International grandparents have some issues

[Anonymous]

I don't judge my friends by their crazy parents. If your parents said something weird that I knew you didn't believe, it wouldn't bother me.

[Anonymous]

If you're "correcting" them for using insensitive language, then you're effectively silencing them rather than changing the way they think about things. If you really want to model how to respectfully talk about race and ethnicity to your child, I'd engage with the issue directly. Like, "Mom, I'm not sure comparing skin tones to food items is considered respectful here in the US. Could you explain a little what you mean?" I mean, really, I would actually let that one slide but since you find it highly inappropriate, I'd try to engage on the topic rather than just get grandma to shut up about it.

I also wouldn't hide grams & gramps away from your friend in shame. Plenty of grandparents use language that was the norm in their day and offensive today - that's life and most of us understand. I certainly wouldn't fault you for having a grandparent who seems out of touch. Also, I try to listen to the intent behind what some one's saying, rather than just their word choice.

[Anonymous]

Grandparents don't influence kids the way that parents do. My parents are tightly-wound, finding-offense-everywhere, anxious people. My husband worried a lot about their influence on our kids but so far there's really none (at 8 an 6). Sometimes when they've left I'll talk with my older one about how all families are different - that my parents do things X way but we do it Y way. He gets it, and the little one will too. Try not to take this so seriously. If they're basically good people who put their feet in their mouth a lot, take the good parts and shrug off the bad. It'll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW, white moms of biracial children are not necessarily the beat judges of what is and isn't offensive...

I assume you meant "best" instead of "beat" and so I ask, what exactly the fuck do you mean by that?

Why, precisely, would they not be good judges of when to be offended if someone calls their babies chocolate or mocha or whatever? Comments like that are rarely ever made past toddlerhood.

My biracial sons have never heard that said since they were too young to remember--I just asked them. And neither said they'd be offended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW, white moms of biracial children are not necessarily the beat judges of what is and isn't offensive...

I assume you meant "best" instead of "beat" and so I ask, what exactly the fuck do you mean by that?

Why, precisely, would they not be good judges of when to be offended if someone calls their babies chocolate or mocha or whatever? Comments like that are rarely ever made past toddlerhood.

My biracial sons have never heard that said since they were too young to remember--I just asked them. And neither said they'd be offended.

Maybe because they usually don't bother learning how to deal with their child's hair?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I am oversensitive then? Her comments typically are like that, or sometimes more like she's stereotyping. Like she was concerned about my day care being dirty because the woman was Indian (you could eat off her floor). She wanted me to ask her about her cleaning routine. She comments a lot about the "gangs" in my neighborhood which is a typical suburban neighborhood that happens to have a latin population. One of the neighbors has a teenager who hangs out with his friends working on his car in front of the house and they make my mom very nervous. Things like that. Am I overreacting? My DH agrees that a lot of time her comments are innapropriate and my DD is getting to the age where she will be repeating things soon.

I think you may be overreacting a little, but for the best reasons and I don't think you should feel bad about it. But I don't know that you have exclude her from everything, maybe just warn your friends that sometimes she says things that she doesn't see as inappropriate, you disagree with her, and if they hear anything that bothers them they should absolutely let you know but you also want them to know that overall, the grandparents mean no harm.

But I DO totally agree with and understand your concern about what your daughter will pick up. And on that note, it's just really important to keep up an open dialogue with her about comments her grandma makes in front of her. If you hear grandma say anything that your daughter really might repeat (i.e., if she's not coming right out and saying people from India are dirty, but is making a lot of comments about asking the caregiver about her cleaning routine, your daughter is not likely to pick up on that. But if she's saying "Well, I worry, because she's from India and you know how dirty those people are!" then you definitely say immediately "That is not true, please do not generalize like that, every ethnicity has all types of people" [or whatever you'd say]. but then have a conversation privately with your daughter soon after and just explain that grandma sometimes says bad things about a big giant group of people, and it's not nice and you want to make sure your daughter knows that she should not listen to grandma on that.

I think it's great that you are sensitive to what your daughter and friends might hear her say - too many people have no clue about these things when it comes to race and ethnicity. But Idon't think you need to stress about it, because based on your examples, she's maybe a bit inappropriate but hopefully if you give your friends a heads up about it ahead of time, they will understand that you don't approve and maybe talk to you if they hear anything that bothers them.

[Anonymous]

My dad is exactly like this but worse to all races that are not his. It's horrible. He does say things to me in public and I know people can hear. I do not want people to think these are my opinions and I don't want my kids to hear this.

I just keep telling him to please stop. That if he has a negative opinion to keep it to himself. We have had many arguments about this. I finally said that if he wants to keep seeing me and his grand kids that we can't talk about politics or anything that has to do with diversity. It worked.