Episode 5: What Parents Can Learn from Performative Allyship & Performative Parenting
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:02] NV: Sawasdee ka and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic and social justice practitioner, and founder of Come Back to Care. Adopt connector, norm agitator, and lover of liberation.
If you're on a journey to transform your daily parenting into a social justice practice that nurtures your child's development and promotes intergenerational family healing, I am so glad that you're here. On this podcast, we explore how social justice, child development science, parenting, and family systems intersect with one another. If you've been looking for ways to align your parenting with a social justice values, you're in the right place. Together, we find our way back to our true home. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineage and come back to care together. So come curious, and come as you are. Let's move at the speed of care. And let's do this.
[EPISODE]
[00:01:26] NV: Welcome to the fifth episode of the Come Back to Care podcast, and happiest 2022 to you and your families, chosen or otherwise.
In this episode, let's roll up our sleeves and dig deep into the topics of performative allyship and performative parenting. What do they have in common? What can we learn from them when we take shame out of the equation for hot minute? And why might performative allyship and performative parenting actually be good? Yes, good for both social justice advocacy and decolonized parenting. How does that sound as a plan for today? If you're feeling your shoulder is hunching up, or your stomach turning into a tight knot, or there's a sudden desire to change the channel, because you're worried, I might call you in or call you out? Well, I truly respect your discomfort and your humanity.
That's why shame isn't the focus of what we're talking about today. My goal is to invite you to be in this discomfort together with me long enough to see what we can learn from this emotionally charged topic of performative allyship so that we can learn some lessons together and keep practicing social justice, especially through our daily parenting. Okay, I got you, and we got this.
So first off, let's quickly define what performative allyship is, so that we're on the same page. Performative allyship refers to allies, or people who have privileges and power who are trying to “help those” with less privilege and power, but who ends up causing more harm. They cause harm, because their good intentions end up falling short, and they don't get past trying to prove to others online and in real life, that they’re one of the good ones who aren't racist, ablest, classist, transphobic, and so on. Their advocacy is a performance for an audience, instead of a practice, coming from their belief in equity, humanity and liberation.
As you can already imagine, performative action lacks depth, it lacks an anchor, if you will. That's why too often, these allies don't do what they say they were going to do when no one else is looking. The intention and action aren't matching, aka, there is no integrity. This performative ally ship can be off-putting for those of us who have been fighting for liberation and equity and have been advocating for change. For a while. We're already tired, we've been burnt out many times left, and then returned to the work a few times. Then we see these performative allies, fumbling and tumbling their way towards equity with not a lot of grace, because they're new to the movement for all sorts of reasons and privileges.
In our sheer exhaustion, we might find it easier to direct our rate at structural oppression onto an easier target, like these performative allies. Instead of seeing these performative allies as being unskillful, we see them as being untrustworthy and bad, toward rage at systemic oppression gets redirected to these performative allies, so that we can dehumanize them, so it's easier to cancel them. We end up shaming and canceling one another instead of fighting structural white supremacy, capitalism, and so on. Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in emergent strategy, “Critique alone can keep us from having to pick up the responsibility of figuring out solutions. Sometimes I think we need to liberate ourselves from critique, both internal and external, to truly give change a chance.” Give change a chance. I love that.
This infighting distracts us from doing the actual work of equity and liberation. Dr. Martin Luther King taught us in his nonviolence legacy, to attack forces of evil, not persons doing evil. And similarly, you know, in child development, a toddler who bit his friend isn't a bad tiny human. We just need to try to understand his biting, see what he was trying to communicate, and practice with him other ways to communicate and get his needs met.
In today's episode, let's take a look at performative allyship with curiosity and compassion. Then we're going to connect the dots as usual, between performative allyship and performative parenting. Before I do that, I want to clarify that some people are intentionally performative. And that's all they want to do. And I'm not here to judge as my fellow transgender sister, healer and activist, Miss Mister says, “Each souls journey, these intentionally performative allies are beyond my boundaries and beyond the scope of our discussion today.”
