On educating and raising well-informed children

It’s been almost a month since the last time I shopped on Amazon. It's been quite difficult considering how quick the turnaround was for most of the things I ordered on there, but I persevered and found that it's pretty doable after all.

It's been almost a month since I stopped getting our groceries at Walmart. Instead, we've been going to Smith's, which is owned by Kroger. This one was a bit harder than giving up Amazon because I've gotten used to getting everything that we needed at Walmart, at least the stuff we didn't want to buy in bulk from Costco, our other usual grocery place. However, I also persevered and found other ways to get what we needed. I started buying the kids' clothes from Old Navy again, and CVS Pharmacy for our OTC medicine. I also started taking more conscientious stock of the things that we already have and realized that we have everything that we need and more, so there's no need to get more bedsheets or silicone cookware.

It’s also been a while since we’ve eaten at McDonald’s…and my McDonald’s-obsessed kids were starting to notice. Last night, after I ran a half-marathon at the Las Vegas strip, we were looking for a place to drive thru for food. When the kids were hinting at the golden arches, Jason and I looked at one another and sort of mentally agreed that it was time to rip the mental band-aid off.

I began by telling them that there are certain reasons — reasons that are very important to mom and dad — why we haven't gone to McDonald's and why we may need to stop going there for a while, and that it's the same reason why we haven't gone to Walmart or shopped from Amazon. It's because these companies have done mean and cruel things to certain people. Jason explained that a way for us to let these businesses know that we are mad at them for what they're doing is by not giving them our money and instead supporting businesses that are not being mean to certain people.

Our kids are 6 and 8 and to be fair, when we sprung this conversation on them, they were very hungry and it was way past their bedtime. So of course they got very upset. Jones cried over the prospect of never eating at McDonald's ever again and Jasper was bothered that we only ever shop at Walmart for ourselves and never for them. The latter is, of course, untrue, but I can see how he might think that the food I buy for the family to eat doesn't count. :-P

We tried our best to put the mental band-aid back on temporarily with the intention of continuing this important conversation when they aren't running on fumes. I explained to them that whatever we get from Amazon and Walmart, we can get someplace else. I told Jasper that instead of getting him gifts on Amazon for his upcoming birthday, we'd take him to Costco for a (limited) shopping spree. I also said that since all they eat from McDonald's is nuggets and fries, we can totally get them from so many other restaurants and they would probably like it just as much. We decided to go to Wendy's for dinner.

Jason and I both agree that important conversation topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion need to be explored with kids. We need to do our best to explain to them why we do the things we do and what it means to take a stand. As parents, our definition of morality is largely what our kids will use as blueprints that'll help shape theirs one day. At the end of the day, we want to raise good humans.

In my effort to find alternatives to Amazon, I remembered finding ThriftBooks, an online second-hand bookstore. I ordered several children's books, a lot of my haul about the Philippines and Filipinos, both of which are a huge part of their identity we want to help them get more in touch with. One of the books I picked up is entitled "Racism and Intolerance" by Louise Spilsbury, a part of the "Children in Our World" series. I initially thought it might be too heavy a subject matter considering the boys' ages, but upon checking out the pages, we found that it's actually very timely. The subjects are explained in non-scary terms that boils it down to this:

Although the world is made up of different types of people, we are all much more alike than we are different. Always act with kindness and respect.

Jason has decided to read the book with the boys and use it to further explain why we aren't going to Walmart and McDonald's right now. We'll also take them on our next grocery run to WinCo to show them the bulk candy dispensers and have them pick out snacks for our upcoming long flight to the Philippines.

And yeah, while we're there, I'll have them pick out frozen chicken nuggets and fries that we can cook together at home.