I nursed, co-slept (out of sheer necessity), fed him jarred baby food, licked his paci before sticking it back in his mouth, bottle fed, used formula too, gave him happy meals, failed to see the need to freak out when he ate dirt, I didn't baby wear because I didn't even know about it back then, he goes to public school, and organic is expensive...so yeah.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because before I continue I want you to know that I am not a perfect parent, I am not the mom sitting in the playground nursing her second grader while wearing her ten year old and snacking on organic crackers and vegan cheese after driving there with her two still rear facing seats. I am just a mom, doing her best, and I honestly thought, until a few weeks ago, if you loved your kiddo and you did your best, you couldn't fail, then someone relayed to me a story that left me speechless (yeah, me, I had NOTHING to say, wait till you hear it).
Picture it, speaking with a "friend" and this person turns to me and says, "I have to tell you this story, you're going to hate it but its so funny"---because lets be honest, if it starts like that, its obviously going to be...uh...great?
"so I was with my daughter," this person continues, "and we saw a black family at this event and our friends spoke to them and she looks at me and says, we don't have to go over there its ok, we don't talk to them kinds of people"
Ladies and gentleman, she is NINE. NINE FUCKING YEARS OLD, and somewhere along the way she has picked up this idea that another human being's skin color sets them apart into a group of people you "don't talk to". NINE years old and she has been taught that the pigment in someone's skin is an indication of what kind of human lies inside. They don't make words in the English language to express my horror as I sat there in complete silence trying to wrap my brain around the idea that in 2015 this could be "funny" to a parent. I would lose my MIND if my child said that, he wouldn't because he wasn't taught ignorance, but if he some how picked that up at school and found it funny, as children sometimes do, we would be having the longest history lesson and conversation of our LIVES while I cried on the inside and wondered where I had gone wrong. Luckily, I seem to have done this one thing right, my child is so far from prejudice he sometimes reminds ME to look deeper than the obvious in another person.
And suddenly, sitting my silent shock, I realized, you CAN be a shitty parent, even if you are providing the basics, you CAN love your child (and I truly believe this parent loves this child, in his own misguided way) and still be a terrible parent. You can provide, try, and love and still fail your child and cripple them for life. If bring them up in ignorance, whether it is racism, sexism, homophobia, whatever, they will spend the rest of their lives trying to relearn that or they will spend the rest of their lives in ignorance and stupidity damaging those around them with their hate, and it will be YOUR fault.
The next time you think racism is dead, come back and read this, remind yourself that if you're parenting its your job to help eliminate the racism that some assholes are still teaching. Don't be a shitty parent....be the part of reason that my child and his children will be able to say, racism is truly dead.
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