Ep 61: Unlearn Adult Supremacy & Power-With with Your Child
Imagine your child all grown up sitting in a coffee shop with their friends. Everyone is talking about their relationship with their parents, and it’s your child’s turn to speak. In one hypothetical future, they say “Oh, I’m grateful for my parents. They provided for me and took care of me. I’ve got no complaints.” In another hypothetical future, they say “my parents aren’t perfect, of course, and we definitely had ups and downs, but I know they’re always on my side and they’ve got my back. Our relationship’s pretty special.” Which scenario do you prefer? You’re here practicing decolonized parenting with me and breaking generational cycles, so I’d guess that you and most listeners would prefer the second scenario where your child grows up and thinks of their relationship with you as strong and special…from all the trial and error, ruptures and repairs you went through together.
So what can you do in your daily parenting now for this kind of relationship to blossom? We begin the first episode of Season 6 with this exploration.
[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 In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too.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 back to Episode 61 of the Come Back to Care Podcast.
In this episode, you and I are going to explore one barrier that prevents many of us from meeting our children where they’re at. And that barrier is adult supremacy. Let’s unlearn this pattern of oppression together so that you can shift from power-over your child to power-with with them… most of the time. Then, we’ll pick one adult supremacy pattern to unlearn together and explore one fear that fuels our resistance to change. This episode is part one of our exploration and we’ll continue our unlearning in the following episode. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.
Why Unlearn Adult Supremacy
Power-with with your child means meeting their physical and emotional needs where they’re at, most of the time. When power-with happens consistently and imperfectly, your child feels seen, heard, valued, and loved. So, power-with… we know it. We love it. We want to practice it. We also know that when we grew up not receiving this emotional connection, availability, and attunement, practicing power-with with our tiny humans can be harder, but not impossible. It just takes more healing and intentionality. We covered how our inner child wounds and upbringing can be one barrier to meeting our children where they’re at in Ep 51: Why Intentions Don’t Matter When You’re Triggered (in Parenting & Activism). I’ll link it in the episode show notes for you.
Today, I’d love to explore another barrier to practicing power-with. And that is an oppressive conditioning from white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy called adult supremacy.
You know I can (and love to) present stats and facts to you. Things like most newborns are born with billions of neurons. So, they’re hardly a blank slate. Or how the brain grows into 80% of its adult size by age 3. So young children not only are ready for us to power-with with them, but they also need us to do so for their brain development and social-emotional resilience according to the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development.
But learning facts doesn’t always help us change as Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba wrote in their book Let This Radicalize You. Most of us, when we’re in survival mode under this systemic oppression, find it’s hard to power-with with our tiny humans, even knowing facts like the ones I just shared. And that’s because we still unknowingly hold on to this message that we own our children.
Defining Adult Supremacy & Childism
This message that we own our children like our property goes by many names. I like the term adult supremacy because it explicitly calls us - the adults- in to be accountable and exercise our power ethically with our tiny humans.
But when you dive into literature, you might come across the term: childism. Analyst and political theorist Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, defines childism as quote "a prejudice against children on the ground of a belief that they are property and can (or even should) be controlled, enslaved, or removed to serve adult needs." End quote.
Unlearning is Nonlinear
How’s that landing for you so far? Before we continue to unpack this oppressive conditioning, if you’d like, notice what’s getting stirred up inside of you in this moment. Maybe you’re so excited to learn more and a part inside of you is saying “Yes, Nat, enough of this reflection and compassion. Just give me more information already.” Or a part inside of you might say “Oh, controlling my child, that’s me. I’m not being conscious enough.” Whatever is getting stirred up right now, only you know whether it’s adaptive or outdated- adaptive means it gets you closer to the parent you know you can be; outdated means it gets you repeating and perpetuating the status quo that’s oppressive.
Taking a moment to reflect on oppressive conditionings – conditionings like adult supremacy that we’re talking about today -- is the work of resistance. We name the oppression we’ve internalized and ingested so that we can alchemize and digest it instead of passing it down to our children. You’re with me?
And to the part inside of you that’s saying “I’m not being conscious enough” or “I’m not doing enough decolonized parenting…” hmm real talk?
Capitalism gaslights us into believing that growth, development, and progress must be linear. So, when you encounter new information to unlearn, it might feel like failure or incompetence on your part because you should have known this already.
