How to handle one child getting far more public attention than the others?

[sesa70]

My baby (6 months) gets TONS of attention every time we leave the house. Like drawing a crowd at checkout type of attention.  She is the youngest of three, and she, as well as our middle daughter, joined our family through adoption. My middle daughter has a very outgoing and charming personality, yet she is very often not even noticed when out with her sister.

My beautiful  middle girl is non white, and the baby is very white.  I worry that the constant oohing and ahhing over the baby's blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin is reinforcing the idea that those things define the standard of beauty. I worry about what that may be doing to my middle girls idea of herself.

We certainly talk all the time about her beautiful brown skin and black hair, and she has dolls and toys that reflect her looks in our home, as well as friendships with children and adults that look like her. Still, I feel terribly uncomfortable all the public attention her baby sister gets because I feel like each person who tells her sister that her blonde hair and blue eyes are beautiful, they are subtly telling my middle daughter that her brown skin and black hair are not....

How does one handle this? How can I continue to help my girl feel good about herself with this sort of thing happening on a regular basis?

[nextcommercial]

Could it be regional?  I live in an area where it's rare to see a blonde haired blue eyed child.  You hardly ever see a red head child, so I think they would draw more attention.

My friend has the ONLY white child in her daycare center.  The dad says there isn't a day that goes by that people don't stop him to say how white she is.  LOL.  (cuz otherwise, he'd never know she's white)

[howdeepistheocean]

I get exactly the opposite of this. I have a very charming engaging, long curly blond haired chubby 3 yr old son, who some people completely ignore while they  Oooh and aww and almost baby talk to my 5 & 6 yr old african sons...who of course are way too old to be told they are soo adorable as it makes them uncomfortable. This just happened again last week, as my outgoing 3 yr old tried to chat to this lady while she totally ignored him and kept saying how adorable my 5 & 6 yr old were. Don't get me wrong, I think they're all very cute...but I'm much more apt to say a 2 or 3 yr old are cute no matter the race or color, than a 6 yr old boy...even if he would be very cute. Thankfully my 3 yr old doesn't notice at all...and I hope by the time he is, people will realize that  7 or 8 yr old boy's don't need to be told they're so adorable or cute.

  I wonder if this doesn't just depend on the area where one lives, as where I live white is predominant and so to be different is therefore the cutest.

  I especially had a hard time with it when I had a cute cooing 6 month old who would often be ignored because of his older african brothers...thankfully this was only by strangers...