I'll tell you what... there are a few lessons and trainings that parenthood offers you in which once you've gone through... I'd take the riot cop any day... Facing a riot cop is easier than some of the scary and nasty shit kids can make you have to deal with.

Teaching a kid early on that protesting is ok - is - well... counter-intuitive, but if it works for them good. I think getting a good sense of civics in that light is awesome. Less so awesome when you can have a t-shirt that says "I survived the Green Beans Walk-out of '16".

And I promise you, if it really came to it, I could pin the riot cop and put a diaper on him - guaranteed.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:12 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

The most vivid memories I have from volunteering at Planned Parenthood in the '90's are the children of the anti-choice protestors. The kids (some of them in strollers, some barely old enough to walk) would hold signs with sayings like, "I am here because my parents chose life" or "Abortion murders children". The older ones would chant with their parents, all in an attempt to try to intimidate visitors from entering the building. Everyone who worked there talked about those kids, and most of us, myself included, felt it was absolutely disgusting that anyone would use their child as a prop against a woman's right to be in charge of her own body. Especially when that child was truly too young to understand what they were doing. But the parents who were protesting believed quite sincerely that their children needed to stand up against what they saw as a terrible injustice, and they were teaching those children their values. As a parent myself now, I'm learning how hard it is not to impose certain of my own beliefs on my kids. You want them to learn from your example and we teach them lessons about the world. But you also want them to ask questions, be skeptical, draw their own conclusions and figure out what they believe for themselves as they grow up. It's not always an easy needle to thread.

So because of this and for other reasons, the interaction between Ms. ffitch and her child about the police, prayer being 'a humble way of saying thank you, not a public performance' and not taking portraying oneself as there being one "Indian voice or Indian politics" resonated deeply with me. As did this:

I don’t usually spend a lot of time wondering what it means to be a politically involved parent. But I do wonder what struggles for justice can learn from the work that so often happens in families. Despite this country’s history of tearing some families apart, while at the same time herding parenting into a private consumer occupation, families remain territories of resistance. People fight for their families. Family bonds are far more powerful and compelling than outside systems of authority. Families are defined by tensions, strife, disunity. And ask anyone who changes diapers, wipes noses or answers the questions of people under the age of five. Family – parenting, certainly – is defined by ordinary, necessary, daily, relentless action.

A fundamental truth.

This is a wonderfully deep and layered essay that left me with quite a bit to think about and question as a parent and an infrequent (and often rudderless) activist. Thanks so much for posting it.
posted by zarq at 7:17 AM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

When I was in my 20s I had a partner who had ultra politically active parents who had a magnificent history of protests and arrests that made for strong family bonds and values. Holidays were peppered with stories of being on the right side of history and how both difficult and wonderfully amazing (putting on shows in the arrest camps) those hard times were.
posted by CheapB at 8:47 AM on December 15, 2017

I dunno. I always have a hard time with parents instilling any sort of political viewpoint in their kids. I would rather make them civically aware and let their politics develop on their own. YMMV.
posted by KazamaSmokers at 9:00 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

My parents took us to protests at Bendix against the Minuteman missile (others, too, but that's the one I remember) when we were small. (This was through church, by the way--the Episcopalians have been turning out hard for social justice for some time.) There must be a photo at the back of some FBI archive of little-praemunire carrying a sign saying "You can't hug your children with nuclear arms" or similar. And now it can be paired with images of adult praemunire with her "NO RSVP ON THE STATUE OF LIBERTY" sign. There's unquestionably a throughline from what I learned in those days and where I am and what I'm doing now.

Despite jokes about college kids protesting random things, I discovered growing up and changing social classes that many of my upper-middle-class colleagues simply did not have any experience with direct political action. Attending protests is a direct, vivid, concrete demonstration of the position that you have both a responsibility to the rest of the world and the opportunity to carry it out. As long as reasonable care is exercised for their safety, I think it's very good for children.

(As parents, you are imposing your values on your young children all day long, both explicitly--"you have to share"--and implicitly--"it is acceptable to live in a neighborhood with the kind of demographics and wealth distribution we live in." Every day in every way. While I would not force a kid who really didn't want to to go to a protest, I think it's a bit disingenuous to worry too much about "forcing my values" on my kid by bringing her to a protest.)
posted by praemunire at 9:07 AM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

I was at the clinic defenses and saw lots of children of the anti-choice side. I have also been at many other protests and seen plenty of children there. The difference, it seems to me, was that when other people were taking their kids to protests, they were doing it because they wanted their children to be involved. When the anti-choice folks did it, they were actively using their children as props (I am here because my mom didn't abort me). There's a big difference between teaching them values and using them.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:25 AM on December 15, 2017 [10 favorites]

Despite jokes about college kids protesting random things, I discovered growing up and changing social classes that many of my upper-middle-class colleagues simply did not have any experience with direct political action. Attending protests is a direct, vivid, concrete demonstration of the position that you have both a responsibility to the rest of the world and the opportunity to carry it out. As long as reasonable care is exercised for their safety, I think it's very good for children.

