Just Keep Swimming

Those of you have been reading my blog, know I am on a quest to connect my daughter to her culture and her heritage. During the summer I take the kids to the pool...the pool that has only white people...so considering I'm on a quest to connect my daughter to her race, I do feel a little bad that 99% of the time, she is the only minority there.


It is interesting, because every time we go to the pool she is drawn to the same woman. She is so obsessed with this woman that I have enacted a new rule. If your "friend" is not sitting in the pool, you may not talk to her. When the woman ventures off of her chair and into the water, my daughter splashes over to the edge of the gradual entry pool, sits down, crosses her little legs at the ankles, and visits with the woman. After several days of this, I went up to the woman and said, "I'm so sorry if my daughter is bugging you, for some reason she is really drawn to you." The woman assured me that my daughter wasn't being a problem. The woman, who is Caucasian, but extremely brown noted that maybe my daughter is drawn to her because they both have such brown skin. I thought this was very interesting and probably quite true. My daughter is looking out for someone that looks like her…she is searching.

Today at the pool...yes we are there quite a bit, but it is 101 degrees in the shade and there is nothing left to do...my daughter found a little girl to play with that looked to be just her age. This little girl and my daughter not only had their age in common, but also they were both adopted, and they were both minorities. The little girl was Asian. There were lots of little girls at the pool, little white girls, but only one other adopted, minority girl and that is the one my daughter decided to play with. I wondered if at the tender age of four, somehow she knew this little girl was more similar to her than all of the other little girls. Did she realize they were both minorities or was it just a coincidence? I don't know. But it does seem as if she has begun the search of finding who she is in this world and how she fits into it.


Since the beginning of my blogging journey, I've considered this to be something I'm doing all by myself. I am wanting to connect my daughter to her heritage. I am looking for answers. I am on a quest. I am searching. Maybe...just maybe...I am not alone. It seems as if she has all ready begun her own journey of discovery, I need to travel this road with her. We will have much more fun together!