Ah, cleansing breath, okay, here we go. So, what does performative allyship look like, with a dash of curiosity and compassion? The clue is, goodbye shape, and hello context. Many of us social justice advocates, new or seasoned, are learning this messy, complicated dance of when to step aside, step out, or step in to exercise our privilege and power so that those queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color, who are targeted by oppression can be seen and heard. And I'm not done. And we're learning to do all of that, and not be saviors who swoop in and save the day.
If you're new to this advocacy work, it can sometimes feel like trying to do calculus, before you're learning fractions. Or trying to do a maybe a drop split. When your hamstrings are so tight, you can't even touch your toes, like me. That's a tall order. And there's no manual to say what the five steps to eliminate white supremacy are. Plus, there's no insurance to protect you against mistakes, ruptures and disconnections. The work is nuanced and messy. It's the kind of work that's high risk and high unpredictability, but the outcome of equity and freedom are so worth it. Does that sound like something you're already doing? Say parenting? No manual, no insurance, high risk, high unpredictability, and also worth that outcome? Yup. Hold on to that thought, because we're going to come back to it.
So, I can see why it might be overwhelming, and you might feel confused and stuck on an endless treadmill of intellectualizing and researching and researching on and on, because you don't want to cause harm or mess up. And maybe after all that researching, you end up just reposting something on social media, because that's the only action you have the bandwidth left to take, or the nuances of advocacy are so overwhelming that you just want to hold on to any ounce of certainty to protect yourself for being shamed and canceled. So, you might learn that, okay, referring to a person who has autism, you can't say autistic person and you have to use people first language to be respectful. So, you follow this rule. And you just learn that okay, people first language you say, person with autism instead of autistic person.
But then an autistic person corrects you, because they want to be referred as an autistic person. And then you freak out because that's not what you studied. In both examples, you start out with a solid intention, but there's a lot to navigate when it comes to execution. So, the quality and texture of your action might not match the intention that you set in the beginning, and it might appear to be performative. But here's the important piece, you and you alone will know if what you did was performative, or if it was simply unskillful. Unskillful, because you're new to the work, or simply because you're human, and making mistakes is a part of the package. Remember, fractions before calculates.
So, I'd like to offer a new equation, if you will. Performative allyship minus shame and blame equals a good enough start. We're removing shame from the equation, because over years of community organizing, I've seen how shame erodes trust and creativity in a movement, making this already hard work less and less sustainable.
I'm inspired by the medicine offered by Toni Cade Embera, which she said, “The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible. My way of making the work irresistible, is by removing shame, and the good ally, bat ally binary, so that we're less likely to be stuck at shame, because we have the agility to move through our discomfort into action that's aligned with our values.” Still with me? Okay, let's break it down. Instead of putting allies who are trying and learning and making mistakes into the good ally, bat ally binary, or effective performative a binary, we can try to understand them through the lens of compassion, and see them on a skillful, unskillful spectrum.
Along this spectrum, there's so much more space, and much more room for joy, creativity, emergence, and especially, mistakes. If any of this rings true for you in your own allyship and advocacy, I invite you to give yourself a chance to experiment, play, and make mistakes. With each rep, or repetition, you'll build your capacity to be with your own dignity, in the face of mistakes. The key ingredient here is discernment and a pinch of radical honesty. Is my action aligned with my values? Can I follow through and take risks in ways that won't dishonor my own safety, dignity and boundaries? When there is a specific recipe of how to do things, I think it's so easy to get stuck in between, “Am I doing it right?” Or “Am I doing it wrong?” And am I at risk of being shamed, cancelled and shunned for doing it wrong?
We end up not taking any action at all, leaving our good ally intention hanging all by itself. That's why we're aiming at practice not perfection, when it comes to both being an ally and being a parent. I know being canceled for a mistake is scary. Not taking action at all, though, creates more harm. Mistakes will happen anyway no matter how many times you've read how to be an anti-racist, or practiced your trans colleague’s pronouns in front of the mirror at home. It's not about getting it right 100%. It's about sticking with it and reconnecting when you make mistakes. Your advocacy actually start with proving to others, you're not racist. I get it. I've been there too and you don't want to be ostracized or shunned from your social circles. It's a human thing to do. It's also a human thing to do to take another step and take a bit more risk. Don't stop at reposting that Instagram story.
