When the Best of Everything is Not Enough

It’s February, and we are a few days into Black History Month. And once again, I’m faced with the question of why my children’s schools never recognize it.

I don’t recall my children ever really being taught black history in school. Granted, they’ve gone to mostly white schools, but one would think in 2021 that wouldn’t matter. I was pleasantly surprised however that my son’s kindergarten teacher spent a few days talking about MLK recently. Progress, I suppose.

Honestly, it can be really confusing being a parent of black and biracial children. I want the best for them. I look for neighborhoods that check all the boxes. Safety. High rated schools. Nice homes. On the surface, it might appear that we have everything going for us.

But one box I can’t seem to check to go along with that is diversity. That is the one piece that is always missing and I constantly wonder what to do about it.

My oldest son looked around our neighborhood one day and we had a discussion I wasn’t expecting. He told me he wished he saw more black people around. Where we lived. In his school. I didn’t know until then that it was something he cared about. It was then that I questioned my personal ranking of all the boxes. The one box I always sacrifice is the one he feels the absence of the most.

I feel this burden to give my children everything they need to succeed. But I don’t know what the definition of success is for our particular family. I won’t sacrifice safety. I need to sleep peacefully at night knowing our lives and yes our property is safe. But schools…The best schools are usually the whitest and full of mostly economically privileged kids. They are the 8, 9, and 10 schools. But I’m not sure what a “great school” is anymore.

The schools where my children would fit in the best are diverse economically and racially. We are not rich and we are not poor. 2 of my kids identify with both black and white. I want them to see and experience peers they can relate to and see themselves in. I also want them to make friends with kids who are different from them. But these are usually the 3, 4, 5, and 6 schools.

When you look at the test scores of these lower rated schools, the economically disadvantaged students are getting the lowest test scores. They are often children of color. Black and Hispanic. The children who are not in this category typically still perform very well.

Poverty, home life, exposure to language all affects a student’s school performance. This all plays into a school’s ratings. Does this affect the quality of education in that particular school? Will it not be a challenging environment so that no child is left behind? I don’t know.

What will the tradeoff be socially and emotionally in my efforts to give my offspring the best academic advantages? My daughter already doesn’t like her hair. She doesn’t fully appreciate being a beautiful black woman in a world full of white peers who look nothing like her. Would seeing more of others like herself change that perception? At what cost?

I wish I could end this blog with a neat little bow by declaring I’ve got it all figured out. But I don’t. It is something I wrestle with continuously. I often joke about what it must be like to live in the best community and best neighborhood you can afford, send your kids to the best schools and that’s it. You’re done.

But we can’t do that. We have so much more to consider. Potential racism, teacher bias, exclusion, feeling out of place. And of course the typical bullying that all kids are subject to. This isn’t a pity party. All things considered, I know that we are a very blessed family. We just have a few more issues on our plate to complicate things.

As a parent, all I want to do is give my children the world. I just don’t know which world to give them.