Dear Care and Feeding, I am the mother of two beautiful little brown girls, ages 2 and 5. Daddy is Black, and I am as white as a mayonnaise sandwich. We started a dialogue about race with my oldest early on and are trying to teach her pride in her heritage and features. On her first day of preschool, she proudly presented me with a coloring page with a little girl with white skin and blond hair. I casually asked why she colored the girl that way, got a nonanswer, and warily chalked it up to coincidence. When I paid a little more attention, I noticed that she would make negative comments about her hair. In some games, she makes her character white with straight blond hair, and she always chooses the white Barbie. She has said she doesn’t like darker skin and that she “just wants to look different sometimes.” I understand wishing you looked a little different, but it set off alarm bells when I heard this. I asked her about it again, and we talked, but now she avoids the issue with me.