We here at the SD have been bemoaning the lack of weird, funny, easy-target type stories around here for the last couple days. So, when I saw this article from the NYT Freakonomics blog , I was thrilled – after all, what’s more fun to write about than racism?
Yeah.
The post looks at research published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Unlike other studies that have compared a child's racial views to that of his or her parents, this one asked 58 four- to seven-year-old kids what they thought their parents' racial attitudes were. The idea was that children would be much more forthcoming about what their parents would think than the parents would be about their own racial attitudes. Adults often will tell researchers what they think they should say, not what reflects their actual views, while young children would likely be less disingenuous.
It found that children's racial attitudes were much more correlated with their mothers than with their fathers. The Freakoconomists' take was that moms still do the majority of childcare duties, including playdate arranging and supervising. Therefore, their kids are more likely to listen to what their mother has to say about their friends.
Good point, but here's what I think: racism is an insidious problem and while most people are way too smart to express racist attitudes, they show them in lots of less-obvious ways like self-segregation. Children are not stupid, and they notice our actions as much as they notice our words. Mothers usually have equal or greater influence than fathers about where our families live and who we socialize with. If we surround our families with people like ourselves, then yeah, they're getting the message even if we talk a good game.
And, of course, everything bad a kid can be? Mom's fault. Sigh
