Teach Your Children Well

I woke up suddenly this morning after a nightmare. As usual with nightmares, it didn’t make much sense, but I knew what it was about –Ferguson, Missouri and the deaths of young African American youths and men. I had spent all weekend reading editorials about “why whites just don’t get it” and I finally got it, as the mother of 2 young men, I think I FINALLY got it. (disclaimer, this is not about who is right or wrong in this particular case, it’s about raising young men and all of our hopes for our children). I absorbed those articles as well as those about rape in the military and on college campuses and I woke up thinking about my sons and the sons of my friends and colleagues.

It’s really hard to put one’s self into the experience of another gender, or race or religion. And yet, raising sons (now 23 and 26 years old), I had to put myself into the experience of their gender in order to provide them with what they needed as they grew up. So here are some of the things that I felt that they needed to know:

–How to clean up after themselves, how to do their laundry, basic cooking skills, basic money skills, how to drive.
–To be kind and helpful to others.
–To drink alcohol responsibly, knowing that we have substance abuse in our family.
–To call us if they were drinking and needed a ride home. (no drinking and driving)
–To avoid drugs and cigarettes because of their harmful and addictive nature.
–That everyone experiments and everyone screws up sometimes and that my husband and I would love them no matter what.
–Basic sexual knowledge, with mom the doctor’s editorials thrown in: Use condoms for your protection as well as for that of the woman. Have sex with someone you respect and like and respect your partner.
–Do not have sex with someone who is intoxicated, on drugs or otherwise unable to consent. Do not even walk or drive home a woman in that condition unless she has a female friend with her. Better yet, find one of her friends to take care of her.
–If a woman with whom you have sex gets pregnant, it’s your responsibility.
(note, I am already teaching them differently than would a mother of girls)

This is what I did NOT have to teach them because they are white, middle class young men:

–You may be more likely to be stopped by a police officer, and you are more likely to be killed by one.
I have been stopped by a police officer a handful of times in my life, expired registration, tail light out, did not come to a complete stop. I was always unnerved, but I wasn’t afraid for my life.

This blog is not to criticize police officers. It’s more to say, my reality is different from that of an African American mother raising sons and how can we make it better for everyone?