I had a very interesting thought yesterday. It all started with a sentence from my step-daughter.
“Akan jadi putih ke kalau pakai losyen ni?”
Here is why I found this statement to be thoughtful.
First, she is 9. For a 9-year-old to already have thought that having fair skin is considered beautiful is alarming to me. Compared to her sister, she has more darker skin, inherited from her father. Her sentence is half confirming that she believes her sister is more beautiful than her due to the difference in skin color.
Therefore, here comes a simple science lesson for the kids.
If you are looking forward to explaining skin colour in simpler terms, consider my script below.
In our skin, there is a thing called melanin.
Melanin is the one that causes the skin to appear dark. The more melanin you have, the darker the skin.
Now, melanin is super cool.
Why? Because melanin acts like an umbrella to our skin cells.
Whenever we go outside where we are hit by the sun’s rays, melanin protects the UV rays from the sun. This UV ray is a bad guy because it can damage our skin cells.
What will happen if the UV rays manage to damage our skin cells?
The worst thing will be skin cancer.
In other words, the more melanin you have, the darker you are. Yet, it also means you have more protection against the disease. Doesn’t it show that dark skin is way stronger than fair skin?
Of course, I receive a ton of follow-up questions.
But it is important to me that the kids can grow some self-love.
I was raised in a family that being compared to is a usual situation. And you will be called a brat if you find the comparison as offensive. This created low self-esteem when I grew up cause I always felt that I was not good enough.
Therefore, I vouch that my children should not be raised in the same manner.
They need to learn to love themselves before they start to love others.
And so do you.
