Have you ever had an epiphany, a profound realization and understanding, about your role as a parent? When my oldest was in early elementary school, I suddenly understood one day that my three children are completely separate identities from my husband and me. We can't be with them every day, we will never truly understand and know their experiences and thoughts, and they will never truly understand ours. This realization was both painful and necessary and helped me to listen to and respect my children as individuals.
I had a second, far more painful epiphany this past week. Reading detailed articles in the Boston Globe and CNN about George Floyd and the protests nationwide, I saw and began to understand the deep despair and anger that Black Americans feel due to unrelenting and pervasive racism. And I realized that I had failed my children on a most basic level by not educating them about anti-racism.
I was brought up in a very liberal family in a local, mostly white suburb. We were taught to be loving, open and accepting but no one talked about anti-racism, even in our progressive church. I think the predominant feeling was... if we don't talk about racism, about our horrific history and pervasive practice of discriminating against and brutalizing others based on the color of their skin, it will eventually fade away. We will somehow become colorblind. (People of color and those who were raised in areas fraught with racism will understand how ridiculous this approach is but we didn't know any better in our idealistic bubble.) And when I had my own children, I somehow thought that, yes, this is the right way to go -- don't even mention race, and they will see others for the beautiful and unique souls they are, not based on the color of their skin. A very Rousseau-based philosophy but somehow I missed the rest of Rousseau's theory -- that civilization corrupts the essential goodness of man. I completely failed to understand the many influences my children would be exposed to, including books, TV, movies, commercials, news stories, and the chatter and opinions of friends and adults around them, all of which would deposit the elements of racism in their forming brains. My job as a parent should have been to actively address those insidious beliefs, comments, and exposures and teach my children to see and reject racism and to speak out against hatred and injustice.
We don't get a parenting manual when our children are born, and we learn very painful lessons along the way. My list of parenting regrets is a mile long. But all we can do when faced with a mistake, whether we're just starting out or we've been making the mistake for a dozen years, is to change, immediately, and do better. As Gandhi said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
I'm beginning by:
- Reading and exploring the resources in this article: Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup
- Reading and participating in a Macaroni Kid Publisher book group on Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
- Talking about racism, anti-racism and current events with my children
- Reviewing and implementing this extensive list of actions to fight racial injustice
- Finding opportunities to stand up against hatred and injustice
- Sharing with all of you and asking you to speak out against hate and racism and to educate your children about anti-racism
I hope you will join me.
