The podcast for and about women right smack in the middle of life.
00:00:00: Music.
00:00:10: You welcome back this is a bitch breathe and I am your host ricardia Bramley.
00:00:15: So today we're going to take the whole issue of raising a boy to a more political level.
00:00:22: In the first part of this episode if you want to hop on over to that one we talked more about what it means socially how we can raise boys to be healthy adults and healthy men and today I want to talk about what that means once we.
00:00:37: Able to accomplish that so the first thing I thought about when I thought about talking about boys and raising them in an environment that's automatically also makes them political agents at some point I thought that.
00:00:50: We first need to understand that feminists is not a girl word
00:00:55: alright so I've often encountered this is more in Germany than in New York back uni where I used to live that when you use the word feminist it conjures up.
00:01:07: A whole slew of
00:01:10: negative connotations from hairy armpits to Too Much attitude to little smiling probably a lesbian and certainly a pain in the ass right that's sort of something that you used to encounter and I'm going to go ahead and say you actually still do
00:01:28: Germany is a little bit of an old boys club no that's not that's not make this milder than it is it's a huge old boys club
00:01:37: and I know that goes from most countries around the world.
00:01:40: Except maybe New Zealand apparently but even though we have a female leader right and the Merkel and we might get a new one
00:01:49: in the fall it's still very much a man dominated world and when you say to a guy.
00:01:57: Hey that's you know that's a very feminist attitude it's almost like they physically
00:02:02: Retreat back from you because you've now said a dirty word I think if I had said something that rhymes with runt that would have been a whole lot more positive or at least bearable to them than the word feminist and
00:02:14: I would really love for that to go away because feminist doesn't mean feminine and that's the misunderstanding right that so many men have feminist just means you believe in the equality of men and women.
00:02:26: That's it that's all the feminists is and I've been trying to educate those around me.
00:02:32: Two of moderate moderately successful degree but I have focused on my son of course also.
00:02:39: And I've asked him it was just the other day I said do you consider yourself a feminist and there was a momentary.
00:02:46: Hesitation and he says well I don't know I mean I have feminist attitudes of course and I said well you believe in equality right and he's like yeah I said,
00:02:55: so if you believe in equality between men and women then technically that would make you a feminist needs a yeah I guess and so luckily he's young and he doesn't care it's just something I'm noticing a lot a lot about these kids because I work with a lot of,
00:03:07: people who are that age actually who are very very young and it's so refreshing to see that they don't
00:03:13: they don't have to pay as much attention to it anymore because everybody else is also paying attention to it right the whole feminist wave and even the boys like I said the young men are on board but for those people.
00:03:26: My age and up like in their 40s and 50s it's still very strong this whole idea that feminist is a girl word it's not so let's raise our boys especially accordingly.
00:03:38: And then I want to get a little bit into.
00:03:42: Race which is a very hot topic I thought long and hard about this one how to incorporate it because I am mixed-race my.
00:03:52: Father is from Trinidad so he you know visually speaking he looks more like somebody who's of Indian descent and my mother is from Ireland and is why does the wall I like to say
00:04:03: and I not only turned out very very light skinned my son also never tires of saying to me.
00:04:10: Mom you might be of color but quite frankly none of it is visible so you kind of pass for white I not a particular fan of passing for white like it's them.
00:04:22: I don't know there's so many connotations with that particular phrasing but he is right not only do I look white I could be like you know French or Italian or something I've also been socialized in a very very privileged white world
00:04:38: I grew up mostly among white people.
00:04:41: Irish at first the first several years and then Germans and then it wasn't a boarding school with obscenely Rich Germans mostly Germans so my whole life has been very much that of a white privileged
00:04:55: European I want to say an American so that said my son is not white my son is Asian.
00:05:04: In terms of the visual now right of course he's partly me so 1/4 this quarter that but he's half Korean and he looks.
00:05:13: Korean or at least Asian there we already get into the differentiations that could be difficult but I wanted to talk about this because his experience is so.
00:05:23: Incredibly different from my own yes I was discriminated against when I was first coming to Germany back then there weren't
00:05:31: a lot of people of color here and certainly not darker colors no Brown no black so I was already considered pretty dark at the time and finally I was darker than I am today so I only know.
00:05:42: Very little about being discriminated against for this but my son does know a lot about it he pretty much encounters it everyday don't get me started on the whole Asian hate crime and all that stuff going on right now but.
00:05:57: I wanted to say something about raising a person of color when you're not a person of color yourself I'd love to speak of it from another angle but I can't it's just not who I am
00:06:07: but to have the kind of humility I guess to know that we know very very little.
00:06:14: About what our children are going through right as
00:06:18: white people or people who look very light skinned our experience is going to be almost a hundred percent different from what our children's experience is and the only thing however that we can do.
00:06:30: Is to keep inviting them to share their experience if they feel like it.
00:06:35: To maybe educate us that is not their job it's our job to educate us but maybe if they do feel like sharing what is going on for them.
00:06:43: What has happened how they feel about it and how they dealt with it it's such a great place to start so that at least we can share or they can share with us.
00:06:54: How they're doing.
00:06:55: How this is for them and then maybe we can also open up the space for others and to just be sensitive that this is a completely different experience one that is.
00:07:05: Dangerous and tiresome and threatening and frustrating and all these things for them and to just know that we can be there.
