Ep 33: One Way to Celebrate Pride as a Decolonized Family

[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 In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too.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 33 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. It’s June on the Turtle Island a.k.a. the United States and it’s Pride month, celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirited, and Asexual individuals. So we’re going to talk about Pride in parenting in this episode. Not the Pride version that got coopted by capitalism where everything is glitter and rainbows. But a more decolonized, embodied, and intergenerational version of Pride that’s true to our Come Back to Care values. 

In this episode, you and I are going to explore lessons from research on queer and trans resiliency. And perhaps, when it’s safe-ish to do so, we can apply them in our lives so we can be all of who we are instead of contorting our bodies to fit into the tiny gender binary boxes defined by white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy. Next, we’ll explore ways to apply the same intention to family building so that our children can be proud of all facets of who they’re becoming too. You’ll hear reflective questions, political analyses, research on queer and trans resiliency, and child development science so you can design and discern how you’d like to integrate these ideas into your daily parenting. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.

Pride, to me, has never been about screaming “Yasss Queen” while wearing a rainbow caftan and glittered lips. 

Pride, to me, has always been about taking pride in the fullness of our humanity beyond what the tiny gender binary boxes of male and female can contain. You and I are too fabulous to fit in those binaries. It’s taking pride in both doing all the contorting, conforming, and codeswitching necessary to survive under white colonial capitalist patriarchy AND- still despite all of that- coming back home to our bodies and communities when it’s safe. Pride is integrating something fragmented by oppression and injustice into a coherent whole. Pride is reclaiming parts of me that were too much or not enough for both my caregivers and the dominant norms. How can I not take pride in actively choosing to love myself, the land, my communities, and my ancestors when the dominant norms -- and not just norms but actual anti-trans laws -- tell me and my communities that we’re inhuman and undeserving of love? 

Each year I celebrate Pride by practicing this ritual of self-love and reclaiming one part of me that I had to leave behind to be in my survival mode, to blend in, and to belong in white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy. Each year I reconnect with a part of me that’s ready to be loved and integrated into the fullness of who I am. And by becoming a bit more whole and a bit less fractured each year, I embody Pride in myself and my healing. I can bring my whole self- as a gift- to my community as we organize for justice and equity.

I started this practice in 2019. I remember being in Geneva, Switzerland as a featured burlesque performer. At the end of my burlesque workshop, one participant who was queer came up to me and casually asked “how can I love myself when the world has no place for me?” Together we realized that for those of us who are in bodies that dominant norms defined as taboo, disposable, or undesirable, loving ourselves isn’t just saying positive affirmations. Positive affirmations can’t “love and light” systemic and historical oppression away. Rather, loving ourselves is about actively healing our wounds so we can actively love ourselves and our communities. 

And research on queer and trans resiliency supports this. Dr. Anneliese Singh, founder of the Trans Resilience Project and a professor at the University of Georgia, wrote quote “research suggests that a large part of queer and trans resilience boils down to being able to define your gender identity and sexual orientation for yourself” end quote. I’ll leave the links to Dr. Singh’s book and the research studies in the show notes for you at comebacktocare.com/podcast.

In this episode I’m inviting you to reclaim parts of you that were once too much or not enough so you can define who you are for yourself. It’s a practice of self-love that begins with self-determination. 

If it feels right to you -- because every invitation is a choice -- my invitation is for you to reflect on or journal about this question: to embody pride of who you are, which parts of you are you reclaiming and reconnecting with this year? Specifically, the parts that you had to hide away or shame away because they weren’t acceptable growing up. The parts that might have been too much or not enough for your family and society.

I’ll say it one more time: which parts of you are you reclaiming and reconnecting with this year? Specifically, the parts that you had to hide away or shame away because they weren’t acceptable growing up. The parts that might have been too much or not enough for your family and society.

Maybe it’s that part inside of you that wanted to be creative and expressive but that got shut down quick when someone in the family said “how are you gonna feed yourself making art?” So, to blend in and belong you had to hide this creative and expressive part away because it wasn’t fitting in with your family’s conditioning from capitalism. 

