I got one of "the questions" ....

The other night while saying my last good nights to Vivienne (age 4) she asked, "Mommy, why is your skin white & mine isn't?"  I assumed something like this would come up eventually, I just didn't know when or how. 

I explained to her that I had white skin & daddy has black skin.  Since she was our daughter, God made her a mix of both of us.  "Oh." She said.  About five minutes later, her dad came into the room & she asked him, "Daddy, why do we have different color skin?"   As he cuddled with her he explained (in French ... so translation is loose) almost exactly the same way that I did.   Simple.  To the point.  It has been several days, and not another mention of it.

I think that too many people try and over explain things to children when really, they just want a simple answer.  If you have kids, you know, if they don't get it .... they'll ask again (and again!)  Also I think that we (as adults) assume too many times that we know what our children are really asking about.  We give long answers that are very complicated when really, the answer is not at all what the kid was looking for!

Here's an cute example from a friend ...

He is black, and his whole family is black except for his grandmother.  She is white.  One day his sister asked grandma if she was really her grandma.  Grandma took a deep breath & asked, "What do you mean?"  His sister replied, "Well, the other kids grandmas have rocking chairs & sew.  You don't sew & you don't have a rocking chair."

Do you have biracial children?  I'd love to hear your stories of how they asked you about it - if they did.   How did you respond?