The question I often ask parents is if there were no public platform or social media, how would you teach your little one by example about equity, community and liberation. To recap on performative ally ship, the work of allyship and advocacy is still hard, even after removing shame. But I hope that it's a bit less scary and a bit more irresistible for you. When allies locate themselves in their advocacy action on the skillful unskillful spectrum, they can route their action in their unwavering commitment to equity. They can also see where they're unskillful so that they can keep practicing and building their capacities.
Now, allow me to say the same sentences again, and replace the word allies with parents, parenting your child for social change, and reparenting your inner child for intergenerational family healing are still hard, even after removing shame. But I hope that they're a bit less scary, and a bit more irresistible for you. When parents locate themselves, and their parenting practices on the skillful, unskillful spectrum, that can route their parenting in their unwavering commitment to equity. They can also see where they're unskillful so that they can keep practicing and building their parenting capacities.
In the same equation we talked about for our performative allyship applies to parenting too. Performative parenting, minus shame and blame equals a good enough start. Before I go expand on this idea, let's talk about what performative parenting is.
Performative parenting is when you get caught up in going through the “right” parenting motions, instead of raising the child in front of you, your way. Or in other words, it's when you parent your child by someone else's playbook, a playbook written by other well-intentioned parents for their children, not for your own child. A playbook written by white supremacy, that has many chapters about competition, exploitation, individualism and materialism, or a playbook written by patriarchy, that has many chapters about male dominance and entitlement.
A performative parent goes on autopilot, and perhaps gets stuck, trying to perfectly play by these playbooks that they didn't write. They might forget that they too, have the capacity to write their own playbook when they have the support, they need an emphasis on collective care, not heroic, individualistic, “I'm going to do this all by myself here.” And they might forget their own power and agency to put that patriarchy playbook, for example, down to teach their male presenting child inter-dependence, instead of dominance.
From time to time, you may get too occupied with perfectly performing these steps in a script and lose sight of your desire to raise your child from your heart, your values, and your ancestors, medicine and resilience. Remember our equation, performative parenting minus shame and blame equals a good enough start. And oftentimes, when we're awakened from autopilot, we remember our power to disrupt the norms. It hurts like a rude awakening, and there's nothing wrong with executing someone else's script. It's a good start, especially when your tip towards the unskillful end of the spectrum, or you lack social support. No shame, because it's a good start.
Raising your young child according to your values, intention, and integrity is doable when you feel safe. When you're supported within an ecosystem of humans you love and trust. When you're supported, so that you can do your own healing when raising your child. And lastly, when you're held accountable, to come back to your values, when your old habits and outdated patterns kick in. Without that kind of ecosystem of care that offers you support and at the same time holds you accountable, the stress of your own trauma and in a child wounds, and daily violence from systemic oppression can easily take over your parenting. This might leave you running low on bandwidth and energy to parent in a way that builds the foundation of child development. Foundations like the three R's that we talked about in the previous episode, let alone in a way that centers equity and liberation.
Under the stress of parenting and distress of systemic oppression, your parenting can sometimes get reduced to a tiny goal, like perfectly executing that sleep training strategy from a book written about other people's children, or that parenting technique that worked for the writer’s specific identities and privileges. You may even keep spreadsheets to track your parenting productivity to get gold stars from capitalism. For example, you know that the four-month sleep regression is coming up for your baby, so you've been researching for the past two months about this sleep regression thing. Very fun. I know. And you've found in evidence-based sleep training strategy, right?
Okay, so you follow that sleep training strategy to the tee, and end up forgetting that getting your baby to sleep longer stretches at night is important, but it's one part of parenting. Executing a sleep strategy perfectly isn't the entire point of parenting. Besides, you already know that you're so much more than performing your parenting just to follow some evidence-based parenting strategy you read online last week without truly questioning if this research-based strategy is valid for your personal parenting values, valid for your child's medical history, valid for your child's development, or valid for the family legacy you're trying to create.