00:07:14: To help out to understand to educate ourselves so that they know there is a way to be this person of color and to have support to know that people are
00:07:25: there to empower us to recognize us and to see us as much as they can
00:07:31: in this case right if you're a person or a child of color so I just wanted to send that ahead because it's very important to me it's a topic that has come up a lot now recently of course and
00:07:43: the second part of this is and then I will continue with other points is to read everything we can about racism especially the younger generations of literature on this topic and if you're not a person of color
00:07:57: to really understand that you just don't know what's up I don't know this is a whole area of my son's life that I don't necessarily have,
00:08:06: emotional access to because I only know.
00:08:10: Not only not to make it any less or anything or create a hierarchy of discrimination but I know this woman sexism point of view but that's a whole different story sexism is not racism is not gender ism is not ageism
00:08:23: right so to just understand that to educate ourselves as much as we can when we're raising children of color.
00:08:31: If you're not raising a child of color by the way read even Maura and make your kids learn everything they can about the privilege that they have the privilege that you have enjoyed and how it is absolutely
00:08:44: our responsibilities as privileged people to take a stand to use a voice to use the platform to share the mic whatever it is to elevate
00:08:55: all of those who don't have the kind of privilege we have and now I'm going to talk about the flip side of this and that is.
00:09:05: There's a very fine balance between understanding or trying to understand what the reality of a person of color child.
00:09:13: Is but not turning them into victims and this is very important I think I sometimes
00:09:21: made a mistake here in fact I'm pretty sure I did where I noticed there was racism going on in my son's school
00:09:29: and I got very emotional because I felt so
00:09:32: disempowered in that moment is like how how can they do this to my son he didn't even do them any wrong this is
00:09:40: really purely based on the shape of his eyes that was the particular thing they focused on a lot there and I got so emotional it hurt me so so badly of course right it hurts when our children are in pain
00:09:54: it's a really really try to separate these things yes you're hurt yes you want to Signal your absolute solidarity and love with your child.
00:10:04: But don't let them become victims because of your emotional reaction
00:10:08: so that they don't think oh my God it's really terrible for me to be this person of color that can't work either same with any child right whether it's boys or girls anything in between
00:10:19: to not fall into this thing where now we're making them systemic victims the Temptation is always there because you want to show them that you're protecting them.
00:10:28: But the way to protect them is to teach them how to protect themselves how to understand their reality how to share that how to make us all if they feel like it conscious
00:10:40: of what their reality means and how we as the privileged part of the population can Empower them Empower not victimized.
00:10:48: Really really important there coming back to the idea of raising a boy however this was a lot about.
00:10:56: POC of course but it was super important to me to mention that.
00:11:02: He still is a boy or male identified which means.
00:11:06: There's privilege there so even if we're raising a person of color for not raising a person of color this is a man who very often will physically be stronger,
00:11:16: then the female that standing in front of him or in a group with him so to make him understand that.
00:11:23: That is a privilege and you have to use this privilege not user pit right not to channel that.
00:11:31: Physical dominance that is probably always in the room somehow when men are there at least for me it is I'm always aware that they are physically stronger than I but to make him aware that this is a privilege and again.
00:11:43: Piggybacking on the idea before your responsibility is to use that privilege to help those who don't have it.
00:11:52: To have a strong consciousness of what it means to be able to understand and even protect others now.
00:12:00: Not falling into this thing of poor little woman needs protection by her boy child not what I'm talking about not even for a second right but for him to understand.
00:12:10: That what he is experiencing as a man is a very different reality from what we as women experience and to be conscious of that,
00:12:19: again he can't understand everything you've gone through just like I can't understand everything that a person of color is going through is just not possible because every attack every incident that happens
00:12:30: is going to be different based on what its
00:12:32: is being based on right gender ISM sexism ageism whatever this is different feelings can be similar.
00:12:40: But realities don't necessarily have to be so to keep making him aware to use this privilege to understand what it is he's able to do.
00:12:49: To empower and elevate.
00:12:52: Those around him and I'm not even just talking about females I'm talking about everybody if your cause is animals as a guy heading up the effort.
00:13:01: Probably easier if you're a startup and you're just women you're not going to get financed as easily as a male startup maybe he needs to get behind those things whatever it is but using the power that he has to them
00:13:14: distributed as fairly as he knows how among those around him and.
00:13:22: Lastly I thought to myself listen if all this feels too political for you if you're just like.
00:13:28: Whatever I you know I what does that even have to do with me raising my boy I just love my boy I want him to be safe that I do.
00:13:36: Here's why I think you're going to think of this as important one day.
00:13:41: To not just raise a boy that has manners to not just raise him to be academically interested or interested in life and literature in music whatever it is.
00:13:51: But do you really want to be the mom one day who sitting on her couch and there's someone like Donald Trump on TV.
00:13:59: Making an impact and you have to say yep that's my son.
00:14:05: I'm thinking if none of this motivates you maybe this will nobody wants to be that Mom because you know even if the father fucked up even if he wasn't in the picture you know who they're going to be looking at when this kid goes wrong.
00:14:20: So sort of ending this on a humorous note I hope I hope this was interesting for you and maybe even helpful I'd love to hear about the hole
00:14:30: ethnicity and POC issues if you have anything to say about that because I think we still need to learn so much about it and it's great when we can educate each other on it in a safe space
00:14:43: I hope you're well I hope everything is going okay under the circumstances at this time that you do indeed have opportunity.
00:14:52: Raise your voice and raise your boys in a good way hey I rhyme there accidentally.
00:14:57: Music.