What Would You Do?

[Phoebe]

Situation: the holidays approacheth. In the past you have always attended events with extended family whose political views were very different than yours. Sometimes they would tease you about your political views but you didn't say much and so that was the end of it. Usually they don't say anything at all so it never even becomes an issue.

Now it's this year. The people who still don't talk about politics are welcome to come to your house and you will be happy to attend events involving them. The people who want to joke around about politics are fine as well, assuming they will accept that you just don't want to talk about it this time. However, here is the new twist: suppose that some of these people have gone over the edge and will not shut up about their crazy offensive political views, even when repeatedly asked politely. Maybe they're drinkers or on drugs - that certainly is one logical explanation for the bad behavior we have witnessed lately. Some of their stated views are insulting and upsetting to your children, and you would not be able to sit in the room and let people say those things to your children without very firmly and clearly pressing back on it. For instance, no one is going to spread their anti-gay bigotry around my children in my hearing. Nobody is going to talk about how there needed to be more guns at my children's school, or how you can't be a good Christian without voting Republican, or how you can't be a good person if you don't believe in God. Those are all statements that are going to be challenged if made around my children, period.

The Rules of Etiquette say that you do not have to agree to host people like this at your own home, but they also say you cannot demand that these people not be invited to events where you plan to be present. Rather, if someone invites a belligerent person to an event and you don't feel safe around them or don't want your children to hear the offensive things they have to say, you have the option of simply staying home. The problem is, people are going to be very pissed off if you don't bring, say, their own grandchildren to events around the holidays. And I too am at the point where I'll be pissed off if I have to stay home from a holiday event with my kids because I don't feel safe there, and people have instead chosen to invite a known nutjob or three to harass me and my children.

The good news: my husband supports me because he knows I am completely correct about this matter, and the people causing the problem are indeed batshit. The bad news: everyone is now unhappy, and I feel terrible and cannot decide if I should simply suck it up and try to attend these events regardless, or go and risk making a scene if something untoward should happen, or... ? What I can't do is put my kids in a dangerous situation, or myself, and I am not going to let my kids be insulted. So... What's to be done? If the worst thing that happens is some a****** takes a swing at me, fine. I'm not really clear why the hosts of these events are cool with creating a situation that could lead to this type of outcome very easily. As a result, I feel like there's something wrong with this family and I don't even really care if I show up to their events.

The worst thing is that everybody thinks this is about politics and that my beliefs are simply in conflict with someone else's beliefs, so surely we can just get over that. Couldn't be further from the truth. I have no problem with people having different beliefs. I do have a problem with people who won't stop harassing me when I tell them to stop, and I will not tolerate it if they do that to my kids. So... I really don't know what to do. What really pisses me off is that these violent extremists can cause a rift between people who actually agree with each other and don't have any problems, just because some people feel the need to tolerate violent extremism and others don't want to be around it.

[Phoebe]

Let me add that I just had to go to a family event where people were spouting a bunch of racist things about black and brown people, and my kids overheard it, and I am still livid pissed about the fact that my kids had to hear that kind of racism from their relatives. I had to hear things like that growing up and I don't see why we have to tolerate that in 2018. Why do I have to bring my kids to events where people are going to say racist s***, just because it's a family event? I want to be respectful of people's families but I also really just don't want to hear it. I don't socialize with the parts of my own family that are full of that kind of racist nonsense. I feel really bad about certain relatives I just haven't talked to for about a year or more because I don't want to hear it, and for some reason these people who are racist against the brown people cannot shut up about it for once. They have to let you know all the time their racist thoughts, as if somehow your hearing it is going to validate what they're saying further. I don't want to hear it.

[Mike]

My kids are aware of how their parents feel on most of these issues. I'm not worried about them learning bad habits or picking up bad ideas from others, but it will take some discussion to help them sort out stuff they encounter, but that happens at school, at scouts, in all sorts of situations. It would be nice if extended family didn't include any extremists, but any large group covers the spectrum. I would rather my children encounter this and learn to deal with it in a situation where their parents are present and able to provide some context and act as a sounding board.

