Recently in my Sociology 220 class “Marriage and Family”, we had to write a paper on if we thought is was important to stress the acceptance of differences in the upbringing of children. To be more specific, this is the question we had to answer direct from my assignment:
“Is it important to stress acceptance of differences–such as those involving ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical or developmental limitations–in the upbringing of children? Why or why not? What are some specific steps that parents can take to help their children grow up prejudice-free? What are some issues surrounding differences between people that have impacted your life in one way or another?”
Of course, I managed to write a good three pages, and also add in lyrics from Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” to back up my point on acceptance of not only other people, but of the differences within yourself as well.
I didn’t get to read the papers of any of my classmates, these are merely for our teacher to read and grade. I did say that I felt it is important to stress the acceptance of differences, not only the ones listed above but any differences someone may have from you. It’s not always an easy task to stress the acceptance of differences either. Not when there are kids who make fun of other children for something so simple as being a little girl who loves Spider-man (which Sis does, to the extent of having lunch bags, backpack, boots in winter, home-made Spider-man dresses, etc!) or a little boy who likes/liked pink (Var claims do no longer like pink unless it’s dark pink.)
It’s really sad to think that 1st and 3rd graders can already be so judgmental and close minded as to be so unaccepting of things so minor in the long run. Still, I do my best to guide the kids to just loving themselves and each other, and not to change who they are due to the loud voices of the few that may disagree. It’s insanely difficult to be happy with oneself as a person as it is, without listening and taking to heart the voices of negativity of those who just can’t mind their own business, and live and let live.
What do you think? Is it important for your children to learn to accept all sorts of differences between people? Not that they have to 100% approve of these differences (in relation to sexuality and anything else that a religion may look down upon?), but just accept that people are different as a whole and there is nothing inherently wrong with that?
I had that class in college and loved it. 🙂
Dawn
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