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Dear Miriam,
My spouse and I have raised our kids with a high level of respect towards people who are different from us. How can we keep that spirit of acceptance when encountering people who are not accepting of us? Is it even appropriate to try?
Signed,
Tolerating the Intolerant
Dear Tolerating,
It sounds like you have a strong and values-driven approach to parenting, which means that even when you encounter something particularly challenging, you have established a baseline that you can use to discuss difficult topics. Trust the foundation you’ve built as you bump up against areas of life that require more nuance, more context, and more exceptions to the rules.
There are many kinds of people who aren’t accepting. There are schoolyard bullies who pick on people seemingly for no reason, there are religious proselytizers who make it their life’s mission to try to convert people to their way of thinking. There are politicians, activists, individuals, groups, ideologies, and many more ways of causing divisions. Not everyone will like or accept who you are. And, in turn, it’s realistic to explain to kids that they won’t like everyone either.
But of course, there is a difference between not wanting to sit next to someone who makes distracting sounds and condemning someone for their beliefs or who they love or what they look like. There is a difference between one person being nasty to you as an individual and Westboro Baptist Church spewing hate on a broad scale.
Talk to your kids about nuance. Talk to them about kindness and the different forms of interactions that are positive and negative, that build people up and that break people down. Let them ask questions and explore categories and wrestle with hard ideas while knowing that you’re there to support them. Don’t force them to show unconditional love to people who aren’t kind to them, and don’t encourage rudeness to people who don’t think like them. Stick to the core of what you know to be right and the values you want to share, including that not everything is possible to be clear cut.
Be well,
Miriam
