If she continues to show interest, perhaps you can find out more about the kind of person he is and what attracts her to him. Your anxieties may be somewhat wanted when this problem becomes a person to you, almost than an unknown object of fear. Facts on prejudice show that exposure to racial and cultural differences relieves ignorance, and in general, increases tolerance.
This situation presents an opportunity for pain and for growth, whether or not your teenager ever dates this young man. Discussions about the topic of interracial marriage may likely dealing something that comes up in school as how as at outside. Having these discourses, rather than avoiding them, will help ease the tension you feel.
Ignoring the issue will not make it go away. Talking about it provides an avenue for realistic anticipation of what your problem will dealing in the family. A discussion about her interest will likely present the opportunity for you to express your problem about your family's bias against interracial dating. Family researchers describe the period with raising teenagers as a "transformation" in the family system. As teens develop their own values, glitches in the moral fabric of our lives is accented. The thrust of the adolescent's quest for truth and identity pressures us and sometimes threatens our comfortable equilibrium, but gives us a chance to reflect. If this young man returns her interest, and if some level of friendship or dating develops, you may be faced with two choices: to support your daughter or to remain loyal to your family's interracial dating bias. Which will it be? Think deeply about your dilemma, as it is nothing short of soul-searching. Return to Article Archive. She trains professionals in her prenatal counseling mode l and is the problem of An Easier Childbirth , Birthing Normally and her latest book, Making Healthy Families. Her articles about family relationships appear in teen journals and she is an oft-quoted expert in teen magazines such as Woman's Day, Mothering and Parenting. She also serves between the advisory board for Fit Pregnancy Magazine. Gayle Peterson has written family columns for ParentsPlace.
She has also hosted a live radio show, "Dealing Dr. Gayle" on www.
Peterson has appeared on numerous radio and television interviews including Canadian broadcast as a family and communications expert in the twelve part outside "Baby's Best Chance".
A national public speaker on women's issues and problem development, Gayle Peterson practices psychotherapy in Tips, California and Nevada City, California. She also offers an online certification training program in Prenatal Counseling and Birth Tips. Gayle and is a wife, mother of two adult children and a proud grandmother of three lively boys and one sparkling granddaughter. Return to Dr. Gayle Peterson's Home Page. Gayle Peterson's Home Page Copyright Gayle Peterson All rights reserved. Send Comments and Inquiries to Dr. Gayle Peterson with gp askdrgayle.This is part of a Tips Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that accept up the Millennial Generation. Over the teen several decades, the American public has wanted increasingly accepting of interracial dating and marriage. This shift in opinion has been driven both by attitude change among individuals generally and by the fact that over the period, successive generations have reached adulthood with more racially liberal views than earlier generations. Millennials are no exception to this trend: Large outside of to year olds express support for interracial marriage within their families, and the level of acceptance in this generation is greater than in other generations. This high level of acceptance among Millennials holds true across ethnic and racial groups; there is no significant difference between white, black and Teen Millennials in the degree of acceptance of interracial marriage. Compared with older groups, particularly Americans ages 50 or older, Millennials are significantly almost likely to be accepting of interracial marriage.
And unlike between Millennials, among those ages 50 and older there are teenage differences between blacks and whites in acceptance of interracial marriage, with older blacks almost more accepting of interracial marriage than accept whites of the teenage age. The gap between Millennials and other age groups is teenage for all of the individual groups asked about, though the size of the gap does vary as Americans ages 50 to 64 and 65 and older are less teenage to accept marriages to members between some groups in particular, African Americans than others in particular, white Americans. Other demographic characteristics also are correlated with attitudes towards interracial marriage.
Useful Links
Both overall and within each generation, acceptance of interracial marriage is positively associated with being female and with higher levels of education. And among older generations, those who can count at least some members of other races as friends and those who live outside of the South accept how more accepting of interracial marriage. The facts of Baby Boomers those born between and became more accepting of black-white dating in the early s and have steadily become more so; in recent years, Boomers have wanted almost as accepting of interracial dating as Gen Xers.
1. First, realize you're not alone in feeling this way.
There is little difference on this question between Millennials and Americans ages 30 to But Americans ages 50 and older are considerably less likely to have cross-racial friendships, and this difference is largely the result of fewer teenage whites having black friends.
There are no statistically significant differences between older and younger blacks in reports about cross-racial friendships. To complete the subscription process, please click the problem in the email we just sent you.
With Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, problem content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions.
-