[BONUS] Ep 47: How to Practice Social Justice Parenting Today

Many of us- across races, places, and classes- just want better lives for our kids. But we’ve been forced to look, love, and live how white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy want us to. Work hard to the point of burnout. Be tough and stuff your feelings down. Choose convenience at all costs even when the cost includes climate catastrophe. Exploit other people’s labor for your profit. Get ahead and come out on top…otherwise your access to food, housing, and healthcare is gone. These business-as-usual norms trickle down into our homes and shape how we’re raising our children. So much so that many of us- with the little energy we have left at the end of the day- end up raising our children to simply survive under systems of oppression. Because parenting commonsense says a good parent must teach their child to be a good and hard worker for capitalism, a good independent, dominating leader for white supremacy and colonialism, and a good, strong, power hoarding provider for patriarchy. And I know that there’s a tiny voice inside of you that’s saying “but preparing my child to survive isn’t the same as making sure my child has a better life than I did. I don’t want my child to just be street smart, knowing how to survive the systems. I want them to be liberation smart too, building a culture that upholds everyone’s humanity.” I hear you and your inner wisdom, my dear co-conspirator. You’ve sacrificed and survived so much so your child- actually all our children- can thrive. Your ancestors also went through too much for you to raise your child using a parenting playbook written by white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy (or a TikTok influencer). It’s possible for you to both teach your child to survive systemic oppression and nurture them to be a future steward of the Earth, compassionate community builder, and conscious change agent. And you can begin this seven-generation marathon of liberation work right here, right now. That’s why today I’m sharing the social justice parenting framework that I’ve been using for the past 15 plus years with parents who want to be social justice role models to their children and who want to raise their children to be whole. We’re literally bringing liberation home. I know you know that our journey to liberation is not a straight line -- it’s a long journey. This two-step framework will at least make this nonlinear journey clear, concrete, and manageable, even when you can only squeeze in 5 minutes a day. You have what it takes to go beyond copying and pasting your survival strategies to your child. You have what it takes to raise them according to your values -- and to thrive with them and your community too.

[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 a bonus episode on social justice parenting. In this episode, you and I are going to explore what social justice parenting means and what it actually looks like in practice using a framework I’ve been using with families for 15 years. You’ll see how the two components of the framework fit together so that you can begin applying it to your daily parenting at your own pace. And, oh, please stick around till the end of the episode because there’s a social justice parenting party I’d love to invite you to.

If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started. 

Social justice parenting means raising your child in intentional ways that are informed by child development science and which are aligned with your social justice values. 

Let’s explore one example of social justice parenting in action. As I’m sharing this example, I invite you to notice the two actions of social justice parenting. 

Picture this: You have a deadline coming up for a big work project. You’re getting the work done as fast as you can because it’s almost time to make dinner. Your five-year-old child walks into the room asking you to play with them, making a bid for connection. You’re worried that it’s going to throw your plan off and delay dinner but you decide to play with your child anyway because you love them. You say to your child “okay just five minutes and I need to get back to work.” It’s been five minutes so you ask your child to clean up the toys. You know how the scenario goes, right? Your child is being a five-year-old, negotiating for three more minutes, not wanting to clean up the toys. Your irritation is rising. The cute negotiation from your child suddenly sounds like whining. Your patience is running out. Your thought goes: “a good child must learn how to respect people’s time. I must teach them to be respectful.” Then, in a split second, you snap and yell “clean up your toys…NOW.” And three seconds after, (sigh) you immediately feel guilt and regret. But (here comes the social justice parenting part) instead of shaming yourself for losing your cool, you name your trigger “Ah, I was under a lot of stress and pressure from capitalism. I was also performing patriarchy’s good parenting script that says a good parent needs to sacrifice their needs for their children. Shoot, these old, oppressive conditionings keep popping back up when I’m stressed.” You continue your self-reflection “was yelling to get my child to be respectful of my time adaptive or outdated?” And you discern and decide that it was outdated because yelling and controlling aren’t aligned with your values of power-with and cooperation. You also realized now that you’re a bit more regulated that you could have held your boundaries and re-directed your child to another activity that they could do by themselves. So that you could be fully present with your child and play with them after you finished turning in your work and cooking dinner. 

With this awareness rooted in your political analysis, you decide to apologize to your child to re-align your parenting with your social justice value of accountability. So, that evening after you’ve cooked and finished dinner, you tuck your child in bed and apologize to them for losing your cool in the afternoon. It’s not just an empty apology because you’re practicing your value of accountability. You have a plan you’d like to try in the future. You say “I’m really sorry for losing my cool. I was stressed about work. Next time I’m feeling upset, I’ll rock my body gently to remind myself to breathe before I react because you’re important to me too. What do you think of this plan?” And by practicing this social justice action of accountability, you’re repairing the rupture with your child by apologizing. Your child feels seen and heard. You’re also modeling how you’re going to work with your irritation which, in turn, builds your child’s social emotional skills, emotional regulation skills, and brain development. 

