Ep 28: What Parents Can Learn About Boundary Setting From Black and Asian Solidarity

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 In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too.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

Welcome to Episode 28 of the Come Back to Care Podcast.

Have you ever been in a situation where you said yes to an ask but you said it too soon so you ended up resenting your decision later? Or maybe you said no to an ask and you kept wondering ‘should I have said yes? Am I a terrible human for not helping that person?’ This dilemma of how to set boundaries is so common so if you’ve felt this way before, you’re not alone. So in today’s episode we’re going to talk about how solidarity can teach us a lot about boundary setting both as a social justice advocate and definitely as a parent. 

In this episode, you and I are going to explore what solidarity means by studying how Black and Asian communities have advocated for collective liberation together throughout history. Then, we’ll explore a key component for this kind of solidarity to blossom: boundary setting. We’ll unpack what just-right boundaries look like in social justice advocacy and in parenting. And we’ll wrap this episode up with a discussion about how our inner child wounds affect our boundary setting skills. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started. 

What is solidarity?

When I think of solidarity, I often reach for the medicine of Lilla Watson who’s an Aboriginal elder, activist and educator from Queensland, Australia. Watson wrote quote: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” End quote. 

There are so many nuances in those two sentences that shed light on the richness of solidarity. First, solidarity is about people coming together to meet one another’s survival needs. Second, we know that our struggles as Dean Spade, a lawyer and trans activist, puts it… aren’t individual moral failings but a systemic problem quote “from exploitation and the maldistribution of resources” end quote. And with this shared political analysis of the root causes of the struggle, we mobilize together to dismantle systems that are white supremacist, colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal. 

As you can see from these nuances, the texture of solidarity is so different from that of charity. It’s also not a transaction where I scratch your back then you scratch mine. Mikki Kendall, the author of Hood Feminism, puts it so powerfully, quote: “… as adults, as people who are doing hard work, you cannot expect your feelings to be the center of someone else’s struggle. In fact, the most realistic approach to solidarity is one that assumes that sometimes it simply isn’t your turn to be the focus of the conversation…when building solidarity, there’s no room for savior myths.” End quote.

In social justice work, it’s clear that true allyship is rooted deeply in solidarity. On the other hand, performative allyship is rooted in saviorism and charity.

If you’d like to dive a little deeper on performative allyship, I’ll leave a link to Episode 5: What Parents Can Learn from Performative Allyship & Performative Parenting along with all the books and resources mentioned in this episode and the transcript in the show notes for you. You’ll find them at comebacktocare.com/podcast. 

Before you and I explore solidarity vs. saviorism applied to parenting, I’d love to take another step in our political education on solidarity by studying the solidarity between Black and Asian communities. We’ll start with the model minority myth. Then, we’ll unpack caste oppression in South Asian communities. I want to use these examples because the mainstream media often highlights a racial tension between Black and Asian communities in the US, pitting us against each other. While I must acknowledge that anti-Blackness in Asian communities and colorism are real issues that need to be addressed, healed, and unlearned, they can’t overshadow the solidarity between these two communities. Especially when we come together to support each other despite white supremacist’s efforts to divide us and distract us with this in-fighting. 

Let’s begin with the model minority myth. The model minority myth is a stereotype where Asian American Pacific Islander (or AAPI) individuals are portrayed as rich, highly educated, and overall well-to-do and therefore don’t struggle with mental health issues or racism at all. Yeah, I just said that and I’m cringing at the same time. So, let’s contextualize this damaging myth in its historical context so we can see that it has white supremacy written all over it. Rewind to 1946 when the last Japanese internment camp was officially closed. 

John Tateishi told NPR Podcast Code Switch quote “the experience was both humiliating and disorienting. "We came out of these camps with a sense of shame and guilt, of having been considered betrayers of our country." He says that after the war most families never spoke about it. "There were no complaints, no big rallies or demands for justice because it was not the Japanese way." End quote. 

