Strange Influence

 Squishy is definitely the type of person that winds up with a crush on every person that gives her attention (something I will need to talk to her more about as she gets older).  She's had a few that have stuck around in her mind, and I've had to teach her how to not make things awkward or difficult for the other person, because her feeling have yet to be returned by anyone.  I think she has trouble figuring out the difference between a squish and a crush, but that's a thing that everyone needs to learn over time.

It's been a few years since she also realized that she likes girls, and is quite comfortable with that part of herself luckily.  Since then, she's had two more long standing crushes on girls in her school, and something that I noticed more recently is that they both happen to be people of color.  

Normally, I would just be happy that she isn't pigeonholing herself into just dating white people, and I can tell by how she talks to and about them that she isn't fetishizing them or having any sort of bias for them that she is aware of.  However, one of the longest relationships she's ever seen, and certainly one of the most affectionate and healthy is mine with Lux.  For the majority of her life, she's seen an interracial relationship, and that it can provide some form of happiness.

It made me wonder if that had something to do with it.  That whether she realized it or not, she would be drawn toward people of other races herself, much like how after years of abuse and thinking it's normal, I wound up in multiple abusive relationships with the assumption that it was just how things worked.  Perhaps that seeing a parent with a person of color, and trying to make things work in whatever way we could that was good for us both, helped create an example for her that would encourage the same.

I'm happy about it, to be honest.  I hope that she finds herself able to meet,befriend, and date people of all races and colors as she gets older.  More importantly, I hope that by my trying to create healthy relationships in my own life, that also encourages her to have a focus on communication and care in whatever she has with people in the future.

It's just another one of those moments where I'm reminded that as difficult as parenting is, especially in the last year, there are things that I somehow taught which I'm happy to see.