“Mom, what’s racism?” When my son asked me this loaded question, I started sweating profusely. How do you explain racism? Even more importantly (and more confusing), how do you explain racism to kids?
Racism is complex to think about and talk about. Racism is even more complex to discuss with kids. While we should have conversations with our children about the existence and disastrous effects of racism, there are also books that can help them better understand the history behind it. Here are 33 books of them, centering on race, racism and diversity, in words and concepts for kids:
Age: 4-8; This gorgeous account by Academy-award winner Lupita Nyongo of a little dark-skinned girl called Sulwe speaks to children about colorism, diversity and honoring who you are.
Age: 6-10 years; Mama Africa is the nickname of Grammy-award winning South African singer Miriam Makeba, who rose to fame during the segregationist regime of apartheid and whose story this book recounts.
Age: 4+ – This picture book provides an inspirational introduction to the story of four Black women who helped NASA launch men into space!
Age: 8-12; Through children’s stories from many African countries, this book fights to counter stereotypes and celebrate racial diversity.
Age: 5+ – This 2016 New York Times Best Illustrated Book is a poetic piece of African-American history depicting New Orlean’s Congo Square as the heart of freedom.
Age: 5+ – This powerful and moving picture book uses original plantation documents and slave auction to document the lives of slaves
Age: 6+ – This beautiful work introduces young readers to the unique work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who knew success when young.
Age: 6+ – Kids are being taught in this book about Mandela’s life as illustrated by stunning art.
Age: 8+ – In this gorgeous work, stunning art is used to amplify the words of Dr. King for kids.
Age: 8+ – This powerful book is a thrilling account of kids investigating a racist incident.
Age: 6-9 – The lives of 10 Black women activists in the face of oppression are celebrated in this book around the battles and triumphs of the civil rights movement.
Age: 6-9; When Sylvia Mendez, an American citizen of Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, was denied enrollment to a “whites only” school, her parents organized the Latinx community to win a lawsuit against the segregation of schools in California.
Age: 4-8; For every time when we may feel like “the other”, the only one in the room, or just “different”, this book reminds us about the power of courageous connection.
Age: 7-10; This beautiful illustrated book literally walks children through the beautiful and diverse Senegalese culture via Aminata’s morning walks to school. An ode to my native country!
Age: 5-9; Whe Viola Desmond refused to be budged from her seat in the Roseland theatre in Nova Scotia, she became a symbol of racial justice in Canada.
Age: 5-8; Healthy Black hair is beautiful, and this powerful work reminds little and big girls everywhere of this beautiful fact!
Age: 4-8; The legendary Miss Lena Horne, renowned African-American actress and civil rights activist, is celebrated in this picture book for kids.
Age: 7-11; This story of identity, resiliance, and resistance follows the life of Irene, taken away from her First Nations family, and fighting to reclaim herself.
Age: 3-7; This is the story of Florence Mills, born to slaves and destined to become a singing sensation on the Harlem stages in the 1920’s, who used her fame to promote civil rights and Black performers.
All ages; 40 history-making Black women, from poet Maya Angelou to mathematician Katherine Johnson, are highlighted in this educational compilation of stories.
Ages: 4-8; This book combines extraordinary poetry by Ntozake Shange with outstanding art from Kadir Nelson to tell the story of Correta Scott King through the vision of and civil rights freedom she shared with Martin Luther King.
Ages: 5-8; From her escape from slavery to her purpose in leading others to freedom, this poignant account introduces kids to slavery and to the glorious life of Harriet Tubman.
Ages: 4-8; When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she made history!
Age: 5-9; Sojourner Truth spent her life spreading her message of equal rights for Black people and women, which is shared with children in a beautiful way through this book.
Age: 3-7; Written by a citizen of the Cherokee nation, this book teaches kids about modern Native American life.
Age: 9-12; Voices of Freedom introduces children to activist Fannie Lou Hammer, who was a civil rights champion from 1950’s to 1970’s.
Age: 6-11; Anna May Wong is the first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood, who used her fame to fight for racial equality in the movie industry. This book takes kids into racial justice in the film industry.
Age: 5+; In simple, sometimes silly words, this book introduces kids to the concept of racism, celebrating differences and having a conversation about race.
Age: 7-11; This fiction book tells the story of Ruths’ family trip by car in the 1950’s, and teaches children about the Jim Crow laws and how the historical Green Book helped African-American travelers remain safe.
Age: 4-12; This fun, cute and entertaining book also teaches children about the importance of diversity and differences.
Age: 3-7; Sesame Street shows kids everywhere that while we should celebrate differences, what matters is that we’re more alike than different!
