Wieghtlifting....bringing subject of race up here

[dsm]

I've been away from this board for a little bit, but was catching up and saw your post below.

How old are your skids?  I am assuming you and your DH are wanting to go for full custody, yes?  Are you prepared to raise the girls in a balanced situation and keep them exposed to their 'white' side as well as their 'black' side?  How do you plan to do that?  

With respect to the corn rows in their hair.  Does their mom understand how to care for them?  I mean no disrespect to you or your husband, so please don't take anything I say here as a jab.  Our kids are mixed and I braid their hair frequently (the girls anyway, BB's hair is kept faded)  My SD's hair is very difficult to keep in braids - and she has also had corn rows put in at various times of her life.  While she has the coarse texture to her hair, it has a fly-away fineness at times, so it doesn't always cooperate with the standard 'black' hair styles.  My LO has even more of the fly-away fineness that she gets from my hair, but her hair likes to be in braids but does not take to the sheens and moisturizing lotions that my SD uses.   My point to this is not to downplay anything, but to suggest that there maybe was a valid reason for the corn rows coming down so quickly.

When we got custody of my SD, race was brought into the mix and it was a bone of contention for the GAL in considering her recommendation.  She was concerned with uprooting my SD and taking her away from the neighborhoods and city she had been living in with her mom and putting her in our environment.  What helped us was being able to show how my SD would have more of a balanced opportunity to get to know both sides of her heritage and that there was a big status quo of 7+ years of all summer, extended breaks from school, etc and that SD had relationships with people in our town so it would not be as traumatic as it could have appeared to be.  

A bigger thing that helped us, however, was getting outside, unbiased perspective in the form of teachers.  There was a huge difference in how SD performed when she had just come off time with us versus the day-to-day with her mom.  We went to parent-teacher conferences; the school secretary knew us by face and sound of our voice on the telephone - PB did not attend conferences (until the very end of the battle and that was just an image thing IMHO); the teacher and school people did not know who she was.   We also had proof of negligence and child welfare reports to back it all up.  Again - outside perspective which could not be twisted to say they were for one side or the other.

My advice to you is to confirm that there is a more tangible harm being done to the girls than not being regularly exposed to their blackness.  It could be argued that by your own contention, they spend summers and breaks with you - that alone is exposing them.  What more would you have their mother do?   Is she really able to educate them on what it means to be black?  Or would it be better to negotiate more time with the girls so that they make their own inferences and learn from their own experiences?

==============================================================================

dsm - 36; DH - 39; SD - 17; LO - 11; BB - 3
------------------
3 Cheap Entertainment cats - Sam,  Snoop & Dagger
------------------
Live, Love, and Laugh
------------------
I'm not a lawyer and as such, my suggestions are simply my humble opinion on situations, not orders to act in a certain way.