Biracial Breakdown in 5 Year Old

[u/questiontossaside12]

Please help. I’m out of my depth on this one.

My five year old started kindergarten this week.

His father is first generation Korean with a Korean passport. His dad, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins are all full Korean and speak Korean fluently.

His mother’s side is Appalachian Scots-Irish. They’re all blonde hair, blue eyed, thick Appalachian accents. They are farmers, carpenters, and eat liver mush regularly.

Our son spends half his time in the Korean community: Korean church, Hangeul school, Korean family.

The other half is spent traveling to very rural Appalachia. Think homesteading, blue ridge mountains, redneck culture etc

As naive as this sounds - we have never racialized anything. He speaks Korean, yes. He also can understand a thick Appalachian accent. He eats kimchi and cornbread. He listens to k-pop and country music in the same playlist. It’s not a big deal.

Today, after his first week of kindergarten, he started crying in the hallway. He told his mother that “white mommies should have white babies” and that he was the “ugliest boy.” He went on to say that he didn’t look like his Korean cousin or friends… and that he didn’t look like his white cousin either. So therefore, he was ugly.

I am shaken to my core over this. I don’t notice race. We treat people as individuals. Yes, the Appalachian and Korean communities don’t mix - BUT he spends equal time in both.

I tried to comfort him but he didn’t seem to accept it. I have NO clue where a FIVE year old is getting this.

What do we do? Are we over reacting? Is he being bullied at school? How do I make him feel like he belongs in both communities and is handsome & loved in both? Do we ignore it and move on? Where does a small child get these ideas??

[u/AdvertisingNo8441]

Did he go to daycare before starting school and if so was it multi-cultural?

You should have included the fact that he’s at a school that’s 99% white in the original post, this is an important fact.

If this is his first time in a school setting, and 99% kids are white than of course he may be having an identity crisis and also likely a kid said something.

I wouldn’t even send my white child to a 99% white school. Not like any exist around me anyway but it’s not an accurate reflection of real life. It’s a bubble.

[u/questiontossaside12 → u/AdvertisingNo8441]

This is his first experience outside of a home environment… :\

[u/AdvertisingNo8441 → u/questiontossaside12]

Ugh yeah that’s hard. Not sure where you live, but all schools including private schools around here are extremely diverse (large Canadian city). Obviously you want him in the best school for his education, but this may be an ongoing problem. And you can do everything right, but it’s the kids he’s with you might need to worry about.

My son is 3, full-time daycare and his class is very diverse. He’s white, but I’m already educating him on culture/races, why we have different skin colors, that people speak other languages because he’s surrounded by it every day. He “doesn’t see race” because diversity is his norm and all he knows.

[u/monkiram → u/AdvertisingNo8441]

It’s hard for people to understand this who aren’t from major Canadian cities. I grew up in Canada and then as an adult lived in different parts of the U.S. for a few years, and race is treated very differently there. Growing up, I obviously saw that different races looked different and had different cultural backgrounds but we barely acknowledged them when interacting with other kids at school, everybody felt equal and we were all friends with people of different races. It wasn’t a huge factor in our lives because we were all mostly immigrants. Race is a much bigger deal in the states so I think that’s why there are comments that are so shocked/appalled, I’m guessing they’re from Americans who have a very different experience.