My Children Are The Only Black Kids At Their Preschool

By Davina Hamilton

As an adult, being black can have its challenges. From day-to-day prejudices like having shop assistants follow you around in stores, right through to the countless incidences that have spearheaded the international Black Lives Matter movements, it can be hard out there for us.

But these are grown-ups' issues. Largely speaking, race is not something that tends to bother very young children. So when I discovered that my four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son were the only black children in their new preschool, I wasn't sure how to feel.

To give a fuller picture, my family and I are from England and we're currently residing in Canada. We visited Toronto on holiday last year and enjoyed our stay so much that we returned earlier this year.

This time, it would be for a longer stay in order to get a sense of whether we could move to the city for good. Part of that was getting the kids enrolled in nursery -- or preschool, as we've gotten used to calling it.

Dropping them off on their first day came complete with tears, as they were apprehensive about being left in this new environment. With my kids bawling to my left and preschool teachers reassuring me it was "OK for the children to feel sad" to my right, I didn't pay too much attention to the other children who were milling around.