San Francisco 49ers v Carolina Panthers

Under Your Skin

In case you missed it, we’re adopting! And our family is open to babies of any ethnicity. So on the way to school the other morning, I asked the kids what they would do if something mean was said about our babies having a different skin color than them.

Leah said indignantly, “I’d just tell them, ‘You be nice to OUR FAMILY.”

Doing a little positive reinforcement, I said, “Does skin color make us different or are we all the same on the inside?”

Isaiah piped up and said, “No. We’re different. Because of behavior.”

Inside, I started to freak out a little, thinking he had absorbed some wrong concept about certain races having certain behaviors. But before I pulled the car over for an emergency intervention, I asked him to clarify what he meant.

He explained that some people were naughty or mean on the inside and others were kind and nice. And that was what made us different. We are different on the inside.

Somehow, he turned a conversation about ethnicity into a conversation about people.

It made my original question feel childish. Like:

“Are we really talking about what people look like on the outside? That’s so last year.”

His answer seemed 100% bigger and truer than what I had asked. He completely bypassed “do looks matter” and went after what makes us… us. Our hearts.

And Isaiah is right. Who cares how your outsides look? What is your heart like?

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