How Nani Found the Community Support She Needed to Make Parenting an Act of Social Justice & Begin to Heal her Inner Child Wounds

“I've seen a lot of materials on respectful parenting and gentle parenting and all of that is really great, but I had just never seen a program that tied that into my politics. I think that's what's so special about [the program].”
- Nani Bisset

From Autopilot to Bold, Conscious, & Decolonized Family Building…

Most of the Time

“I suffer from an extensive imposter syndrome… and I didn't want to drag everybody down,”

“There's a lot of stuff from my past relationship that I just, in terms of surviving, cannot afford to sit with most of the time. And I really, really haven't. So I think for me getting into any kind of a group that involves doing some of that shadow work and prying into dark corners was very, very intimidating.”

These were some of Nani’s initial worries about joining the program which I held so closely to my heart. Doing this deep healing work while raising a family can be a big ask. Yet, watching Nani step into her own parenting authority over the course of six weeks was a beautiful thing to witness. There was no doubt in my heart that Nani had been ready for this work and this community of equity-minded parents.

When she joined the program, Nani was raising a vibrant family of growing humans who were 21, 10, and 3. Plus, she’s expecting another family member in January 2022!

Meeting all of her children’s different needs, Nani shared that she “felt kind of on the fringes of mainstream parenting and… so much of what you read and the books that seems to work for everybody else and be the general, you know, “here's how to do it” philosophy I've just tried and failed at.”

So, Nani tried to parent by a playbook that she wrote. Although Nani’s staying true to her parenting values, she shared that it was hard to go against the parenting norms alone (especially when her partner wants to raise their family a bit differently).

Nani was looking for a community of support that welcomed her intentional, decolonized, and anti-capitalist values in parenting.

“Right off the bat, being able to see other parents, with kids at different stages and talking about all of our experiences was somehow so unifying… It was really rewarding to be able to be vulnerable with that group and then to share other people's moments of vulnerability and, and their triumphs, and realize that we, all of us, are this whole spectrum of process.”

Nani really understood how solidarity through community building can be a potent antidote to the individualism inherent in White supremacy that makes parenting so isolating. To quote Nani:

“It's hard to verbalize the sense of support that I've come away with… It just ended up being a really wonderful community and just the thing I didn't know I needed.”

With the support Nani was looking for, she cultivated a unique way to reflect on the program’s content and apply it to her parenting.

Here’s why Nani shared about becoming a decolonized parent:

“A lot of people have a deep misunderstanding of what (decolonization) means. And they think it means being ashamed of everything that we've done so far and having to chuck all of our history and all of that. And I really feel like it's so important to integrate. It's so important to integrate the history and the values and where we want to go from here.”

“There is so much kind of capitalist white supremacy in how we raise our children to fit into the world…[Decolonized parenting means] being able to take my children out of the greater context of what everyone's meant to do and be, and just parent them based on their needs, where they're at, and get what they need for them. Making sure to ground them in the context of: ‘sure this is what you need and what you're going through, but how are you affecting others and the grand scheme of things?’”

Nani came into the program with a deep desire to unsubscribe from capitalism in her parenting. With the body-based practices (especially the ‘Supermodel Poses’), Nani practiced being a decolonized parent in-the-moment with her son, Remy. As she described it,

“I found myself employing those (body-based practices) in stressful moments pretty much from the moment that we covered them. I was working my way through tantrums or, uh, domestic strife with my ‘Supermodel Poses’. Really trying to work on my own regulation to get me through tough days and already been introducing Remy to some of these ideas…”

And Nani got real (haha):

“I think (the program)'s really encouraged me to just be in the moment with each need as it arises. I think so much of our time gets spent managing our children and trying to get them to fit a mold or, just get through the day. It's so hard when they want to melt down and you're burning dinner on the stove and you just can't right then. But I think it's been a really good reminder that each of those pieces interlocks and each little thing we do is building the next phase that we're going to face. So just trying to really stay present, and stay personal and connected.”

As Nani de-tangled the knots of systemic oppression from her parenting, she applied the same understanding to her own caregivers and ancestors. In effect, that was how she was connecting the dots between being a decolonized parent and being an intergenerational parent.

Through journaling, Nani discovered that, “I found myself just coming back to the same narrative about my family of origin and realizing like I have this incredibly one-dimensional understanding of my ancestors… I'm able to see it as they were just doing the best they could at the time and there were forces [their own inner child wounds and systemic oppression] acting on them that restrained their choices or what they felt were their choices.”

Nani’s intergenerational family healing was applying compassion and understanding to her caregivers, To quote her again, “We can contextualize and make it not necessarily just about who they were… We can put them in space and time and understand more why these things were the way they were and that we can move forward with the values that are helpful, that we got from them without having to reject them wholesale because of things they did in their time. Or remain apologists for the way they did things in their time.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, Nani embodied my intention of “both-and” when she integrated the work of both parenting her children for social change and re-parenting her inner child for intergenerational family healing.

“[The parents in the program] were doing that work for the kids and for the culture and for the next generation. It was well worth it… I was really, really, really glad I showed up and really proud of myself for having taken that step and completed it.”

Nani, YOU’re my Gandalf too (apologies…inside joke, I had to).