Out of fear of being punished by the system again and certainly out of a need to survive, many Japanese Americans at the time kept their heads down, their voices quiet, and their bodies busy…working hard and assimilating…to make sure that structural punishment never happened again.  

Responding to this survival strategy of assimilation, William Petersen, a prominent white sociologist, described Japanese Americans as model minority in a 1966 New York Times article titled “Success Story, Japanese-American Style.” In this article, Petersen wrote about Japanese Americans’ success- despite being put in the internment camps- that came from strong work ethics, family values, and respect for authority, which by the way were the qualities that were lacking in African-Americans according to Peterson. 

Scott Kurashige, an author, activist, and ethnic studies professor, said in an interview with Vox Media quote: “The model minority stereotype really isn’t meant to define Asian Americans. Rather, it’s meant to define African Americans as deficient and inferior to white people by using Asian Americans as a proxy or a pawn to serve that purpose.” End quote.

To put humans into groups of model minority and problem minority, you gotta remove their humanity from the picture so you can stack them in a hierarchy and watch them fight for crumbs just to get closer to the top of the power structure. 

Despite this dehumanizing tactic that drives a wedge of racial tension between Black and Asian communities in the US, we have been mobilizing and organizing together for our collective liberation throughout history. From Frederick Douglass’s speech in Boston way back in 1867 when he spoke out against the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigrants from becoming US citizens to Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American activist, working together for the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. 

Another important example is how South Asian activists draw courage and strength from Black and Black Trans liberation movements in their ongoing efforts to abolish the heartbreaking violence of caste apartheid. While white supremacy violently forces Black bodies to be at the bottom of their made-up hierarchy, the caste system dehumanizes caste-oppressed people, declaring them “untouchable,” in order to justify the oppression. 

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit American activist, founder of the Equality Lab, and the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition wrote about Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, a caste abolitionist, and Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois discussed the parallel between the violence of caste apartheid in South Asia and racism in the US back in 1946. Soundararajan also shared another example where Dalits, the name that the caste-oppressed people chose to name themselves, read the Black Panthers’ manifesto and drew courage from the Black Panthers to organize the Dalit Panthers.

Do you notice the strength and solidarity that’s rooted in the shared struggles of oppression?

To move up the timeline to the present, we’ve seen many examples of how Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate movements rallied together against police brutality. Or how Black and Asian Christians in Chicago organized a panel discussion to unpack anti-Asian and anti-Black racism. 

Alright, to recap, these examples reflect the definitions of solidarity we discussed at the top of the episode. Black and Asian communities come together to meet one another’s real survival needs while being very clear about the root causes of those shared struggles, namely white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism. We abolish the false hierarchy and bridge the racial divide not to feel nice about saving someone in need…no saviorism, right? Rather it’s more about collective healing, collective action, and collective liberation.  

[MIDROLL]

I’m so grateful that you’re here, hanging out with me and exploring social justice parenting and inner child re-parenting every other week. If you’re also someone who enjoys reading newsletters, I write one for you every Sunday morning. Please consider signing up for the newsletter if you’d like to receive compassionate, reflective, and actionable information on decolonized parenting and inner child re-parenting. Just visit comebacktocare.com/newsletter and I’ll see you in your inbox. Again, it’s comebacktocare.com/newsletter. Alright back to the episode. 

[END MIDROLL]

Boundary & Solidarity

Now that you and I have seen beautiful examples of solidarity, let’s unpack one thing that they have in common. In one word: boundaries. 

Having boundaries is often misunderstood as a shorthand for “leave me alone.” Or on the other end of the spectrum, lacking boundaries is misconstrued as being kindhearted, as in “wow, you’re always there for me whenever I need you.”

Nedra Glover Tawwab, a boundary expert and therapist, defines boundaries as quote: “expectations and needs that help you feel safe and comfortable in your relationships. Expectations in relationships help you stay mentally and emotionally well. An essential part of feeling comfortable in interactions with others is also learning to say no or yes”.  End quote.  

