Thanks, Heather and Emily! And a big, big thanks to Kristen for being a great interview partner. Here are my questions and her answers.

I'm taking a break from trying to write about how both Mara and Nia have absolutely raw empathy and how I admire it even while I see how it hurts them. I hear you, and I think that a lot of the myths/narratives you mention are unhelpfully limiting.

One thing I'd add is that I do is when talking about girls who look like your daughters make sure I say the white girl with blonde pigtails or whatever. I really don't want to give my black daughter the message that white is just default/unnoticed and anything else as the exception. I've actually found that commenting on whiteness is more startling to some people than when I say, "My partner, she's black and has short curly hair" or whatever.

I've been watching these comments and I'm glad a few spoke to our expereience, that for (many) black kids growing up in black homes, these are conversations that happen well before first grade. Our daughter came to us, an interracial couple, at age 3 and it was in one of our first outings together that my partner turned to her and said, "You know, there was a time when you and your mommy couldn't share a water fountain like you're doing now because your skin is brown and hers is white." She was only a 3-year-old with speech delays and not processing much more than that she'd been ostracized for that brown skin in her previous all-white foster home and that she loved now having a mom whose skin was also brown, but it was important for us to make sure she got the idea that anti-black prejudice isn't just about fear of difference but about a long history of unfairness and mistreatment. Now that she's four, we've talked about slavery some. I do think beatings may have been mentioned as part of the slave experience at the almost-all-black church we attend. She doesn't know some grand narrative, but she knows pieces that will build to something more.

From my perspective, it's impossible to understand the overrepresentation of blacks in the US foster care system without understanding what was done to black families in slavery and since. All of that is part of her story the same way her particular family's trials and dysfunctions are part of her story. I'm not saying it in those words when she's 4, but I'm laying the groundwork. And as you say in your post, you have the privilege to shield your children from that. As part of a mixed-race family at the adult level, I don't think we do. Just like because we're lesbian parents, she understands not only that most couples are opposite-sex and there are people who think that's the way it should always be, but we disagree and are working for liberation and equality....

I know this isn't really a helpful response since you can't go back and start talking sooner but I do think the sooner you get involved, the more likely you are to be able to shape the narrative, as with forming a positive racial identity as you already strive to do. If Kembe knows about Haitian independence from the perspective of his own people rather than the colonial apparatus, that's a chance for him to feel pride as a part of a slavery-spawned story, that sort of thing, but it's hard, I know. It's hard to know your children will hurt and be a part of that, especially when they've hurt so much already. There's just no reasonable escape, I think.

Thanks for posting this again, Tami. I'm going to reread it a few times and think about what I do.

This was written beautifully, Kristen, and I'm glad it will be there to greet people who come to your blog wanting more. Thanks for bringing attention to the issues you could in the time you have, and thank you extra for expanding on them like this.

Not a parent, but I've recently started reading Katja Rowell's Family Feeding Dynamics blog and it's helped me reconsider how I'd want to deal with children's eating. Her basic take is that parents choose when and what food is eaten and the children choose how much they eat. I'm not sure how smoothly this helps in practice and I'm sure there's plenty more good advice you'll get, but I recommend it as a resource.