You might have already noticed that this practice can be tender because it can touch on your inner child wounds. Or, it can stir up grief and yearning from wishing that you could have been your full self when you were little but you couldn’t. If there’s discomfort arising and it’s becoming too painful, if your emotions are telling you not to revisit those early memories from childhood because they’re too painful, it’s okay to honor your body’s intelligence and disengage from the reflection. It’s okay to just listen along instead. This discomfort is information. Knowing that there’s something raw and unhealed about that part inside of you that yearns to be creative and expressive can be exactly the right amount of awareness you may need now. Perhaps you can revisit this tender wound in the future when you have more bandwidth. Awareness is also a strategy. 

If the discomfort is there but it’s manageable, it’s still important to take it slow. Deb Dana, a trauma and Polyvagal theory expert, said that our nervous system can learn and heal when we stretch it, not stress it. That means you might begin reconnecting and reclaiming that creative and expressive part of you 1.75% this year. It may look like singing in the shower for yourself once a week for fun…instead of reconnecting and reclaiming this creative part 100% all at once and signing yourself up for a national karaoke singing contest tomorrow. Because you and this creative part are just beginning to reconnect after having been apart for a long time, it’s important to take it slow. This year 1.75% and next year- maybe- 5%. 

If grief comes up, please know that you had to leave these parts behind to blend in and belong. You did what you had to do to protect yourself and survive. And, now that you’re an adult and have more coping skills and life wisdom, you now have what it takes to upgrade and update the old childhood survival strategy. This is what re-parenting our inner child looks like: giving ourselves the kind of safety and connection that should have been there but wasn’t. (And of course doing that in a community, because individualism isn’t the answer.)  

How’s everything resonating with you so far? Before we pivot to discussing the way this applies to parenting and child development, I’ll share my personal example because I’m doing this decolonized healing work and celebrating Pride with you too.

I grew up in an immigrant working class family where the family rules revolved around not speaking up, keeping our heads down, not imposing, not interrupting, not disrupting. Anything that challenged the status quo was a big no-no because causing anyone to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable was selfish and ungrateful. We needed to keep peace and preserve the family’s honor. It was either conform and be obedient or risking losing face and bringing shame to the family. My mom’s favorite saying after any lecture would be (and still is) “you want me to carry this shame to the grave?” And on top of all that, as a little boy I wanted to assimilate to femininity and a proper lady was supposed to keep her mouth shut and just cook, clean, and cater to her man.

So there’s no surprise that to blend in and belong to both my family’s rule and patriarchy’s rule, I had to leave behind my voice. To say it differently, to survive I had to overlearn conformity and under learn authenticity. Even with my cis-passing privilege, standing out too much in how I look, how I walk, how I think, and how I talk was and still is a matter of life or death to me and my trans community. But now as an adult, I’ve built enough community support to begin my healing work of slowly reclaiming voice. 

I’ve been a community organizer since 2007 but I would always be the person in the background putting together a rally, getting sponsorships, and sweeping the gathering space at the end. I never got on a microphone. In 2018 and 2019, I became much more intentional about reconnecting and reclaiming my voice in celebration of Pride...for 3%. So, I began raising my hand in meetings to disrupt any microaggressions. I began telling some of the parents I worked with that some of their comments toward my Asian body were racist. I’ll keep it real. I didn’t have the audacity to disrupt their microaggressions in the moment. I would sit with their comments for weeks, telling myself it was no big deal. And I would speak up a month later. Then, 2021 I started reconnecting and reclaiming my voice more, say from 3% to 10%, by starting to speak about my decolonized approach to mental health more on a national level. It was so hard to swim against the current all the time but I found my community of decolonized and abolitionist providers. And I created this podcast at the end of 2021. This year I’m reclaiming my voice a bit more from 10% to 50% and I’m speaking about equity and liberation on an international level at the World Association for Infant Mental Health in Ireland next month. Please send help!

I’m sharing my journey because putting equity into action is a process. I didn’t just arrive here. I’ve been reclaiming my voice by choosing to speak truth with love over the comfort of conforming to an oppressive status quo from 3% to 10% to 50% and I’m still learning. Your small steps add up to something really significant too.  

