Talking to your kids about the colour of their skin

As a mother of mixed-race children, I knew the day would come when I would have to explain to my twin boys why our family is not the same colour.

We were at a playground a few months ago when one of my sons ran up to me, arms outstretched. "Mama?" he asked, his tone unsure.

"What colour am I? That boy said I'm black."

My heart sank. I felt panicked - and fiercely protective. Was this the moment that would forever change the way my son sees himself?

I felt angry - at the boy who had taunted my son, at his parents, at the unfairness of it all. How can a child be racist, when racism is something you learn from others?

I looked down at my son who, at five years old, expects me to have all the answers.

I wanted to tell him: "It doesn't matter what colour you are."

But of course it does.

A racial slur uttered before a crowd of hundreds - and on live TV - by a candidate in the 2025 General Election has brought race issues to the fore again.

At a rally on April 26, Dr Gigene Wong of the Singapore Democratic Party called her teammate Ariffin Sha "keling kia", a derogatory term historically used to demean people of Indian descent.

It caused a stir, and I'm glad it did.

I'm glad Mr Ariffin did not take the slight lying down. I'm glad the Singaporean Indian community used the moment to highlight that, for them, this offhand racism is not new.

Most of all, I'm glad the jaw-dropping comment got Singaporeans - particularly those from the majority community - talking.

Such attitudes are a Singaporean problem. Every racist episode, gone unaddressed, is another dent to our very identity as a multiracial society.

The colour of our skin
Dr Wong's comment affected me, very personally.

Because my family members are not all the same colour, I have had to answer questions from curious aunties when out and about with my children.

"This one, your son?" and "You marry Indian man, ah?"

My husband has had to do the same. "The mother must be very fair," someone once stopped him to remark.

Heavily pregnant in 2019, I thought I had heard it all, from "Wah, your stomach very big" to "Twins, ah? Your husband, power". What I did not expect: "I wonder what colour the babies will be."

You see, my husband is Indian, and has a lot more melanin than I do.

I remember thinking: "Please, God, I don't care what colour the babies are. Just make them the same colour as each other."

I recall that moment clearly.

It felt like a gut-punch and opened my eyes to the reality of the Singapore that my husband, a dark-skinned man, has to navigate.

A Singapore in which people are still put into boxes based on the colour of their skin, no matter their contributions or qualifications.

I do not want my sons to have to face the same.

No one is colour-blind, and we shouldn't try to teach our children to be so. That will set them up for failure.

What we should teach our children is that people come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and the colour of their skin is just that - a colour.

When I was in primary school and taking the school bus home, my friends would point to my mother. "Vanessa, your maid is waiting for you," they used to say.

I was too confused, embarrassed and hurt to correct them.

My mother is Indian-Chinese, and I am Eurasian. And we are not the same colour.

Now, I am teaching my children that our skin colour is determined by how much melanin we have, and that the colour of one's skin does not tell us much about a person.

What are their passions? Who do they love? What talents can they contribute to society?

Or, as I say to my boys, you can't tell a person's favourite colour, fruit or superhero from the colour of their skin. People are more than what's on the outside.

A few months ago, my husband and one of our sons were walking out of a public library, hand in hand. An older Chinese man tried to stop them, gesticulating wildly and threatening to call the police.

It turned out that the man thought my husband was kidnapping our son, because - you guessed it - they are not the same colour.

I hope that parents of my generation will give their children the words to describe people beyond the colour of their skin. "That boy with the red shirt", for example, or "the girl on the swing".

With inter-ethnic marriages on the rise, I'm sure more families will have the same experiences mine has had.

So, when moments like Dr Wong's comments happen again - and they will - the answer is not to look the other way.

The answer is not to claim ignorance, or say "I didn't know".

The answer is to talk about it. Like the Gigene Wong episode, I hope a wider discussion can be had about the hard truths of race in Singapore.

Let's talk about it. Doing so will strengthen our multiracial society. We can do better. For our children, we must.