Hello!

I am a white Australian woman and my partner and children are Pacific Islander.

I have a question that I’d like to ask the opinion of POC.

I can’t remember how the conversation started because it’s not something I’ve ever thought to discuss with my children but one day my son, who’s now 6 so maybe 4-5 at the time, told me that my skin is light brown, his skin is medium and daddy’s is darker brown, that everyone’s skin is a different shade of brown. It wasn’t a serious sit down conversation or anything, just something he said and I was like “oh yeah okay”.

How does this make you feel?

I didn’t want to say “no I’m white” or explain any of that. He’s quite a literal person so when he looks at my skin he sees that it is not white like a piece of paper, it’s a shade of brown.

We are not very close to his fathers family and his dad isn’t very close (?) to or involved with his own culture but I’ve always taught my kids about their cultural heritage to the best of my ability. Taught them about Tonga and Samoa, made a point of spending time and reading about the Tongan and Samoan exhibits at our museum and taking them to any events we are invited to by their fathers family.

I don’t know if I am just overthinking this but at the time when he said it, and ever since, it kind of made me feel like I was claiming to be something I’m not. Like “oh yeah we are all POC”. Which is definitely not what I mean when I responded to him and not what he meant when he said it. He knows that I am not Pacific Islander and that my family come from England.

One part of my brain is thinking you’re making a way bigger deal of this than it is but the other half of me, the part with anxiety that overthinks everything, feels like I’ve done something wrong.

Sorry for the ramble and I hope what I’ve said makes a little bit of sense to people lol