Age: 1-12; From the creators of Hair Like Mine, Skin Like Mine is a powerful and fun ode to diversity for children.
Age: 5-7; A vivid account of the fight for Mexican-American justice through the eyes of young Emma Tenayuca in the early 1920’s.
What other books for children about race and diversity would you recommend?
Dear Working Mom is our weekly love letter to working moms everywhere, where we talk about motherhood, life, work and everything in between…
Dear Working Mom,
You’ve been pouring your all into being the best mom you can be since you became one. You’re still doing your absolute best, day in and day out, to be the best parent you can. And this despite the various personal, professional and social obstacles you may be facing, from juggling career and household responsibilities, to creating and maintaining a healthy and stable household for your entire family. You’ve been working at this parenting thing, not just in terms of managing every day’s life and work responsibilities, but also in terms of improving yourself. Except parenting was never meant to be a perfect science…
Along the way, you’ve faced uncertainty, even heartache, as you watch your children grow and become their own people. Your heart aches as you fear what could happen to them in this big, wide, often cruel world. You question yourself as you make each and every decision, wondering how it will affect them today, tomorrow and the days after. You deal with the overwhelming sense of guilt that comes with motherhood territory, wondering how, when, if you could do more…
As you wrestle with being your best self, taking space and going after or giving up on your ambitions, you may not be sure which path to take at times. You may be tempted to look around at what others are doing, worrying you may not measure up to the perfect mom baking sweet treats from scratch for the kids’ school fair, or the outstanding mother with the shiny career and efficient schedule, or the one with the impossibly organized home…
Truth is, parenting was never meant to be an exact science. There is no accurate, perfect recipe for growing and raising humans. There is only the will, dedication and commitment to do the best we can with what we have, right where we’re at. Sometimes your best may barely fit into your single mom’s budget, other times it may exceed it and you may have to get another job, fight for the promotion, or start the side hustle to make it work. Sometimes your best may be to let go of comparing yourself to others, release some unrealistic expectations, and be your own kind of mom. Sometimes your best may be to heal yourself, to seek therapy so you don’t pass on the same generational damages you’ve inherited yourself.
All the time, your best is what makes you no less, and no better than any other mother. Your best makes you the best mother for your child, even in the face of tough decisions and heart-wrenching choices you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Because parenting was never meant to be an exact science, with perfect baking recipes and glossy Instagram pages. As a matter of fact, it was meant to be messy, imperfect, evolving, as anything founded in love, growth and purpose is meant to be.
So make the mistakes, enjoy the process, laugh at it, cry at it, throw yourself at it, feel good about it, don’t feel so good about it. But above all, allow it to make you and anyone else involved in this magical journey, better, stronger, fuller, of the very consciousness of Love and Life….
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and in these times of pandemic it is taking on a special meaning for everyone. For working moms especially, who are highly impacted economically and whose load is multiplied on the home, work and health frontlines, it is taking on a larger and more critical meaning by the minute. Yet, more than the unfair share of work and home responsibilities, it’s the mental load working moms carry that threatens their well-being.
It’s becoming increasingly important for working moms to take care of themselves and protect their mental health. Juggling the demands of motherhood and employment, not to mention the related economic and physical impact, not only take a mental, but also an emotional toll on mothers. One that we don’t talk about enough, and repeatedly ignore as a society as we keep glorifying the motherly sacrifice that is hurting more than it is helping anyone.
Faced with increasing demands on our time, energy and sanity, from inside and outside our homes, from our daily to-do’s to the mediatized messages around “doing and having it all“, it’s harder and harder not to fall victim to the temptation of constantly pushing ourselves. All along, we pretend to be fine. We pretend everything is ok, that we’re unstoppable, that we can take the heat, that we can attend the boardroom meeting AND be there for the kids’ soccer game, get dinner AND prepare the brief, and so on and so forth…We’ve just got to keep it together, at all times, at all costs…
Truth is, we don’t have to keep it all together. We don’t even have to keep any of it together. What we have to keep together is our mental health. What we must preserve is our wholeness, the same wholeness that our kids learn from and our communities are strengthened by. What we must fight for is our pulse, our capacity to be, live, and grow fully…And none of it includes over-scheduling ourselves and our kids, working ourselves to the bone, and feeling like we’re failing in all areas at the same time…
While there is a lot of expert advice on mental health awareness, protecting our mental health as working moms can start at home:
Let’s check in with ourselves
We check in with everyone else around us, from our families to strangers on the street. Yet, how often do we check in with ourselves? How often do we stop once during the day to simply ask: “How am I doing today?” How often do we stop and simply sit in silence and breathe?
