My Son Will Be Privileged From The Moment He’s Born

Reflections on how to handle the raising of a white, middle-class boy child.

When my son is born later this year, he is going to enjoy several levels of privilege in American society from the moment he utters his first cry.

He will be white.

He will be male.

He will be born into a nuclear family unit in a pleasant and quiet suburban neighborhood, with two college-educated, happily married parents, who can afford to pay the rent on time and put groceries on the table and savings in the bank.

If all scans and doctor check-ups to this date prove correct, he will be born healthy, able-bodied, and strong.

He will look into a future of limitless opportunity.

And, in many ways, that scares me a little.

It scares me because I know the kind of power that my son will grow into.

I know that from the beginning of his life, the deck will be stacked in his favor. I know that he will have access to a good education. I know that he will not be dismissed from consideration from a good job because of the color of his skin or the land of his birth (and that if he successfully lands that job, he will not be subject to sour-grapes comments from others about being the “diversity hire”). I know that if he is pulled over by police while driving, he will expect to calmly pay a speeding ticket or fix a broken headlight with no reason to fear for his safety or even his life. I know that he will be able to walk down a dark street at night without arousing suspicion from others or experiencing his own terror at the hands of others. I know that his voice will be heard, louder and stronger than many of his neighbors’, in the workplace and in the classroom and in the voting booth.

I know that this is not fair. And I am going to teach him why it is not fair.

I am going to teach him that though every human on earth bears the image of God, we have abused and warped our understanding of the fundamental truth that all people are created equal. And in that twisting of that truth, my son — and people who look like him — have come out on top.

I don’t intend to teach my son that the color of his skin is a reason for shame. I’m not planning to instill meaningless self-flagellation into his little mind and heart. I do not wish to guilt-trip him and make him feel as if he’s done something wrong by being born a white boy.

Yes, friends, believe it or not, his adolescence, and my parenting, will not exist as a straw-man argument for other white people to cling to in a desperate bid to point out just how awful it is that anyone could even discuss the existence of racism and privilege.

Because, see, those defensive diatribes about shame and self-flagellation and guilt trips… they don’t come from a place of logic or reason. To make the leap from “I want to teach my son to use his privilege to help others” all the way across into “I’m going to teach my son that it’s a sin to be a white person” is a manufactured mess of incredulity.

I’d like to say I have no time for arguments of such monumental stupidity.

But, at the same time, I know there are those who will still make them, so taking a moment to address them was necessary.

My son will no more be able to change the color of his skin than a black child would. He should not be expected to. He should not be expected to want to.

That should be true of all children.

The horrible reality is that it’s not.

And for me, that’s where the rubber meets the road. My son won’t fear for his life because of the skin he was born in. My son won’t be shamed and humiliated for who he is and how he looks. My son won’t be the target of discrimination and violence and brutality due to his heritage.

I am grateful for that. I am grieved that so many other mothers cannot say the same.

So yes, my husband and I will talk to our son in the years to come about his privilege. We will talk about the responsibility he has — that we all have — to love our neighbors. We will talk about the fact that God made us to be the same inside, whether or not we look different on the outside, but that people have messed up this concept and have put those who look like him at the top of the metaphorical food chain while trampling others down.

I don’t pretend that these conversations will be easy. I don’t intend to start them when he is too young to understand (though the theory of how old a child must be to grasp the concept of discrimination and unfairness is certainly a debatable one without a hard-and-fast answer). And I don’t intend to hit him over the head with educational reading assignments and essay questions; rather, I want to encourage meaningful dialogue with his naturally inquisitive mind.

I will not teach him that everything in life will be handed to him on a silver platter. I will tell him that there is value in hard work and he must apply himself with diligence if he wants to make it to the top. But I will also tell him that he has had a boost from the beginning, and he should not forget that, nor take it for granted, nor assume that any success he may enjoy is tied to some kind of innate superiority. I will tell him that as he has had opportunities, so he should work to ensure that others get them too.

This won’t be easy.

I will probably screw it up. A lot.

But I also don’t see an option of not doing this.

I can’t live with myself if I am responsible for bringing yet another privileged, arrogant, uncompassionate white man into the world. We have enough of those.

We need white men who understand that history has converged to put them at the top of the heap, who realize that if they were born into a position where they can have some influence, they should be using it to help those who were not. They should be listening to and elevating the voices of the marginalized. They should be leveling the playing field. They should be shutting down systems that prop up racism and sexism and ableism, and instead promoting fairness and equality and valuing others.

My son will be privileged from the moment he’s born. I hope and pray it won’t take him a lifetime to start using that privilege for good.