Meanwhile, the wise part inside of you already knows that growth, development, and progress is non-linear. You witness it in your child’s development daily. Why can’t the same logic of liberation apply to your unlearning also? The fact that you register today’s information as something to unlearn speaks to how far you’ve come. You’ve been doing some healing work that opens up more bandwidth- neurobiologically and spiritually- to do more unlearning today. Right? It’s so non-linear. We heal, then we discover more beliefs, assumptions, and habits that are ready to be reclaimed and released. This is the work of decolonized parenting, a lifelong work of learning, unlearning, aligning, and realigning. It’s an ongoing practice not a rigid identity.
That’s my very long way of saying please respect yourself and how far you’ve come too.
Alright, back to adult supremacy?
What Adult Supremacy Looks Like
Just like racism that treats whiteness as superior to other racialized groups, adult supremacy treats us- the grownups- as superior to our children.
Putting one group above other groups is justified by dehumanizing the minoritized groups. You and I know this playbook so well, it goes all the way back to when indigenous folks were seen as uncivilized who needed to be purified and saved by colonization and Christianity.
Similarly, children are seen as irrational and untrustworthy. We’re trained to not see them as complete humans with their own desires, goals, developmental paths, and unique ancestral endowments they came into this world with. We’re trained to infantilize and dehumanize children when we excessively control, surveil, and monitor how they spend their time. It’s as if we were saying “I don’t trust you to know what’s in your best interest.”
With this view, children must be controlled, coerced, and monitored so they grow up to be obedient and productive workers- oh pardon me- members of society.
Akilah Richards, founder of Raising Free People Network, describes this view, writing quote “children don’t just become adults, they get molded into adulthood- responsible adulthood if the adults that own them do right by them. To not mold a child is to neglect them, to shirk one’s responsibility.” End quote.
Adult supremacy packages this oppression and sells it back to us as a good, normal parenting responsibility. It’s normal to teach, mold, manage, and shape our children to become successful adults. And we don’t even question it.
Even in my mother tongue, the Thai language, there’s a very popular proverb: “Rak Woa Hai Pook, Rak Look Hai Tee,” which roughly translates: if you love your cow, tie it up so it won’t run away. If you love your child, spank them so they turn out to be successful. Cringe…I know.
And if you’re here, I know you have intentionally opted out of physical punishment like spanking. What I want to spotlight here is the more insidious ways that adult supremacy shows up, especially when we’re triggered, distressed, and in survival mode with little support around. In these heated moments, as the Greek poet Archilochus wrote quote “We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” End quote.
Invitation # 1: Pick a Pattern to Unlearn
To start, I’d like to offer two examples of how adult supremacy has trained us. I’d love to invite you to reflect which pattern you’d like to release and recycle.
First, we’re trained to decenter our children’s needs to center our own comfort. For example, when our children unskillfully express their needs, feelings, and wants by saying “no,” by not doing what we ask on demand, or by just straight up having meltdowns, their behaviors are seen as quote unquote “bad” behaviors. When we apply political analysis here, we can see that “bad” is code for inconvenient to us getting things done. Or “bad” behavior reflects poorly on how good a parent you are. It’s the good old’ “I’m only a good parent if I can keep my kids under control.”
The second pattern of adult supremacy is when we decenter our children’s humanity to center society’s need for them to be obedient and productive workers. For example, because we need to mold and manage our children into successful adults, how they spend their time is under our supervision. Left to their own devices- literally- they’ll be idle and lazy. So we must make sure their schedule is productive. It’s the familiar belief that this is a part of parenting- preparing and protecting my child. And yes, it is. However, we can do so in ways that aren’t perpetuating the power-over dynamic of adult supremacy, which we will explore next episode.
Okay, do either of these examples resonate as a pattern you’d like to unlearn in the next six months? Wonderful! Thank you so much for reflecting and moving through the discomfort together. Now let’s take things a step further in our unlearning by naming our fear.
Invitation #2: Name our Fear
When we talk about unlearning both oppressive conditioning and outdated generational cycles, our framework at Come Back to Care is a one-two step. First, we name the fear or what makes us resistant to change. Then, we replace the oppressive and outdated habits with liberatory and generative actions. Because unlearning this sticky status quo isn’t a one-time action like hitting the delete button on our computer to uninstall a program. It’s a lifelong practice.