Now, if someone is being offensive and continues to be so even after repeatedly being asked to stop, then at that point it is acceptable to avoid them. Ask them to leave or you leave (whichever is appropriate), don't invite them, whatever. I don't normally pack up and leave, but I will make sure I am somewhere else if the politics is going to start getting heated.

[Stan]

Your kids probably won't learn these habits as they already have parents with strong opinions.

Make a game of it. Ask your kids to tally the number of offensive statements they hear and from whom. Afterwards, they can compare notes and vote on who is the most racist and/or sexist. Send that person an unprize stating that they were the most racist at the event.

[Phoebe]

LOL, unprize! So deserved. Well, both of your advice makes me lean in favor of going anyway, but preparing the kids about what is happening. It's an uncomfortable situation because we are already past that place where I feel people are targeting me for harassment, so I don't trust them to leave it alone and leave my kids alone. Tragic that this is what we have to do at an event where Christ is supposed to be the focus. My real fear is that these people like to start crap for no reason, and I really don't want to go to holiday events where violence could break out. I resent the unfairness of being asked to do that.

[bralbovsky]

Depends on 1 How old/fragile the kids are. Kids without the capacity to process or respond shouldn't be exposed. It qualifies as trauma. This of course includes folks who are not kids but have developmental issues.

2 What kind of environment the host is willing to provide. Is the host likely to just let it go? Don't go. Kids especially are hardwired to decode power dynamics, and then slide into them. They need good modeling, not Vichy training.

I have a nephew with a confederate flag on his truck. I asked him to remove it or the truck during his visit.
It's not that I really care about what the neighbors think. It's that symbols symbolize, and it was a discussion we needed to have. (He covered it; we sadly haven't spoken since, but at least the kids think of him sympathetically instead of as an assailant or otherwise threatening creature.)

I taught for over thirty years, and am used to hearing that this is out in the world, etc... Ya, it is, along with Rwanda and Pittsburgh and Taliban soccer, and all the rest, which partly exist because mostly folks are too exhausted or overwhelmed to push back and point out that stuff is wrong and unacceptable and unwelcome in civilized society. The classroom and the world allows what you allow, and often a little bit more.
By the time it goes from tiki torches to machetes it's too late.

My stepmother was a mean drunk. I told her in no uncertain terms that if she treated my children, or spoke to my children the way she treated and spoke to her own, that we would never see her again. She behaved. I have a sister who has chosen to miss most family events because of her husband's beliefs. She's an adult; that's ok. What would not be ok is hearing him guffaw his racist, misogynist, and frankly fake fundamentalist crap all over the dinner table. Nobody wants those germs, and not everyone's immune system can handle them.

I think it's perfectly fine to set ground rules, and to be absolutely serious about them. Who knows if a kid has a friend in transition, christ, is herself in transition secretly, or has a friend of color, or is watching to see what the good guys do in the world when the bad guys flex.

[Ronster]

You can't shelter your kids from bad ideas, but you can help them think as others have said, about what is wrong with what they are being told.

I am 50 and so I am seeing my uncles and aunts that have colorful language and openly prejudiced opinions passing away. My kids already understand that people are a product of the times they lived in.

In contrast we also talk about the "things we don't talk about" when we ared in the car on the way home such as my gay cousin and their adopted children, or my wife's pagan cousin, etc. Granted my views differ greatly from many here, but I find it is better to "debrief" when there are no external conversations that distract.

Contrary to many, I urge them to love them in spite of their eccentricities because we might not have them much longer and to remember that we cannot (IMO) judge the past based on present morals, for surely they would judge us harshly as well.

TL;DR
Go and be your own family within the extended family. Use the experience and don't waste time on "what-ifs". Bring the love with you.

[Phoebe]

It's pretty clear that any attempt to withdraw from other people's aggression is going to make others feel deeply unfairly aggrieved, and me the bad guy as if I was the source of the problem. So... Great. The whole Snowflakes discourse is upside down, but whatever. My poor parents, it makes me ill to compare how they've been treated over the years by the same people.

In other news, I have a work problem 100x worse than this, but similar, and I can't talk about it.

[mimekiller]

Work stresses get me my grey hairs going more then anything else, I hope things clear up quickly.