By Patrice Gaines, Image by Chelsea Stahl/NBC News; Getty Images, NBC News, December 30, 2021
Parents say their Black children have had to grow up faster, especially in the post-Trump era, facing issues most white children don't confront until they’re adults, if at all.
This year has been full of stress, chaos and uncertainty for all parents — whether it’s adjusting to the impact of the pandemic on jobs and children’s school schedules or trying to protect them while they were ineligible for vaccines.
Black parents say 2021 has come with additional challenges, as they’ve also had to confront issues of race, whether it’s helping children explain to their peers why they support the Black Lives Matter movement, or having “the talk” about why Black people are often judged differently than whites and how to act when stopped by police.
In other words: Parents say their Black children have had to grow up faster, especially in the post-Trump era, facing issues most white children confront as adults, if at all.
“As Black parents, we have to constantly advocate for our children,” said Candace Gomez-Broughton, a northern Virginia-based scientist and mother of a 12-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. “We’ve had to say, ‘You don’t have the privilege of making mistakes. You have to overcome the biases out there.’ It’s heart-breaking because it shouldn’t make any sense to anyone, but it’s the reality of the situation.”
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