Ep 82: Raising Kids to Be “Good” VS. Raising Kids to “Make Good Trouble”

Have you ever felt like you’ve done all you can to raise your children “right” but something still feels incomplete? And this feeling isn't about not doing enough, not having enough information, or not having the right mindset or discipline. Absolutely not. If you are like the many caregivers who have shared this feeling with me over the past three months, this feeling is more about how to raise kids to be good when the world is yikes on bikes. I’d love to paraphrase what I’ve heard, see how that lands with you, and discuss what we can change when it comes to practicing social justice in everyday caregiving. If you want to give your children a better life and make your practice of social justice in everyday caregiving strategic, satiating, and sustaining, this episode is for you.

Caregivers tell me that “I just want to raise my kids to be good. I don’t want them to grow up and be jerks. I want them to be safe. I want them to get a decent job, pay bills, and use deodorant too.” All fair points for our children to survive under white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy. This goal, however, often shapes everyday parenting to be about teaching our children to have all the skills to survive (which by the way isn’t the same as giving them a better life where they survive and thrive, right? But we’ll come back to this). And how we teach these survival skills depends on how overwhelmed and freaked out we are by the state of the world. The more tired and triggered we are, the more intensely we want to protect our children. But this protection often looks like us controlling them to be obedient. Or, we might push them to be productive. Or, we might shape them to be perfect. No judgment here. Because being obedient, productive, and perfect are all survival skills in the Hunger Games of Capitalism. Teaching survival becomes the bulk of parenting. And with the energy we have left, we funnel our social justice intentions into buying dolls with different skin colors, reading books with diverse characters, or decorating protest signs and going to mass protests together as a family. These add-on social justice family activities are also more top-of-mind when you see a post on social media about gut-wrenching incidents, whether that's the latest harm inflicted by cops and corporations in your neighborhoods, in Palestine, and everything in between.

And on days that you’re not numbed out and dissociated, you find yourself still rolling in bed at 2 AM wondering if you’ve done enough advocacy today, or worse, wondering if your actions today were performative.

Ooo, it stings a bit to say all of this out loud. How was that for you? This approach to social justice parenting is common. If this is where you’re at and what you have capacity for, by all means, please carry on. And I want to make this episode so you and I can have a real talk about how we can make social justice in parenting a practice that is strategic, satiating, and sustaining. So that you don’t have to feel empty or performative. So that we can keep abolishing policing in our heads, in our homes, and in our neighborhoods together, one interaction at a time. That’s why in this episode, you and I are going to discuss the limitation of this idea of raising kids to be good and explore an alternative which is raising kids to “make good trouble” per John Lewis. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.

[OPENING]

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]

One reason why our efforts in practicing social justice in everyday caregiving still feel hollow is because we’ve been duped to believe that a good family raises good children. And what white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy actually means when they advertise “raising good kids” to us is raising them to be good at upholding the current system - a system that’s too good at dehumanizing certain groups of people for the ruling class to keep hoarding wealth and power. It means raising children to be good at performing whatever social identity scripts got assigned to them. So that they walk, talk, take up space in ways that signal they’re a good Asian, or they’re femme-presenting enough, or they’re the right kind of neurodivergent but not that kind of neurospicy. When our children are good at performing these scripts, they can fit in, conform to the norms, and uphold the status quo without risking losing access to food, housing, and healthcare.

And for us to raise them to perfectly perform these scripts and be good (or small and safe)? We tend to unintentionally punish anything authentic to our children that isn’t approved by White, colonial, capitalist patriarchy…to protect them, to make sure they fit in, to make sure they get a good job and keep a roof over their heads. To say it another way, we end up surveilling our children to keep them safe and we end up policing and punishing them to keep them perfectly in line.

This constant surveillance and policing drain your energy. And with the little energy you have left, you do what you can to model social justice for your children. So you might donate money to a mutual aid request every time someone is harmed by racism in maternal health care instead of demanding reproductive justice. Or you might dust off the trusted “how to talk to kids about racism” script when police brutality incidents happen (again) instead of dismantling policing and building a local crisis response team that doesn’t involve calling the police. A one-off donation or a family conversation about gun violence has a time, a function, and a place but it’s not an end all be all. They are reactive, not responsive. Just like in parenting, being reactive might get the job done short-term but doesn’t address the heart of the issue long-term. One isn’t better than the other as long as you’re aware which mode you’re in.

I often think of reactive strategies like snacks that keep you from being hangry but not nourishing enough to keep you satiated. Responsive strategies are meals that are nourishing, intentional, and leave you satiated and energized. Or IYKYK, reactive strategies are reformist; responsive strategies abolitionist.

