Anna is four - or as she will put it, "almost four and a half," which I seem to recall makes a difference at that age. She is our eldest, and so we are of course making all our mistakes with her and sort of learning as we go.

This past Shabbat, we had lunch with friends of ours who have a boy about Anna's age. They had gone off to play for a bit and returned when they smelled dessert - a trait I believe all children are born with.

When the two of them came back, the boy started talking to me about skin color. He said, "it's not healthy to have dark skin." I suggested that no, in fact many people are born with dark skin and many people are born with light skin. We - this boy and I - continued the conversation for a minute or two going back and forth about whether dark skin was bad or not. Anna looked on.

After that minute or two, Anna chimed in and took over the 'defense' of her appearance. She said "I have dark skin and that's okay. Some people have dark skin and some people have light skin - we are all just a bit different." The boy replied "yeah, but it's not healthy."

Maybe he was thinking about sunburn. Anna said, "well I'm brown and I'm healthy. I get a lot of sleep and eat vegetables." The boy replied that he didn't like vegetables and the conversation then turned to food or something or other.

I was proud of her. More and more when these conversations come up, Anna takes the lead and explains things about herself that need explaining. Whether it's something about her religion, her race or whatever, she has developed a strong sense of who she is. And hopefully, she will continue to proudly, firmly but politely explain what is what even if she herself only understands the issues at a four year old level.