Checking in with ourselves will let us know when we’re not ok, when the tightness in our chest is more than indigestion, or the constant headaches may be hiding something deeper. It’s the first gateway to taking our mental pulse, and the first step towards better mental health and wholeness.
How about letting go of the need to keep it together?
Why is it that we must tidy up the house before we leave, even if that means stressing ourselves and running late? Why do we feel that we must keep our homes, our families and ourselves looking a certain way, at the expense of our own sanity? Why do we feel the need to prove that we are perfect homemakers and can bake a cake three different ways? Not that there is anything wrong with keeping a tidy home and looking great, on the contrary, these are great, especially if they make us feel better. Plus who doesn’t love cakes? Yet, if it’s unauthentic or it’s coming at the cost of violating our integrity and authenticity, it is never worth it…Nothing ever is…
Letting go of the need to keep it together is hard. It’s going against all the messages we’ve been endoctrinated with at a very early age. It’s going against the very voices of our mothers, sisters, and friends. Yet, it’s essential, so we can stop suffering in silence to maintain an image that was never us…
When help comes in the form of therapy…
Asking for help is complicated. Asking for help when help is wrapped under taboo concepts such as therapy is even more complicated. It’s ok to fear it, and not want it at first, and believe we don’t need it…Everyone has their own journey, and makes their own decisions.
Yet, if at some fork of the winding road of motherhood, work, and life, we find ourselves needing an extra hand to take the next step, that may just be it…Even if it means someone else has to make the call for us, drive us, and wait for us at the door…
Welcome to Let It Be Friday!, where I say hello (and TGIF), and round up the lifestyle, career and business news that inspired, excited, made me smile (or laugh out loud).
Dear Working Mom is our weekly letter to working moms everywhere, where we talk about motherhood, life, work and everything in between…
Dear Working Mom,
How many times this week/month/year have you set aside your own needs for that of others? How many times have you felt yourself shrinking, and sometimes even a bit resentful, at not being able to have a little tiny bit of a moment to yourself, to do something you truly enjoy, or just to be and breathe? How many times have you questioned yourself, only to be overwhelmed by this constant sense of guilt that seems to follow you everywhere, all the way to the bathroom as you strive to pee alone?
Yes, you’ve got a lot on your plate. And yes, you may not exactly in a position to pick and choose what to let go of, and what to keep of your obligations and commitments, because so many people depend on you. Yet, really, how much of all this stuff on your plate do you really have to take on all at once? Are all the to-do’s on your to-do list really to do? What would happen if you let go of some of the least essential of these, if you did not work all these extra hours to treat everyone, if you did not cook all the meals but taught the kids how to, if you did ask for the help you need? What would happen if you broke yourself a little less so others can remain whole, if you dared to say “No, this doesn’t actually work for me”, or “This is what I need‘’? What would happen then?
Maybe what would happen is that world would not come to an end…That others would come to your help, honor your value, and give you what you did not realize you really never asked for out loud…Maybe the world would open up entire streams of possibilities and opportunities as its usual gracious response to all those who dare to seek more of the wholeness they’ve always had but so selflessly gave away…
Maybe if you dared to please yourself for once, or twice, or a few times, you would realize that no one is going to break…That actually those who truly love you have been waiting for you to take yourself back, to take your time back, to take your wholeness back, so they too could learn through you to own their wholeness…That giving of oneself does not equate giving all of you because when you give all of you, you have nothing left to give…
Dear Working Mom, I hope today, and every day, even if it’s at the end of the day, or when the first rays of sun shine through the window of your soul, that you decide to put yourself first. I hope you don’t feel shame pleasing yourself once, twice, or many times, not at the expense of others, but at the expense of hiding your true, beautiful and unique wholeness to a world that needs it more than it will ever need your sacrifice…
Dear Working Mom is our weekly letter to working moms everywhere, where we talk about motherhood, life, work and everything in between…
Dear Working Mom,
So often, the world tends to measure and glorify your worth by how much you do. How much you dedicate yourself to your family, how well you’re able to “balance” it all, be it career, life or relationships, and how good you are at making it look all easy and glamorous in the process. The more you can do, and add to your already full plate, the more you’re glorified and encouraged to take on even more.