If this season, your capacity only allows you to reach for snacks or reactive strategies, then please do what you need to do without shaming and blaming yourself for not feeling full or fulfilled. But the therapist-organizer in me secretly hopes that you’re not eating only snacks all by yourself. I hope you have a co-conspirator who can bring a meal to share with you from time to time too.

But if this season, you’re open and ready for something more substantial like meals or responsive strategies? How about we shift from a reactive approach of raising good children to a more responsive approach of raising them to make good troubles as change agents? Raising kids to be “good” doesn’t build a better future. Raising them to “make good trouble” does because they dismantle the game that’s rigged against them and build a new one where every body - human, animal, water, mountain, and plant alike - can thrive.

It starts with when we work with our emotional triggers and reactive habits that make us unintentionally police our children. Instead of the usual “do what I say now,” we resist this power-over policing, abolish policing in our heads and in our homes with our children, and intentionally choose power-with with our children instead. We go from “do what I say now” to “looks like you have a different plan in mind. I want to hear it so we can see what we can do together.” We go from power-over policing to power-with parenting. We’re not controlling them. We’re not coddling them. We provide care. We meet our children where they’re at, most of the time. And this power-with does two things: a) it promotes our children’s brain development, social-emotional learning, and resilience and b) it models to them liberatory relationship skills they can bring to their future that’s free from policing, surveillance, and punishment. Yes, the relationship skills that they will need to move through discomfort, hurt, harm, and conflict without punishing or canceling their co-conspirators; to love one another without abandoning themselves and their boundaries; and to make decisions and share governance equitably…so that they can make good trouble with their chosen communities. To put it in an abolitionist language, when you pivot from power-over policing to power-with parenting, you abolish policing at home and rehearse a liberatory future with your children at the same time.

This responsive approach to social justice in everyday parenting is small, not flashy like mass protests or posting your selfie with Mamdani or Angela Davis. It’s mundane, not made for algorithm and applause. It’s care, radical care, not clout. But I know it will leave you aligned with your values in liberation. And because of that it satiates you and sustains your struggle towards liberation.

How do we start? We start with our emotional triggers and reactive habits. They’re the most powerful portal for change. We use the Social Justice Parenting Playbook framework in the Raising Change Agents book which is available everywhere you buy books. Or, you can DIY your own social justice parenting today with these nine episodes, all of which are linked in the episode show notes for you. Just in case you want to write it down, they are episodes 72 all the way to episode 80. You got this and I got you.

[CLOSING]

To close out this episode and Season of our podcast, I see how much you love your children and you want to make sure you give them the world by raising them to be good. But you already know that we can equip them with the skills they need to build a better world that honors everyone’s dignity and raise them to make good trouble.

Being good is being a good, obedient, docile, and compliant cog in the machine of oppression. We promote conformity and proximity to power. And we punish anything that’s whole and authentic to our children.   

And when your child isn’t witnessed and honored for all of who they truly are (because some of their identities aren’t white, male, middle class, Christian, able-bodied, with English as the first language), it’s hard for them to give it to others what they didn’t get. So the cycle continues: they grow up and go to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion webinar to learn about biases but they don’t know in their bones how to show up, hold space, and be with their peers who look differently, love differently, and learn differently. But that's what those peers need to truly belong.

My dear co-conspirator, I just want our kids to grow up and never have to take DEI webinars ever again because they know in their bones that they are so loved for exactly who they are. Therefore, holding space for their friends to be exactly who they are too- no matter their race, class, gender, disability- is simply non-negotiable.

And I know that you’re with me on this: what got us this far isn’t enough to get to that future free from the carceral reality of punishment, policing, surveillance, control, and coercion. Things must change. And what you and I can change today is how we raise our future generations.

For us to get to a future where our children can be all of who they are without policing, punishment, and surveillance, let’s raise our kids to make good trouble, let’s raise change agents, and let’s raise hell together.

And that’s a wrap for the Season. I cannot thank you enough for being here, being you, and being in practice with me. You know every episode I make heals something within me. I get to listen to my ancestors and spirits who guide each episode and I get straight to the microphone. To me that’s a gift that keeps on giving, all thanks to you. So, no matter where you’re listening to right now, I’m sending you my love, my gratitude, my audacity, and my courage. I want to keep making new episodes for and with you. And ways for you to reciprocate and support this work are

a) buy your copies of Raising Change Agents,

b) leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and

c) join our Come Back to Care Patreon.

I’ll take the following month off for summer break. In solidarity and sass. Until after the break, please take care