SJM: All you Need is Love

I've started dating Someone. He's significant enough to warrant a capital S and a place in my writing. So I've told my daughter about him.

She was grilling me in the grocery store one recent afternoon, when she asked a curious question.

"What colour is he, Mommy?"

Photo cutline: Families come in all shades and sizes

"He's like us. Same colour," I said, as I absentmindedly handled avocadoes in the produce department at Superstore.

"Oh good," she said.

I dropped the avocado I was fondling.

"What do you mean ‘good'?"

"Well, it's good he's the same as us. That way, we'll all look the same."

In my list of irrational fears, there are two ways my daughter could turn out that would make me the ultimate world's worst mother. (Because, let's be honest here. It's all about me, isn't it.)

She could totally ruin me and expose me as a failed parent by being:

1)    a drug addicted sex trade worker with no teeth, no address and no hope

2)    a racist

I honestly could not tell you which is worse.

"Why do you care if he's the same colour as us?" I asked her.

I couldn't figure out where this was coming from. I still don't know. But that fact is perhaps less important than how I addressed it, no matter what aisle of the grocery store we happened to be traipsing down.

"I dunno," she said. "It's just better when families all look the same."

"That doesn't matter, sweetheart," I said, hoping to suppress the emotion in my voice. "It makes no difference what everyone in a family look likes. As long as there's love. That's all that matters. Love."

I don't know if the message stuck. I guess we'll see somewhere down the road.

Bio: Heather Setka is a journalist, editor and writer. Her work has appeared nationally on CBC-Radio, and in Metro Canada, Momeo Magazine and the Globe and Mail.  She lives with her daughter in Calgary.