Exposing your kid to behaviors you disagree with?

May 6, 2008 12:17 PM

What do you do once you have a kid and family problem stakes seem higher, i.e. you're concerned about exposing your child things that go against what you believe?

I'm pregnant. I live far away from my extended family which allows me to avoid them for the most part.
I strongly disagree with a number of my extended families activities/pasttimes/beliefs.
My folks want me, hubby, and baby-to-be to start coming around more for family events now that baby-to-be is on his way.

My problem? I don't want baby-to-be to be exposed to the following behaviors of my extended family (in no particular order): excessive drinking, drinking and driving even with kids in car, gossiping, backstabbing, making fun of reading and other scholastic activities, homophobia, racism, irresponsible financial behavior and materialism, and ostracizing and talking shit about one's siblings (Specifically: one sibling has been ostracized for going on 4 years for divorcing a guy "everyone liked" and dating a new younger guy. Her siblings talk shit about her in front of her kids and anyone else who will listen at sporting events, on MySpace, and in front of their kids. They even dis-invited her to their mother's funeral.)

How does one deal with exposure to this stuff? Do you explain to kid "I want you to know that even though these people are family, Daddy and I totally disagree with their behavior, so cover your ears until Christmas is over"? Do you keep your kid at your side at all times? Do you say to another adult something like "I know that you and sister are not getting along. And you know how I feel about it. I would prefer that we not discuss this, in particular in front of my child."

Again, these are my cousins, not my siblings. I could take 'em or leave 'em, but I know that my mother is going to feel very torn up about this at holidays.

posted by anonymous to human relations (27 comments total)

I do not have any children, so can't provide the kind of gut-level advice that some others here might, but if it were me I would avoid these people at all costs. You are not under any obligations to expose your child to these people's behaviors, and living far away should give you most of the excuses you need to keep your distance. Your parental duty to protecting your child far outweigh any familial obligations.

You can always arrange visits with your mother that don't include your cousins and their boorish friends.
posted by OpinioNate at 12:26 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

How does one deal with exposure to this stuff? Do you explain to kid "I want you to know that even though these people are family, Daddy and I totally disagree with their behavior, so cover your ears until Christmas is over"? Do you keep your kid at your side at all times? Do you say to another adult something like "I know that you and sister are not getting along. And you know how I feel about it. I would prefer that we not discuss this, in particular in front of my child.

Well, a combination of that is pretty much what we did. It wasn't particularly confusing, really -- seems like everyone's got THAT part of the family.
posted by desuetude at 12:33 PM on May 6, 2008

If their only exposure are your holiday tours of duty, your kids will figure out pretty quickly that you don't care for how they live.
posted by small_ruminant at 12:37 PM on May 6, 2008

Another childless answerer here, so take this as you like:

When I read your question on the front page, my first thought was that children should be exposed to many things, whether the parents "believe" them or not, but I was framing your question in a philosophical/spiritual context.

Upon reading your [more inside], it seems that these people are toxic, dysfunctional, and dangerous(drving drunk is bad enough, but with kids in the car?). Keeping the kiddos away from those behaviors is a good idea, and you have every right to do so, regardless of how closely or ditantly you are related.

Nate is right - arrange visits with your mom that don't include the toxic family members. If you do end up unavoidably having to take your children around those people, try to minimize contact, and afterwards, if they're old enough for it, explain what behaviors they saw are bad, and why. Of course, being that you're pregnant now, the explaining phase is some years off.

On preview: also going to 2nd desuetude and small_ruminant.
posted by owtytrof at 12:39 PM on May 6, 2008

I think that there's nothing more convincing than a counter-example. I find it highly unlikely that your kids will consider those yahoos a good example.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:40 PM on May 6, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I had family like that and my parents only made a visit once a year, for a few (carefully planned and supervised) days during Thanksgiving, which prevented Christmas from being ruined by them. Start your own traditions, make plans for the other holidays so you can just say "Oh, we have reservations for Easter Brunch and we made them months ago" like my parents did.
posted by melissam at 12:44 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The easiest things to avoid are the behaviors that might cause immediate harm - excessive drinking, drinking and driving. Once the gathering enters these territories, it is simply time to go - a simple "this is turning into a party that's not really a good place for a baby to be around" will do. Retreat back to your hotel room.

Oh yes, always get a hotel room even if your parents have plenty of room to put you up.