Defining who we are and embodying that truth fully are one of the most powerful tools of resistance against oppression. As I shared in Ep 29: How to Support Trans Rights, Reproductive Justice & Disability Justice As A Decolonized Parent,  “At the end of the day, reclaiming our bodily autonomy and our right to self-determination is all about loving well. As we reclaim parts of ourselves that don’t fit the scripts and that we had to shame away, we begin to heal our internalized oppression wounds. So that we can advocate for trans justice, disability justice, and reproductive justice with our whole selves. And at the same time, we heal so that we can raise the next generations to be free as decolonized parents and caregivers.”

With that said and now that you and I have celebrated and taken pride in our whole selves, shall we discuss how we can hold space for children to embody their fullness too?

Allow me to start off by saying I believe wholeheartedly that you love your child or children very much. And it’s very human to love someone and at the same time not like all parts of that person. Families called me to their homes to start therapy because of some of their children’s behaviors that they didn’t like or didn’t understand well enough to like just yet. Loving and liking are two separate things. 

If guilt or shame is bubbling up because what I just said reminded you of your child’s behaviors that are hard to like, please know that you’re not alone. When that feeling of guilt goes down a bit and it’s more manageable, let’s connect the dots to both child development science and political analysis together.

Let’s start with two child development science concepts called temperament and goodness of fit. You might have come across descriptors like easy, difficult, or slow-to-warm up. These three descriptors are classic. By that I mean they came out of a longitudinal study back in the 1950’s by Thomas and Chess who were studying temperament in babies. A more modern descriptor, in addition to easy, difficult, and slow to warmup that you might have come across, is a high-needs baby. These temperaments are like behavioral predispositions we’re born with. Some people are more easygoing than others. But it’s important to realize that these traits alone don’t determine your child’s development. An easygoing baby isn’t guaranteed to have a happy-go-lucky life. What determines developmental outcomes is both nature and nurture according to the – bear with me it’s a long name- The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. The key is the word “and” between nature and nurture. Do the “nature” and “nurture” fit together? If so, it’s likely that the child will have pretty optimal development down the line. That’s the goodness of fit model. For example, your child is slow to warm up and needs a lot of reassurance from you in a new environment- think clinging by your side when you first go to a music class or to their friend’s birthday party. The temperament or nature is slow to warm up. To “nurture” with goodness of fit, you might exercise extra patience and provide extra reassurance without rushing your child or pushing them. Over time your child learns from you how to move through that anxiety in their own adaptive ways.

I’m sharing science so that we can replace morality with compassion. If your child needs a lot of stimulation and physical activities and they’re outgoing meanwhile your ideal kinda party is to be on the couch, reading your book with a warm cup of tea, you might not be the most excited when your child is asking you for a horsey back ride for the 5011th time. Your lack of enthusiasm isn’t saying you’re a terrible parent. It could simply be saying your child’s need for stimulation and your need to have less stimulation have low goodness of fit. You’re not a terrible parent and they’re not a terrible child. The needs are different. I’ve seen morality spur many parents into guilt and then they put themselves in a pass-fail binary, resulting in shame. But if we can remove shame and morality, we can see that it’s not about blaming yourself or your child for a personality flaw, and you can find ways to work around the low goodness of fit that honors your needs to have that quiet time on the couch and your child’s needs for stimulation.

Another way to look at goodness of fit that I really love is through the lens of our senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and movement. Your sensory needs and preferences and your child’s sensory needs and preferences might be low goodness of fit too even though you love each other so much. Dr. Claudia Gold, a pediatrician and writer, shared an example quote “one little boy I saw was quote unquote sensory seeking and loved to make a mess, yet his mother couldn’t stand to touch different textures. When he got maple syrup on his hands while eating pancakes, her whole body became tense and she recoiled in anger” end quote. 

Before we discuss some of the ways to work with or work around this low goodness of fit, let’s add a layer of political analysis.

