Over at Moderately Insane, sailorman wonders how he can raise his children to be feminists.
This is my reason number 336 not to have children: the fear that, despite my best efforts to program them to be what I want, they will turn into something horrifically (or maybe only slightly) disappointing, so much so that I wouldn't be able to love them. I mean, what if I raised an Ann Coulter or a Ted Bundy? I know I wouldn't be able to bear it.
Is it actually possible to program your kid to be a feminist? Or more nicely put, to cultivate feminism in him or her?
My sister-in-law recently sent out photos of my 7-year-old niece's birthday party. It was a party of about 15 girls; I didn't see a single boy in the photos. One of the major activities was to play at applying cosmetics to their faces.
So I'm flipping through the photos and my immediate, visceral reaction is "what is this sexist crap!!". I can't just look at the photos and see a bunch of happy kids playing. Instead my hair is standing on end, wondering just how my niece is being socially programmed. I can only hope that she'll rebel against it all in her teens.
But do experiences like that really have anything to do with how my niece feels about herself as a female person? Will she be less inclined towards feminism as a result? I have no idea. Something tells me it doesn't matter at all.
3 comments:
Kids are surprisingly resilient to even bad parents, but respond well to good parenting. I suspect that simply by being a member of the reality-based community would make it hard to raise someone like Ann Coulter. Respect for truth and facts does not go hand in hand with bad behavior is my experience.
Thats funny...I'm a masculinist and was wondering how to raise my children to be masculinists!!
Piaw: simply by being a member of the reality-based community...
Yeah, it seems to make sense - as long as your kids know how to reason, they will not be too screwed up (unless they are fundamentally psychotic with physical/chemical brain problems).
Still, social pressures can do a lot to make people behave in irrational ways. Ditto for having psychological or emotional problems.
For example, a woman may have respect for truth or facts yet stay in a relationship with an abuser. Or she may realize intellectually that being "overly" concerned with her appearance is ridiculous, but she feels that way nevertheless.
Sailorman said I'll be damned if I let society encourage my daughters to become cheerleading, body-conscious, stay-at-home, secretaries. He wants his girls to be independent and unaffected by social pressures. How does one inculcate those traits in one's kids? You might think you just have to flaunt convention and the kids will learn by example. But they may react in the opposite way - feeling so embarassed by your eccentricity, they make excessive efforts to be "normal."
And what if, despite everything, sailorman's child winds up being a stay-at-home secretary :-) Will she feel loved by her father, or will she feel that he never approved of her and have a problematic relationship with her dad?
Post a Comment