When the baby is a baby, it is easy for you to leave the room whenever the gossip, mean-spiritedness, racism or any other kind of -ism begins to fly. If a polite "Time to walk the baby around a bit" doesn't do it, try something more direct like "I don't want to expose the baby to such racist language/negative attitudes/whatever."

Once the baby is a toddler/kid, he/she would hopefully be hanging out with other kids more than adults. Eventually, you'll have to worry about your kid being around other kids with some of these bad behaviors, but you'll have to deal with that once they go to school anyway. As long as you are up front with your kid and talk about different beliefs people have and different ways people interact with the world, you should be well-set for any conversations once your kid tells you that "So-and-so said racist comment" or relates how mean they act.

Along with your hotel room, research interesting destinations in the area so if a gathering goes bad early, you have somewhere to go and have a good time. Return to your mom's house after the horde has gone.

Of course, many of these actions could end up with you being ostracized by your extended cousins. That might solve your problems in the long term since they would avoid your parent's house when you came to visit her.

Feel free to email/memail me is you want some more ramblings. My kid is six and we've made it through this stuff ok so far :)
posted by mikepop at 12:49 PM on May 6, 2008

I think I ended up with a pretty healthy sense of boundaries when it comes to family despite some serious problems within the family, so I’ll share what my parents did:

They kept me away from anyone who was abusive or mean-spirited or otherwise directly harmful to me (i.e., if that person was going to be at a group event, we didn't go). With other difficult family members (fighting, cheating, lying, stealing, crazy--all sorts of problems, as long as they didn’t directly harm me), my parents made sure I knew that their behavior was unacceptable and unhealthy. Basically, they'd put it in terms of loving their relative while recognizing bad behavior, and they were very honest about the conflict between wanting my brother and me to know our family and wanting to protect us from the crazy stuff. To be honest, we only saw these relatives once every couple of years, but my parents didn’t cut them off entirely.

The really critical thing they did for me was to be honest about family problems: whereas the extended family tried desperately to deny any problems (alcoholism? what alcoholism?), my parents talked about the underlying problems as well as the consequences of the denial. Obviously, the extent to which this was possible varied based on my age, but it was an ongoing conversation that allowed me to process the craziness. That conversation taught me about setting boundaries with people rather than either becoming a doormat at family gatherings or cutting off all contact.
posted by Meg_Murry at 12:49 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

No kids here either, but I recall being a kid and being exposed to disasterous family and neighbors and I think that "exposure" to people with different lifestyle and values can be kind of a positive thing for kids. They will know that you disapprove (even if you aren't explicit) and frankly your kids will disapprove. If you grow up with regular exposure to chaotic drunk uncles, then there's no danger of thinking that drinking is a glamourous enterprise. I'm not trying to minimize your concerns, but I've got family like you describe, and you know what? I still love them, and they love me. I like them, even. And when I hear things that are arguably racist, or homophobic, or anti-intellectual - I understand that these things come from having a really circumscribed set of experiences, and their own feelings of insecurity and fear of the world beyond their backyard. They just weren't as lucky as I am. If you talk to your kids about your family (hopefully in a loving way, without resorting to "backstabbing" yourself), so that they can feel sympathatic toward all of the negativity, they'll learn more from "those people" than from other families just like yours.
posted by moxiedoll at 12:51 PM on May 6, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

I have a 21 month old son and have some (not all) of these issues with my husband's siblings. I do try to limit his exposure, I'm upfront when I see/hear something that is just completely unacceptable (ie: "please do not use that word around my son". "Lets talk about something else." " Please turn off the television" "He can't eat that") which might make me the bitchy sister-in-law but that's ok with me.

As he gets older, I plan to use it as a teachable opportunity. I can't protect him from these behaviors and attitudes for his whole life; better to let him see them while he's young and then use my influence as his mother (and his father as well - his dad loves his siblings but doesn't have much in common with them) to instill my own values.
posted by anastasiav at 12:55 PM on May 6, 2008

Ditto The Light Fantastic. This describes my mom's family. My cousins, aunts, and uncles are all yokels (NOTHING to do with how much money they have). It was like being innoculated against those attitudes: racist, homophobic, believe anything their weird church tells them, etc.
posted by peep at 12:58 PM on May 6, 2008

I have a child and an extended family like that and we simply don't interact with them. It's ok to see your parents on your own terms (and it's ok that they're unhappy they don't get to see you more). I see my parents a couple times a year and I avoid the nastier members of the extended family completely. When my daughter is older and she asks about my cousins, I'll explain why they're not nice people but for now we spend most of our holidays with friends, at home, and sometimes with family members.

