#keeps her critical thinking skills enaged | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

decolonize-the-left · 1 year

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Also idk what parent needs to hear this but with the curriculum changing to reflect bigotry, you'll have to pickup the slack at home.

Not knowing your history and awful education leads to entire countries of people that dont know what communism actually is, never learned about organized workers movements (despite capitalism being the system), and can't recognize fascism when it's staring them in the face.

It's not a coincidence bigots are densely populated in areas with awful education systems. And it's not a coincidence they don't even see it as bigotry.

My kid is 9. She knows about police brutality, classism, and racism and why we fight it. She had to. She's brown kid, poor, and ADHD; naive by nature for the moment and I don't want her being taken advantage of or exploited. It's why she knows about boundaries, saying "no", and listening to herself.

This year during PRIDE she'll learn about stonewall and why we're still fighting for that too. She's old enough to tag along and participate with more understanding so she will. She's learned about bodily autonomy and women's rights as well. And she's learned about having a healthy relationship with nature; to respect the critters, plants, water, and climate.

Protest and fighting and standing up for yourself and your rights and being a good ally are all family values in my house. And if the school won't teach that to her then it's on me, just like it's on all of us.

And no, she doesn't know or understand enough to have a whole debate but she's 9. There's still so much time to teach her more. But she understands the basics and for kids, it really doesn't need to be more complicated than that because she's just interacting with other kids.

I taught her about police & homophobia in 2020 as soon as I got her back from her homophobic dad. She was 6.

It was as easy as "But I'm a gay people too & when you say theyre gross that hurts my feelings. Do you have to think what your dad thinks?"

Giving her the freedom to make that choice herself, to disagree, and grow out of it and end that association with "gross" was the best thing I could've done for her. Cuz guess who told me she might like boys and girls 3 years later?

Those many tiny talks over time could've saved her from decades of shame induced trauma.

Our kids deserve everything. And they deserve better. We must teach them that and we need to teach them to fight for it. Teach them what to fight against.

They aren't too young. Give them more credit. "Think of the children" by educating yours.

#im also not sitting there giving lectures #just every now and then we'll talk about it - bring it up while watching a show or talk about inflation at the store for example #i don't want to discuss it with her so much that she becomes stressed by it so its only maybe once a month or so #keeps her critical thinking skills enaged #parenting #parents #allies #gen alpha #millenials #gen z #solidarity #fascism

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