Saturday, November 22, 2014

What Would You Do?

Howdy. I am crowd-sourcing advice for a friend who doesn't feel totally comfortable posting the problem to her personal Facebook page. The vastness of the internet offers a sense of anonymity, though, so I offered to put it out there to the world. Please weigh in. 

This story is going to be much easier to write with names, so let's start with the aliases: 
  • My friend, Candy, a mom
  • Candy's son, Andy, a smart, loving 8 year old
  • Andy's friend, Mandy, presumably 8 years old too
  • Mandy's mom, Brandy. 
Andy and Mandy were playing together at Candy's house after school one day last year. When Brandy came over to pick Mandy up, she decided to tell Candy that she (Brandy) was a white supremacist. Who does that? Candy was horrified, but glad that at least she knew. Armed with that knowledge, she didn't feel comfortable having Brandy come to her house, and was certain that she didn't want to send Andy over to Mandy's house to play. How do you explain that to a first grader? Candy went to the school and spoke with the kids' teacher about it the next day. The teacher was just as shocked as Candy, but likewise perplexed about how to proceed. For the rest of the year, Candy just avoided arranging play-dates for Andy and Mandy.

Last night, Candy and Andy ran into Mandy and Brandy at the store. Andy and Mandy played together so sweetly, pretending to be an old married couple with giant candy canes, and asked if they could play together another time. All day today, Andy has been begging to have Mandy come over. 

After a lot of internal debate and conversation with me, Candy is resolute that she doesn't feel safe having the kids play together outside of school. You can't just say that to an eight year old, though. You want to just be able to tell him: "We are accepting and loving of all types of people and belief systems in our family. We don't hate. We don't discriminate. Your friend's parents have a violent belief system built around hate and feeling superior to people who don't look like them or think like them. You can't play with your friend because I don't want you to be exposed to that belief system." Is it hypocritical to say "we don't discriminate except against people who hate"?

Candy has decided that she might try to have a conversation with Andy and help him understand why Mandy can't come over to play. Perhaps he is old enough to understand. So, we're looking for the correct words to tell him. What would you do?

1 comment:

  1. I'd explain to him that her parents have a very scary, hateful belief system that scares you enough that you don't want him around people who believe in such hateful things. Be prepared to talk to him about racism, and how it's wrong, and how you should treat people as people regardless of their beliefs. That you don't hate them but you don't want him to be exposed to those beliefs and that you hope they find it in their hearts not to be hateful people.

    Cousin Lauren, 2nd try posting a comment

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