Honoring your boundaries supports you in maintaining your individual self- with all of your safety, dignity, and integrity- while staying connected with others. With boundaries, you pour into other people’s cup with joy instead of resentment because your cup isn’t dry. With boundaries, you receive when others pour into your cup with dignity instead of shame because you trust that those who are helping you respect your humanity and aren’t here to save in you. That’s why boundaries cultivate belonging even though saying yes or no can stir up discomfort.

Boundaries open up a space where you and I can shine without having to dim each other’s light. Neither of us has to puff up to prove our worth or shrink down to be nice and polite. There’s a sense of security within boundaries where you and I can simply be…together. 

Prentis Hemphill beautifully wrote quote “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” End quote

Within that distance is where you and I can fight for our liberation in solidarity. It’s where both of us take risks and take action to meet our survival needs but not at the cost of our dignity. We trust in each other’s ability to hold that healthy boundary to protect our peace. 

At the end of January, I facilitated a grief processing space for my Asian American and Pacific Islander or AAPI community to process the collective loss from the Lunar New Year shootings in California. And I poured a lot from my heart and soul into that facilitation. So, I blocked off the following day to rest. Then, my community organizer friend asked me to help coordinate a rally to end police brutality and honor Tyre Nichols, Keenan Anderson and other victims of police brutality. Rest in Power. And as soon as I got the text message, I immediately stood up, grabbed my phone to text my friend: “Absolutely, count me in.” I felt my core engaged and hands and feet were buzzing like “let’s go!” But I felt so disconnected from the rest of my body. I didn’t feel centered. I didn’t feel grounded. I know this pattern so well because it’s my pattern when I override my own needs for rest so I can say yes to all 5,000 things people need from me. So, I went back and forth in my head for about 10 minutes. My inner monologue was doing the most, going back and forth between “I need to be there and show up in solidarity for my friend and the Black community,” and “No I can’t because I need to rest.” The struggle was real and so was the discomfort because it could easily turn into a scenario where I override my needs and dishonor myself by throwing my boundaries out the window to go to this important rally. And I wouldn’t able to show up with my 100% because my cup was dry from the grief circle I facilitated the day before. And I could end up being a burden to those at the rally.    

So I had to pause. Check in with my bandwidth and check in with my boundaries. And I told my friend “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there in person at the rally. But I can drop off food at the organizer’s meeting place or offer to babysit the organizers’ children so they don’t have to arrange for childcare.” And I could almost feel every cell in my body sigh a breath of relief. I could still feel my core engaged, getting ready for action… but ready for action that met my friend’s needs and also honored my capacity and boundaries. I felt centered. My chest felt warm. My pelvic floor was grounded. 

I can feel that distance Prentis was talking about where I can love me and my friends simultaneously. Or what my grandmother taught me about solidarity which was giving in ways that makes my heart smile instead of depleting it. 

Honoring my boundaries helps me show up for my community in a just-right way where I can honor my dignity and those I’m supporting. It’s not too much where I bite off more than I can chew…coordinating the rally and trying to end world hunger at the same time. It’s also not too little where I stay in my comfort zone without ever taking risks and taking action. When I honor my boundaries, the action is just-right.  

Does that resonate with you? Maybe you do too much and override your boundaries, especially when your cup is dry, then you end up resenting and regretting your decision to help. Or you do too little because your boundaries are too rigid, then you end up still wondering “did I do enough? Could I have done more?” “Was that performative?”

Or in parenting, you do too much and override your boundaries when you move in to fix the situation instead of hanging back a bit and letting your child figure it out with you. Or you do too little because your boundaries are too rigid where you believe that you can’t intervene because your child needs to sink or swim. They need to learn to figure it out by themselves if they’re gonna make it in this tough world. Hmm, I just sounded exactly like my mom there. 

So what does that just-right boundary look like so you can meet your child’s needs in solidarity?

