“We’re” Not Raising Trayvon: The Difference Whiteness Makes

[Tumbulu]

1. How interesting

but reading that I would think any boys riding bikes fast around a corner would be into something - certainly my daughter would think so. This is indeed something very different about upbringings and not necessarily about race at all. But more about gender and parenting style.

In my daughter's 6th grade class a bunch of boys chased kindergardeners into walls and poles- one had to go to the hospital with a concussion (on the very day all those children were shot at the grammar school in Connecticut no less!). The girls mostly behaved in physical ways that were controllable and fairly safe, the boys mostly did not. I think this popular parenting style which I call "let your boys run wild" thing is somewhat to blame for it out here in the west.

I don't know if it is a real thing in other places, or if it is only associated with children of color rather than privilege as it is here.

I think that it serves no one, allowing kids to behave in wild ways in public. I think that it sets them up in life for problems and trouble. I am no fan of the idea that boys should be "wild" as children so that they can grow up to be kind men (as though it will all get worked out as a kid). But, I don't have a son, and so really, I should just leave other parents alone.