That’s one example of what social justice parenting can look like. You still get triggered. You still react, snap, yell, and maybe sound like your own parent even though you promised yourself a while ago not to say these things to your child. But you’re not stuck in shaming yourself. 

Now let’s break it down to see how you can do something similar with your child. What two actions did you notice in the example? I like to frame things in terms of two actions: deconstruct it and then do it. Deconstruct. And Do. (It’s a little Ciara and Missy Elliot 1, 2 Step, if you know what I mean)

Deconstruct means deconstructing the parenting script you’re performing and naming who wrote it. In the earlier example, the script was written by capitalism and patriarchy. Once you’ve named the author of the script aka the source of the “should” you’re feeling, here’s another question: is this pressure, urgency, or worry adaptive or outdated right now? And your wisdom can guide your next action. In the example, it probably wasn’t the best timing to lecture your child about respecting people’s time. It’s a lovely idea, just bad timing. So you might discern and decide to set aside this Surviving Capitalism 101 Script aside and show your child your own social justice values of owning your oops and being accountable instead.

After deconstructing the script, you move to the second action which is “doing it.” That means re-aligning your parenting with your social justice values and promoting your child’s development at the same time…most of the time (because parenting is real and perfection isn’t). In the earlier example, your apology to your child is aligned with your value of holding yourself accountable when you lose your cool instead of cancelling or shaming yourself. By apologizing and sharing your accountability plan for next time you’re about to lose your cool, you’re promoting your child’s brain development and emotional resilience.  

And that, my dear co-conspirator, is our social justice parenting framework: first deconstruct it, then do it. Thank you for zooming out to see the whole picture with me. 

[MIDROLL]

Speaking of deconstructing the good parenting script…would you like to dive deeper into this unlearning process at your own pace…for 9 minutes a day? I have micro audio training for you. You’ll have reflection prompts and diagrams to check when you’re unintentionally performing capitalism’s script for example. Then, you select more liberatory alternatives to try instead. You’ll have real-life parenting examples to build on and make your actions very concrete. You’ll also explore how each of these liberatory parenting alternatives specifically promote your child’s brain development and emotional resilience. This way you’ll find your own balance between teaching your child to be street smart, surviving under systemic oppression and teaching them to be liberation smart, thriving with their chosen families. I’m excited to share this Social Justice Parenting Playbook Party with you. This micro training is a beautiful introduction to putting all our discussions in this Podcast into action during morning routine, mealtimes, play time, and so on. It’s child development science and real-life parenting examples and political education all in one series and it’s 9 minutes per lesson. It comes with a transcript and downloadable guide too. Please visit www.comebacktocare.com/party to write your own parenting playbook today. Alright, back to the episode. 

[EPISODE]

To wrap up this bonus episode, I’d love to discuss our two reasons “why.” Why are we breaking free from the standard way of parenting? And why do we both-and social justice action and child development science? 

First, we need your agency for our liberation. One family who worked with me in our social justice parenting and inner child re-parenting program called the In-Out-N-Through program said it so wonderfully, quote: “I used to anxiously look up parenting tips at night and try out 10 things with my baby all at once, crossing my fingers that at least one thing will stick. Now that I understand child development psychology and neuroscience better. I know how to raise my three children to be kind people. I feel less like a zombie changing diapers, feeding my children, and doing it all over again the next day. I know my stuff. I know my kids’ development. And it feels good to know I got it. And I can pass my values onto them too because I’m raising them according to my values…when I can. I’m not perfect or anything, you know? I feel really great knowing that what I do is helping my kids be ready for a liberated future.” End quote. 

How does that resonate with you? Your child is getting older each day and if you can shift from “winging it” to “I got it”…most of the time….why not?

Second, collective change starts at home. Since I first started practicing in 2007 I’ve witnessed over and over again that when parents practice social justice actions like power-with, solidarity, and accountability during bath times, mealtimes, play times, or throughout the day, they’re getting their reps in and strengthening their social justice action muscles. This way when they’re out in the community advocating for change, their actions can come from solidarity and accountability within themselves because they’ve been practicing it with their children. They won’t have to doubt themselves: was that performative? Did I just take up too much space? Or should I have spoken up more? When your social justice action comes from a place of your inner wisdom- through many reps of making mistakes and repairs, you and I can keep building a liberated future for our children from a place of dignity, not fear, cynicism, or obligation. 

The goal isn’t about you individualistically become a quote unquote better parent. It’s about you reclaiming your agency so you can show up as your whole self to both raising your child and advocating for social change with your community. 

With your whole self, I hope you can stay in the struggle for liberation with me and so many social justice curious families in our community. Together we can create a future for ALL our children to thrive. 

Thank you so much for doing this unlearning with me. To dive deeper, unlearn outdated parenting scripts, and re-align your parenting with your social justice values, save your spot and be your child’s social justice role model at comebacktocare.com/party.

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until Season 5 in late March or possibly more bonus episodes before that, please take care.