Preach. To add to this: My wife and I have a lot of discussions about how to raise our kids as not just race conscious but how to not make marginalized groups teaching lessons for our kids. It’s been interesting to say the least.
Sure! I’m crashing right now so feel free to follow up but the short answer is proactivity and not worrying about public perception when it doesn’t matter.
For instance: if one of my kids goes “that person is black!” We don’t go “shhh shhh stop stop” and act like it’s the end of the world in public (or in private). We go “yes that man is black. What color skin do I have?” Or “yes that man’s skin is black. Daddy’s skin is white. People have different skin colors! What color is your skin?”
Shaming and acting like observing it is bad teaches them that there’s something wrong with it vs the simple reality that people look different. It’s not different than blond or back hair unless you make it a big deal.
As they get older, we’ll start (this is at least our plan) pointing out things like the race and gender of people in different roles around them. As they get more observant and curious our goal is to slowly introduce the concept of “gender roles” and inequality so that then don’t just internalize what they see with no context.
We don’t have it all figured out but we’re trying our best and we’ll adapt where we can.
Naturally if it any of this puts someone in an uncomfortable position we take it upon ourselves to apologize but we don’t make a massive deal about it to the kids or they get a very mixed message
Well, one time my kid said some misogynistic shit (it’s been a decade, I can’t remember the details) and I spent 10 or 15 minutes chewing him out in front of his siblings about how that’s inappropriate and wrong, with examples of the errors and results. When we were talking one time after he’d reached adulthood, he told me this turned him away from the path of radical anti-feminism.
No guarantees this will work in most circumstances, but it did this one time.
A lot of it is clearly age dependent and about what they did. My kids are very, very young. What the repeat doesn’t yet reflect what they believe. One is barely 2 so they are truly still a parrot lol so reacting big just often confuses them. As they get older no doubt I’ll drop the hammer if I hear something heinous.
Preach. To add to this: My wife and I have a lot of discussions about how to raise our kids as not just race conscious but how to not make marginalized groups teaching lessons for our kids. It’s been interesting to say the least.
I don’t have kids so I don’t even know how to begin teaching that. Mind enlightening me a bit if you have some time?
Sure! I’m crashing right now so feel free to follow up but the short answer is proactivity and not worrying about public perception when it doesn’t matter.
For instance: if one of my kids goes “that person is black!” We don’t go “shhh shhh stop stop” and act like it’s the end of the world in public (or in private). We go “yes that man is black. What color skin do I have?” Or “yes that man’s skin is black. Daddy’s skin is white. People have different skin colors! What color is your skin?”
Shaming and acting like observing it is bad teaches them that there’s something wrong with it vs the simple reality that people look different. It’s not different than blond or back hair unless you make it a big deal.
As they get older, we’ll start (this is at least our plan) pointing out things like the race and gender of people in different roles around them. As they get more observant and curious our goal is to slowly introduce the concept of “gender roles” and inequality so that then don’t just internalize what they see with no context.
We don’t have it all figured out but we’re trying our best and we’ll adapt where we can.
Naturally if it any of this puts someone in an uncomfortable position we take it upon ourselves to apologize but we don’t make a massive deal about it to the kids or they get a very mixed message
Nice, thanks for sharing. Yeah it that makes more sense then I thought it would.
It’s parenting no one has it all figured out but from my estimation you’re not far off.
Thanks for asking! It’s actually something I like discussing. It helps me organize my thoughts a bit
Well, one time my kid said some misogynistic shit (it’s been a decade, I can’t remember the details) and I spent 10 or 15 minutes chewing him out in front of his siblings about how that’s inappropriate and wrong, with examples of the errors and results. When we were talking one time after he’d reached adulthood, he told me this turned him away from the path of radical anti-feminism.
No guarantees this will work in most circumstances, but it did this one time.
A lot of it is clearly age dependent and about what they did. My kids are very, very young. What the repeat doesn’t yet reflect what they believe. One is barely 2 so they are truly still a parrot lol so reacting big just often confuses them. As they get older no doubt I’ll drop the hammer if I hear something heinous.