I invite you to check and see if this guilt popped up because of white colonial capitalist patriarchal conditioning. Perhaps ask yourself: am I contorting myself to fit in a good parenting box that says “to be a good parent I must love all of my child’s behaviors even the ones that are pushing my parenting buttons?” Am I conforming to the image of an angelic, self-sacrificing saint that Colonialism loves, someone who’s always warm, loving, and giving? Am I performing the perfectionism script that White supremacy loves to be a good parent? Lastly, is this contorting, conforming, and performing adaptive right now? If not, bye-bye guilt and shame.

If you and I were talking to each other right now and I asked you what behaviors and character traits you were proud of in your child, I believe you could come up with quite a list. What would be some of the things on that list? I hear a wide range of answers from families from “how we snuggle reading together”, “how my child loves their little siblings”, “how curious and funny they are”, and the list goes on. These behaviors and character traits are likely things where you’re already communicating pride to your child. It could be verbally praising your child. Or if that doesn’t fit with your family’s culture, it could be nonverbally acknowledging those behaviors and characters: a knowing look, an accepting nod, or an appreciative half smile...anything that’s not the Asian parents’ death stare of shame I grew up with. You’re already holding space for the behaviors and characteristics in your child that you’re proud of.

But how about the behaviors and characteristics in your child that might be annoying, irritating, harder to like? Traits that are too much, or not enough? And to clarify real quick, I’m not talking about behaviors and characteristics that could harm your child or others. 

These behaviors and characteristics often get shut down and therefore aren’t nurtured as much. 

I know you’re meeting your child where they’re at…when it comes to the parts of them that are easier to like. 

To celebrate Pride with your child, my invitation is to consider how you might meet your child where they’re at when it comes to the parts of them that are harder to like? How might you be extra intentional about holding space for these under-appreciated behaviors and characteristics so they get some shine too? And to remove individualism out of our liberation, I invite you to reflect on who, in your ecosystem of support, you can tag team with to meet your child’s needs instead of adding more things you need to do by yourself. 

For example, your child loves imaginary play with dolls and stuffed animals and you’re more into linear, logical, practical thinking. And this is a real example from a family I worked with (who gave me a permission to share). Dad is usually at a loss when his preschooler goes on and on about her stuffed penguin riding a school bus on a farm adventure. He’s more of a Lego and block kind of parent. So he would ask his Dungeons and Dragon friends to come 30 minutes before game time to do imaginary play with his child on Friday nights before bedtime. Pretty sweet right?

Or maybe your child loves anything to do with musical instruments - the sounds, the rhythms, the motions that are so fun for them but are also an open invitation to your migraines. Perhaps, there’s no banging on the drum at home because that’s for a special occasion which is once a week, every Wednesday morning at the public library’s music and story time. 

As you reclaim that one part of yourself that you had to leave behind to blend in and belong, what is one behavior or characteristic in your child that’s usually under appreciated that you can intentionally hold space for this year as well? So that your child can be proud of that part in themselves too. So that their pride in their full humanity goes beyond the social identities- race, class, gender- the oppressors assign to them.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote in Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions quote: 

“Teach her that the idea of gender roles is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she’s a girl. ‘Because you’re a girl’ is never a reason for anything. Ever.

Teach her to never universalize her own standards or experiences. Teach her that her standards are for her alone, and not for other people. This is the only necessary form of humility: the realization that difference is normal. Tell her that some people are gay, and some are not. A little child has two daddies or two mommies because some people just do. Tell her that some people go to mosque and others go to church and others go to different places of worship and still others don’t worship at all, because that is just the way it is for some people. You say to her: ‘You like palm oil but some people don’t like palm oil.’ She says to you: ‘Why?’ You say to her ‘I don’t know. It’s just the way the world is.’” End quote.

Before I sign off, this Pride month, here’s one thing I’m also proud of: YOU. You’re raising both your child and inner child through the pandemic. And you’re here practicing social justice and intergenerational family healing through your daily parenting with me. If that’s not something to be proud of I don’t know what is. 

Every link to the research studies, books, and extra resources mentioned in this episode is in the show notes for you at comebacktocare.com/podcast.

To support my work and keep our psychoeducation and political education free and accessible, please consider leaving a rating and review or offering a one-time financial redistribution by heading to comebacktocare.com/support. 

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