This comment was from PM on the post “It’s Not Easy to Raise Your Child as a Feminist.”
The best thing you can do for your child as far as political ideology goes is to teach him to be a free thinker. Teach him to respect both genders, and address issues of gender as they come up, organically (and they will!). Introduce -isms as thought experiments rather than good or bad ideologies, and let him mull them over for himself. He will decide what kind of -isms he will embrace later, if he chooses to embrace any at all. As others have said, it is particularly problematic to teach a CHILD the oppressed/oppressor dynamic when he is the oppressor. Teach him what oppression is and why it’s wrong and, if you do a good job of it, he will recognize oppressive behavior and avoid it.
—Photo Leonid Mamchenkov/Flickr
A child is the oppressor? Seriously, that is as far from free thinking as it gets, that’s indocrination at it’s worst. A child is the oppressor because they happen to be male!
This is what free thinking is by the way and that is its polar opposite. Pure unadulterated hypocrisy.
Who has he actually oppressed? Name one of them. Brainwashing children, now that makes them the oppressor.
Please correct the headline “fee thinker” to “free thinker.”
Political Ideology and Fee Thinker – It does have a certain charm to it! P^)
Totally my fault, thanks for catching that. We’re trying to get away from “fee thinkers.”
Excellent suggestion. Revere no authorities; question everything; and always, always insist on seeing the evidence for yourself.
How I wish critical thinking were an essential element of K-12 education.