During the time I have been blogging while taking this class I have brought up stereotyping, racial bias and discrimination quite often. This recently came to mind again during a disagreement my mother and I had over my oldest son. As I have said before he is bi-racial, his biological father being black and I being white. He also has a form of higher functioning Autism called Aspbergers Syndrome. Since I was young when I had him (19) and single she was involved quite a bit during his early childhood. At the time we lived in a small northern Wisconsin town with no other black people and most were racially biased even though they would not admit it. I believe she caused more controversy and bias by trying to defend and protect so to speak than would have happened if she would have said nothing. She has felt the need to defend him and his mixed racial background and now his Autism since his diagnosis when he was 5. She thinks that anything that goes wrong with him is caused from someone discriminating for one thing or another. She has caused undue stress in our family by pointing out to the other children that they shouldn't say this or that because he is black and it might make him feel bad. When in fact I'm pretty sure he really could care less since the comments were pretty simple. For example my 5 year old son once came home from school and said he had a new dark skinned friend. That was the way he chose to describe his new friend and my mom practically tore his head off. I believe that she has created more doubt in my son in certain ways about who he is by trying to "defend" him and who he is.
We recently argued about the medication he takes to help with some of the symptoms he has so he can be more productive in school. She does not believe he should be on any medication and said to me "They probably put all the kids with troubles on medication." and has said "The people at the school probably don't treat him the same because he's part black." This drives me crazy and I think her overcompensation tactics to try and protect him from whatever she thinks he needs protecting from is ruining our relationship as I try to protect him from her ideas.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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