The 2024 election season has put a lot of us through the wringer.  We may have deeply held values around fairness, freedom, and what it means to belong in a community – and it can feel scary when other people don’t share those values. For parents, the election obviously gives us an opportunity to discuss our values with our children, and how these values may be different from those of people who voted for other candidates.  But beyond that, it also creates an opportunity to examine whether we’ve really been living our values as much as we think we have – and to adjust course if needed.

In a recent podcast episode 229: Raising kids in divisive times: Where do we go after the 2024 election?, I discussed in depth the ways that we liberals may not have been living our values as much as we think we have.  I offered strategies that we as parents can use to bring our actions into greater alignment with our values.  In this blog post I focus more specifically on ways we can be with our children that are value-aligned.

Understanding Differences: What’s Behind People’s Beliefs

I have found that Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s research into moral foundations provides a useful framework to understand why people think (and vote) the way they do.

In his book The Righteous Mind, Haidt identified five moral ‘foundations’ that shape how we view right and wrong:

1. Care/Harm: Concern for others and a desire to protect those who are vulnerable.
2. Fairness/Cheating: A focus on justice, fairness, and avoiding people who cheat or take advantage of others.
3. Loyalty/Betrayal: The importance of being loyal to a group or community.
4. Authority/Subversion: Respect for tradition, authority, and social order.
5. Sanctity/Degradation: Valuing purity and a sense of what’s “right” in a moral or even physical sense.

The diagram below, which is recreated from Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind, shows the five foundations:

People who lean toward liberal values often prioritize care and fairness with the other values being relatively less important, while those with conservative views tend to see all five as more equally important.

We liberals have been hypocritical in how we live some of our values

Liberal values often emphasize ideals like care for all (not just those in our immediate families), fairness, and belonging, but I think we have to admit that we haven’t been great at living those values.

When we think about caring for all, we look at economic indicators like the ever-growing GDP and low unemployment rates and tell people with relatively low incomes that “everything’s fine.”  We ignore the 25% jump in house prices during the pandemic, that rental rates rose 8% from 2022-2023, childcare costs are up 32% from 2019…and hourly wages only rose 4%.  Meanwhile, propelled by the stock market, relatively wealthy liberals are moving away from expensive urban and suburban areas to places where conservatives have long been able to afford homes and are now priced out of the market.  How are we ‘caring for all’?

Similarly, the liberal commitment to fairness sometimes falters when we’re advancing our own goals. Liberals advocate for a shift to low-carbon energy sources at a much greater rate than conservatives.  Many more conservatives live in states where energy is produced and when we argue for shutting down coal-fired power plants, we don’t incorporate plans to help workers transition into new jobs.  This can leave conservatives believing that they can’t meet their need for autonomy, which is the ability to make decisions that feel important to us that affect our lives – it’s no wonder they resist these policies.  An approach called Targeted Universalism helps us to develop policies that benefit everyone, while providing more support to those who need it the most.  People tend not to protest others getting more help than them, as long as they’re being helped as well.

We also haven’t been very successful at creating family structures that are truly fair.  I can’t tell you how many women I work with have husbands whose trauma takes on an outsized role in the relationship (but the father refuses to acknowledge it), while the mother is in therapy and learning new parenting techniques and the father refuses to try anything new – or go to couple’s therapy.  The mother finds herself stuck in an endless cycle of appeasing him, and trying to reassure herself that research shows that kids do OK if they have at least one parent who tries to meet their needs.  She resists divorce because she knows it counts as an Adverse Childhood Experience, and she’s trying to protect the kids from as much trauma of their own as possible.  Why would we think that conservatives would want our family structures, when many of us don’t really want what we have either?

And while we might argue in principle for a world where everyone belongs, we haven’t been able to create and model this in our own lives.  While many liberals advocate for inclusivity and equitable public resources, many of us still make choices that prioritize our own family’s opportunities over community-wide equity. For example, some liberal families support public schooling in principle yet enroll their children in private schools or highly competitive public schools to avoid being in the minority in a majority-Black school, or to make sure our kids don’t miss out on opportunities to help them get ahead in life.

We talk about letting more immigrants into the country, but here in the Bay Area local residents resist building affordable housing (because it will ‘change the character of the neighborhood’), so many teachers now have a 3-hour daily commute because they can’t afford to live where they teach.

We preach ‘inclusion,’ but at the first sign that someone doesn’t use exactly the right words, or think about an issue in exactly the same way we do, we kick them out of the tent. It’s no wonder that nobody else wants to buy the ‘belonging’ we’re selling.

We’re all trying to meet our needs

I wanted to see whether the moral foundations could be translated into needs, so I pulled up the needs list and tried to understand what need a liberal and a conservative is trying to meet when we use these moral foundations – and how this translates into policy positions.  I found that it actually does translate pretty well:

Then I realized that all of these needs really ladder up to the need for safety – and liberals and conservatives use different strategies to meet those needs.  Liberals want to be able to express our whole selves (including our identities as women, LGBTQ, BIPOC), and to live in integrity with our values.  Conservatives want the safety that comes with both cultural and financial security – and that they have a real say in how these decisions are made.  I believe that when we live our values more authentically, and also truly listen to conservatives and develop policies that address their concerns, that we’ll be able to move toward creating a world where everyone can be their whole selves – and create true belonging.

Actionable steps for parents

It can seem like the most obvious action to take is to talk about our values with our children, and make sure they know that we prioritize care for all, fairness, and belonging.  If you’ve ever sworn in front of your kids and then told your child not to swear, you’ll know that kids remember the lessons of our actions much more effectively than they remember the lessons of our words.  With that in mind, here are some practical ways to live your values through your relationship with your kids:

1. Practice fairness by recognizing different needs

Kids have an eagle eye for fairness, but they tend to get stuck on whether everyone else has exactly the same as them.  But we can practice Targeted Universalism in our families as well!  It doesn’t make sense to spend 30 minutes reading to Child A just because you spent 30 minutes reading to Child B, when Child B would much prefer you to play LEGOs or Let’s Pretend.  When we give each child what they need, they complain a lot less about what their sibling got, instead of perceiving ‘unfairness’ in every interaction.

What you can do: During family decisions, encourage open conversations about each person’s needs. In Parenting Beyond Power we call the needs that a child is trying to meet over and over again their ‘cherry’ needs (the cherry on top of the frosting and cupcake of other needs).  Try to make sure that your child’s cherry needs are met most of the time, and that your cherry needs are met as well.

2. Build a culture of belonging by prioritizing inclusion

Belonging means that everyone’s voice is heard in the community; they have agency and can help develop the community’s values.  So rather than buying one of those posters that tells kids about your family’s values (which invariably end up being things parents want children to do/not do (like “We are kind” and “We use our manners”).

What you can do: Ask your kids what’s important to them, and how they can live those values.  So if they say it’s important to be kind, what does kindness mean to them?  How will they live out their value of being kind?  If they say: “I’ll never call [sibling] a bad name again,” don’t be surprised if they forget in a difficult moment.  Afterward, you can remind them: “I thought we said that we wouldn’t call each other names?  What happened?  Do we still hold that value?  If so, what about that interaction was hard for you?  How can we support you much earlier on next time so you don’t get so frustrated you call [sibling] a name?

3. Show care through mutual aid

Volunteering is a traditional way of supporting others but when we volunteer, we’re putting ourselves in a position of superiority over others.  We’re saying: “I don’t need help; I’m only here to help you.”

When we engage in mutual aid, we’re acknowledging that we all have needs and we can support each other in meeting those needs.  We can share childcare, carpool, and meal preparation.  We can develop communities where it’s not just OK but encouraged to reach out and say: “I’m having a hard week.  Can anyone pick up some groceries for me or cook me a meal?,” knowing that we will do the same for someone else in future.  We’re seeing that all people have resources and can make valuable contributions to the community, rather than one person always giving and the other always receiving.

And while we’re at it, we’re making it clear that the reason we can’t cope is not because we are failing individually, but because our social systems are failing us.

What you can do: Get to know your neighbors.  Offer help when you see someone in need.  Ask for help yourself, instead of trying to go it alone.  I offer free babysitting for our neighbors whose babies are young enough to go to bed early, and old enough to sleep for several hours at a stretch.  I read bedtime stories to Carys at their house, and it’s no more difficult than being at home.  Let your kids see you doing this mutual support work with others.

