Main Page Blog Getting Pregnant Articles Pregnancy Articles Parenting Articles TLOL Article Directory Chinese Gender Chart Pregnancy and Parenting Journals	Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates by Marsha Alston Have you ever tasted white chocolate? It's kind of strange, right? If you're like me, you grew up begging for chocolate while standing in the grocery line with your mom. If you'd asked me at five years old to describe chocolate, I'd have told you (while drooling) that it's sweet, creamy and brown. The first time that I was offered white chocolate, I just knew it would be terrible; my concept of chocolate just didn't include the white stuff that lay in front of me! But as you all know white chocolate tastes like...well, chocolate. As I got older, I learned more lessons about color differences. Growing up in a prejudiced Southern town, I wondered what made me so different from the black kids that lived across town. It seemed that very few children played with kids of a different color than themselves. But, you see, I already knew that chocolate was chocolate no matter what color it was on the outside, and it didn't take me long to realize that people were people, too. I still remember the pain I felt at the names my "friends" called me when they discovered that I was dating a black guy at school. Didn't they know that inside, we were all the same? Hadn't they ever tasted white chocolate? Eventually, I moved to a more liberal town to attend college. The population was so racially diverse that I couldn't help thinking of the boxes of chocolates that my mom used to buy us on Valentine's Day; so many different kinds of chocolates in one place! After graduating from college, I married a man with skin the color of the chocolate bars that I used to beg for as a child. The combination of his milk chocolate and my white chocolate produced a son whose complexion reminds me of the german chocolate my grandmother used to bake with at Christmas. At three years old, Torin is very curious about the differences in skin color. I've tried to explain it to him scientifically, but to his preschool mind, it's all a lot of nonsense. Then it hit me. I picked him up and carried him to his favorite cabinet and took out the ever-present box of chocolates. First, I chose a piece of milk chocolate and asked him what color it was. "Brown", he said and popped it in his mouth. Then I chose a piece of white chocolate and asked the same question. "White", was his answer as he swallowed it almost whole. "So, they're different, right?" I asked him. "No, mommy , he laughed, "CHOCOLATE'S CHOCOLATE! MORE!" Somehow, I think he gets it. The Alston Family