Tune in to Tolerance 2
As my children sat in the back of my car telling jokes with racial overtones, I longed for Sasha’s four-year-old stand-up act. Her repertoire consisted of two jokes, one about a cat and one about a hamburger. She always ended with the hamburger joke because it was sure to get a laugh. “What did the hot dog say to the hamburger?” she would ask. “Nice buns!” Her sweet face would light up at the punch line as she braced herself for the laugh.
I recall a baffling attempt at discussing diversity around the same time as Sasha was telling her hamburger joke. One day at the playground, she was staring at a child of a different race and she asked me, “Why does he look different?” I was about to jump start the diversity discussion when she added, “He wears funny mittens.” It wasn’t race she saw—it was his funny mittens. As the adult, I saw race and not the mittens.
I forged ahead anyway. “People come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes, and they wear different things, too,” I said. Sasha recently confided that at the time, she thought I meant something very different. For a long time she scoured the playground in hopes of finding a kid with a small blue triangle head, a big red rectangle head, or even a medium yellow square head. In preschool they take their colors, shapes and sizes quite literally.
Now firmly into elementary school, Sasha needed my message to be clear. In the car, I reminded myself that at heart, my children are amazing, sensitive and loving towards others of all cultures and races. They just needed a refresher course. I pulled the car over and calmly turned to Sasha and Eli to discuss the following points concerning jokes.
- It is never ok to make fun of other people.
- Treat others the way you want to be treated. Ask yourself, “How would that make me feel if someone said that about me?”
- Just because others make fun of people does not make it right. Stand up for what you believe.
- Just because others laugh doesn’t mean it’s funny. Ask them what they think is funny about the joke.
- Reject jokes that stereotype people. They perpetuate misunderstanding and hatred.
As children grow and hopefully have exposure to diversity, they need refreshers every once in a while to remind them of how to be accepting and understanding. People do come in all different shapes, sizes and colors, and the world is much richer because of it. Yes, laughter feels good, but jokes at the expense of others do not. Appropriate jokes that don’t degrade others can bring joy to the person delivering it and to their audiences. And there are plenty of good jokes far beyond the caliber of the hamburger one-liner. We can teach the importance of embracing ethnic diversity to our children as they grow up. Remember, it is a life-long process when striving for empathy, respect and tolerance. Now buckle up for the ride and don’t be afraid to pull over, refresh, and ask for directions when needed!
–June Grushka-Rosen M.Ed. is a Life Coach, Educator, Psychotherapist and mommy of two. To contact – June@urextraordinary.com
February 20th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
About Tolerance,
June Grushka-Rosen should be congratulated on immediately addressing the racial jokes she heard her children making, especially because she had to pull over to do it. Although kids may not intentionally be testing boundaries, they learn by our response to their every move. June’s clear and brief explanation is an effective approach with young children, but children of all ages need reminders. I teach high school and I will stop my class if I hear a joke of this kind. Again, this is inconvenient, but if we don’t stop and say, “this is unacceptable” every single time, how will kids learn?
February 21st, 2008 at 1:09 am
Yes, so true! I wish more parents would do this with their children. My daughter, whose Chinese, told me that a boy in her school asked her if she “felt different” and if “kids made fun of her”. She asked me what he meant. I didn’t know how to answer her because she truly had no idea what he was talking about. She didn’t think he was being mean (because she doesn’t feel different, and she isn’t made fun of), she just wanted to know what he meant. I was at a total loss for an answer. I should have asked June! Anyhow, thankfully ,this time, my daughter wasn’t stung by this. Next time, I may not be so lucky!
–Maxine Wolf
February 21st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Well said, June! It doesn’t matter where you are, who you’re with, or what you are doing- children will have a much better understanding when you address things immediately! I’m so lucky to know such a wonderful, inspiring mother like you! I know just where to go when I feel “off-track”!
February 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
You go girl, great blog reminds us all that we need to take our cues from our kids when it comes to what info when. Well written, I renjoy reading your blogs.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:25 am
I read both blogs, Tune in Tolerance, and I immediately recalled a story my mother told me about an experience we had when I was young.
I grew up in an predominantly white neighborhood. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. We were in a Burger King in another neighborhood and I saw black kids and pointed and said, look Mom, Sesame Street.. That was the only place I saw black people. My mother was a fearful, person not comfortable with diversity. She told me she did not know a Jewish person until she was an adult. She went to Catholic school. I was absolutely amazed when she told me. In retropect, I am so thankful that my father convinced my mother to send us to public school.
Our neighbhood was a mixture of mostly, Italian, Irish, and Jewish( hungarian, israeli). I remember thinking to myself, as a young teenager, that I didn’t want to be like her.. I didn’t see any reason to fear people who were different than me and wanted to learn about different cultures and religions….Over the years I’ve had friends from different cultures, religions, etc. I’ve come to a belief that we are all truly from the same source… hence my path to yoga. I think, innately, we know we are all connected but many parts of society draw attention to how we are different. I think our educational system, at least the system I grew up in, spends more time developing our left brain than our right brain. We spend a lot of time breaking things into pieces and putting them back together. I think children who find their right brain, naturally, are so lucky because they can see the interconnectedness.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Kudos June!
Not only did you take the time out of the rush of life to pull over and embrace a teachable moment, but you shared your own struggles with teaching tolerance. None of us our perfect and when the apple falls a little farther from the tree, it is important to pick it up and bring it back to its roots. Sharing that inspite of your best efforts, your children are still learning from other less responsible sources (peers, TV etc.) reassures all of us that while this process of raising kids includes elements outside of our control, there are we can and should do to maintain a lead role in educating children. All is not lost!
May 20th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Wow! What a terrific Mom. So well said. The fear that we encounter as parents that we haven’t done enough can be overwhelming. When we moved to a new town and my two children were young, not only did we look at SAT scores and visit schools in person to see how they felt, but we also looked at diversity percentages, as we felt strongly that diversity would be so very important to aid in the effort of encouraging our children to simply get to know everyone, and by knowing, define their own acceptance. I’m wondering if the word tolerance is even appropriate, as doesn’t that mean that we are dealing with something that is not agreeable? Perhaps differences are interesting and make life invigorating. Not that terminology is so important here. However, now that my kids are older, I still cringe at their own conclusions about various cultures. And sometimes, it seems like all that I have openly discussed with them falls through the cracks. They have learned things from their own interactions with people from all backgrounds. I read June’s words and think, I’ve said these things, and yet, at times I hear perceptions from discussions with my own children that differ from what I have tried to teach. And then, I wonder, if perhaps maturity will be the key to learning compassion. I especially loved June’s statement about, “Reject jokes that stereotype people. They perpetuate misunderstanding and hatred.” Perhaps we can give our children the goal of eliminating stereotypes by simply enjoying differences, instead of tolerating them. And, maybe, we all need to laugh at ourselves first, including the fact that our children may be different than ourselves. Finally, the summer Olympics is another opportunity to demonstrate how important it is to respect other cultures. All of the American athletes are currently going through cultural understanding classes now, to learn ways to better interact with other cultures. It is a great example for our kids, that time is being spent on such an important issue, as truthfully, the bottom line is respect.
T-J, Winter Springs, FL