A couple of days ago, this came across my facebook feed.
"If you give your kids
the impression you believe people who do X are heartless monsters or
unthinking drones, they're not going to be as willing to be honest with
you if they want to try something on your X list. You won't seem
trustworthy or safe to them. That's true whether X is food or religion
or technology or clothing or language or politics or any other
"lifestyle" issue."
Those words come from Meredith Novak, an unschooling Mom I know online, and they really spoke to me.
The idea behind it being that prejudice about anything 'other' -- people, hobbies, music, tv shows, video games, religion, whether or not one is vegetarian, their choice of dress -- is toxic to the kind of relationship I want with my children. Prejudice gets in the way of joy and trust; it completely derails curiosity and growth. It leads to disdain and unkindness, to hurt feelings and to smaller worlds.
It's a topic that's been big for me lately, the whole idea of disdain and the unkindness it spreads. I see it in so many interactions between parents and children. As those children grow, the disdain and prejudice show in their freindships, in how they turn down opportunities to try new things, in how their world stays very small. It shows up as frustration, as fear to try new things, as sneering when someone else suggests a new interest they'd like to share. It kills enthusiasm and robs children of any sense of safety and acceptance for who they are.
That's not to say it's always been that clear for me. I carried my own prejudices into my parenting years. I truly believed that people who watched certain tv shows were small-minded and mean, and likely not very smart. I couldn't reconcile how people I knew to be intelligent and thoughtful could enjoy shows like Family Guy; I didn't think it was acceptable for children to watch The Simpsons. My oldest son wasn't allowed to watch the Simpsons. I'm very glad he found his way to them on his own, and was able to make up in some measure for those years I wrestled with my prejudices.
It was uncomfortable at first to consider that maybe all my prejudices were mistaken. But they were. When we embraced unschooling and relaxed the limits on things like tv (that really was the biggie for us, for some reason) we found that our boys loved to watch all the shows we found really offensive. How could it be that these thoughtful, kind, generous, smart boys of ours really wanted to watch those shows? What did that say about them as people? What did it say about us as parents? Where had we failed them? (okay, that last is mostly tongue in cheek) I worried that they were becoming people I wouldn't be able to like.
That was insanity. Really. They were the same sweet, kind, smart boys they'd always been. And the shows were funny sometimes, the writing is clever and contemporary and really calls viewers to think about some pretty big issues. They're also filled with historical and cultural references. I started out just being nearby, explaining why a particular joke was funny, talking about the relevance of the underlying attitudes about sex or politics or drug use or race relations.
Pretty soon, I was looking around my life, and I realized I'd been missing opportunities to try new things, to grow as a person. I saw that I had sometimes been unkind or disdainful to people who believed things I didn't believe to be true. I'd always thought of myself as pretty open-minded, so this was a revelation to me.
In the years since, I've watched people reject all sorts of passions embraced by their children or their partners. I've seen people refuse to enjoy a loved one's interest, refuse to serve meat to a husband or child. I've seen adults dismiss and laugh in ways that I found hurtful, even when I wasn't the target of their disdain. I've seen teenagers sneer at the very genuine passions of others, dismissing as uncool or beneath them some really cool new experiences. I've watched as those prejudices made the world smaller for friends, partners, children, and for the people who limit themselves to only what is already on the approved list for what's good and right and desirable.
Where it comes around to joy is this -- when you make the world a small place, with a short list of what's acceptable, what's good and right and the way people and things are 'supposed to be,' you reject joy and passion and love and wonder. Prejudice and disdain are poisons; they may present as the rules to live by, ways to keep our children and ourselves safe and on the right path. But really, all they do is make our world smaller.
Joy can't thrive in a small box; wonder dies where it's not safe to be curious; children wither and grow warped where it's not safe to try new things, to become someone different on the outside (or on the inside).
When your child, or your partner, or you, want to try something you've been told is bad or will make you a bad person, or is stupid or silly or somehow beneath you, re-think that prejudice. Choose joy. It often shows up in the most unexpected places. And you'll never know where it is if you refuse to consider new opportunities.
