SALISBURY, Md.- Nicole Buffington is no stranger to diverse opinions about diversity in her own home. The mother of three has watched her adult son, college-age daughter, and middle school daughter all experience a different reality of growing up black on the Eastern Shore.
"From my perspective of being a mom, I've had three different age gap children whose experiences have been individualized according to the age and stage that they grew up with on the Shore," said Buffington.
But for all of their differences in life experience, one event unified the family conversation - the death of George Floyd.
"I think we were all sad, infuriated, scared, angry, but absolutely action-oriented," said Buffington.
Buffington said her oldest daughter immediately started planning to attend protests.
"Blaise felt that it was liberating, it was freeing, because it was everybody," said Buffington. "Not only blacks but whites, Hispanics, Indian, every culture worldwide was actually supporting the movement."
But her youngest daughter was not as eager to jump in and began having nightmares.
"My youngest has had nightmares," said Buffington, "Nightmares that there is a white cop beating up her older brother."
Psychologist Katie Elder said it's not unusual for those fears to arise in children.
"I think if first comes down to parents acknowledging those fears are legitimate and not resisting those fears," said Elder. "It should be something that parents can return to and check in on. So you might say to your child, you know it's been a couple of days since we talked about this. How are you feeling now?'"
Elder said parents also need to be aware of how they have expressed their own views on diversity in the past.
"I do think it begins with parents recognizing that we are models for our children and from infancy they look to us. They smile when we smile, they frown when we frown, they repeat the same words that we use," said Elder.
"So if we recognize that we are models for our children and we are exhibiting kindness and inclusion and acceptance of diversity regardless of somebody's physical traits, then our children weave that into their own view of the world."
Amy Spampinato is the mother of two girls, ages 8 and 5. She said discussing diversity took on new meaning when she was expecting her youngest daughter and discovered she would be born with Down Syndrome.
"The fear of the unknown, if you don't have experience with someone who has a unique gift or something or an extra chromosome it might make you nervous. It certainly made us nervous," said Spampinato.
But not anymore. Now Spampinato sees both daughters as having unique traits and talents that enrich their family.
"We know a lot of people who have different needs and unique things about them, and we just talk about how everybody is created perfectly and everybody is exactly the way that they're supposed to be and there's a lot of uniqueness in the world, and that's what keeps things interesting and not boring," she said.
Nicole Buffington said talking about diversity in her home has involved matters of safety for her son.
"We had to talk to him differently. Be mindful of driving at night, when the police turns his siren on. What happens in those incidents."
But those types of experiences combined with recent events are what Buffington believes have shaped her children's lives and inspired their goals.
"My oldest was very poignant about just education and financial reparations for black people who have given and built this country for free for so long," said Buffington.
Buffington said her oldest daughter hopes to pursue film making and create documentaries that are relevant to the black community,
"As far as my youngest, she wants to use her life fighting for justice and making women globally equal, and so more importantly, black women," Buffington said.
Asked how recent events have changed how she approaches the topic of race in her family, Buffington said, "It's made things a lot easier to be very honest. Because we are now sitting at the table and we're discussing in more dialogue what's going on."
"Even though when you have a teenager and you have this budding adult that's formulating their own ideas, you now have that conversation of what is going on with the movement. Because for years with us living on the Eastern Shore, I've struggled with being verbal."
Both Buffington and Spampinato said what matters most is to get the conversation started and to let children feel free to express themselves.
"The children who I've seen interact with Lucia. they might be curious at first when they meet her if they've never met someone with Down Syndrome or I would assume if you have never met someone with dark skin or something like that, then you might be a little curious," said Spampinato. "But kids roll with stuff pretty easily. You just go up and say 'hi' and they're good. They're off and being friends."
"Now we are connecting and they are understanding that, you matter, that your being matters, and what you feel absolutely matters," said Buffington.