With enough time, external and internal pressure, you may have come to value yourself as a working mom based on what you do. So you keep going, despite being exhausted and unsure at times, adding to your already overwhelming to-do list, running from work meetings to the kids’ extra-curricular activities, making time to answer texts and hang out with the girls, and still managing to look impeccable in the process…
Yet, no one really knows as much as you do how tired and in need of a break you are. Even when it seems you can take a break, life manages to fill it up with chores to catch up on, programs to devise, and something extra to do…At the end of the day, you feel that you are defined by what you do rather than simply by who you are…What if you were not around? What if you couldn’t do what you do? What if…
It would take something monumental to happen for you to stop and observe the much-needed pause you’ve been craving for so long…And even then, you may still have someone to help, someone to rescue, some task to carry out…While you may find it challenging to resist the temptation to define yourself and base your value on what you do, there are a few self-probing questions that may help you, and all of us in the process, move back to valuing who we are and not just what we do:
Who are you when you’re not doing?
How many times have you asked yourself who you really are when you’re not doing? When you’re not taking care of someone else, working towards a goal or for someone else, or striving to satisfy yours or others’ expectations? What are the passions, likes and dislikes at the core of yourself, that you may have neglected to instead carry out your various responsibilities and duties?
As you ask yourself these questions and others along the same lines, you may find out some pretty fascinating things about yourself. You may re-connect with past loves and interests, discover some parts of yourself you may have buried deep inside a long time ago, and fall back in love with the individual behind the overachieving, high-performing woman.
How would you re-define yourself outside of what you do?
If you could re-define yourself, what would you do more of? What would you do less of? How would you re-invent yourself? What would your ideal life and work look like?
When you take some time away from doing, achieving and performing, you may just find yourself ready to go in a different personal and professional direction. Or you may find that some aspects of the way you’ve been living and working should change, or at least be modified somewhat.
How can you protect the truth of who you are?
When there are so many demands on your person, time and energy, how can you protect your authenticity? How can you remain to your true desires and nature when you barely have time to stop and take a pause to even discover these? How can you draw healthy boundaries that allow you to preserve the truth of who you are, while allowing you to grow into the best version of yourself, at your own pace?
As you distance yourself from just what you do and get closer to who you are, you may start feeling the urge to protect your precious authenticity from society’s demands and impositions. You may begin to think of stricter boundaries on your time, what you devote your energy to, and where you choose to put your attention.
Because Dear Working Mom, you are not defined by what you do. You have value and worth simply because of who you are…
When what you can see on the outside is not exactly encouraging, or remotely aligned with your hopes and expectations, it’s hard to have faith, whatever you may call your own faith. When the gap between what you can see and what you desperately want to believe widens so much your vision of the future gets blurry, believing becomes a hard target to reach…Yet paradoxically enough, it’s the very faith that tends to be compromised in times of challenge that is acutely needed to go through these times…
Like many, I’ve certainly struggled with keeping my faith intact in times of trouble. As we currently face the coronavirus pandemic, keeping the faith is especially challenging, in light of the monumental threats to our health, both physical and mental, as well as our economic stability.
However, despite some of the impossible challenges we may face, keeping the faith is essential to not only surviving, but also thriving in times of crisis. I’ve also learnt that one of the keys to doing so is to believe beyond what you can see, and re-visit your faith in a positive, productive but also forgiving way:
What’s your faith anchored in?
Crisis forces us to question and re-focus on our core beliefs and assumptions about life. It stops us in our busy and familiar tracks, and stills us enough to consider what we’ve been anchoring ourselves, lives, careers, and ultimately faith in. I know I’ve struggled with this as I’ve had to seriously ask myself during this coronavirus pandemic when many are losing their jobs and others are working under different, remote circumstances, how much of my own faith is based on my own circumstances.
What’s your faith anchored in? Is it anchored in your own self-worth, your spirituality, your career, your current socio-economic condition, or any other factor? If so, how is your faith anchor holding up in times of crisis?
Re-direct the core of your faith
Questioning what your faith is anchored in also prompts you to re-direct it. For some, it may mean reinforcing its core and re-directing it towards your current circumstances. For others, it may mean taking an entirely new direction when it comes to your beliefs, and sometimes even doubting your faith. For me, it has been a matter of focusing on my inner belief process, as opposed to its outer manifestations.
How are you re-directing the core of your faith in times of crisis? How are you modifying or developing your key assumptions or beliefs when crisis hits?
Reframe your faith
You may have to re-frame your faith in a more practical way to address your current circumstances, especially during challenging times. What happens when you can no longer practice your faith as you are used to, when places of worship are closed and large regroupments of people are prohibited? What do you resort to when you have to worship and praise differently? How do you adjust to your faith looking and feeling different in the face of new events?
During this coronavirus crisis when large groupings are people are prohibited, what I’ve been used to in terms of gathering in common places to worship has been fundamentally changed. As a result, I’ve had to re-frame my faith in a more practical way, and find ways and spaces to worship in my own home with my family.
How are you experiencing your faith in times of crisis?
