Stressors in Children's Development

As a child, I was born in the late 70’s where racism and discrimination were still very heavily pointed out. My mother is Korean and my dad was black. As a child, I was told that I did not fit a particular group in the right way. I was not Korean or Asian enough or black enough to be accepted by my peers. Funny thing is that growing up I was not really ever close to my mother. I wanted to be around my dad all the time. I was looked at and treated like daddy’s little girl. So, this meant I needed to prove to others that I did belong with the black kids. I saw and felt a stronger connection to them. I got into a lot of fights growing up proving myself constantly. After a while I grew up with an attitude and a mouth. Because my father was an educated man he instilled an importance of intelligence in me. He had a degree in History which also kind of carried over to me. As a kid, when I was with my older cousins; we were all told to pick out what we wanted to be when we grew up. I chose to be a lawyer since I was the age of 6 or 7. The Huxtables were on TV and I loved watch Cliff and Claire. They were a good positive influence on me. Since I didn't want to go to college for 8+ years to be a doctor and look at blood regularly, so I chose to be a lawyer. I figured if I was going to continue to be treated like a second-class citizen in life that I needed to be smart to fight the injustices I felt in my life because of the color of my skin. We all deserve to fit in and not be told we can’t be friends just because I don’t look exactly like you. Don’t get me wrong this type of thinking was not in everyone’s mind, but I faced a lot of it growing up. Even today, I get this same type of attitude, from people who just should know better but open their mouths without any kind information. Let me also point out that I have friends of all colors. I love and adore all my friends and all that cross my path.

Even when I started dating my husband, the first question out of my mother-in-law’s mouth was “is she white?” The reason being not because she is racist but because during her life, she faced many times where she was discriminated against because of the color of her skin and in recent years prior to dating my husband an incident involving the law and the fact that a family member was black occured. They are just cautious people. However, their thinking has since progressed, and in fact we have a few family members on that side who are dating outside their race. It is widely accepted now without any of the questioning I faced.

The one time in my life that I did not have to prove myself and was accepted is when I went away to college. I grew up in Florida and decided to attend college my freshman year at a HBCU in Charlotte, NC; Johnson C. Smith University, I had to get away from my mom because at this point my father had passed away and I had a lot on my shoulders and needed some relief. At college, not once did I have to argue or get into any kind of altercation to prove I belonged there. I made friends immediately. Not because they wanted something from me other than friendship. I had an overall time of peace in my life. I enjoyed this period of time in my life and it still holds great memories for me. It is that kind of feeling I want to pass on to my children because they look like mommy and will and have been discriminated against because of their skin color.

This type of stressor helped shaped my character. It gave me thicker skin. It showed me that I was more than what you saw on the outside but what I have on the inside. I do still have an attitude and a mouth at times, but with age I have learned how to control it. I still see and face this type of treatment and it bothers me because even in today’s age with the United States being a huge melting pot that it is, we still treat others like second class citizens.

 

I currently have a friend deployed in Afghanistan. Currently with the things going on people forget there are children there. With conditions the way they are, they face stressors that may be foreign to us.  A great number of families are impoverished and lack the necessities such as food and shelter (Catani, C., 2009, p. 163)” As a result children suffer from “war experiences, malnutrition, and ill health (Catani, C., 2009, p. 163).” There is also a great deal of family violence reported by children but could be related to the fact there is poverty, exposure to war, and child labor prevalent in Afghanistan.

 

 

 References:

Catani, C., Schauer, E., Elbert, T., Missmahl, I., Bette, J., & Neuner, F. (2009). War trauma, child labor, and family violence: life adversities and PTSD in a sample of school children in Kabul. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 22(3), 163-171. Doi: 10.1002/jts.20415