4. Acknowledge privilege and advocate for equity

While we may say we support inclusivity, our decisions may not align with those values.  If we have a relatively large amount of privilege, we may find that systems like those found in schools are set up to support us.  If we ask for something to be done then it happens; if other parents ask then the request is sidelined and then forgotten.  The same faces get voted onto the PTA year after year, and while people may ask: “Whose voices aren’t here?” no plans are ever made to make sure those voices are not just present but heard next time.

What you can do: Listen to this podcast episode on How to advocate for the schools our children deserve, which is packed with ideas and resources you can use to create change at your kids’ school – whether you’re the kind of parent who wants to be on the PTA, or who prefers to stay in the background.

5. Create a culture of accountability and integrity at home

Living out our values can be messy and imperfect. Our intentions may not always align with our actions, and our actions don’t always have the impact we intend. When you make decisions that don’t align perfectly with your values, talk about it with your kids. Explain that integrity isn’t about perfection but about honesty and growth, and help them to understand why you made this choice.

When you recognize that your actions had an impact that was different from what you intended – even when the person impacted is your child, apologize.  This doesn’t make you a ‘weak’ parent.  It’s likely to lead to greater connection and closeness with your child.

What you can do: Be open with your children when you make a decision that doesn’t fully align with your family’s values. Use it as an opportunity to discuss why it happened, what you learned, and how you’ll work to do better next time. Modeling accountability shows that living with integrity means learning from mistakes.

Try apologizing to your child about something you did recently that you know hurt them, even if that wasn’t your intention.  Tell them how you’re planning to do things differently the next time this situation comes up.

7. Support each child’s individual identity and need for belonging

You may have had the experience when you were a child of being told you were too big, too loud, or too much for your parents to cope with.  They were doing the best they could to raise you with the tools they had, but they couldn’t cope with all of your needs.

True belonging involves giving people space to express who they are, without trying to get them to conform to our standards.  (Parents I work with often worry that this will mean their children will be unprepared for the real world, and yet they themselves found the experience of not being accepted by their parents to be extremely hurtful and even traumatizing.)

What you can do: Try to find value in each of your kids’ traits.  If they have to have to have the last word, it’s not that ‘they’ll be a great lawyer someday’ – it’s that they aren’t afraid to advocate for their needs now, which is a good thing!

8. Encourage self-advocacy balanced with community responsibility

Care, fairness, and belonging are needs that are important to many people. Teach your kids that advocating for their own needs is important, but so is considering how their actions impact others. If we advocate for Advanced Placement classes for our child, will all children be able to benefit?  Are there also children who would benefit from classes to support them with more basic skills?

If you want to start a drama club, and you’re proposing that rehearsals happen after school, does everyone have access to transportation to attend?

Is your child aware of how they take up space?  If they eat while you’re grocery shopping, or take their own toy into a store where toys are sold, is your child likely to be accused of stealing?  If not, they may want to consider not eating or taking their toy, in acknowledgement that not everyone can do this.

What you can do: If one of your children wants to ask that something in the family be done differently or request an exception, encourage them to explain why it matters to them. Then, help them consider how this change might impact everyone else before making a decision together. This practice helps them see that personal choices are part of a larger family dynamic and that considering others’ needs is part of responsible self-advocacy.

9. Participate in civic engagement as a family

Community involvement as a way to support collective well-being. Participating in local elections, attending town meetings, getting involved in a place of worship or your kids’ school, or working on an issue that’s important to your kids are ways to live out your commitment to community care and fairness.  Plus they create belonging: people who participate in one type of civic engagement have improved health outcomes over people who don’t participate in any.  The benefit is even greater when you participate in more than one type of engagement.

What you can do: Choose an issue that’s important to you and/or your kids, and decide together how you can best contribute to it.  Doing the work together provides even more opportunities for the show-rather-than-tell approach to learning, which is much more impactful for kids.

​

References

Lumanlan, J. (2024, November 12). Episode 229: Raising kids in divisive times: Where do we go after the 2024 election?  Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/trump/

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Pantheon Books.

Powell, J. A., Menendian, S., & Ake, W. (2019, May). Targeted universalism: Policy & practice. Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, University of California, Berkeley.

Lumanlan, J. (2024). Needs list for parents. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/needs/

Lumanlan, J. (2023). Parenting beyond power: How to use connection and collaboration to transform your family—and the world. https://www.yourparentingmojo.com/book

Lumanlan, J. (2022, September 25). Episode 167: Healing and helping with mutual aid with Dean Spade. Your Parenting Mojo. https://www.yourparentingmojo.com/mutualaid

Lumanlan, J. (2024, August 18). Episode 221: How to advocate for the schools our children deserve with Allyson Criner Brown & Cassie Gardener Manjikian [Audio podcast episode]. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/equitableoutcomes/

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The other members of the panel were highly accomplished women, with a variety of backgrounds related to education and educational policy, and seemed to be participating out of a genuine desire to help parents.

I inquired whether the organizers might want to have a person of a non-dominant culture speak in my place (the panelists ended up being all White).

I inquired whether the organizers would be willing to publicize the event to parents whose children attend nearby schools who might not have the resources to organize a panel discussion of this type at their school, and provided several lists of Head Start programs and free or low-cost preschools (all of the attendees ‘looked like they belonged’ at the event.  None seemed to have that deer-in-the-headlights look that many people get when they’re out of their element).

The event cost $10 to attend, and while this could be waived by reaching out to the organizers it’s likely that a cash-strapped, time-strapped parent might have seen this as one obstacle too many.

We think that if information is ‘freely available’ (if we have to spend hours finding it), then compiling it into a spreadsheet and sharing it among our networks is a harmless action – after all, anyone could have found this information (and the event I participated in was open to the public).

I like to think that I helped the parents to see and understand issues related to inequality that they hadn’t seen or considered before, but in reality the event that I participated in perpetuated inequality by giving already advantaged parents information and resources (including potential 1:1 conversations with the director of admissions at one of the schools to which these parents might have been applying) that not all parents could access.

We are part of the problem

White parents: We think that if we’re not ‘colorblind’ and ‘don’t see race,’ that we’re doing our part.

We think that if we talk to our children about Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King during Black History Month then our children will be ‘culturally aware.’

We think that if we have some books with diverse characters, we’re actively raising anti-racist children.

It’s not enough.

Not even close.

Especially when we perpetuate systemic racism by using our resources to give our child advantages that not all children can access.

Uncover your own privilege

The insidious thing about privilege is that it encourages us not to see it.  The easiest, most comfortable thing to do is to keep our blinders on and just keep doing what we’ve been doing (being colorblind; being nice to Black people; having a diverse library).

The first thing we need to do is to recognize our own privilege as White parents.  The next (coming in my next blog post) will be to actively take steps to dismantle that privilege.

Think you don’t have privilege?  Here are 57 ways you probably do:

1. When the family structure that is most common for our race is seen as the ‘norm’ and other family structures are pathologized, we have privilege.

2. When White parents go to our regular prenatal checkups without acknowledging that many Black women cannot access healthcare in the same way that we do (and die at higher rates during pregnancy because of it), we have privilege.

3. When our healthcare providers believe us when we say we’re in pain, we have privilege.

4. When White parents give birth without understanding how the birthing process is deadly for Black women and Black babies, we have privilege.

5. When White parents breastfeed at higher rates than Black women do, we have privilege.

6. When White parents work with an agency or post an ad to find a nanny and we hire one that meets our needs, we have privilege.

7. When White parents can easily find dolls that match our child’s skin color, we have privilege.

8. When our child gets a scrape and we can easily find Band Aids that match their skin tone, we have privilege.

9. When our children are less likely to suffer from asthma, and less likely to die from asthma, we have privilege.

10. When White parents are walking on the street our child is less likely to get hit by a car, and less likely to experience extensive injuries, because we have privilege.

11. When White parents can feed our family without traveling to a neighborhood where we don’t feel welcome, we have privilege.

12. When our child gets really sick and we can be reasonably sure the doctor will prescribe appropriate medication for the condition, we have privilege.

13. When our child needs to access mental health services, we can be reasonably sure that we can access help, that their complaint will be correctly diagnosed, and that the help we receive is reflective of and informed by our culture’s understanding of mental health.

14. When White parents consider the way that intergenerational trauma impacts our parenting, we are free from the legacies of slavery and segregation.

15. When White parents take our toddler into a store with their own snacks and toys without worrying that store employees will think we’ve stolen them, we have privilege.

16. When our child actually steals from a store and we can follow popular parenting advice to return the item with an apology instead of having bystanders call the police who then threaten to shoot us, we have privilege.