When you can't live up to the impossible standard of parenting set by systemic oppression, you might believe and shame yourself. Then you grind harder, read more parenting blocks, and even do mindfulness. Still, at the end of the day, you're still wondering, “Am I okay? Am I doing a good job? Am I messing this little child up?” But a good job for whom? For your own parenting values, or for capitalisms? When you're not centered in your values, your parenting practice may not even be yours to begin with. When this happens, it's easy to slip into a kind of parenting that's performative that focuses on acting out the right script, the kind of parenting that's for a white male gaze, the kind of parenting that's for capitalism and colonialism under stress and pressure. Sometimes your parenting intentions and values can knowingly take a backseat to your old habits. Even though you set an intention to never yell at your child when you're upset, you might end up raising them the way you were raised when you're running low on bandwidth.
Your children may ask for attention and connection, but you may feel the urge to toughen them up, or to teach them to be independent. It might be because that's how you were raised. Or because you feel pressure every day, from capitalism and patriarchy, to be tough, out of love, and a desire to protect your child. You want them to toughen up too, to be independent, to get into a good school and then get a good job. And in this example, capitalism and patriarchy, are unconsciously running your parenting show. Without this realization, your parenting can look a lot. Like it's all about either preparing your kid for the future, like going to school, get a good job, or protecting them from harm, like microaggressions, or police brutality. And of course, those are important goals. But they're not the only goals.
This performative parenting has you acting out a script written by capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy and white supremacy. What's missing is your parenting presence, where you connect with your children in ways that make them feel seen, and let them know that you have their back most of the time. And when you mess up, you can own your ups and choose the relationship over being right. Parenting wisdom is knowing in your mind and in your body, what's driving your parenting decisions, whether it's internalized oppression, or intergenerational family patterns, or your own intentions and values. With that awareness, you can choose to show up as the parent you know you want to be, instead of what societal norms and intergenerational family patterns, “should” you into being.
Let's sum it all up. My invitation is for us to practice both parenting and allyship, instead of performing parenting and allyship. When I say practice, I really want to emphasize that practice is not perfect. I know you already know that. We’ll make a lot of mistakes along the way. But we'll find support so that we hold ourselves accountable to keep learning from our mistakes. Whether it's performative allyship or performative parenting, it's a good enough start. Your heart is there already, your actions are growing stronger to match your intention, whatever skills you lack, please know that none of us is supposed to have all the skills, all the political analyses, and all the parenting wisdom. Because whatever we lack, we can find it in members of our community who we trust.
I'm saying this as a personal note to self too, because sometimes I still buy into this idea of individualism. If only I can buy another book about either mutual aid or motor skills, I'll be a better ally, or I'll be a better therapist. Well, it sounds so much more fun to partner up with others in the community in solidarity, and work together that way. I believe in your wisdom. I believe you can do more than post a black square on Instagram, just like I believe you can go beyond implementing all the tips and strategies about parenting to be calm and confident as a parent. I believe that you can begin to build an ecosystem of care filled with other families, who share your parenting values, and care about you enough to call you in and hold you accountable.
I believe you can do more than post about black history content every February and then LGBTQIA plus content every June, just like I believe you can do more than check your spreadsheet to see how well you executed a feeding strategy that week. I love me some good spreadsheets too. But you don't need them to remember that you're exactly right where you need to be in your parenting journey. I believe that we can re imagine parenting to be bigger than perfectly executing tips and strategies. We can reimagine family healing to be more than addressing symptoms, like depression and anxiety. I believe we can hold space for our internalized depression and inner child wounds. Even if we have to start at performative ally ship and performative parenting.
I got you, and we got this, because we're fumbling our way through to liberation together. One mistake and one baby shark doo doo at a time. As always, in solidarity and sass, until next time, please take care.
[OUTRO]
[00:29:05] NV: Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. You can find all the resources, links and complete show notes over at comebacktocare.com/podcast. If there's something you want to check out, you could find it at comebacktocare.com/podcast.
[END]