Childhood in the Age of Obama

We're getting all sorts of fun questions lately. What are certain body parts for? Why are we at war? Here's one we got last night -- we'll just give you Fiona's side and let you come up with your own answers:

Why do people have different skin? Why is some people's skin brown? My friend Ashton at school has brown skin and curly hair. I wish I had brown skin and curly hair. Will my skin change?

Two quick notes here. Number one, being a child she's being literal on the brown skin; a month or so ago she corrected us when we were discussing something about Obama being a black man to say "no, he's brown."

And second point, with her genetics there's no way she's passing for anything but pale pale pale.

The cool thing, of course, is she still has no idea of the cultural baggage associated with any of this stuff, so we can just answer her on a straight factual level without having to work in some lesson about past prejudice or anything (obviously we still work in the "our differences make us more interesting" angle, like the good liberals we are).

It's the same thing on gender -- today when she was playing she told me I could join her club now, but I wouldn't have been able to join it back in the old days when the club didn't allow boys. Just like all the most exclusive clubs used to do, right?