Julienne Ho, parent, All It Takes board member, and general rockstar, discusses the landscape of observable differences along racial and socio-economic lines and the pressure parents go through in approaching these topics with their growing children. Jules encourages bold and brave honesty, so those who are focused on a better tomorrow will find and inspire each other. If we don't answer their questions truthfully, they'll seek answers elsewhere. As a parent or educator, what's your approach to discussing loaded differences with youth?
Transcript:
Parent Perspective: Broaching Differences
"A reality that I live and breathe every day is differences. It is undeniable that my children are not white in a white-normed society. They're still in the phase of not really seeing their own differences from their peers, while I am forever bracing in preparedness to broach it.
However what's what's happening in the world around us- from George Floyd to Asian hate to living so close to the unhoused community and the questions of why them, not us? Why us, not them? Whichever way round it goes, the question is asked and... how do we sit up and take time to answer those questions? And fearlessly answering the question?
Maybe it's not the right answer for all of us, but the hope that for every everyone that feels like us, there might be someone else in the communities who identifies the same way with the same level of fear and the same level of hope that it doesn't stay like this."
-Julienne Ho