By Rosanna Alvarez
At the beginning of shelter in place, we found ourselves immediately overwhelmed by the responsibilities invading our homes. In fact, many of us continue to grapple with an enormous amount of stress that every single piece of this has entailed. There is the daily stress of how to navigate their learning and education, the stress of how to keep them fed from sun up to sun down. The stress of managing how to keep up with the dishes because who knew how fast those could multiply. The stress of sanitizing all the things while having to keep tabs on household hygiene. The stress of how to keep us entertained and sane in the midst of a pandemic, alongside an evolving civil rights movement, and the stress of how to keep our kids safe with the ever-evolving context of all the things.
All of that, while trying to revisit and figure out where we stand in all of this. All of this without a guidebook or an app with badges to help us gauge whether we are doing it “right.” All of this while knowing that where we currently are in all of this as a society is in fact not where we would like to be. The list of information is endless, and the debates are taxing. Some of us are grappling with our roles as daughters and sisters on top of the sense of responsibility we carry as moms and working professionals.
As we navigate all of that we absorb the idea that in order to keep our kids safe, we must gravitate toward the “age appropriate” sheltering of our children, even as we shelter in place.
And still, if we are honest with ourselves, we must take stock of the many ways in which we subject our kids to ongoing socially accepted practices that are not age appropriate by any means, reframing these dangers as socially acceptable toward the illusion of safety. All of this while having to accept that racism itself is never age appropriate. Being in my 40s does not by any means make me better equipped to contend with the traumas of racism –past, present, and future. Lock down drills are not age appropriate. Expecting our kids to lower their eyes after repeatedly attempting to politely correct their teacher’s mispronunciation of their full names is not age appropriate. Having our children negotiate how to either absorb or resist stereotypes about their communities is not age appropriate. Having our entire histories erased in our schooling is not age appropriate. And so, we negotiate and fumble in all of this, and the hard truth to swallow is that despite our efforts, we might in fact fail to keep our kids safe.
These days, our homes are saturated with messages about race and racism in a way that is almost all too voyeuristic of very real oppression. It is a dynamic that exposes some deeply systemic breaks that many of us might be approaching from a space of privilege. With that perspective in mind, we have the power to shape, build, and sometimes re-build how our homes are choosing to be racially conscious. In truth, I do not believe we really have a choice because the world will choose for us; so, we might as well shape the conversation for our babies toward a more accepting and anti-racist society as we prepare them to navigate the world they’ve inherited.
Support them in how they are connecting to ideas of race and racism. Hear them as they process what is going on around them. Hold them in their vulnerability and encourage honest exchanges as they form their own ideas about the world. Lastly, give yourself permission to stumble through it because they will be shaped by their context beyond you, and we serve them well in teaching them that they might not always be right as they navigate how to identify themselves and others in the world.
So, while I might not have all of the answers for how to do that with your specific context in mind, here are some helpful resources that might be a good place to start the conversation:
- Latinx Parenting: Crianza con Corazón y Cultura
- Raising Antiracist Kids: Empowering the Next Generation of Changemakers” on YouTube
- Teaching About Race, Racism, and Police Violence
- Anti-Racist Rather than Inclusive Parenting
- How to Talk Honestly With Children About Racism | PBS KIDS for Parents
- Sesame Street Town all on Racism
Rosanna Alvarez is, a mother of three fierce guerreras, a trucker’s wife, and a cultura-driven social entrepreneur. She writes creative nonfiction and poetry that address self-recovery, voice, and liberation, while sharing her life lessons as a consultant, facilitator, and educator throughout the Bay Area. While she is by no means a child development expert, her biggest compliment is that the adjective most frequently used to describe her daughters is “free.” You can find her online at https://www.rosannaalvarez.com