I have always been a homebody. In high school, my strict (very Haitian) parents  would not let me go out as much as my friends did, so I fought against them just because…well, I was a teenager. When I got to college and was able to go out whenever I wanted, I tried it for a while and got tired of it. It made me tired for classes, plus I was also holding down a job. Regardless of the circumstances, I knew that home sounded a lot better to me than a night out on the town. For starters, my favorite pastime is reading – where better to read than your most comfortable couch?

Fast-forward many years and now I have babies. These babies LOVE to be out. If they even sense that you may be going out, they rush to put on their shoes and go wait by the door. It’s crazy. I’m convinced that they inherited this trait from my husband since he also loves being out and about.

Which leads to the issue of me at my happiest in my home and them not so much. I have to remind myself that they need to go out, sort of like a plant needs water I also realize that there is so much for them to see and we won’t be here forever. Now that it’s summer, it’s the best time for us to explore all that Caracas has to offer and I try to, but I know we could probably be out more. The worst is that even when my husband offers to take them out, my heart breaks a little. I wonder why they can’t be like me and instead of wanting to go to see that new park, choose to stay home and cuddle with mommy. It’s selfish, I know, but I’m still hopeful that it’s a phase they’ll outgrow…

Do your children have any preferences that are opposite of yours? How do you deal with it? Or, do you remember wanting the complete opposite of what your parents wanted? Please share your stories.

Although I am known to point out the many differences between immigrants of African descent and African-Americans, I know that there are also many similarities that link the two groups; most good and some not so good.

One of which is the prejudice between light and darker blacks that has created distorted image perceptions and class divisions among black people around the world. Recently, I was reading about Chris Rock’s new documentary Good Hair that premiered at the Sundance Festival this month. The title alone made me cringe. I immediately thought of using that phrase as a child, both in English and Haitian Creole, to describe hair on a black person that more closely resembled that of a Caucasian.

Somehow, somewhere along the way (I say that facetiously), we adopted that notion that anything resembling Caucasians was good and passed on this incorrect notion from generation to generation. I wrote a paper about this in college and was actually surprised to learn that it wasn’t restricted to black cultures; Asians and Latin Americans share this distortion of self-image, as well.

In any case, it is very difficult in this society to teach minority children about positive self-image, but I think it’s crucial in order to change what I think is culturally destructive. I had to consciously work to change my knee-jerk reactions to seeing people like Alek Wek or Susan Taylor and start seeing beauty differently.

What are your thoughts about this issue? How would you start changing the perception of beauty for the younger generations? 

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