Just like the examples of Black and Asian solidarity we covered earlier, you may be raising your child from the stance where you don’t own them and you don’t need to mold them into someone you need them to be. You see their humanity and dignity and you’re here to be with them and perhaps open your heart to see what your child can teach you (which is something I have the honor of hearing over and over again in the social justice parenting and inner child reparenting program I facilitate called In-Out-N-Through). Similarly, you may have those just-right boundaries where you don’t need to sacrifice your dignity to become a martyr to serve your child in order to earn that good parenting title from white, capitalist patriarchy. With the just-right boundaries you set, you know you don’t have to abandon yourself for your child because your dignity and humanity matter as much as your child’s. 

And I know that this isn’t new to you because when you feel supported enough, safe enough, and connected enough, it’s easier to say yes and say no with this just-right kind of boundary. 

But when you’re overwhelmed or triggered, you may revert back to old survival strategies that you had to over-learn when you were little. 

This is why our inner child wounds can complicate something that’s already difficult to do like boundary setting. 

Boundary & Inner Child Wounds

A safe-enough way to explore how your upbringing might be shaping your boundary setting skills is to think of when you tend to say yes to requests or invitations, especially when you know deep down your cup is dry and your body is screaming “I’m too tired. Please don’t add anything else on my plate.” 

Before I share some scenarios, please know that your tendency to say yes is an adaptation or a survival intelligence not a deficit or a flaw in your character. No shame here. And if there’s an object, person, plant, or pet in your space that is grounding to you, please know that you can connect with it to resource and re-center yourself when discomfort arises during this short self-reflection exercise…if that feels right to you. Actually, I’m going to bring the candle a little closer because the scent grounds me and I’m also going to put my feet down on the floor so I can feel gravity supporting me. If it’s available to you, please take a moment to do what your body needs. 

Alright scenario one: you might tend to say yes so you can take charge, take care of the task, and get it done. Because when other people do things, past experience tells you that things tend to fall apart or end up not being up to your standards. So, you might as well just go ahead and take care of it. Why bother letting other people help if you’re just going to feel disappointed after?

Scenario two: you might tend to say yes to people please and make the other person happy. You’d rather suck it up and push your feelings down than to risk being an inconvenience to the other person. Deep down you might fear that they would walk out of the relationship if you really tell them how you’re feeling or what you’re needing. So, might as well do it yourself and keep the feathers unruffled and all the customers happy. 

The final scenario is: you might tend to say yes and shoulder all the responsibilities because you want to prove your values and worth. Deep down you might fear that when you stop offering values to others, you’re no longer valuable. So the other person will walk out of the relationship. Because of that, you might as well say yes to prove your worth and earn love. 

Still with me? If you need to reconnect with that object, person, pet, or plant to recenter yourself, or sway your body, hum, feel your feet on the ground, or take a moment to take care of your body, please do so. I’m doing it too. I’m right here with you. 

Which one resonates with you the most? When I’m with my father, I’m scenario three where I need to overdo it and overdeliver to be worthy. When I’m with my mother, I’m more of scenario two where I need to people please and keep peace. 

Whether your go-to pattern is scenario one, two, three, or all of the above, from a decolonized mental health lens, it’s not a personality trait. It’s definitely not something that’s fixed that you have to carry with you forever. According to parent-child attachment studies, these patterns are adaptations you had to learn to do over and over again when you were little to avoid being criticized, humiliated, rejected, and abandoned… to be safe and protected. 

Your caregivers might have been there for you providing the necessities like food and shelter but they weren’t really available emotionally. So you might have learned that asking for emotional connection or bidding for attention is going to give you rejection, pain, and disappointment. It’s safer not to ask for help. It’s safer to do it all by yourself like in scenario one. This adaptation makes a lot of sense, right? 

This adaptation might have your boundaries be on the rigid side where you set boundaries to cut people loose before they can disappoint you or hurt you…even though you want that connection. When you set boundaries, you might be saying “I’m fine, I don’t need you. I don’t have needs. I can do this by myself.”

