'My 3-year-old just started preschool. She was told she's "not white enough".'

“When can I go to preschool, Mummy?” my daughter would ask me all the time. She’d only had a few months of social interaction before Melbourne went into a series of COVID lockdowns. All she wanted to do was play with other children her age.

The day she was looking forward to finally came around in February this year. As expected of a three-year-old, she arrived home from her first day at preschool tired and hungry. What I hadn't expected was her answer to my question, "How was your day?"

“A girl said my skin isn’t white enough, Mummy,” she told me while rubbing the skin on her arm. 

I was shocked. 

“Actually, Mummy, your skin wouldn’t be white enough either.”

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I had to think fast. I went into explanation mode: “Well, several generations back on my side is a man with Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage who had kids with an Irish woman, which explains why I have a tan. You’ve also got Daddy’s beautiful Mediterranean skin, which I love. It’s beautiful, you’re beautiful.” I gave her a hug.

We left it there. I didn’t want to complain to the school. I didn't want the teachers to have to regulate any of the conversations between the children. I thought the comment was a mistake by the child, that the issue might go away. 

Fast forward a few months and my daughter’s enthusiasm for preschool had waned. When she recently had to stay home sick, she cheered. 

“At least I don’t have to go to preschool and I can stay with you,” she said. 

I asked her why she wasn’t enjoying it.

She told me that the same girl who had said that her skin wasn’t white enough, had also said Australia should only have white people in it. 

It didn’t stop there. 

“She said that white people should take stuff off other people, Mummy,” she said as she rattled off the people who live on our suburban, middle-class Australian street, who would “have an ‘x’ marked on their door to have their things taken away”. 

“The girl said that I should have an ‘x’ marked on my door. Who is going to take my toys?” my daughter asked me, before wanting me to write her name on all her toys so that they could be given back to her after they’d been taken.

“That is not going to happen,” I assured her.

What she was describing sounded too close to Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, carried out by the Nazis in 1938. It was particularly brutal in Austria, where some of my husband's family is from. Jewish homes and businesses were vandalised and ransacked. Most of the synagogues in Vienna were destroyed. Thousands of Jews were arrested and deported to the Dachau or Buchenwald concentration camps. It left me thinking about my husband's side. From what I have been told, only two people survived from the Viennese arm of his family. 

But I didn't tell my daughter any of that. She's too young to learn about that now. What I did tell her was that all people are created equal, irrespective of skin colour. 

I told her that six members of my family – her ancestors – had gone to war on the other side of the world to fight for treating everyone the same and they had won. That my grandfather – her great grandfather – was a World War II veteran who loved people from all walks of life. 

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It really worries me that, here in Australia in 2023, there's a three-year-old in my daughter's preschool being trained to espouse racist ideology. It concerns me this is happening at a time when Nazi salutes have been on full display in Melbourne’s CBD, right in the middle of our culturally diverse city. 

The whole situation has made me want to run. To swap preschools. To take action. In the end, I took a level-headed approach and rang the preschool. 

Out of earshot of my daughter, I explained her multicultural background, and that I'd been triggered by the comments. I told the school I did not know how to explain the Holocaust to my daughter, and that the weight of this history is a burden for a much later time in life. 

I was told they’d be introducing some extracurricular lessons into the classroom. The teachers will also be in earshot of the little girl who said those terrible things, an innocent three-year-old, who has taken on the worst ideas of the last century.  

That’s one small step. But the important question we all need to consider is this: How do we, as a global society and parents of the next generation, stop history from repeating itself? 

The author of this story is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. 

If you or someone you know has experienced racism and needs support, visit It Stops With Me for a full list of services. 

Feature image: Canva