Ep 72: Why I’m Done With “How To Talk To Kids About …” Scripts

I have nothing against any “how to talk to your kids about …” type scripts- from gun violence to immigration rights to police brutality and racism…as long as these scripts are the start, not the end. Sometimes you need these scripts to get you started and that’s great. In fact, if you need one about immigration rights, episode 67 is for you. Or if you need one that you can adapt to all types of violence inflicted by white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy, the 4S’s of Conversation Building Block in episode 10 is there for you. But if you’re looking for a way to practice social justice in everyday parenting — not just during mass protests or when the state violently murders people for exercising our voices and choices, this episode is for you.

[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 In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too.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]

Whenever there’s an episode of gun violence or a police brutality incident, parents and caregivers always ask me for a script they can use to talk to their kids about the issue. Like you, they already know that scripts alone won’t solve gun violence. You might have already said “this is not sustainable” under your breath far too many times too. But after working three jobs to put food on the table and survive the Hunger Games of Capitalism, you might only have enough bandwidth to reach for scripts and have the talk with your child. Many parents told me that they soothe their conscience by saying to themselves “well at least we have the talk. It’s better than nothing.” I know that this sense of powerlessness is enraging and heartbreaking all at once. 

Making sense of the moment

There will be more lives lost to police brutality and gun violence. There will be more like Renee Good, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Refaat Alareer, Saleh Aljafarawi, and too many other names to say. To move towards a future where our children don’t have to worry about becoming another name in this list or a trending hashtag, we need to do more than have “the talk” with our children when someone is kidnapped or murdered. We need to do more than instill fear in our children in the hope that it will protect them. We need to do more than wave signs with our children at the next mass protest. We need to do more than react to injustices as they occur. Because these injustices are not one-of occasions. They are all consequences of the violence rich, white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy uses to protect the status quo. 

A reactive approach has never been enough to upend this status quo. To truly prepare ourselves and our children for the uncertainty and chaos ahead and to build a more liberatory future, we need a more revolutionary approach. So instead of reacting with scripts, let’s build our social justice skills within ourselves and our children by making social justice a verb in everyday parenting. Then, we can plug into community organizing with more confidence and clarity. 

Re-imagination parenting to be political

So my invitation here is to ask a different question. Instead of “How do I talk to my kids about the human-designed chaos to prepare them to survive systemic oppression?” … we ask how do I go beyond parenting scripts, tips, and hacks and make social justice a practice, a daily practice my family and I will practice together, a practice that isn’t just an intellectual dialogue at a book club or naval gazing self-reflection at another webinar but a practice that demands that we unlearn what’s familiar and comfortable so that we can come back home to our bodies, come back to care for the land, the neighborhood, and the spirits (however you define it).

I’m sharing this invitation so that we can re-imagine parenting to be political in practical ways. I share it with a full awareness of how exhausted we both are from surviving the Hunger Games of Capitalism. But our reactive approach needs an upgrade. It’s long overdue and both of us know it. For you and I to meet this moment of fascism effectively, we must make social justice a practice, not just an occasional talk. And we must make this practice irresistible and sustainable too.

It might seem like I’m asking you DO more than you have the energy for. It’s quite the opposite, truly. I’m actually asking you to BE more- be more rooted and centered in your bandwidth, be more in alignment with your values, be more cunning and strategic so as to not use the “master’s tools” in your own home when you’re triggered and tired, and be in the practice of liberation over and over again…together.

[CLOSING]

This whole Season 7 of our podcast will bite-size and right-size different components from the Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting book (pre-order available now everywhere you buy books). We’ll walk the social justice walk in our homes and in our neighborhoods to never let fascism exhaust us emotionally and silence us. But for now, let’s sit with these two questions, if you’d like, until we dive into specific actions in the following episodes. First, what might social justice look like in your family when you commit to making it a practice? And second, because we’re not bootstrapping our way to collective liberation…not today individualism, who do you have in your corner that you can turn to for support so that you can show up to this practice called social justice parenting and be the parent you know you can be…most of the time?

If this episode fills your cup, please share it with folks you love, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or join our Come Back to Care Patreon to keep our learning space advertisement free. This show is fully listener funded. I cannot thank you enough for being here with me and raising our future generations to be change agents who survive and thrive. 

I’m with you, my dear co-conspirator, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.