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[quote=Anonymous]Thinking about this a lot and I think one of the values I most want to instill in my child is open-mindedness.

Reading many of the other posts, I agree with many of the values stated (education, anti-racism, kindness, generosity, etc.). I think my parents worked to to instill all those things in me and I am glad for it. But one thing my parents struggled with (and still struggle with) is that they are often vocally judgmental about other people. Sometimes I think it comes from a place of having different values, but it's also obvious to me now that it was at least partly driven by jealousy and insecurity. For instance, my father is automatically skeptical of people who are academic, well-traveled, and live in cities. It's very clearly an insecurity because, while he is very well educated and made a lot with his life, he grew up rural and poor and I think he encountered people in his life who looked down on him for that.

It made it confusing when I was growing up because my parents value education, but my dad would sneer at someone with a PhD, for instance. I didn't understand why.

Now that I do, I am working to counteract that kind of thing in my own life so I can model better behavior. I think a lot of people do this without thinking -- I hear people drawing really judgmental conclusions about others based on nothing more than where they are from, their accent, their job, or where their kids go to school. I want my kid to learn to stay open to people without making snap judgments based on little pieces of information like this.[/quote]

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