Well, here comes an excerpt on one for my biggest pet peeves. Read on at your own risk. This rant is about The Box. You know the one. The one on every state or government form that you have to check to designate your ethnicity. First of all, for a country that is supposed to be the Great American Melting Pot, it sure is fixated on categorizing people.

To add insult to injury, there are many or us that do not fit in a box. Well, at least not the ones available. And of course we’re always told we have to pick one. How do you pick one? Why must you choose one over another? Why is one one given more weight than another? Case in point…

I went to register my girls for school. (Yes, we are homeschoolers, but we’ve decided to let our girls go to public school for a little bit. More about that later). Anyway, the dreaded forms were presented. I completed everything to the best of my ability, except “the box.” I left the box blank because my children do not fit in any of the categories listed as far as I’m concerned. However, I was told that I must choose one. How do you choose one and leave off the rest? What makes one more important than another? Why must you claim one parent and deny another in essence? Then I was told, you know if you choose a minority category, it will help them later in school to possibly get grant money. Oh my goodness…what a way to try to justify it!

There are so many people these days that are multi-racial, multi-ethnic that the boxes are archaic and insulting. Why must me choose only one? Why must we choose at all? Why not at least an Other category? I try to teach my children to be color blind. So far they know nothing about race. I know that will soon change. And it saddens me. How can we get rid of the prejudices in the world if the keep trying to put everyone inside a box?