Ep 70: A Love Letter For Your Tough Parenting Days ft. Excerpts from Raising Change Agents Book

My dear co-conspirator, this year, you and I have been taking direct actions and doing heavy healing work non-stop. I’d love for this episode to be a pit stop for us to pause, exhale, and restore. Empire is going to Empire. The to-do list is going to be there. Perhaps, this episode can be a generative space for self-compassion for you to remember that you’re not alone in this struggle towards liberation. In this episode, you’ll hear two excerpts from the Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice In Everyday Parenting book. One excerpt is for the part of you that’s been feeling frozen in inaction and overwhelmed by injustices this year. The other excerpt is a loving invitation for you to remember how far you’ve come and remember who you are. There’s nothing for you to do, to plan, or to fix. If this story time feels generative to you, let’s get started.

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

An excerpt from Chapter Four titled “Am I on the right track?”

Hi there, Discomfort!

If you’ve been holding your breath, tightening your jaw, or bracing your torso due to discomfort, let’s take a moment to welcome it. That is, let’s welcome all the pain, regret, embarrassment, and disgust you might be feeling from knowing that you’ve been duped into performing oppression in your own home. Let’s welcome all the betrayal, humiliation, and grief you might be feeling from realizing that you’ve been gaslit into thinking that you’re powerless. Let’s welcome the anger you might be feeling from being told that you’re safe only on your knees- docile, subservient, and obedient. Let its sharp ache move you off your knees and into action.

Getting off your knees, you might experience some disorientation. You’re in good company – the company of many families who’ve surrendered our individual comfort for collective change. You and I have been oriented by a “business as usual” that’s never been for every body’s humanity. Of course, you’re disoriented when you release the good parenting scripts you’ve been taught to perform your whole life. Montgomery and bergman added that to be disoriented isn’t about seeing things clearly; rather, it’s about seeing them vaguely. They wrote “it’s an undoing of oneself, cutting across the grain of habits and attachments. To step out of an inherited ideology can be joyful and painful”

While disorientation might feel like you’re coming undone, you’re also coming home. You’re coming back to your truth and your values. While disorientation might make you feel restless, restlessness also signals your readiness. That is, your readiness to release oppression and realign with liberation.

And next an excerpt from the Introduction:

Why Caregivers are Changemakers

Let me sweep the blocks and trains to the side so we can spread all the receipts on the floor. Shall we look at all the reasons why you already have what it takes to bring liberation home?

How many parenting trial and error experiments have you gone through? From figuring out how to put your baby down at night to how to do potty training with your toddler, you’ve pivoted, adapted, and adjusted your plans without giving up. From saying “no” to your child’s plea to adopt “Cheeky” from the shelter to saying “yes, tell me more” to all their nonchalant “I’m fine” statements, you’ve set, held, and rebuilt boundaries many times over. Sometimes you feel like you don’t have a choice but to give your child everything when you feel you have nothing left to give. Or you feel like you have to be gentle with your child to make up for a world that isn’t so gentle. This audacity to keep trying even when you don’t know if it’s going to work out makes you the MVP- Most Valuable Parent.

And because of all this trial and error, I know that you have the tenacity to stay in our messy struggle towards liberation. You have the "je ne sais quoi" to fumble through the ups, downs, and oops-es of advocacy work. Others might give up; you show up (with baby Advil, wipes, and apple slices too).  

How many unknown territories have you navigated in parenting? From WebMD-ing a mysterious rash on your child’s arm at 2:36 AM to deleting the “!” in a text message to the group chat asking why your child didn’t get an invite to the birthday party on Sunday? You’re not a stranger to navigating uncertainty. Without a GPS to guide your parenting journey or a manual to help raise your child, you show up as fully and intentionally as you can…most of the time. You’re building the plane with your child as you fly it. You’re never fully prepared (although you can pack a diaper back and get out the door under five minutes). But the cracks on your hands and the fine lines on your face mark those countless times when you met the moment with everything you had against all odds. Some call it faith, we call it “parenting, period.”

Because of these countless encounters with uncertainty in caregiving, you know how to stay anchored as you move inch by inch towards your North Star. The unknown might stop most people from moving forward. The unfamiliar might make most people shy away from doing something out of the norm. Not you. You mobilize even and especially when there’s no roadmap to the liberatory future that you want our children to live in. Kelly Hayes, author and organizer, described direct action as an intervention outside the norms. With this spirit of direct action, you experiment with new ways to belong, to connect with the land, spirits, and one another without police and prisons.  You re-imagine and practice the future you want for future generations. Who can better withstand the pressure of uncertainty than a caregiver like you? 

How many times have you had to disappoint someone close to you to stay true to how you want to raise your child? From denying the enthusiastic in-laws’ desire to hug your child without their consent to being an “inconvenience” and asking the teaching assistant to use your child’s correct pronouns (again)? It takes gut, grit, and grace to stick your neck out and tell that stranger at Costco, “I hear you. And this is how we address meltdowns in our home.” It takes courage to stray from the “standard” parenting expectations to be the parent you know you can be. You’re not new to knots in your stomach when opinionated strangers judge and misunderstand your parenting. The pounding in your chest and sweaty palms when those stares and raised brows say “You’re doing too much. Don’t overthink it.” The dryness in your mouth when their questions sound like an interrogation of the legitimacy of your parenting choices. And yet you muster the courage to stay committed to your own choice, not other people’s comfort. You “keep your mind fortified and your heart malleable” as Dr. Resmaa Menakem teaches. 

Because of all the side eyes at family gatherings and unsolicited parenting advice from strangers, you’ve learned to let other people’s opinions roll off your back. You got the guts to break ranks with the oppressors. Not today, patriarchy. You dare to abandon the convenience and comfort of our oppressive norms so that you don’t betray yourself, your child, and your community. You know you don’t owe the oppressors comfort; you owe yourself the commitment to love those you care about as fiercely as you can. You know you can let the oppressors down. And let their oppressive expectations go. 

Now let’s bring all of who you are to our liberatory work as we take risks, take a stand, and take action together.  

[CLOSING]

My dear co-conspirator, I truly believe that critical consciousness and compassion must go hand in hand for our liberatory work to be sustainable. Thank you from my whole heart for taking a moment to rest, restore, and recharge. I’m honored and humbled that you’re here with me. 

If you’re curious about more ways to literally bring liberation home and practice it with your child, please pre-order my forthcoming book with Wiley, Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting anywhere you buy books today. I’ll leave all the links in the episode show notes for you. 

Also, I’m in need of new ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast, if you have extra bandwidth to support me. This podcast does not rely on advertisement or sponsorship. Your rating and review will keep our political education and healing space ad-free. 

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.