How hard is it to raise tolerant children? Truthfully, not that hard.

[Midlodemocrat]

I admit when my three kids were younger, (they're now 18,16 and 12) I was one of those obsessive moms. I worried about food intake, and safety and made sure that all the draws and cabinets had safety locks and the backyard was fenced and all that jazz.

As they aged, I started to focus more on their psyche because their physical well being and safety wasn't as much of an issue. They went to school and I trusted that they would come out of the 'walker door' at 3:35. I was more concerned that they were being 'good citizens' and that they were learning how to be a friend and make a friend.

I wasn't/am not one of those moms who helicoptered or ascribed to the belief that it 'wasn't my kid'. In fact, just the opposite. I remember getting phone calls from other moms and the first thought I had after retrieving the voice mail was 'Holy shit, what did s/he do now?'

That being said, all three of my kids are rabid liberals. To the point that I think there's a good chance my son will end up suspended within the next week or two for being supportive of Barack Obama. To the point that my eldest, (known affectionately in the lounge as TeenMidlo, matcom's trophy wife to be) was despondent over Facebook messages about Barack the day after. To the point that my baby, who is 12, shouted in someone's face yesterday 'He's not a Muslim. He's a Christian and if he were a Muslim WHO CARES?'

All three of my kids are deeply saddened by Prop 8 and the other measures that were passed to limit equality for the GLBT community. And, here's the kicker. Pretty sure all three of my kids are straight. That fact doesn't stop my enormously large bull in a china shop son from telling his friends that 'hey, dude, don't say that's so gay, because being gay isn't a bad thing'.

What is my point? Here's my point. Teaching your child tolerance ain't that hard. If *I* could do it. Anyone can. Seriously.

[Imalittleteapot]

1. First you have to teach their parents.

Tolerant people raise tolerant kids.

[ixion]

2. I was raised to be tolerant by my mother

so it's definitely do-able. :)

[Midlodemocrat]

3. Point being. It isn't that hard. If you don't hate, your children won't hate.

Right?

[Warpy]

6. I was, too, back in the 50s when intolerance ruled

I don't know how she did it because in her old age, her racism started to surface. It was an ugly side of her I never saw when I was growing up, attending integrated private schools in segregated districts.

I have always been deeply grateful to her for swallowing her own bigotry long enough to teach me the tolerance she lacked.

[Kali]

4. It is called setting a good example.

[curse of greyface]

5. Congrats on three level headed kids.

In practice I have found tolerance a slippery eel.

I have noticed a lot people are tolerant of everything but what they perceive as the intolerant. (The anti-religious screeds often point to that)

I myself am very open-minded but have an intolerance for the lazy and the stupid.

I reminds me of that House episode. The kid has bad burns from an ATV accident. But there is something else wrong. The parents describe how open they are with their kids how they shared pot and how their kid told them about his drinking and sexual encounters. He wouldn't hide anything from his parents.

The kids problem ended up being from the one thing he hid. The one thing his parents were intolerant of.

Cigarettes.

[JuniperLea]

10. I'm tolerant of religious people...

Even when so many of them scare the hell out of me.

What I'm not tolerant of is when religious people try to foist their beliefs and their religions laws onto other people. No one wants thought or belief police. People have the right to believe and think what they choose. What they don't have a right to, is trying to force others people to believe what they believe, or to follow the religious laws they choose to follow themselves.

Sorry if that sounds redundant. But too many people just don't get it.

[curse of greyface]

12. I get it and wholeheartedly agree. nt

[bliss_eternal]

7. It seems lots of people...

...that believe they are being "good parents" by taking their kids to church and raising them with religion. Most don't seem to question for a second the fact that their religion teaches that being homosexual is wrong. The parents don't question it and don't teach their kids to question it.

We know the flaw inherent in this. But I'm sure they believe they are being good parents, too.

:shrug:

[LuckyTheDog]

8. Tolerance does not need to be taught -- intolerance has to be un-taught

The point is to NOT teach intolerance. Kids are basically tolerant by nature. Ever see a mixed-race group of young kids play together? Race does not matter at all. They just don't care about it -- unless they are taught that they should. Once kids are taught to be racist, it can be hard to un-teach it. But it can be done.

[JuniperLea]

11. We posted almost exactly the same thing at the same time!!! eom

[JuniperLea]

9. Yep, Mom of Three Here...

They are all adults now, and trust me, the worrying never really stops;)

I remember watching a film about the old south with my oldest when he was nine or so. In one scene, a black mother pulls her little girl away from the "white only" drinking fountain, and brings her over to the "coloreds only" fountain. My son was lounging on the floor... this made him sit up straight, turn around, and ask, "Mom! What was that about? Colored only?" I said, yes, Jon, back a long time ago before you and I were born, a lot of white people thought black people weren't really people, and they thought they were somehow better than black people." He looked at me like I had lobsters growing out of my ears. Then he started cracking up, literally rolling on the floor laughing. He stopped for a bit and said, "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life!"

Kids don't have to be taught tolerance, they just need NOT to be taught prejudice.

[Fuzz]

13. Bingo. The kids don't know to hate another person based on random

characteristics.

[RainDog]

14. I think the generation that our children are part of

Will be able to get beyond even more of the garbage that present-day adults now have known. Just as Obama represents a shift away from the Vietnam-era feuds that have dominated for so long (and that conservatives want to continue to make an issue - imo, because they have never been able to be honest with themselves about what a stupid thing that war was.

I'm on the tail end of the boomers and even tho I was growing up during that time, I never identified with "hippies" - that was before my time and was only part of my experience because the first album my best friend ever bought was Woodstock. The civil rights movement was much more important in my experience - because that was my experience - no one of my age ever had to face the draft, but we all had to come to terms with MLK's assassination and with adult fear of segregation.

My two sons are also liberals. Both voted for Obama. Both voted for the first time in their lives.

In the recent past, both participated in high school activities that supported the gay-straight alliance. Among their friends, this is sort of.. well, duh... of course we expect civil rights for gays. Our next-door-neighbor is African-American. So what. The guy on the other side if from Thailand. so what.

My younger son now has a thing about "nilhists" - his phrase for Gen Xers. He says they're the new generation and they're NOT nihilists and there are things worth caring about. (He just told me this the other day, before the election - and, yeah, it was sort of, huh?? So I had to send him pictures of those terrible nihilists in The Big Lebowski... his new symbol for Gen. X. LOL.)

So, even tho we see setbacks - we saw a huge one over the last eight years - if our kids' generation get out and vote, we will have a better world, I think, because their world is very different than the one people knew who were born before the Vietnam War, and those who were part of the "Reagan revolution" generation too.

They give me hope.

[Hekate]

15. My mom did it by word and deed. What she couldn't get to herself, she gave us the foundation to do

Racial and religious equality she got to on her own. Gender equality she got to after Betty Friedan's book. As for gays and lesbians, for someone who studied Freud in college she did okay, and finally she figured out it was an issue of human rights.

She gave that to us. The foundation and the journey. Then it was ours to do, and we passed it on to our own children. By word and deed and talking to them as things arose.

No, it's not that hard to do, but some things you do have to figure out for yourself if you don't get it from your parents. My mom's dad was an opinionated SOB, and she figured differently. The rest is our family history.

Hekate