And I’m not here advocating for you to drop this adaptation or survival strategy that you’ve spent years practicing. My only invitation is to discern in that moment when you’re about to stiffen up your boundaries and make them rigid… in that moment ask “is my rigid boundary adaptive or outdated for the situation at hand?” If it is, great…please protect your peace. If not, perhaps it’s time for an upgrade through healing this inner child wound.  

To re-parent your inner child from scenario one, it’s okay to practice letting a bit of help and support in…maybe 1% at a time from those you trust and love. It’s a lifelong practice that’s possible when it’s done in a community.

For scenarios two and three, your caregivers might have been really emotionally present with you one minute and then gone the next. The unpredictability of their availability might have you hyper-fixated on their needs instead of yours. You might have over-learned how to people please and be that golden child (aka scenario 2) or over-learned how to be exceptional at everything all the time to earn love (aka scenario 3). Otherwise, you would risk losing your caregivers’ emotional availability…which to a child is a real survival need. 

These two adaptations might make your boundaries more on the porous side where you don’t want to say no because that distance between you and the other person almost feels like abandonment. And that can feel too painful compared to people pleasing or being perfect to earn love. Another flavor of porous boundaries is when you over do it. You move in and manage, fix, or help the other person before they even try to figure it out. Dr. Jenny Wang, the author of Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health As Asian Americans, refers to this as “preventing others in their growth journey.” Or as my Classical Chinese Medicine teacher would say “you can’t do someone else’s homework for them and take that opportunity for growth away from them.” 

In that moment when you’re about to revert back to either people pleasing or being perfect to earn love- both of which have porous boundaries because they focus more on the other person’s needs than your own dignity- … in that moment ask “is this porous boundary adaptive or outdated?” 

If it’s due for an upgrade, re-parenting this inner child might mean taking baby steps to meet your own needs, even when deep down you want to find satisfaction and safety in the approval of other people first. 

To recap, we adapt to whatever childhood experiences we had. When no one was there to reflect back to you that crying means sad and there’s a safe way to navigate through that emotion, it’s hard to know that your feelings are real and they are valid. That can make seemingly simple things like opening up to be vulnerable, taking risks, taking up space in the world, receiving kindness from others, or owning your oops and apologizing feel not just uncomfortable but like a threat. 

That’s why our inner child wounds can make boundary setting challenging. And once we begin to re-parent our inner child, experimenting with different strategies and techniques for boundary setting might feel safer and even more fun to try. And the two books that I love when it comes to the how of boundary setting are Nedra Tawwab’s book and Dr. Jenny Wang’s book. The links to their beautiful books are in the episode show notes for you.

I hope that understanding your unhealed inner child wounds can help make practicing boundary setting a bit more manageable; otherwise, it can feel like you’re failing when you’re simply putting the cart before the horse. 

After all boundary setting is a skill that can be practiced. That just-right boundary where it’s not too rigid or porous is possible. We’ve seen it throughout history in Black & Asian solidarity. That just-right boundary is also essential for us to show up with our whole selves whether we’re advocating for liberation together or raising our children to be liberated and resilient. 

And whenever saviorism makes your boundaries porous and inaction makes your boundaries rigid, both of which compromise your solidarity, I’ll leave you with this medicine from Dr. Cornel West. 

He wrote in Soundararajan’s the Trauma of Caste quote:

“Empathy is not simply a matter of simply trying to imagine what others are going through but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated on hope… Let us never forget that revolutionary hope is a virtue and a verb: let us forever be a hope in deep solidarity with those Franz Fanon called the “precious wretched of the earth…” Let the fire of resistance free all of our oppressed peoples.” End quote.

Every link to the references and resources mentioned here and the transcript is organized for you and your curious heart at comebacktocare.com/podcast. 

Umm, my heart is so full. Thank you so much for being here together. As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.