that literally ANYTHING could have made that infant cry.
But only the mom made the conclusion that it was about race.
Which is why the advice columnist told SDKAB that perhaps SHE needed to rethink her racial bias.
Columnist Nicoe Cliffe firmly suggested that SDKAB calm the heck down and perhaps think about expanding her own social circles to benefit both her and her baby.