I don't think you should feel any obligation to interact with family just because they are family. Or in other words, if you don't get anything positive out of interactions with a homophobic racist cousin, why bother subjecting your child to that?
posted by mathowie at 1:04 PM on May 6, 2008

I straight up told my father that if his side of the family continued to tell racist jokes, and use racial epithets at family gatherings we would no longer be attending, period. I have no idea what he SAID to them, but when we come for a cookout? No racism to be heard anywhere.

You can, and you have a right- even an obligation- to say "Not in front of my child." It's up to them to pick- their bad habits, or your company. If they choose their bad habits, it might sting but trust me- holidays are a lot less stressful if you're not dreading them.
posted by headspace at 1:18 PM on May 6, 2008

Well, I was one of those children exposed (sparingly) to freakishly negative family members. My mom made it clear to me that no matter what other people did or said at these gatherings, I was to be on MY best behavior (a mantra of my mom's: the only one who can control your behavior is YOU) and treat people as I wanted to be treated. I slipped into a cousin's habit of swearing one year, and my mom didn't punish me exactly, but she let me know how disappointed she was in me. That guilt was pretty powerful, and I understood that she had different expectations of me than my uncle had of his children. And my home life was so filled with rules of respect and love (recycle, love the earth, love people no matter their lifestyles or disabilities) that I knew before I even got there that these people were nutty.

Also, we rarely got together with them. Every few years (they also lived very far away) or so. I haven't spoken with them in years and years, and I am ok with that. The few interactions we have had since I have become an adult (pushing 30) have been negative and just proved my mom right: you can't pick your relatives, but you sure as hell can pick your friends. My mom's best friend, her husband, and her children are more like my aunt, uncle, and cousins, the ones I talk to regularly and the ones that I see as often as possible (and my whole life I have called them Auntie So-and-so and Uncle So-and-so).

Good luck!
posted by cachondeo45 at 1:33 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

well, living far away, it's easy. tell them it's too expensive to travel, but you'd love to host them for a holiday. of course, since you have limited room, you'll have to alternate with the husband's family. if they have the funds, put them in a hotel. that way you can limit your exposure to them during a visit.

and if they insist on your traveling out there, get a hotel for yourself. that way if things get out of control, you can leave.
posted by thinkingwoman at 1:41 PM on May 6, 2008

My father didn't want me exposed to my mother's aunt. As a kid, I couldn't understand why.

I did interesting things when staying with her. "Hey, put all these beer cans into Hefty bags." She taught me how to play lotto. "Always pick the same numbers." She introduced me to Jerry Springer, Sally Jesse Raphael, Montel Williams, Rosie Odonell, and Geraldo. "Montel is the best, but he doesn't come on until 3." We would walk to the liquor mart, recycle the beer cans and buy cigarettes and lotto tickets with the money. Oh, what fun!

Years later, when we found out she had died, I burst into tears. My dad just said "Meh. She was trailer trash."

Unpleasant relatives and little kids sometimes have a connection that adults don't.
posted by proj08 at 2:19 PM on May 6, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

What a great opportunity to teach your child that you can love and appreciate people who have different beliefs.

My daughter is eight. I'm very honest with her about what I believe is right, wrong, means, etc. and she gets exposed to lots of different values.

When she hit around 5, I would quiz her after she was exposed to things that are different. "They said XYZ about those people, just because of the way they looked. It made me a little sad. How would you feel if people didn't like you just because of the way you look?"

She's amazed me in her ability to love and appreciate my chaotic, dramatic, long distance family and learn quickly to distance herself from the things they say that aren't in line with our sense of right and wrong.

I know the instinct to want to protect and isolate your child from all the things that are terrible in the world, but the longer I'm a mother, the more I'm proud of how much how well my daughter is able to negotiate it.
posted by Gucky at 2:35 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I like what cachondeo45 has to say about it. Just remember to be careful what you say in front of them (about your relatives), or perhaps, like me, your 7 year old will say to your mother when you're not there, in a loving way, "Gran'ma? I wish you were normal."
posted by b33j at 2:40 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think things may become clearer once your child is born. Right now you're operating on anticipation and thinking you might feel guilty or conflicted. When your kid arrives you'll have the whole mama bear thing going on and it will clarify your priorities lickety split. Go with your gut.
posted by Mrs Hilksom at 2:42 PM on May 6, 2008

The best thing that you can do is to live your values and teach your child why those values matter. He/she will recognize that the behavior of your relatives is not appropriate soon enough.

