M and L are Hispanic.  I’m about as white as they come, as his my stepson.  My husband’s your average white guy as well.

Yesterday, I found myself trying to explain why the inauguration was so important – what I said was “no one with Obama’s skin color has ever been president before.”  L thought about that for a minute and said “oh yea, brown, right”?

I almost said, “no, black, YOU’RE brown”, but then quickly realized that I wasn’t sure I wanted to perpetuate the idea of those skin colors.

And honestly, I’m not sure my kids know that they have a different skin color than I do. To make matters worse, all I know is that they are Hispanic.  I don’t know if they are Central or South American, Mexican, Spanish, or some other category I’m missing.  So now I can’t even manage it from a cultural background by introducing traditions – because I don’t know which set of traditions to introduce!

So here’s the question – how much do I pursue the issue of my kids skin color?  I’ve checked with friends who are hispanic, they’ve said don’t make an issue of it.  But my kids are living in a ridiculously white community – don’t I have to address it sometime?  Do I wait till they bring it up?