Have You Taken Your Children to Any Protests/demonstrations?

I have taken them many times. The deal is I go with another person and if there is any violence, the minute it begins I leave. I also have a beautiful voice and I sing if it seems the crowd will get violent or is in a bad mood.
I sing Imagine by John Lennen or We Shall Overcome and all around me begin to sing. The singing ends the aggressive behavior some people might let themselves get into.

I took mine to a Tea Party gathering. They had a blast playing in the park. There was absolutely no violence and I felt perfectly safe having my children there.

No, I don't think a protest is the right place for children. Especially young ones. I think that they SHOULD be informed on what is happening though.
There is just too much that can go wrong, and emotions run too high. I think it would scare them.

I REALLY hate that those stupid Westboro Church people take their kids when they protest. They are saying intentionally inflammatory things in hopes that their rights are violated so they can sue. Half the time they have to be escorted out for their own safety, yet they still take their kids. Makes me sick.

I do understand that there is a BIG difference between the two, but I still wouldn't want my kids to be there if tempers flare.

While it's a right, it is also a risk to protest. Injuries, arrests, and death can happen at *any* protest (and the very similar but different toned rallies, sit-ins, and marches to boot). People should never forget that when they go as far as to publicly display their opinion that they can get hurt and even die for standing up for those opinions. Very few protests end "peacefully."

Since protests are by nature emotionally charged, one can not predict how those around you (this includes both protestors and police) will act or react. There are alot of *young* people living today who don't remember or even know the gravity of the violent, bloody and tumultuous 50's and 60's (civil rights and viet nam protests and so on). From the current news coverage, it really seems many out there believe things can't go wrong at a protest, that because it's a right, they have an upper hand. No one seems to remember children and adults alike were beaten and attacked by dogs and hosed down during the civil rights protests.

Yes, protesting is a right, and as most protestors are adults it is usually an informed decision on their part to be there regardless of the end result. However, things need to be kept in perspective. So, no, I wouldn't bring children. If you've ever seen a protest go wrong or turn riot, you wouldn't dream of bringing your children to a protest. Under most circumstances, they aren't choosing willingly to be there. They're there because you brought them. In the case of the 60's race riots it was often circumstance.

If you're speaking about the Occupy protests, most kids probably don't even understand the depth of what is being protested. Most parrot the beliefs of their parents, not speak out for what they have come to truly believe and understand. Most probably don't understand the risk they're facing and that they could get hurt, die or witness their parents getting hurt, arrested or dying. They merely become unfortunate casualties when it goes bad...as they are only there for the parent...not the cause.

Yes, I took my kids in the freezing cold to several health care rallies. We spent time in the car talking about what health care is, why it's important, why lots of people don't have it in America, how assembling peacefully has always been a way for citizens to stand up for changes they believe in. We had a good time. My 4 year old told a reporter she thought it was wrong for companies refuse to treat sick kids and it was put in the local paper.

We still have no affordable health care coverage, but at least my kids learned a little about the process of protest. We drove by a small Wall Street meeting in our town on the day it was global and they asked what the people were protesting, so they knew what a protest was. They've also watched civil rights rallies and Viet Nam protests on DVDs in our home, so it was nice to show them that people still do it today.

My mom took us on several PETA protests as kids, and we loved it. I think my brother even dressed as a bloody baby seal for one!

Ephie, it's according to what kind of protest.

Jennifer S. has an EXCELLENT comment about children and that church that is just a front for hatred spewing from their mouths. They are raising their children to become terrorists.

That being said, we are Americans and we have the RIGHT to peaceful assembly and protests. Do bad things happen? Oh yes. Kent State is STILL burned in our hearts and minds. How those shooters live with themselves still sometimes bothers me. And I hope that cop who sprayed pepper spray last week at people he walked past loses his job. I wouldn't feel safe around that cop no matter WHERE I was, including sitting in a restaurant!

Truthfully, I am in awe of people who continue to protest while being in a large crowd with police who are bullies like we've seen on the news. Do I have that kind of courage? No. But as an American, I believe in their right to protest. Yes I do.

Yes we have but they were very peaceful rallies. I wouldn't if it was a bunch of screaming chants and police were very present. The ones we went to were just a bunch of speeches, patriotic music and even a political rap,(funny at a TEA Party rally) and the highlight was the funnel cake and lemonade.

Now that the nation's boiling point is almost being reached, I do not think I would take our kids to anymore of them. I worry about safety issues.