My in-laws use foul language occasionally, and I always make a big, exaggerated show of covering my daughter's ears. That gets them to stop for the moment.

By the way, I would not agree to visit more often once the baby arrives - you are going to have your hands full! That first year is really hard, and having to deal with unpleasant people while learning the ropes of caring for a newborn is tough. Your immediate family needs to be your first priority. Don't let anyone lay the guilt trip on you about needing to visit more.

I second the other suggestion on researching fun things to do in the area, and excusing yourself so you don't have to deal with your cousins constantly. You are going to be a better parent if you don't get worn down by it, and taking a break is just fine.
posted by Ostara at 2:56 PM on May 6, 2008

Do you actually like these people in spite of their flaws, or do their flaws cause you to dislike them? If the latter, there's no law about how often you have to see them.

That said, more isolation than you'd otherwise prefer is no solution. There isn't one thing that your relatives do or believe that infintely more influential peers on the schoolyard won't do or believe, and lead your kids into doing and believing, unless you arm them with values, prudence and critical thinking. Getting a kid used to thoughtfully disregard what Uncle Joe thinks about Norwegians and whiskey is a great way to get them to think twice about what the head cheerleader thinks about cigarettes and Republicans.
posted by MattD at 2:56 PM on May 6, 2008

Good advice above: be firm, be prepared. The one thing I'd add is to enlist your mother as an ally here: "Mom, I want to come and visit you, but - and I'm sure you're aware of this - I'm not nuts about having the baby around Aunt X's kids. Can you help me both visit you and not go nuts because they're on a bender and telling racist jokes?"

Obviously, I don't know your mom, but having an ally will be helpful, and it also invites her into your growing family in a way that grandmas want and need, in my experience (2 young kids). I would think it's fairly likely that she'll do her best to respect your wishes.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 3:34 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Agree with the be firm, be prepared. With my boy I made it clear to one branch of his grandparents (thankfully only one was an issue) that if they ever brought him to a church or preached to him about religion at home we would immediately and permanently sever all contact.

Things have been fine and it has never been a problem.
posted by Riemann at 4:05 PM on May 6, 2008

Speak up. If something happens that you disapprove of, say so. What's the worst thing that could happen, they don't invite you next time? Raising your kids to be strong and independent is far more important than ruffling a few feathers.

If you feel that you simply can't do this, then tell your kids to be respectful of others, tolerant of their differences--and do what they think is right. You've raised them with your moral values and code of ethics. They'll do fine.
posted by misha at 4:16 PM on May 6, 2008

Do they have any redeeming qualities?

"I don't like uncle Bill gossiping about aunt Tara, but he is such a generous man toward the needy that I forgive him most of the time" or "Aunt Tara thinks that homosexuals are all sinners, but she is too old to be corrected: we still need to be loving and polite to her"

goes a long way in teaching the kind of behavior you expect from your children and teaching tolerance at the same time.

For the last 30 years I have had to deal with fundamentalists (no swearing, drinking or smocking, but some gossip, a lot of homophobia and racism and all Republicans) every two years at family reunions. I have learned to appreciate their good qualities and so do my children. The results? two ultraliberal Democrats and a liberal Republican.
posted by francesca too at 4:57 PM on May 6, 2008

some people aren't going to be changed by your comments, especially if you have problems with the whole family unit - they are far more likely to see you as the troublemaker.

i would just cut my ties.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 3:07 AM on May 7, 2008

I'm not sure what your own personal history is in relation to your extended family, but it will be a lot easier to draw clear boundaries around your baby if you've already drawn those boundaries around yourself. If you've never stepped up and said, "I don't agree with what is going on" then it will be tremendously difficult to say it just because you now have a kid. You'll also be viewed as a turncoat and hypocrite.

So if this is the case, you may want to start drawing the lines even before the baby arrives, and spin it to reduce the amount of drama your action will cause. Something like, "You know, becoming a mother is really changing a lot of things in my life. I feel like it is a perfect time for a fresh start in a lot of ways." Everyone will laugh and chalk it up to being a naive first-time mother but they won't really bother you about it at first because they'll think its just a phase. By the time they realize its not a phase, the boundaries will have been set and accepted.
posted by wabashbdw at 6:36 AM on May 7, 2008