17. When White parents can walk into any bookstore and find books about people of our race, written by people of our race, we have privilege. (Black, Latinx and Native authors combined wrote just 7% of new children’s books published in 2017 (the number has increased slightly to 11.9% in 2018), and more books were published featuring animals (27%) than Black characters (11%).

18. When White parents can flip on the TV to keep our child entertained and know that they won’t even need to look for shows featuring characters that look like them, we have privilege. (Black characters accounted for 5.6% of a sample of 1,500 characters studied by researchers at Tufts University.)

19. When White parents don’t even have to think about whether movies and TV shows will depict people of our race in a positive light, we have privilege.

20. When White parents choose to put off ‘having the race talk’ with our children because we want to ‘protect their innocence,’ we have privilege.

21. When White parents can babysit children without someone calling the police, we have privilege.

22. When White parents move to a ‘good neighborhood’ so our child can attend ‘good schools,’ we’re perpetuating racial inequalities.

23. When low-income White families are three times as likely to live in a high-resource area than a moderate- or high-income Black family, we have privilege.

24. When White parents hire a coach to get our child into a specific kindergarten, we are exercising our privilege.

25. When White parents share resources and information about schools that Black parents don’t have time to or find it difficult to access, we are perpetuating systemic racism.

26. When White parents don’t have to worry that our child will be one of the only children of their race if we choose a ‘good’ school, we have privilege.

27. When White parents can count on zero fingers the number of times our child has heard negative comments about their race, we have privilege. (40% of Black parents need one or more fingers for this exercise.  And just think about who must be making those negative comments to Black children?)

28. When preschool teachers watch the Black children in the class more closely looking for misbehavior, we have privilege.

29. When White parents can buy our child a writing practice workbook and not have to check whether it contains negative stereotypes about our race, we have privilege.

30. When our child can wear their natural hairstyle to school and not be sent home or forced to cut it, we have privilege.

31. When Black children represent about 18% of the children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students who were suspended more than once, we have privilege. (When our children engage in undesirable but age-appropriate behavior, they’ll just be redirected and corrected.)

32. When White parents advocate for ‘Gifted and Talented’ programs within public schools, we are advocating for de facto segregation within an otherwise integrated school, to perpetuate racial inequality.

33. When White parents let our children play with toy guns in public without thinking about how Black children get shot for doing the same thing, we have privilege.

34. When our child’s teacher asks us to ‘be involved’ in the child’s learning, and their request seems reasonable to us and doesn’t take into account the ways that parents of different cultures support their children’s learning, we promote the idea that ‘some parents don’t care about their child’s education,’ which perpetuates systemic inequalities.

35. When Black parents are labeled by schools as “hard to reach,” while schools promote inflexible ways to participate in children’s learning (volunteering during the work day; attending parent’s evenings when no childcare is provided or bus service available…) that are based on White parents’ needs and expectations, we have privilege.

36. When our child’s teacher probably looks like us (79% of public school teachers are White, and only 7% are Black) and mostly understands the kind of experience we had when we attended school, we have privilege.

37. When the skills and values our child learns at home matches with the skills and values taught in schools, we have privilege.

38. When our child can fully participate in a school project to trace their family name and ancestry, we have privilege.

39. When White parents have a spare device and a good internet connection to participate in remote learning while schools are closed, we have privilege.

40. When our primary concern about schools being closed is how to keep our child entertained all day while we work, and not where the child is now going to get breakfast and lunch, we have privilege.

41. When our children learn from school textbooks to empathize with slave owners more than enslaved people, we have privilege.

42. When the history of White ‘settlers’ in America is taught through fun plays that ignore the Native experience, while the history of Blacks in America is taught through mock slave auctions, we have privilege.

43. When our children learn that the achievements of people of their race were integral to their country’s narrative, rather than being confined to the topic of achieving equal rights for people of their race and studied during one month of the year, we have privilege.

44. When we see a Black girl ‘having an attitude,’ or ‘being defiant’ and decide that they are being ‘aggressive’ when we would see the same behavior in a White child and call it ‘assertive,’ we are perpetuating systemic racism.

45. When we put our child in gymnastics, or soccer, or hockey, to ‘give them the experience of playing on a team,’ we’re actually doing it to give our child a leg up in the future. That perpetuates inequality.

46. When our children’s teachers expect them to go on to college (but don’t do the same for Black children), we have privilege.

47. When Black children depend on school buses (while we drive our child to school), and Black children are unable to attend after-school enrichment programs and may even miss both their free/reduced price breakfast (their first meal of the day) and part of their first class because of inflexible bus schedules and tardy drivers, we are perpetuating inequality.

48. When Black children are 3-6 times as likely to be suspended from school as White children, we are perpetuating educational and racial inequality.

49. When White parents use our economic and political clout to demand changes in schools that primarily benefit our own children, we perpetuate inequality.

50. When our child never has to respond to the statement “You only got into this school/college because of your race,” we have privilege.

51. When strangers usually relatively accurately guess our child’s age correctly (rather than over-estimating their age and criticizing them for age-appropriate behaviors, or adultifying and oversexualizing Black girls, or making Black boys 18 times more likely to be tried as an adult as White boys), we have privilege.

52. When White parents can avoid daily “I don’t wanna get dressed!” protests by sending our child to school in pajamas without fear that this will signal neglect of our child, we have privilege.

53. When we engage in ‘free-range parenting’ and allow our child to walk to school alone or play outside unsupervised, we aren’t likely to face severe consequences like arrest and having the child removed from our care. We have privilege.

54. When our child is less like to end up in foster care, and more likely to be able to access employment and housing support, often due to parenting choices like whether to co-sleep with an infant or whether to leave an older child unattended in the home or due to consequences of poverty like multiple children sharing a room or lack of adequate heating, we have privilege.

55. When our child is SIX times less likely to have or have had an incarcerated parent, we have privilege.

56. When White parents can do the Tik Tok Finger Exercise on white privilege and end up with the majority of our fingers still up, we have privilege.

57. If our child were to ever go missing, we would expect a national news event and our Senator’s help. 37% of missing children are Black (more than double the rate we would expect since 14% of children in the U.S. are Black), but Black children only accounted for 7% of media references to missing children.  When we privilege White children’s lives, we willingly sacrifice Black children’s lives.

And why do we need endless articles in The Atlantic or Vox to prove to us that our White privilege perpetuates systemic inequality, rather than listening to the Black parents who have been telling us about these issues for years?

Subscribe by entering your name and email address in the box below; I’ll immediately send you an infographic of the First 10 Steps to Raise an Anti-Racist Child, and I’ll let you know when the follow-up blog post on what YOU can do to dismantle systemic racism is published…

[Please note that this list of privileges does not attempt to be exhaustive; I stopped when I ran out of time, not when I ran out of potential privileges.  I’m grateful to several members of the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group who offered ideas that are included here: A.L., H.D., Y.H., A.M., S.H., K.M.)

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Note: If you’re a person of a non-dominant culture (a term I use to avoid centering whiteness, and to acknowledge the power differential present in systems of structural racism) reading this, then I see you and I’m listening and I’m working to do better to understand my own privilege and work to dismantle it.

[For the rest of this post, to be consistent with language that people who are new to this work have probably seen in other places, and because this issue is largely focused on Black lives right now – although it should be expanded to all people of non-dominant cultures – I will use the words Black and White.]

A lot of (mostly White) parents are reaching out to me right now to ask whether and how they should talk with their preschool-aged children about the Black Lives Matter movement.  As the White parent of a mixed-race (but mostly white-presenting) daughter, I wanted to share some thoughts on how these conversations have been going at our house in the hope that it might help you.

I’ve looked at quite a bit of the scientific research on how children think about race, and on white privilege in parenting and in schools.  (There are a list of episodes and other resources here, all with full peer-reviewed references.). I lost more subscribers after releasing each of these episodes than after episodes on any other topic, but I kept going because I believe this work is important.

I don’t want you to think of me as an ‘expert’ on this.  I’m not.  I’m spending a lot of time listening to Black voices right now – in the parenting world and elsewhere – to understand the most useful things to do.  Part of this work is to shut up and listen when I’m in in diverse spaces.  And part of it is to use the platform that I’ve built to talk with other White parents about our role in this work, to save Black parents from the labor of educating White parents about how to be anti-racist and raise anti-racist children.

So if you’ve never really thought much about your privilege as a White person raising White children, think of me as one step ahead of you, extending a hand backward to support you as you take your own first step.