Seconding this.

I don't have or want kids, but when my sister and I were young, Mom took us to everything because she couldn't possibly have found a sitter for most of it anyway. We went to underground poetry slams. We hit pickets. We boycotted stuff. I remember eating so many cookies when the adults were having an Easter Rising commemoration one year. (Mom was in with lefty Irish people for this period.)

In fact, one of my fondest childhood memories is being chased off the Presidio by military police when I was maybe 8 years old because we were picketing the presence of British paratroopers there. I remember the lead MP demanding to know who was in charge as we fast-walked back to the car. It didn't fit everyone, so we piled in like clowns and just took off, and piled out once we were a safe distance away. Afterward, people assured us kids that we were the only reason everybody hadn't been rounded up and tossed in jail.

Good times. :)

What I can tell you as someone else who experienced the other side of it: praemunire is right. I have a pretty good sense of how this all works, and have been able to make informed decisions about my level of political engagement throughout my life. Most of my cohort - friends, kids I went to high school or college with - think of government as something disconnected from themselves, something they could never really understand or impact personally. I know better.

This is good for people. Everyone should get their kid roped into whatever they're doing with government and explain why, whether it's marches, just voting or even ignoring it - kids need to know about this stuff and why their folks have made the choices they have. It's good for them to see how the world works.

As parents, you are imposing your values on your young children all day long, both explicitly--"you have to share"--and implicitly--"it is acceptable to live in a neighborhood with the kind of demographics and wealth distribution we live in." Every day in every way.

And this is true too. More than that, it doesn't guarantee kids will share your values anyway. What it does mean is that they'll have more to think about when they grow up - they'll be able to make informed decisions about whatever subculture they grew up in, and whether they want to embrace it or be someone else. I always love my mother and our values are generally compatible, but we don't always agree - we were on opposite sides of the 2016 Dem primary by the end of it, for instance.

I think *demanding* your children parrot your opinions the way that some people do is a great way to get children to view your world with cynicism, but talking to them about it plainly, answering their questions and having them participate as much as they're willing to can only help them.
posted by mordax at 9:52 AM on December 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

A coworker who is a Jehovah's Witness talked about how she is raising her son with her religious values, "until he can choose for himself what he believes". I do not share her values (although I admire and share the commitment to kindness and compassion), but it mirrors how I feel about bringing my daughter to protests. As a parent I see it as my job to share my values, but also my job to make room for her to develop her own values as she grows.
posted by latkes at 10:33 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

The first time I talked about politics with Kid Ruki was 2012. She was eleven. I asked her who she'd like to be elected President. "President Obama. Mitt Romney wants to take away Sesame Street." Ok. I never said that to her, but she was getting information from somewhere. We went to the Inauguration the next year and I think that's the most important thing we've ever done together. Four years later, we went back to DC for the Women's March. She loves protests and political/issue fundraisers now. She also has a deep love for DC.

I'm a Democrat because they share a lot of my values, and Kid Ruki is probably a Democrat because I modeled my values while she was growing up. She became politically aware on her own, and her most important issues are not my most important issues. I'm glad for that.
posted by Ruki at 10:33 AM on December 15, 2017

Now that I've RTFA, wow. This article is almost not really about children and protest. It is about our identities and how we are in the world with those identities. It is difficult to be invisible (white Indian) it is more difficult to be visible (brown Indian). It is difficult in protest/crisis situations to know who is what and why they are behaving the way they are. It is easier as a person who benefits from white privilege but who is not "white" to just ignore one's culture because explaining to everyone how you're "not really white" is a terribly privileged place to be and sounds terrible to those who can't disappear. But what about your culture? What about your identity? You disrespect your ancestors, those who fought in this war or that battle to stay alive by denying your identity. You also let the oppressor win by assimilating and thereby assimilating your children and their children. It is complex. It is not easy. It never will be, but the hard, complex work needs to be done nevertheless.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:46 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Kids with you where there are riot geared dressed cops? Man, some parents.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:51 PM on December 15, 2017

Kids with you where there are riot geared dressed cops? Man, some parents.

Had you RFAed, you might have noticed how thoughtfully the author deals with the fact that the choice to opt out of your children's exposure to state-sponsored violence is not available to many, many people and the impact this can have on calculating the degree of risk you are willing to take.

Or, to put it another way: any protest these days featuring brown people is going to have cops in riot gear.
posted by praemunire at 7:06 PM on December 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

J20 Defendants Await Verdict in First Test of Government Attempt to Criminalize Protest Group as a Whole

The prosecution’s novel theory of group liability — in which anyone in proximity to criminal behavior during a protest can be held liable for those crimes — is a grave threat to the First Amendment, the right to assemble, and the right to protest, according to civil rights advocates. “The prosecution’s case is utterly bizarre and essentially rests on both guilt by association and criminalization of dissent,” said Chip Gibbons, the policy and legislative counsel for Defending Rights and Dissent.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:40 AM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]