When Family and Friends Make Racist Comments: What a Parent Can Actually Do
It happened at my mother-in-law’s dining table, between the roast chicken and the green beans. Someone said that a new family on the street was “fine, but they’re keeping to themselves, you know how they are.” The table went quiet for a second, not in protest, but in agreement. My son, who is nine, looked up from his plate. I said nothing. That’s the part I keep going back to.
I thought about it for days. Not just the comment, but the fact that nobody pushed back. Not me, not my husband, not the aunt who works in a school. I started noticing it everywhere. At playdates, another parent joked about the “wrong kind of people” moving into a nearby neighborhood. At a birthday party, a grandpa told a tired old joke about a shopkeeper. On the group chat with my cousins, someone shared a meme that made my stomach drop. I realized I was surrounded. I kept thinking, Is everyone around me racist? Or is it just that no one else seems to mind?
The honest answer is complicated. Most of the people I know wouldn’t use slurs or shout at anyone. They’d be offended if you called them racist. But they still make assumptions about who belongs, who works hard, who is safe. And they say these things in front of children, including mine.
What worried me most wasn’t the adults. It was what my son was absorbing. When a child hears a hateful comment and sees the adults around them stay quiet, they don’t automatically think the comment is okay. But over time, they do learn that speaking up is risky. They learn that being part of the group means letting things slide. They learn that their parent’s silence in those moments is the actual rule.
I didn’t know what to do. So for a while, I did nothing. I told myself it wasn’t my place to police other people’s families. I told myself I’d talk to my son later, explain that Grandpa grew up in a different time. But later felt vague and dishonest. The silence was doing real work in his head.
The first thing that helped was admitting I couldn’t control the other adults. I couldn’t make my cousin stop sending those memes. I couldn’t turn my father-in-law into an ally. But I could control what happened in my own car, my own kitchen, and my own conversations with my child.
So I started small. Before a family gathering, I would sit with my son and say, “Sometimes people say things we don’t agree with. If it happens today, we have three choices. We can say ‘I don’t like that,’ we can change the subject, or we can go to another room. We don’t have to argue. We just have to remember we don’t have to join in.”
We practiced. I’d say a fake comment like, “That restaurant is too noisy, let’s go somewhere else,” and he’d try to change the subject. Then I’d say something closer to the real thing, and he’d practice saying, “That’s not okay,” in a firm, quiet voice. It felt awkward, but it gave him a script. Kids don’t always know what to do in the moment. Having a rehearsed line makes it possible.
I also started making sure he had regular time with people who didn’t hold those views. I made a list in my head of three adults I trusted to talk openly about race and differences—without being preachy. One was a neighbor, one was a former teacher, and one was my cousin’s partner. It wasn’t enough just to tell my son that the rest of the family was wrong. He needed to see adults who behaved differently. So we made more time for trips to the neighbor’s garden and walks with that former teacher. I don’t think I explained it to them directly. I just started saying yes to more invitations.
At home, I got more honest about my own silence. When my son asked why I didn’t say anything at dinner, I told him the truth: “I was scared. I didn’t want to ruin the meal. I also thought maybe I was overreacting. But I wasn’t. What your grandfather said was wrong, and I should have said something.”
I expected him to look disappointed. Instead, he nodded and said, “It’s hard because everyone is looking at you.” He understood more than I wanted him to. That moment turned into one of our better conversations. I told him that being brave doesn’t mean having the perfect comeback. It means not pretending you agree. It means saying, “I don’t want to hear that around me,” even if your voice shakes.
I also learned to lower my expectations for the big confrontations. I used to imagine a dramatic moment where I stood up at a family dinner and gave a heartfelt speech about respect and dignity. That wasn’t realistic. For one thing, the relatives who make these comments don’t respond well to being lectured. For another, turning every meal into a battle was exhausting my son, not protecting him.
Instead, I started using quieter tactics. When someone made a comment at a family dinner, I would say, “That doesn’t sit right with me,” and then immediately ask about the weather or the garden. Not graceful, but it worked. It signaled to my son that I didn’t agree without creating a scene. Sometimes, I would get up to help clear the dishes and invite him to come with me. Just physically leaving the room was a message.
I also made changes to our schedule. We stopped going to every single family event. I would call and say, “We can’t make it this Sunday,” without offering a detailed excuse. It was uncomfortable, but necessary. My husband and I disagreed at first. He thought we should keep the peace. I told him I wasn’t trying to punish his parents. I was trying to limit how often our child heard hateful talk. He eventually came around after a long car ride where our son repeated something an uncle had said, word for word, with a little laugh.
That car ride was brutal. But it was also the turning point. We stopped pretending that just because these were family members, their words didn’t count. They did count. My son was memorizing them.
I can’t say I have a neat solution. There are still Sundays when I sit at that table and feel my jaw tighten. There are still group chat messages I mute instead of answer. There are still moments when I say “hm” and change the subject, and later I wonder if I should have done more. But I’ve stopped carrying the whole weight alone. My son knows where I stand, even when I don’t say it loudly. He knows that silence can mean discomfort, not agreement. He knows that he can choose his own words and leave a room when he needs to.
The other day, we were driving home from school, and he said, “A kid at lunch said something racist about a kid in our class. I told the teacher.”
“Did it help?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I didn’t want to just sit there.”
That’s enough for now. That’s the thing I hold onto.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » When Family and Friends Make Racist Comments: What a Parent Can Actually Do