Why it’s important to have this conversation with your children

It has become increasingly clear to me over the last few years that how we raise our children is one of the most impactful things that we can do to change our society.  This goes for patriarchal systems that privilege maleness above female-ness (and all other genders).  And this goes for systems where one race is privileged above all others.

If we want our world to be different, we can’t just continue to raise our children in the same way that we were raised, shielding them from things that we’re uncomfortable discussing, and failing to acknowledge our own role in the system and the benefits we get from it.  If we tell our children “I don’t see color; all people matter the same to me” then we are simply perpetuating the systems we currently have.  Teaching children ‘not to see race’ is actually one of the most effective ways of raising a child with racially biased attitudes.

We must also acknowledge that we have the privilege to make a choice about whether we talk with our child about these topics.  Black parents don’t have that privilege; they have to make SURE their preschool-aged boys are never seen in public with a NERF gun in case they get shot.  Our privilege allows us to avoid these conversations entirely, and to use delicate words to avoid being clear if it makes us uncomfortable.

This is going to be uncomfortable.

Sit with it.  Be OK with it.  Do it anyway.

I also want to acknowledge that this will not be, and cannot be, a one-time conversation with your child.  It took several generations of systemic racism to get us to where we are right now, and it may take several generations more to recover from it as a society – even if we truly get serious about this work today.

Starting the conversation with books

If you feel completely out of your depth, you might want to start with children’s books containing Black characters (not always an easy task, since only about 10% of children’s books published in 2018 featured Black protagonists.   More books with animals as protagonists were published in 2018 than books featuring American Indian/First Nation, Latinx, Asian American/Asian and Pacific Islander and Black children combined).

So, start with books if you can find them.  Make sure your collection includes books that discuss difficult topics like racism, slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement.  Do be aware that no children’s book discusses any of these topics accurately and completely, so you must read more than one book.  The majority leave children with the impression that systemic racism is a thing of the past; that Rosa Parks sat down on a bus and things are all better now.

I worked with a professor to curate a book list that, when read as a set, covers every one of the principles on slavery and the Civil Rights Movement that the Southern Poverty Law Center says we should teach (you can download the book list for free on this page).  You will still likely need to supplement these books with conversations about how systemic racism is still very much a part of our lives.

So read books about these important topics – but also read books with featuring Black children and characters just living their lives.  We don’t want the only impression that our White children have about Black people is that they are oppressed – they are also vital, vibrant, active contributors to our world.

Starting the conversation about killings of Black people

White parents are often worried about scaring their children by talking about guns and murder.  That’s understandable.  Recognize, again, that you have the privilege to not have this conversation if you don’t want to do it.

The way I approached it was that when my daughter was old enough to know that people can kill other people (which she picked up at school at about age 4), I also considered her to be old enough to know that Black people are murdered by White people.  When she was old enough to know that guns and bullets kill people, she was old enough to know that Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed.

Now she’s almost six, I don’t make a conscious effort to protect her from any specific ideas.  She knows that George Floyd was murdered when a White police officer put his knee on George Floyd’s neck so he couldn’t breathe.

If your child is highly stressed by current COVID-19-related events (as some children are, as a result of being at home for extended periods of time and unable to meet up with friends), you might make the decision to wait a little while before having this conversation.  But again, know that it is your privilege that allows you to do this.

Having the conversation about the riots

Parents seem to be struggling particularly to discuss the riots that have been happening in many cities around the U.S.., perhaps partly because we seem to spend half our lives telling our children to stop destroying stuff around the house and stop hitting their siblings.

Honestly, I didn’t understand this issue myself until quite recently – I couldn’t see why Black people would destroy businesses, and even Black-owned businesses, in their own community.

But then I learned about Black anger toward, and trauma from, the entire racist system they live in.

A system that forced them to work for free and then branded them lazy.

A system that makes nutritious food unavailable to Black communities and then tells them their health problems are their own fault for being fat.

A system that exposes Black people disproportionately to COVID-19, and then fails to provide adequate healthcare for them.

A system that funnels money disproportionately to White-owned businesses to enable their recovery from COVID-related financial pressures.

A system that allows White people to kill Black people without fear of punishment.

A system that Black people have been protesting for centuries, and they have been ignored and told to “speak calmly” and “be logical” and that we “can’t engage with their anger.”

If you and your family had experienced this, wouldn’t you be angry?  Would you be traumatized?  And if you’d already tried civil conversations on White people’s terms and voting, and peaceful protests, wouldn’t you feel like you needed to take greater action to make people listen?

(And, as a side note, I’ve been in some conversations lately on what to actually call the riots… ‘riot’ actually doesn’t seem to be an appropriate term when you put it in the context of this anger and trauma.  Neither does vandalism, or insurrection, or any of the other alternatives.)

Continuing the conversation about systemic racism

One of the hardest parts about the conversation about systemic racism is acknowledging that we White parents are complicit in it.  We don’t have to apologize for being White; we didn’t ask to be born with White skin.  But throughout our lives we have benefitted from this privilege even without knowing it.

And as parents we have used it to our advantage: we have been able to access healthcare services and engage with our obstetricians to protect our health and our infant’s health.   We may have shared spreadsheets of information with other White parents about preschool and school application procedures; information that Black parents might have found more difficult to access.  We have selected summer camps and sports and music classes to help our children to develop skills that will continue to help them to get ahead for the rest of their lives – while also extending our own networks to the other (White) parents whose children are attending these classes.

Even today, as I sit here typing this post, already on my own anti-racist journey, I’m still benefitting from my white privilege.  I own my house (well, the bank still owns most of it right now) – but Whites are approved for mortgage loans and receive lower interest rate loans than Black and Latino applicants.  If I need to run to the store to get some milk, I can be reasonably sure that cars will stop for me when I cross the street.  If I accidentally lock myself out of my house and need to break in, nobody will call the police and have me arrested.  I can even let my daughter play out on the street lightly supervised (with me upstairs with the door open and other neighborhood children around) without risking getting arrested and having my daughter removed from my care.

If we talk with our children about George Floyd and Dr. Martin Luther King and the riots and we don’t also talk about how we ourselves have benefited and continue to benefit from our White privilege, we aren’t having the full conversation.  Having privilege doesn’t make us bad people.  We can be nice and benefit from privilege at the same time.  But if we’re going to be anti-racist, we need to acknowledge that privilege and do what we can to redistribute it: to take less for ourselves, and give more to others.

How to actually have the conversation

I know a number of folks reading this might be seeing all of this conceptual information but still struggle to actually have the conversation, so here’s a place to get started.  Don’t take it as a script; take it as some phrases that you might find useful and adapt as you see fit, perhaps over a period of several days rather than all at once.

If you can, start with a question your child has – perhaps about something they saw on the news, or boarded up shops in your town.  If your child isn’t asking questions, you can just share what’s on your mind.  Obviously you’ll pause to check for understanding and answer any questions your child has that come up as you’re going through.

“Hey, could we talk about something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately?  It’s important to me, and I want to share it with you.

There’s a lot going on in the country right now, and a lot of people are angry.  A couple of weeks ago a Black man called George Floyd bought something in a store and the worker in the store thought he used a $20 bill that wasn’t real.  We aren’t supposed to use money that isn’t real and the worker called the police.  When the police came, they held George on the ground and one of the police officers put his knee on George’s neck so he couldn’t breathe, and George died.  

It isn’t right that any person should die because they did something that might have been just a little bit wrong, and because they happen to have dark skin, and a lot of people are very angry about it.  I’m very angry about it. 

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened – actually a lot of Black people have been killed by White people – even by White police officers.  Because it’s happened so many times before, and because Black people have been saying so long that this isn’t fair, they’re tired of telling us using polite words.  Some people are protesting by going out together and holding signs, and some people are so angry that they have broken windows and taken things that don’t belong to them, and even set cars on fire.  Normally we say that those things are wrong, and people shouldn’t do them.  But in this case, because we haven’t listened when Black people have asked us nicely and told us using polite words, they are now telling us in a different way and we have to listen to what they’re saying.

We have pretty light colored skin, right?  Mine is very light, and Daddy’s is a bit darker, and yours is kind of in between.  And we’ve talked about how people who have dark colored skin are more likely to have to go to jail than someone with light colored skin, even when they do exactly the same thing wrong.  Because I have light skin I’m called a White person, and because your skin is almost as light as mine people will probably often think you’re White too, even though Grandma and Grandpa came from the Philippines so your skin is a little bit darker than mine. 