Eric Martin, author of the book Your Leadership Moment , wrote quote “despite the common adage, people don’t avoid change. What they avoid or resist is loss.” End quote.
So when it comes to power-with with your child, what are you afraid of losing? It doesn’t make you a bad parent. It’s simply human. During my 15 plus years of being a therapist serving families and young children, most families have shared the same fear underneath their resistance to sharing power with their children: the fear of losing control. Again, I’d love to invite you to reflect on how this does or doesn’t match with what you’re feeling. So that you can name it and release it. Then, in the next episode we’ll discuss adaptive and liberatory actions we can replace this fear with.
Fear of losing control often looks like “well, If I can’t control my child, how am I supposed to keep them safe?” This fear is valid. You and I both know the world isn’t exactly peachy out there. It hasn’t been peachy for any of us who are not white, middle class, Christian, able bodied, and male. The need to protect our children is real. And I know you already know that when this real need to protect your child comes from fear, you and most parents fall into this either-or binary of protecting your child or trusting your child. When you’re stuck in this binary where one of the choices is protecting your child, often you wind up protecting your child 100% of the time at the expense of showing your child you trust them to make decisions with you on what’s best for them and what works for you both. To say it another way, when fear leads your parenting, protecting your child looks a lot like policing them.
The cost is high when fear keeps you stuck in protection mode 100% of the time, at the expense of your child learning to trust themselves. So we’re naming this fear together so that you find your own balance between protecting your child and trusting them. Only you know what the right balance is for your family.
So when fear of losing control keeps you stuck, it can look like being tough on our children 100% of the time because the world is going to be tough on them. So we prepare them first at home to protect them when they’re out there. Who would want their children to be punished or get eaten alive out there or taken advantage of, right?
Dr. Jamilia Blake, co-author of Girlhood Interrupted, a report that came out in 2017 that discussed how society at large perceives Black girls’ behavior to be problematic and therefore quote “they are constantly monitored, they receive more severe disciplinary actions, and they aren’t even able to be sad or cry.” End quote. This perception also rings true to a certain degree to many minoritized families where their children can’t make mistakes, play, or be curious because it’s not safe or productive.
So it makes sense that quote “Black parenting culture has in many ways internalized the view that corporal punishment is required to instill Black youth with the discipline necessary to protect them against police violence, mass incarceration.” End quote according to Dr. Stacey Patton, journalist, professor, and child advocate.
Because of this fear, for 100% of the time, parenting looks like a survival training bootcamp that teaches our children to be a tough and productive worker for capitalism and a perfect and obedient status quo keeper for white supremacy. Because of this logic, spanking, passive aggressiveness, silent treatment, and overscheduling make so much sense for us to control our children in a world that’s out of control.
Akilah Richards wrote in her book Raising Free People quote: “My fears could never guarantee my daughters’ safety. And more than that, acting on those fears through the use of physical violence would stand to separate my children from me in ways that would only lessen their safety.” Richards continues “If Marley and Sage could not trust me to move past fear and treat them like people not property, then they would have every right to lie to me about where they were, what they were doing, and why they were doing it.” Richards then asks “If our fears for our children’s safety caused us to treat them in the very same ways we hope they will not be treated by others, what was the point? How were they safe then?” End quote.
Again, my dear co-conspirator, the need to protect your child is real, valid, and legitimate. We’re naming it explicitly here so you can discern when your need to protect your child is fear-based and therefore turning into policing. So that you can pause, re-center, and re-align.
If you’d like to explore other fears that might be fueling your resistance to change like fear of losing face, status, autonomy, and so on, we covered this in detail in Ep 25: Bridging the Gap between Intention & Action for Your 2023 Parenting Goals. I’ll link it in the episode show notes for you.
Closing
If the unlearning we talked about today can’t be tied up in a pretty bow, it’s okay. I trust in your capacity to be with the messiness of unlearning. We’ll continue this conversation together in the next episode as our part 2.
For today, I’d love to share a beautiful poem titled, On Children, by the poet Kahlil Gibran:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts…
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
Alright, my dear co-conspirator, I’m so grateful that you’re here, unlearning adult supremacy together in a radical and holistic way. It feels so good to be back here with you and dive into season 6 together. I’m in awe every time I think about how I get to serve you and so many listeners through this podcast. Thank you from my whole heart.
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As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.