Belated Response

A long time ago, at my request, hydrogeek left a question for future blogging. I haven't answered it yet, because it's a stumper, but here goes my lame attempt. The question was:

"I live in a very small town with little in the way of diversity of any sort. I would like to raise my daughter in such a way to help her keep racism and sexism at bay in her mind and in her life. Do you have any things that you say, or little reinforcements that can help with the overall sense of self worth? I've tried to be very sensitive to praise her trying and working hard, rather than just telling her how pretty she is all the time, but I'm pretty sure at 8 months old this is only going to get harder. Do you have a few rules of thumb? A bullet point list? A how-to guide on raising an open-minded hard working girl in a mostly privileged white atmosphere?"

See what I mean about it being a stumper? Because nobody died and made me the expert on these things, you know? It's very hard for me to approach this because my strong belief is that people learn through experience, and without the experience of being among many people who are different from yourself, and being with them in a deep and meaningful way, I honestly don't know if I think much more than a theoretical opposition to racism or sexist or whatever is actually possible.

But, I suppose a theoretical opposition isn't a terrible place to start out as a young adult entering a world more diverse than the one of your childhood, so I'm not saying it isn't worth a try.

I saw a book recently that I didn't buy, but think I'm going to because the book I did buy on that same trip mentions it as a good resource for someone in hydrogeek's exact circumstances. The book is What if All the Kids are White? Anti-Bias, Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families. I didn't buy it because it doesn't speak directly to anything I need right now, though I did find the whole idea interesting, if also really sad. The book is aimed at teachers and the title pretty much announces school integration to be dead and buried (yes, I know your school is a wonderful, high-quality one full of beautiful rainbows of diversity, but it is the exception, gentle reader). One reason I didn't take the book home is my denial about that or my refusal to accept it, or something. I really want to work at school integration, at quality education for all children, not accept where we are and try to work with it. Of course, that would be the practical thing to do, as things are not going to change fast enough for kids who are in school right now. Still, there just seems to be something in that book's title that admits defeat.

Anyway, I digress, but I do plan to read the book in the near future. Maybe it's got some brilliant ideas for hydrogeek and all of us.

Meanwhile, in a very general sense, here are some bullet-points about what we do with our kids:

- because our children are African American (and yes, biracial counts) we do give straight-up ordinary "you're beautiful"-type compliments a lot. I blogged about that to some readers' initial dismay here (read through it, it's got a lot of other stuff, too) and in follow-up here When it boils right down to it, Alfie Kohn can jump in a lake. My children don't get pummeled with a thousand messages a day that they're beautiful and capable people, so I pummel them as much as I can myself. A sense of ontological worth is a good thing for any Black girl or woman to have.

- but we do the Kohn-approved kind of praise too. I spend a lot of time encouraging Nat to "keep trying" telling her that the tasks she is working on are difficult and require a lot of effort and that her effort is admirable and that she will be able to do it someday if she keeps trying and practicing. If she succeeds at something after a lot of effort, I say "wow you worked really hard, you tried and tried and you did it!"

- we try to educate for compassion in a general sense. I always encourage Nat to view smaller, weaker creatures than herself with kindness and care. Before she had a baby sister (who makes for excellent practice on this all day long) I was constantly saying things to her like "be gentle with the plant. The plant needs its leaves to be healthy. We have to take care of the plant because it's a living things, and we have to take care of living things." Nat feeds the cats every morning with Uncle David. And I always exhort her to appreciate how "cute" and "tiny" bugs are and to be very gentle with them because they're very fragile. Now mind you, I'm no Buddhist. I'm not above killing certain bugs. But I do think at Nat's age, distinguishing when to squash something and when not to (baby sisters, for example) is over her head, so we are just focusing on care and compassion.

- And in keeping with that, I try not to pass my own prejudices on to my kids. Not just about people or whatever (duh!) but about everything--foods that are yummy or yucky, things that are pretty or ugly, animals that are cute or creepy, etc. I want them to be as free as possible to develop and express their own feelings and opinions about things.

These are pretty vague and don't directly address "diversity" or lack of it but it's been interesting to call to mind these little things that I do without much thinking that probably illustrate some of our values and how we pass them to our children. But for that diversity stuff, nothing beats real life people who are different from you. And in the smallest town there is always going to be someone who fills that bill. Meet and befriend her!

Comments

[Allie]

I find this sort of discussion very interesting. One of my concerns about seeking diversity is always that I don't want anyone to feel like I'm 'using' friendship or acquaintance with them as some sort of lesson for my kids. I know how that feels and I don't like it when it is done to me...

[Rosemary]

I (sh)could write to speak to the depth of the topic at hand, but I'd like to just say EW! Those bugs! Raised in Arkansas, I didn't see one for decades. And when I did, I played paper-rock-scissors with my partner for 10 minutes, our feet safe on the bed, far away from That Bug, while we decided who was going to have to kill the (Primal Shiver) thing.

[electriclady]

I started to comment but it got so long that I ended up writing my own post. I guess this has been on my mind lately...

[hydrogeek]

Wow, thanks Shannon! You are right I think, those small kindnesses go a long way in teaching children how to react to everything, whether different or not. You've got me thinking about where I might find diversity in town, but I appreciate Allie's comment about that. Also, thanks for yesterday's post and link. I'm headed to electriclady's now, and will be stalking your comments today...

[HeatherS]

Thanks for the book suggestion--I've requested it from the local library. We're facing some of those issues ourselves.