Because I’m White and you look White, people treat us differently than they treat a Black person who has dark colored skin.  Sometimes we might see that happening, when a worker in a store is polite to us and then rude to a Black person.  But sometimes you might not see it happening, and even Daddy and I might not see it happening.  Did you know that when we applied to your preschool, that one of the reasons that you were able to go there was because we already knew some of the families who went to the school, and they called the school and said that they’d love to have you go there?  I know it’s been great going to school with so many of your friends, but if there was a Black child who wanted to go to the school at the same time and they didn’t know any of the families at school, they wouldn’t have been able to go.  That didn’t seem fair to me, so I wrote to the teachers to ask them to think about changing the way they choose which children will go to your school in the future.

And you know how we sort of own this house, right?  We say it’s ours but really the bank owns it until we pay all the money back that the bank loaned to us to buy it.  Well sometimes banks will say to Black people: “I’m sorry; we’re not going to lend you the money to buy a house,” or they might say “You can have the money,” but then they make the Black person pay more money back to the bank than the White person.  Those kinds of things happen all the time without you or me even knowing about them.

So when we do see something happening that isn’t fair, it’s really important that we do something about it.  If you are by yourself and you see something that isn’t fair, look to see who else is there and will also say it isn’t fair, and if you can find at least one other person, then speak up right then and there. 

But there may be times when you see something that isn’t fair and it doesn’t feel safe to say something.  Maybe the person doing the unfair thing is a teacher or a police officer.  If it doesn’t feel safe to say something right then, you can always come and tell me or Daddy about it afterward, and then we can help to talk to the people who were there.

And it’s really important that we think about how some things that are unfair might be happening even if normally they might be hidden from us, or if it’s easier for us to choose not to see them.  When we do see them, we need to learn as much as we can about them and then do what we can to make them more fair.

Do you have any questions about this?  It’s OK if you don’t right now; if you think of any later you can come back and ask me at any time.

So I’m wondering if you’d like to help me to do something right now?  I’ve been doing a lot of work on this myself – I’ve been writing a lot of things to try to help parents who are just thinking about these things for the first time so they can talk with their children about them.  And I’ve donated money to an organization that helps people who are arrested while they’re protesting to get out of jail.  I called our police department to ask them what they’re doing to make sure that they treat Black people fairly.  I’m also in a [reparations] group [on Facebook] where Black people who need things ask for them, and White people give them things.  You have some money in your Donation [pocket money] jar right now – would you like to give some of that to some Black people who need help?  Let’s get the jar and see how much you have, and then we can give the money to people right now.”

If you mess up at some point during this conversation, that’s OK.  (Accept that you probably will mess it up!).  After the conversation, you’ll think about ways you wish you could have done it differently.  Then you can go back to your child and say “Remember when we talked about George Floyd a couple of days ago?  I remember telling you [idea], and then I had a chance to think about it and I realized that that isn’t quite right.  What I meant to say was…[new idea].  Do you have any questions about that?”.

This is the journey of a lifetime – of several lifetimes.  Will you join me in taking the first step?

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The songs, the sparkly celebration lights, families coming together – everything says that this is the most wonderful time of the year.

And most of the time, it is.

Although at other times it can be extremely stressful!

If you have young children, I’m sure you know what I mean: one minute everyone is getting along fine and the next minute your preschooler has refused to thank Grandma for a gift and there are meltdowns – on both sides! Truth be told, the most wonderful time of the year can also be the most stressful when we’re rushing from one place to the next while also trying to spend ‘quality time’ with family.

We want to enjoy the holidays – and with a bit of advanced preparation we might actually be able to do this, rather than just surviving them.

So what can we do to bring more ease to our holidays?

1. Carefully consider where you will stay

Be intentional and set boundaries around you and your child’s need for space and privacy. If your family house is not spacious enough or quiet enough, then you may need to ask yourself if it’s a better idea to simply book a room or a house nearby your family’s home and scheduling time for visits with them.

As much as you love your parents, chances are that you having access to your own space to retreat to can be the difference between a successful trip and one that leaves you tearing your hair out, giving you the peace of mind to really enjoy the time you do spend with family.

Of course there are financial considerations; staying with family may save some money. But if you end up more stressed and tired then having a place to escape to at the end of the day could save your sanity especially if your relationship with your family is less than perfect.

2. Plan in advance about where to set boundaries around family members

Sensitive topics: yup! They’ll happen, so let’s prepare for them.

Wouldn’t parenting be so much easier if everyone from your family would know what to say and how to interact with your child?

But what we can do in our less-than-ideal world is to think and plan in advance about how to handle sensitive situations and where to set boundaries around family members’ interactions with your child.

What will happen if Uncle Rob makes racist comments has he has in years past, and now your child is old enough to understand? How will you explain that Aunt Maria won’t be there this year because Grandma disapproves of her girlfriend? What will you do if Grandpa offers your child a soda with every meal because he drinks one with every meal?

How do you feel as you imagine these scenarios?

Probably not great, right?

Out of control?

Overwhelmed?

Ideally we would have conversations with our family members in advance of our visit and consider any boundaries that we will not allow to have crossed. We can get crystal clear inside our own mind what we are and aren’t willing to tolerate, which makes it easier to take action when the situation arises.

When we talk with family members about our concerns, approaching the conversation from a place of openness and curiosity rather than a desire to “make them see things our way” is more likely to be productive and less likely to raise hackles.  No one wants to feel put in the corner and criticized, even if you know that drinking a soda with every meal isn’t a healthy habit.  So we might start:

“Can you tell me more about…?”

“What would happen if…?

“[Child’s name] has been having a hard time lately when…”

These are some great conversation openers because they create a space of trust and sincerity around the subject without making anyone feel judged, criticized or rejected. The idea is to make sure that the focus is kept on the problem itself, not on the people involved in the conversation which invites both parties to work on potential solutions rather than jumping to protect themselves from attack.

We also don’t have to have deep and meaningful conversations with every member of our family.  If other family members have made life choices that we don’t agree with it’s OK to realize that different people serve different functions in our lives, and not every family relationship needs to be an intimate one.

3. Accept that your family members will have different relationships with your child than you do.

It’s OK if Grandma tells your child they are beautiful or strong, or doles out candy as rewards. Given that old habits die hard, there can be the case where they can’t handle your child’s meltdowns as you would prefer and may hear some of the old “Big boys don’t cry”, “Good little girls eat their dinner before they get dessert” and “Think of the poor children in (Wherever) and eat your food.”

You are the main guide in your child’s life and a few days of hearing these messages isn’t the end of the world.  Overall the benefits of a good relationship with Grandma probably outweigh hearing the ideas that don’t jibe with your approach – as long as the boundaries you defined earlier aren’t crossed.

Where family members struggle in interactions with your child, you can comfort your child while explaining “It’s OK for anyone to cry if they feel like it, even big boys,” or “[Child’s name] will finish dinner later, if they’d like to.”  You can briefly explain to your relative that children learn about their emotions by experiencing them, and that you aim to raise a child who has a healthy relationship with food even if that means they don’t clean their plate.

Many grandparents do love to treat their grandkids with cookies, candy and other sweet confections just as much as kids love to receive them. It may help letting them know that there are other ways in which they can show their love without necessarily handing out candies all the time. You can say something like: “There will be candies later as well, let’s play a game for now with Grandpa”.

4. Be ready to protect your child when necessary

Your child might need you to hold them when entering a crowded room and explain to the others that they will say ‘Hi’ when they’re ready, or offer Great Aunt Hilda a high five instead of a hug and kiss before leaving.

Some family members may insist or simply lean to hug or kiss your child – especially if it’s a cultural norm in your country.  Depending on what you’ve decided about whether this is a non-negotiable boundary for you, you can step up and reinforce your child’s boundaries and let them know that “right now you can give [Child] a high five, and maybe they will be ready for a kiss/hug later.”

You might hear: “But Grandma needs a hug for the holidays!” Maybe she does, but if you have decided that this is a non-negotiable boundary, then you can feel confident that not allowing Grandma’s needs take priority over the needs of your child is in line with your values, which makes it easier to stand your ground. If an adult says he/she “needs” a hug, then this also magnifies the reasons for your child to have permission to keep their boundaries. When children don’t feel they can say who can touch their body, they may be at greater risk for abuse.

