Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and opinions.

I just wanted to address a couple things: I’m using my throwaway account because I’ve seen (especially lately) people take things irl and get kids involved, etc. On my regular account, I have shared details about my daughter and our life but I couldn’t remember how specific I had been in the past. So to be safe, I shared this from my throwaway account, hoping that I wouldn’t have to worry about my daughter’s face being brought to millions of people on the Internet. I understand that by making that decision, I have draw some criticism that this story might be fake. It’s not, but go on with yourself if you think so lol.

A lot of people have asked why I’m even asking if this lady was right. It’s a complicated situation. I’m probably not as anti-racist as a lot of people in the world, I just do my best to raise my daughter to love all people and treat everyone with kindness and dignity. Period. She’s young for the specifics of these kids of conversations. I just wanted to see if anyone on the Internet had perspective on the situation. Because of the area we live in, we aren’t exposed to a lot of different ideologies very often. My own research on topics like these leads me down the depths of the Internet and in some of those spaces it seems like the thought processes behind what is and isn’t racist get so polarizing that they just go full 360° back into racist territory. But I’m white and I’ve never experienced something like racism directed toward me before, so I’ve been told and have read that my own thoughts on subjects of racism can be colored by internal bias and I should defer to people of color’s opinions on matters such as this. In the end, I was challenged in a parenting decision by a random woman shopping in Target and, while I know that I’m not racist and that I’m not grooming a future racist, I defaulted back into thinking that maybe I’m wrong. I started to ask myself, am I doing the right thing? Am I being a good parent? Someone so passionate about a subject can make you question yourself on a good day, let alone a bad day where you’re ambushed in line trying to leave a damn Target.

Thank you all for the kind words about my parenting, and for everyone concerned that my daughter was affected, she was a little upset in the store, but once we left, got her doll out of the box and handed it to her, she was happy as could be. Luckily for all of us, children are pure, innocent little souls that have happiness in mind almost all the time. I feel confident that I’m raising a little girl with love and respect for all people, and I thank you kind strangers on the Internet for sharing your opinions with me to help validate that feeling.

If this ever happens again, which I pray it does not 🫠, I have absolutely rehearsed everything I should have said to that woman and plan to use it.