When They Don't See Your Kids
May 31, 2025I remember the first time I noticed it.
We walked into a store, and I smiled politely at the clerk. My kids were with me—beautiful, radiant, curious.
No one greeted them. No one made eye contact.
I was offered help. They were not.
At first, I thought maybe I was imagining it. I told myself, “It’s probably nothing. Maybe the clerk was just distracted.” But then it happened again. And again.
And eventually, I couldn’t not see it anymore.
My children were being unseen.
Overlooked. Dismissed.
And not because of anything they’d done.
Because of the skin they were born in.
There’s a particular kind of ache that lives in the heart of a white parent raising Black children. It’s the ache of realizing that you can’t shield them from racism—not with your love, not with your presence, not even with your privilege.
My kids have been followed in stores.
They’ve been presumed guilty before innocent.
They’ve been left out, passed over, spoken down to.
When they were little, it was easier for the world to pretend they were “cute.”
But as they got older—and darker, and taller, and more opinionated—the world stopped pretending.
It’s an emotional whiplash you’re never prepared for.
To be treated with politeness while watching your child be treated with suspicion.
There’s no manual for what to do when the world doesn’t see your kids the way you do.
But here’s where I started: I made them seen in my home. Loudly, proudly, daily.
We spoke about Black excellence.
We read books by Black authors.
We watched movies with Black heroes.
We talked—honestly—about what was happening and why.
And I started to look at my own blind spots.
How had I been complicit in this invisibility?
Where had I stayed silent when I should have spoken up?
What did it mean for me to be seen—and them to be erased—in the same moment, in the same space?
I still don’t have all the answers. But I do know this:
If I want my children to be seen in the world, I have to start by seeing them fully.
In their beauty.
In their rage.
In their brilliance.
In their fear.
In their joy.
Because when your kids aren’t seen, the first thing they start to question is their worth.
And I will not let the world teach them that they are anything less than radiant.
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