By being there when your child needs you, as a protector of its boundaries and limits, you are setting them up for self-acceptance. And even more importantly, you are showing them that they can speak their truth and still be loved and accepted.

5. Try to keep the routines if possible (e.g. bath, books, bed) – but accept that disruptions to routines are part of what makes the holidays fun

While routines help you keep your child’s schedule organized, gets enough rest, and avoids overstimulation, during the holidays it can be very difficult to have the same schedule in place.  You know your child’s needs best, and you can use this knowledge to set up environments that work for your child.  If your child simply cannot function without bedtime at 7pm and a daily two-hour nap, then you’ll know that protecting these is a top priority.  Be proactive by communicating your scheduling needs by saying something like, “We are so excited to visit and spend time together! I know we have a lot of activities scheduled, so I just want to make sure that my child is able to nap daily from 12-2pm so you and [Child] can have lots of fun together!”

Other children are much more flexible and will be fine with a short car nap or an occasional late night and in these cases you can simply try to preserve as much as possible of the normal routine (bath, books, bed) at the different time to help your child settle.

Whatever your child’s needs, we do need to accept that holidays come with some scheduling disruptions – visits to family members’ houses; outings to the cinema or theater; meals that stretch late into the night.  I vividly recall the time when I was first allowed to stay up past midnight – aged around six – it was a highlight of that family vacation for both my sister and me, and is part of the magic of childhood.

6. Demonstrate compassion for your child – and yourself

It can be super-stressful to be around our families at the best of times, and during the holidays the pressure is on to try to be a big, happy family that gets along.

Keep this in mind and hang in there. Be gentle with yourself and your child during holidays.

Remember that your child depends on you not only to regulate their environment but also to help them regulate their moods. The early periods are an extremely sensitive time when children absorb all the stimulation and energy in their environments. Holidays are actually stressful for children – even at the same time as they are enjoying all the attention, candy, and gifts.  All of the sights and sounds and crowds during the holidays can be a lot for kids to digest.  You might hear:

“Mommy, I want to go home.”

“I don’t like grandpa.”

“I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

These are some early signs that things may be too much for your little one, if your child has enough vocabulary to express this.  If not – or if they’re already so flooded they can’t talk with you, flailing on the floor might be the first warning you get.

In these moments, try to be flexible – if your child is over stimulated they might cry and not be able to use words to describe their feelings, seem tired or upset, throw themselves on the floor in tears or anger, refuse to do a particular activity…you know how it goes.  Even if there are plans or gathering you need to attend to, if things are not working for your child, it’s okay to give it up.  You might say:

“I seems like you’re having a hard time right now.  Should we go to a quiet room?”

“I think you’re trying to tell me you need a break. Shall we step away from this for a bit and go for a walk outside?”

“It looks like you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed.  Would a hug help?”

Most of the time, making it clear that your child is allowed to express their emotions makes them feel connected and safe again.

Your relatives might expect that if your approach to parenting is ‘working,’ then your empathy for your child will result in an end to the tantrum.  But if we think about a time when someone has deeply empathized with us, we might recall that experiencing that empathy can actually open the floodgates so we express more emotion, not less.  This doesn’t mean that respectful parenting ‘doesn’t work’ – in fact, it means the complete opposite.

And while we’re on the topic of compassion, don’t forget to save some for yourself.  You might not be a perfect parent in stressful moments either – you might snap at your child in a way that you wouldn’t do at home because you’re tired or hungry or overwhelmed.  Acknowledge that you are doing the best you can under the circumstances, forgive yourself for any mistakes you make, and try again tomorrow.

Holidays are a time of celebration and fun activities. There are so many wonderful opportunities during holidays when we can connect with other family members and pass on family traditions to our children. Not everything will go perfectly all the time, and if we can let go of the expectation that this will happen, we’ll have an easier time.

If we can find a good balance of preparing ourselves – and our family members – for successful interactions, along with a willingness to go with the flow while we’re there, we can set both us and our child up for success this holiday season.

Respectful Parenting and Supporting Your Child’s Learning Memberships

If you appreciated my approach to surviving the holidays with a research-backed and respectful point of view, then you would be a perfect fit for my Parenting Membership or my Supporting Your Child’s Learning Membership. Inside the memberships we provide Learning + Support + Community. We will hold your hand as your family transitions from a place of chaos and overwhelm to a home filled with harmony, confidence and cooperation.

• You’ll get a learning summary of the most up to date research on a variety of challenging topics in parenting and education, along with tools and methods to implement within your own family.
• You’ll also get support directly from myself and a team of trained leaders that use coaching to help you meet the goals you set for lasting change in your family.
• And you’ll be a part of a private, respectful community of like-minded parents with stories and solutions to share.

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As I’ve mentioned before, teaching children about Thanksgiving – and even celebrating it – can be extremely problematic once you look beyond the myths that have been perpetuated about it for generations.  The traditional narrative of the Pilgrims with tall black hats and “Indians” wearing headdresses (what is it about the headwear?!) who sat down together to eat turkey and sweet potatoes simply didn’t happen.  There probably was a meal at some point, but the Wampanoag had been practicing giving thanks for thousands of years before White settlers arrived, so to herald this single event as the ‘origin’ of Thanksgiving is simply inaccurate.

And besides the inaccuracy there’s the issue of setting aside a day which essentially celebrates the attempted (and partially achieved) genocide of Native people – and once we know this, how do we explain it to our children?  I believe that the best way to start is to talk with children about the ways we might have celebrated Thanksgiving in the past, and why we’re choosing to differently this year.  You might choose to attend an event like the National Day of Mourning march in Massachusetts or Unthanksgiving Day on Alcatraz Island (maybe we’ll see you there?).  Check with your local tribe to see if they have any events planned.

Books for Children

Another thing you can do is to read books written by and about Native Americans.  Many books on this topic are written by White authors who might even have good intentions about their depictions of Native peoples, but who nevertheless commit microaggressions in their stories.  For this reason, all six of the books I’m recommending were written by the people whose culture is depicted in the story and as you broaden your horizons on books beyond this list I’d encourage you to consider using this selection criteria as well (the #OwnVoices hashtag can be very helpful here).

Only one of these books (We Are Grateful) is specifically about giving thanks; I’ve selected the others to provide an illustration of the types of books about Native Americans that you may choose to seek out in the future – books about historical events; about the ways cultural traditions are still part of Natives’ daily lives; about the use of story to guide children’s behavior; and about ongoing Native struggles and activism.

And as a ‘bonus’ I include one book (1621: A New Look At Thanksgiving) which is co-written by a White/Abenaki duo along with staff of the Plimoth Plantation museum, which aims to provide “a new look at the real history that inspired the myth of The First Thanksgiving.”  While this volume is a step in the right direction it also glosses over a lot, and leaves the otherwise-uninformed reader with the impression that Native people exist only in the past.  The book is included to support you in taking first steps toward a fuller understanding of the origins of Thanksgiving, while also helping you to think critically about how stories are told by outsiders.

[Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that I earn a small commission if you purchase these books after clicking on a link here.  This does not affect your purchase price.  I would encourage you to choose whatever balance of saving money/reducing environmental impacts (e.g. borrowing from your library or purchasing used) and supporting Native authors (buying new) feels right to you.]

Crossing Bok Chitto – Tim Tingle (Oklahoma Choctaw) and Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Echota Cherokee)

This book is a fictional account of a Mississippi Choctaw family (where the Choctaw lived before being forcibly marched to Oklahoma in the 1830s) who helped slaves to escape.  If a slave could make it across the Bok Chitto River, they would become free and their owner could not pursue.

The Choctaw girl Martha Tom knows about the path of stones that the Choctaw had built just under the surface of the river, and uses it to cross in search of blackberries.  She strikes up a friendship with enslaved boy Little Mo, and when Little Mo’s mother is about to be sold to a new owner (which would break up the family), Little Mo requests Martha Tom’s help to use the secret river crossing.

