Even before she was born, I knew I wanted my daughter to go to Kohanga Reo. She was enrolled by 6 months, and started attending when she was 1.

My daughter is Pakeha.

When people find out she is in total-immersion Maori daycare, I am met with different responses.

Supplied THINKING BIG: Camilla Carty-Melis and her 2-year-old daughter Fern, who attends Te Kohao O Te Ngira Kohanga Reo in Hamilton.

These opinions come not only from family and friends, but also strangers and people I am barely acquainted with. Some people have called me naive, some people have called me brave, some people think it is terrible idea, and others think it is great. But the most frequent initial response is 'why?'.

So, here is why.

My nearly 2-year-old daughter, Fern, may be Pakeha, but she is from Aotearoa, New Zealand. She can learn Pakeha culture and the English language from her parents and family, but I also want her to learn Maori customs and culture. We live in a bicultural (if not multicultural) society and I want her to be equally familiar and comfortable interacting with Pakeha and Maori, in English or Te Reo.

I only moved to Hamilton from overseas two years ago. Before that, I was shockingly ignorant about New Zealand's history, and when I learned about this country's past 250-plus years, I felt sadness about the historical relationship between Maori and white colonisers.

Even today, I often feel I am living in a divided society. I have witnessed the full spectrum from outright racism to unintended discrimination and embedded prejudices from both sides, and I wish it wasn't like this.

Not growing up here, I have been told I just don't understand the relationship between Pakeha and Maori, and maybe I never will. But I know that I don't want my daughter to grow up with stereotypes and prejudices about people from different races.

I want her to be able to recognise and respect the differences between Maori and Pakeha people, but to also see us simply as that: people.

Quite possibly she could grow up to be like this without having attended Kohanga Reo, but I suppose it is me trying to make extra sure. I guess I am hoping that by sending her to a daycare (Te Kohao O Te Ngira Kohanga Reo at the Kirikiriroa Marae) where she learns a different culture and meets people from a different race to her, that she will grow up seeing our similarities rather than differences, and so not create prejudices or divide people into 'us' and 'them'.

Then she'll grow up and fight institutional and systemic injustice and prejudices. Yep, that's definitely how it plays out in my mind.

Because we are all people. Not all the same, but definitely all equal.

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