Good luck and best wishes!

i took my kids to a tea party rally in a suburb that is known around the country to be very safe & peaceful & once had the top rated schools in america.....the tea party people are always so nice & peaceful BUT there are always the 'party crashers' that are not peaceful & there to cause chaos intentionally.....

i have had to cover my kids ears due to the lack of respect from the opposing side.......and i won't take them anymore, there are too many people that cannot protest peacefully

i would not take my kids to something like 'occupy wallstreet'..... the majority of people there are only there to cause problems, even among themselves there is stealing & a lot of chaos....they are barking up the wrong street, they should be at the doors of the Fat Rat Unions & Bill Clinton for reforming the CRA & changed the lending guidelines.

personally i feel anything that happens to people that are still down there deserve whatever happens to them, even the woman war veteran in critical condition..........they have been asked & warned enough, stop breaking the law.........i firmly believe when problems start, I go, and they should have left weeks ago

Both of my kids were born in Berkeley. Heck yeah, I'll take them to protests. It's their future we're talking about here. I think it's a fairly well-known fact that Oakland cops are thugs (but then, a lot of people they deal with are thugs, too, to be fair - you do kind of have to be a badass to be a cop in Oakland if you hope to live). I wouldn't take my kids to a rally in Oakland because things tend to get really out of hand really quickly there. San Francisco, on the other hand, knows how to peacefully protest. My daughter's first protest was the anti-war rally in 2003. She was 6 months old. There was no danger. Lots of families, San Francisco's finest were out in force and giving us the thumbs-up. ;)

Nope. Shan't. Not unless you count Pride Parade. (Which I don't... as it's a parade).

Why? Because I grew up in SE Asia. Because I was in LA in 1992. Because I've been in the US military and private military (and have been trained in both riot control -different from crowd control, which is a police matter and should never be handed over to the military, VASTLY different training- and urban warfare). When a demonstration is peaceful; great. No worries. But crowds can turn, and they can turn fast (especially if there are paid troublemakers planted to turn a crowd into a mob). And when that happens, things get serious very, very quickly.

If things are bad enough to protest, I want my kid somewhere SAFE.

No. Not in the world we live in today. It's not safe. Look what happened in Oakland. That was supposed to be a peaceful assembly, and their were children there when that whole thing with the police happened. Not safe.

I definitely would not take my child to a protest.

My only experience with this was when I was in college. We were on a road trip and happened to be passing through Wichita(or was it Oklahoma City?) on the National Day of Prayer. We stopped to join in the group that was observing the event peacefully outside a city building. I noticed one particular family there- a mother, father, and young child. While we were watching, the father was taken away in handcuffs. I have no idea why, because this seemed to be a peaceful gathering and I did not see any type of protest. (I wondered if it could have had something to do with anti-abortion.) The thing that haunts me about it was the child saying "Mommy, why is Daddy getting arrested again?".

I would not. Just because it's intended to be peaceful, doesn't mean it will be. Kids don't need to be exposed to the negativity & violence that can occur at such things.

DH took DD and his adult son to the Stephen Colbert event on the mall a while back. DD was 2.

He said that aside from them not being able to get there, they had issues getting OUT.

In any crowded situation (even a non-political event) you have to weigh your very small child's safety with how much you feel you need to be there. If I were to go to such an event again, I'd get a sitter for DD. I felt uneasy at a recent "taste of" event with DD in the stroller. It was so packed that she would have gotten stepped on or lost in the crowd.

I would not take a child (less than a teenager) with me to a protest and would not bring a teen if the protest was likely to be met with great resistance. It's one thing for an adult to be tear gassed or arrested, but not something I'd want my minor to go through.

If my child was old enough to understand and had an opinion about it, then I would allow them to go as long as it was a peaceful protest. But until then, no way.

I would be going to our local "occupy" protest with my daughter if I weren't 37 weeks pregnant. I'm just not feeling like going most places. I would be a little concerned about behavior of police/protesters -but in my experience, you can choose to stay on the edge of the group so you have an easy exit route. Also, tensions don't rise to a fever pitch without warning. You should be able to leave if tensions are getting high.

I feel disappointed that we haven't been and may still take a trip down there -if I can get myself out of the house at all!

J.

Probably not. I remember when we had the Terri Schiavo situation down here. There were multitudes of people from both sides protesting at the nursing home that he was staying. There were folks getting arrested for crossing a line to "bring Terri water". I think it was fine for adults to make a stand for their beliefs whether I agreed or not. However, there were parents that allowed their children to get arrested for bringing Terri water. Really? How the heck can a 10-year old really understand such a complex situation and why would a parent encourage a child to break the law? It just made no sense to me...

I used to take my daughter to stand outside the abortion clinic with me when I went there to pray, but I had to stop when she wouldn't stay in her stroller anymore because we were close to a busy roadway. I didn't feel threatened by any passers by, although I was a little worried that she would pick up on some of the words that were yelled at us. The police were always very helpful to us, but I lived in a smaller town, and we were a small protest.