Think that slavery is a topic too heavy for young children?  I encourage you to listen to this podcast episode before making that decision – there’s a list of books on the topic suitable for preschoolers available to download there as well.  Age 4-8

The Good Luck Cat – Joy Harjo (Muskogee-Creek) and Paul Lee

The narrator’s cat, Woogie, is working through her nine lives too quickly.  Woogie gets into the tumble dryer, the street, and the car engine – and makes it out each time.  It’s almost all over when the little girl puts Woogie in a box in the car to take to a powwow and then forgets about her.  There is little to explicitly mark this book as a story ‘about Native Americans,’ providing an opportunity for children to see modern people with concerns just like their own instead of people who exist only in the past.  Age 2-5

Wild Berries – Julie Flett (Cree-Métis)

This short, simple story about the day that Clarence spends picking wild berries with his grandmother is beautiful to read and look at.  Each page contains a word or phrase set apart in a script font, showing the English in black and the same word in Cree in red text.  Pronunciation will be completely unfamiliar to non-native readers, so there’s a helpful phonetic guide in the back of the book.  No, your child is not going to learn enough Cree from this book to do anything useful.  But they can still learn that other people speak different languages, that a first encounter with something we don’t understand is an opportunity to respectfully learn more, and how to gracefully attempt a new skill like language learning even if we don’t get it right immediately.

The story is quiet and yet emotionally full, as Clarence observes the creatures of the woods – and leaves a handful of berries behind for them, and is beautifully complemented by the author’s own illustrations.  I’d also recommend seeking out other books she has written or illustrated.  Age 2-5

We Are Grateful/Otsaliheliga – Traci Sorell (Cherokee) and Frané Lessac

This book contains many layers beneath its deceptively simple story.  On the surface it’s a book about giving thanks – the Cherokee new year begins in Autumn, but the story is a reminder to give thanks throughout the year.  And look!  Giving thanks didn’t start when White people arrived!

Cherokee vocabulary is sprinkled throughout the text (with a pronunciation guide at the end of the book and you can hear the Cherokee words pronounced in audio clips here) and we see how Cherokee people celebrate the passing of seasons.  Yet we also see how children teach each other new skills (something I don’t often see in WEIRD cultures!), men taking care of babies (I see this often in real life, but rarely as a random detail in a WEIRD children’s book!), and the planting of strawberries to remember a traditional story about cooperation.

And, one level deeper, we see the kinds of cognitive dissonance that is embedded in modern Native American life: they book’s characters collect plants to weave baskets as a reminder of their ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears – and two seasons later a relative is embraced as they head off to serve in the military of the very country that was enforced the Trail of Tears march.  These events are touched on lightly enough that you can decide how much additional information to provide to your child.  Age 3-8

Raccoon’s Last Race – Joseph Bruchak & James Bruchac (Abenaki) and Jose Aruego & Ariane Dewey

In Abenaki culture Azban the Racoon is a trickster (although never a malevolent one).  Rather than punishing children for misdeeds Abenaki parents prefer to tell stories about what kinds of mishaps can befall those who commit misdeeds and this book fits with that tradition.

Azban once had long legs and was the fastest of all the animals, but was also very boastful.  One day Azban challenges Big Rock to a race down the mountain, but falls in front of Big Rock and gets flattened.  Only the ants will agree to help Azban try to recover his former shape, but in his impatience Azban brushes them away without a ‘thanks’ before his legs are long again – leaving him a slower, and humbler, animal.  Age 2-5

The Water Walker – Joanne Robertson (AnishinaabeKwe)

This book requires a little more effort to connect with than the average children’s book – effort is ultimately richly rewarded.  I found the first few pages difficult to understand because unlike most books by Native authors, this one uses Ojibwe language in the text without translation or explanation on the same page (yes, Nokomis (Grandmother) and Nibi (Water) are both translated on the dust jacket which does appear before the first page, but I don’t always read the dust jackets first…).

One of the things I like most about this story is the way it connects traditional ideas and culture to present-day life and activism as Nokomis walks around the Great Lakes to draw attention to the need to protect our water sources.  Nokomis loves the water and is depicted paddling a traditional canoe – but the story is very much set in the present.  The wise leader uses a microphone to spread his message about the need to protect water; factories, power plants and pipelines threaten water supplies, and Nokomis lives in a very modern house.  Even as Nokomis’ sneakers connect her with her ancestors’ migrations, they also connect her with the children of today who will be able to put into context how many steps it takes to wear out one pair – never mind seven!

Nokomis sings thanks, respect and love to the water – but also gets three knee replacements to enable her to keep walking to bring attention to issues impacting water, and is equally at home using the internet to organize activists as in front of TV cameras.  The author shares enough details about the ceremonial aspects of the walk for the reader to understand that this was a different experience than the kind of walk that many people might undertake, yet keeps the details of these private – as they should remain.

At the end of the book the reader is challenged to think of ways that they will help to protect water – and an address is provided where they can mail letters telling about their work to Nokomis.  Age 4-8.

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving – Catherine O’Neil Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac (Abenaki), with Plimoth Plantation

If you’ve only ever heard the “Native Americans sat down and had a nice meal with the Pilgrims” version of the Thanksgiving story then this book will be an eye-opener.  The book makes it clear that the Pilgrims didn’t even call themselves Pilgrims at the time, Native Americans were not a monolithic group (the settlers interacted primarily with members of the Wampanoag Nation), and what events really (most likely) happened at the time we now think of as the first thanksgiving.

Yet the book also glosses over a lot.  European people imposed “their culture, politics, and religion onto Native people” and the Native people have “persisted through plagues, war, and invasion,” but it seems like the word ‘genocide’ was just too difficult to include.  Even the United States government acknowledges the “official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes,” but voter suppression, denial of the rights of tribes to manage their own lands (by the Federal government, no less!), and the Federal government continues to weaken environmental regulations that protect land and water on which Native Americans depend are ongoing.  No, this book can’t cover everything – but it could make a better attempt to describe the scope of impact that White settlers had on Native people, and also acknowledge that they are still here and carrying forward cultural traditions in their modern lives.

This book is published by National Geographic which has now acknowledged the racist nature of its magazine coverage and while this book is a step in the right direction it’s far from perfect.  I include it here as an example of the way that even well-intentioned Whites’ descriptions of Native perspectives can leave readers with an incomplete picture – which can itself provide a useful conversation starter that supports the development of critical thinking.

The book is a bit long to read with younger children, but you might use the text as a jumping off point to discuss the images with them, even as you’ll need to provide additional detail not found in the book.

If you’d like to learn more about ways to celebrate Thanksgiving respectfully this year, please check out this post.

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The biggest paradox with Black History Month is that it provides parents and educators with a convenient ‘teachable moment’ to help their children learn about slavery and the civil rights movement but then we abandon the concept again for another year, and usually fail to even mention the ongoing presence of both racial prejudice and structural racism in our society.

What we currently teach about race and racism is grossly inadequate:

• A parent in a Facebook group I’m in recently commented that for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, her elementary schooler had learned that Black people had been oppressed but Dr. Martin Luther King made a speech and Rosa Parks sat at the front of a bus and the child was left with the impression that structural racism is no longer an issue in American society because everything had been fixed;

• The view of Black history that the White establishment teaches is highly problematic at best and at worst it continues to promote systemic racism. Think that Lincoln abolished slavery because he thought it was immoral?  In short, Lincoln said that “I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races” (it really is worth reading a slightly longer excerpt of this speech to see how he joked about equality and that just “because I do not want a Negro woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife [Cheers and laughter]”). Lincoln thought slaves shouldn’t have to work for others (although he didn’t believe they should have full civil rights), but he wanted above all else to save the Union, and actually blamed people of African descent for fomenting the crisis between slave-holding and Northern states as he asked them all to move to Panama: “You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.  If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”  This idea that “President Lincoln thought that all American people should be free…Abraham Lincoln wanted to set the slaves free” (without clarifying that Lincoln didn’t really mean “free” in the way we might think of it: with all of the rights of citizenship) and many other historical inaccuracies (like the Emancipation Proclamation occurring before the Civil War!) permeate the kinds of trade paperbacks that elementary school teachers use as an escape from the dry prose of textbooks.  And if all the slaves are free now, doesn’t that mean that everyone is equal and no person has any advantage over any other?

• We might think that the inclusion of texts by Black authors and study of Black leaders is a positive step, but the Whites who create school curricula are either willfully ignorant about the history their own textbooks describe or deliberately choose to present a biased view. (The process of textbook adoption in the U.S. doesn’t help, whereby a 15-member panel in Texas essentially approves the majority of textbooks used in the entire country and routinely selects textbooks with information that is biased or just plain wrong.)  This is how we end up with textbooks that present slaves as immigrant workers, and resources from textbook company Scholastic suggesting students celebrate Black History Month using “math to determine how many meters per second [Jesse Owens] ran during his gold-medal races” and bake sesame seed cookies because “In Africa, sesame seeds bring good luck” – technically including African Americans in this curriculum but failing to address any issues of value related to prejudice or racism.  Even worse, the website suggests that teachers “have students study an African American historical figure, then dress up as their subject” without warning about the inappropriateness of blackface, which continues to be a problem in colleges, high schools, junior high schools, and even elementary schools across the country.  While state academic standards now devote considerable space to African Americans during the formation of the United States, African American narratives are presented in a way that helps students to avoid thinking critically about racial tension or systemic racism and also fail at conveying factual accuracy: only 8% of American high school seniors can accurately identify slavery as a cause of the Civil War.  (Unfortunately there are few comprehensive online resources that can help you to understand these issues, but this book is pretty easy to read and discusses the myths around Lincoln’s image.)

