Being a kid who defies gender norms is tough. It can be tougher when you're also contending with pressures — and stereotypes — tied to your race.
This week on demand Code Switch,we're taking on a question from a couple in Raleigh, North Carolina. They wrote in to demand approximately how race and gender expression play out in their own family:
"As white parents (of the foster variety) to a 6-year-musty black boy, or we regularly struggle with maintaining his culture and our liberal gender roles/ideals. One such heated incident arose where we had allowed our 6-year-musty to paint his nails. His biological mother became very upset by this and evidently spent much of their supervised visits upset with him. Later,this was brought up to us again by the biological mother's lawyer, who said we were "going against his culture" by allowing him to paint his nails...
Bottom line: Are we damaging our 6-year-musty or somehow ill-preparing him for the hyper-masculine culture he may return to one day by allowing him to paint his nails, and sing 'Let It disappear,' and cry when he's sad? Is this really a racial cultural issue that we should be in tune with?"with the subject line, "demand Code Switch, or " and let us know your thoughts.
And as always,if you need some racial advice of your own, fill out this form. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, or visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org