Isms, Vocabulary

[kyra_ojosverdes]

[over dinner]

• James (age 12): "Mom, whenever we go shopping for like one specific thing, you go into 'shopping mode' and want to look at everything!"¹
• Mark (age 10): "Yeah, women are like that."
• Me: "Mark, that's sexist."
• Mark: *thinks for a bit* "Yeah, I go into shopping mode too sometimes and want to look at everything. Especially if we're in the video games section!"
• Me: "Lots of people do, and it doesn't have much to do with gender."
• James: "Is there such a thing as ageist?"
• Me: "Yes."
• James: "Or sizeist?"
• Me: "Yes. There are lots of ways people identify groups which are like them and say that their group is better than other groups. Society gives us certain messages like thin people are better than fat people, that attractive people are better than unattractive people, that young people are much more attractive than older people but only older people can be trusted and that elderly people aren't valuable at all, that people with lighter skin are better than people with darker skin..."
• James & Mark: *think a bit*
• James: *smirks* "You could save time and just say that you are better than everyone else. That way you don't have to decide who's in your group and who isn't."
• Mark: "What's that called? Individualist?"
• Me: "Narcissist, actually."
• James & Mark: *rolling eyes as I am obviously pulling their legs* "Nuh-UH!!"

(I explained that yes, narcissist is a word, and told them the story of Narcissus.)


1. Actually, I always want to look at everything. When I'm in a store, that means browsing the merchandise. Anywhere else, it means constantly asking myself "am I being rude by too closely examining my surroundings?" Say, if my surroundings happen to be someone's home or place of business.

Comments

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

A guy came to the door with some petitions the other night... one to say state legislators can't become lobbyists for two years after leaving office and the other to tell police we'd sure like it if they de-emphasized finding small amounts of marijuana in someone's possession and directed that energy toward stuff like meth.

Mark was right there drilling the guy with questions. After a "can I go there" glance at me, the young man explained his stance on drug laws and lobbying. Mark looked at me for my input on drug laws, and I said that while I think using illegal drugs is a bad idea, some drugs are much more dangerous, to the person using them and to others around that person, than other drugs.

Mark took this in, nodded, and told the guy "What I'm against are the executions. I think it's wrong for us to kill people and say we're allowed to do that but it's wrong for other people to kill." The guy blinked for a second then agreed that's precisely his take on the issue. They chatted about the death penalty issue for a bit, then Mark got bored and was ready to go back inside. The guy gave me a big thumbs-up on my socially-aware kid.

[samvimes.livejournal.com]

You are such the awesomest parent EVAR.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

You're so biased.

Did you catch what Mark said in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters interview?

:-*