Around 80% of teachers in the U.S. are White, and many of them feel highly uncomfortable discussing race with students (so if your child’s teacher is making an effort to do this, please support them by letting them know you appreciate their work and continuing the conversation at home!).  Many teachers attempt to avoid the discomfort of an actual conversation by using classroom simulations of racist situations.  While there’s a dearth of actual evidence on their effectiveness several groups warn against these because they perpetuate stereotypes, oversimplify history, and leave students with the impression that the problem has been solved when in fact racism still today causes disparities in health and wealth, experiences with the justice system, and access to credit and housing.

Parents who want their children to understand the implications of prejudice and structural racism cannot rely on schools, textbooks, and teachers.  We must take on some of this responsibility ourselves.

Here are six ideas to get you started:

1. Learn about the difference between racial prejudice and racism. They are not the same, and discussing issues related to prejudice and racism does not make you racist.  In fact, not talking about race (aka the “colorblind approach”) is one of the most effective ways to raise a child who is prejudiced and perpetuates racist societal structures (you will see from that episode title that my own learning on prejudice and racism has evolved over the last couple of years!);

2. Read Carol Anderson’s book White Rage, which is where I first learned about many of the ideas in this article. (Unless you already knew that Lincoln didn’t care about freeing the slaves, or that newly-freed Blacks in the South were required to sign annual labor contracts with plantation, mill, or mine owners and would be whipped and sold into slavery if they left this “job” – in other words, they were “slaves in everything but name,” – and that white liberals are hardly free of either racially prejudiced ideas or innocent of perpetuating racist systems.)

3. Read books with your child about children of many races, not just white children (which is admittedly made more difficult because only 12% of children’s books published in the U.S. are about people of color – although at least this is better than the 1% in the U.K. market!).  But do pre-read books before you share them with your child, and be alert for microaggressions in the text (this article contains a very helpful list of things to watch out for; one simple shortcut is to check whether a book about children or people of color is written by an author of color).  If you find microaggressions, consider reading the book with your child anyway and making a point to discuss them.  There are some good lists of books to consider here and here.

4. Answer your child’s questions honestly and completely, using age-appropriate language and ideas. If your child asks about issues related to race, don’t ignore them or change the subject.  If you can’t think of the right words in the moment, use the technique that sex educator Saleema Noon suggests when children ask about sex: “I’m so glad you came to me with that question because I think it’s really important that we talk about it.  I need a bit of time to think about how to explain it to you.  Let’s chat after school, OK?” Then make sure to come back to it, or the child learns that the topic is something that shouldn’t be discussed.

5. By all means, teach about Black history during Black History Month. Teach about slavery and civil rights – but don’t leave out the fact that the struggle against the oppression of Blacks specifically and members of non-dominant cultures more generally by Whites – even those whites who ‘aren’t prejudiced’ but nevertheless benefit from racist system – is still very real today.  Teach that Black History does not begin with slavery and end with the Civil Rights movement: advanced, rich, and vibrant cultures existed in Africa before slavery and Black culture today is both distinct from American culture and makes large contributions to it.  Teach your child to be an ally for members of non-dominant cultures: there are lots of resources for learning how to do this here and here (and books for children here and here), and moving even beyond allyship to becoming a “co-conspirator” here.

6. Be an anti-racist role model. Accept that racism is not something that poor, uneducated people do: it’s a system in which you and I participate.  We must educate ourselves and our children, but we also can’t stop there.  We must be willing to call out prejudice where we see it.  We must be willing to look for racist systems in which we participate in our daily lives and do what we can to change them (we’ll have lots of information coming up in podcast episodes soon on how to do this).

You can learn more about these topics through a series of podcast episodes that I’m running right now.  I’ve already released a conversation with Dr. Margaret Hagerman, author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America, on the topic of white privilege in parenting. Up soon will be an interview with Dr. Allison Roda, author of Inequality in Gifted and Talented Programs: Parental Choices about Status, School Opportunity, and Second-Generation Segregation on white privilege in schools.  Then we’ll talk with the renowned educator on race relations in the U.S. and author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, and we’ll conclude the series by asking Dr. John Bickford about what children learn about race and racism in schools, and what needs to be our role in this process.

Click here to listen to the first episode in the series and subscribe (it’s free!) to make sure you catch the rest, then join us in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group to continue the conversation (just search for the #whiteprivilege thread).

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Everyone’s most stressful time of the year is almost here: big gatherings of family members with different political opinions; beautiful holiday decorations that need to be kept out of the toddler’s grasping hands; endless treats to entice your child so they have no space left for ‘real food.’

Ain’t the holidays great? 😊

We want to enjoy them, but sometimes we just have to get through them.  Here are some ideas to help you spend less time getting through, and more time enjoying.

1. Carefully consider where you’ll stay. If your parents’ house has paper-thin walls, small rooms, and little extra space, then as much as you love your parents, it might not be a great fit for your introverted, noise-sensitive toddler.  Perhaps your family can clear some space in an unused room to create a retreat for your child, but if you end up in there as well for half of the holiday then you may be less than happy.  It might end up being better for everyone if you stayed somewhere close by and visited your parents for a few hours each day rather than being constantly in each other’s space, particularly if your relationship is less-than-perfect.

2. Talk with your family about reasonable expectations for your child’s behavior. Given the stresses of being around unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar environment, opportunities are ripe for big emotions (aka ‘tantrums’).  If your family will respond to your child with “Oh come on; big boys don’t cry” or “I don’t want to hear any more of that noise!” or “If you stop crying, I’ll give you a candy,” set expectations before you arrive of what behavior your family is likely to see and what you’ve found to be helpful to do in response (aka what you would like them to do in response).

3. Consider any hard boundaries that you will not have crossed, and let your family know about these in advance as well. These topics might include comments about anyone’s weight, or racist comments, or anything-but-supportive comments about your child’s shifting gender identity.  Be clear in your own mind about what you will do if these boundaries are crossed, and then don’t be afraid to do that thing if it happens.

4. Let family members know about any strong preferences (that don’t quite meet the ‘hard boundary’ threshold) that you would prefer to have honored. These examples might include not offering soda to your child, offering nutritious foods before junk food, or not having the TV on in the background aaaaaalllllllllll day.  Explain your reasons for these preferences and discuss – in advance – whether your family members are willing to work with you at least some of the time (perhaps you could agree to have the TV off one day and on another day, to catch one important football game rather than all of them).  Be open to ideas that could meet your needs as well as meet your family member’s needs.

5. Protect your child where necessary. If they’re expressing big emotions and Grandpa is being vocal about not wanting to hear them, remove your child to a quiet space.  If Grandma insists on a hug and your child doesn’t want one, step in and say “perhaps [child] will be ready for a hug later!”.  If it’s clear that your child is getting overwhelmed, don’t force them to stay at the dinner table because your family expects it.  You’re not ‘setting the stage for bad habits;’ you’re setting your child up for success in the current situation – and it’ll only be for a few days.

6. Know when to let go. Your parents might not interact with your child in exactly the way you would wish, but they will have their own relationship and (for the most part) that relationship is likely to be fine.  If you’re taking an hour for yourself, you hear your child screaming upstairs at their sibling, and your spouse is close by – let your spouse handle it.  They won’t do it in exactly the same way that you would, but it will end up fine.  Your family isn’t perfect (and – surprise! – neither are you).  It’s OK if not everyone has perfect interactions with your child – children are resilient, and they will know that you are still their parent and how you interact with them is the most important thing in the end.

7. Appreciate what your family DOES bring to your child. Whether it’s exposure to different viewpoints to family history to just knowing that Grandma and Grandpa care about them, your child gets something positive out of the holiday experience, even if it’s stressful for you.  Keep your eyes on the prize, and appreciate the value that your family brings to your child, through your child’s eyes.

Enjoy the holidays!

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