Five Ways I Know I’m Raising A “Woke” Child
There are so many differences between my own childhood and the one my six-year-old daughter is currently experiencing, but what stands out the most for me is just how “woke” or socially conscious she is compared to how I was at her age. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, especially with my religious and conservative parents, topics like politics, social justice, feminism, diversity, prejudice, white privilege, civil rights, homosexuality, and gender equality were rarely discussed in our house, and they definitely weren’t discussed at school, where we were taught that Columbus was a great man who discovered America, that girls should behave like “ladies,” and that if a boy chases or hits you, it means he likes you. My daughter is so much more woke than I was at her age (hell, she’s more woke than I was ten years ago), and I can see it shining through in the following ways:
1. She recognizes injustice and speaks out against it. If my daughter sees someone being treated unfairly - for example, a child being picked on at school - she does not hesitate to speak out, and in general the idea of someone being treated unfairly is deeply upsetting to her. Last year we were reading a book together about Martin Luther King Jr. and when she read about the way that African Americans were treated in the United States at that time, she was outraged at how unfair that was and filled with concern that it was still happening. We talked about the Civil Rights Movement, America’s history of slavery, and the fight for equality that continues to this day, and she was shocked and horrified by the unfairness of it all. My hope is that she came away from the conversation understanding that some people hate others based on their skin color, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, or sexuality, and that’s just not okay.
2. She knows there’s no such thing as girl toys and boy toys, or girl colors and boy colors. We don’t believe that toys and colors have a gender in my house, and I’ve raised my daughter that way from day one. I’ve had to work hard to fight against that social construct that gets shoved down your throat from the very beginning: girl clothing and toys are often pink and purple, toys are divided along some arbitrary gender line and shelved on separate aisles, and even McDonalds makes you choose between a “boy” and a “girl” Happy Meal. My daughter has always been interested in both Barbies and Legos, baby dolls and toy train sets. She loves pink and blue. Sports and dress-up. And if someone tries to suggest that something is only for girls or only for boys, she’ll call them out on it, believe me.
3. She is unabashedly smart and ambitious. Even as a child, I was fully aware that because I had been born female, there were certain things that were out of reach for me. For example: the presidency. And as a little girl who was frequently bullied for being “too smart,” I learned that if I dumbed myself down a bit, both boys and girl would like me more. So I dumbed myself down all through college. Not my daughter. This kid DNGAF, the sky is her limit. She loves to talk about what she wants to do and be when she grows up, she loves being the kid with the right answer in school. She doesn’t dumb herself down for anyone, and my biggest hope is that she will always have that level of confidence.
4. She knows girls can “like” girls and boys can “like” boys. She has grown up knowing that some people are gay, and nothing about that causes her any question or concern. My daughter doesn’t remember a time when gay marriage wasn’t legal, and growing up in CA’s Bay Area, she’s used to seeing gay couples being affectionate in public. She has never been exposed to the kind of homophobia that was rampant when I growing up in Southern California in the 80s and 90s, and in fact I moved to the Bay Area with the hope that my daughter would grow up in a more tolerant environment, around more tolerant people.
5. She knows what a protest is, and she understands why we do it. I took my daughter with me to our local Women’s March last winter, and I have zero regrets. If there had been any counter-protestors or violent behavior, I would have left, but it was a totally peaceful scene, and tons of people had their children there with them. It was important to me that my daughter know that women fought hard to obtain the rights we now have, and that we come together like this in protest, because we cannot allow those rights be stripped from us, not now, not ever. She may not have understood everything that was going on, but she understood the general concept that women are equal to men and deserve equal rights, something I didn’t fully understand until I was in my 30’s.
Can you relate? Are you raising a woke child?
1. She recognizes injustice and speaks out against it. If my daughter sees someone being treated unfairly - for example, a child being picked on at school - she does not hesitate to speak out, and in general the idea of someone being treated unfairly is deeply upsetting to her. Last year we were reading a book together about Martin Luther King Jr. and when she read about the way that African Americans were treated in the United States at that time, she was outraged at how unfair that was and filled with concern that it was still happening. We talked about the Civil Rights Movement, America’s history of slavery, and the fight for equality that continues to this day, and she was shocked and horrified by the unfairness of it all. My hope is that she came away from the conversation understanding that some people hate others based on their skin color, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, or sexuality, and that’s just not okay.
2. She knows there’s no such thing as girl toys and boy toys, or girl colors and boy colors. We don’t believe that toys and colors have a gender in my house, and I’ve raised my daughter that way from day one. I’ve had to work hard to fight against that social construct that gets shoved down your throat from the very beginning: girl clothing and toys are often pink and purple, toys are divided along some arbitrary gender line and shelved on separate aisles, and even McDonalds makes you choose between a “boy” and a “girl” Happy Meal. My daughter has always been interested in both Barbies and Legos, baby dolls and toy train sets. She loves pink and blue. Sports and dress-up. And if someone tries to suggest that something is only for girls or only for boys, she’ll call them out on it, believe me.
3. She is unabashedly smart and ambitious. Even as a child, I was fully aware that because I had been born female, there were certain things that were out of reach for me. For example: the presidency. And as a little girl who was frequently bullied for being “too smart,” I learned that if I dumbed myself down a bit, both boys and girl would like me more. So I dumbed myself down all through college. Not my daughter. This kid DNGAF, the sky is her limit. She loves to talk about what she wants to do and be when she grows up, she loves being the kid with the right answer in school. She doesn’t dumb herself down for anyone, and my biggest hope is that she will always have that level of confidence.
4. She knows girls can “like” girls and boys can “like” boys. She has grown up knowing that some people are gay, and nothing about that causes her any question or concern. My daughter doesn’t remember a time when gay marriage wasn’t legal, and growing up in CA’s Bay Area, she’s used to seeing gay couples being affectionate in public. She has never been exposed to the kind of homophobia that was rampant when I growing up in Southern California in the 80s and 90s, and in fact I moved to the Bay Area with the hope that my daughter would grow up in a more tolerant environment, around more tolerant people.
5. She knows what a protest is, and she understands why we do it. I took my daughter with me to our local Women’s March last winter, and I have zero regrets. If there had been any counter-protestors or violent behavior, I would have left, but it was a totally peaceful scene, and tons of people had their children there with them. It was important to me that my daughter know that women fought hard to obtain the rights we now have, and that we come together like this in protest, because we cannot allow those rights be stripped from us, not now, not ever. She may not have understood everything that was going on, but she understood the general concept that women are equal to men and deserve equal rights, something I didn’t fully understand until I was in my 30’s.
Can you relate? Are you raising a woke child?
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