Yesterday we went shopping with previously discussed money, plus some extra that Mighty was able to negotiate from her father. It’s cute. She’s excited and picking up things without understanding the total amount she had in her arms. When I advised her to count it up, she felt like a better option would be to take it all to the counter and figure it out there. I went into, “well, what we ain’t gonna do” mode. She told me, Mommy, your voice right now sounds like. And then she rolled her neck. I got the point. Okay. My bad. In her book, Raising Free People, Akilah Richard talks about developing…

I had a lot of feelings about that Beyonce wig and now it’s on the floor, matted and forgotten. I was shook at the request. I was panicking about how I possibly didn’t do enough to teach her that her hair was beautiful in its natural state and that she was pining for a type of beauty that was different than the one she was born with. And ALL that other stuff about Black girls looking older and being fast-tailed was rearing up in my mind. Yeah, that was my own stuff. Not hers. Keeping her from buying the wig, lecturing her about Black beauty, or showing my disapproval of…

Mighty might not have multiplication down but honey knows how to count her coins. She has had the opportunity to practice counting money at the store, but maybe she felt she needed a refresher. I heard her ask Siri how to count money and I guess it worked ’cause she came in with $7.99 to go with the $10 that was coming her way. She told me, I watched a video to make sure I knew how to count this. I’m so proud of her for that. Fundamentally, that is what unschooling is about. She doesn’t have to always know the answer. She just needs to know how to get…

I learned multiplication in 3rd grade. I remember Ms. Jordan’s class at Carver Christian Day School. She had a multiplication poster on the wall that went up to 9×12 and we would recite the multiplication tables every day. This year would have been Mighty’s 3rd-grade year. I don’t regret a single minute of keeping her out of formal school, but we are not immune from random freak-outs about her being “behind.” Even though I understand and believe the philosophy of children learning at their own pace, I have to admit there is lingering, low-grade stress that she won’t learn what we consider the basics, like multiplication. She asked for $20/month…

I almost snatched my child. Literally. When I tell you this work of healing yourself to become a better parent is hard, I don’t mean slightly uncomfortable. I mean as hard af. I mess up every day. Multiple times. I needed to be alone. I had already retreated to my bedroom because I had had enough peopling for the day. But also, Mighty and I had a hard conversation. My nerves were already on edge. I needed to be alone to regroup. To feel my feelings. To process and move on. But I could tell that she needed to connect with me for assurance that we were all good. As…

I ain’t gonna lie – including Mighty in decision-making, with ACTUAL consideration to her needs and wishes, feels like a loss. It feels like she gets her way ALL the time. And sometimes, when I am doing something that I probably wouldn’t do on my own, I want it to stop. I ask myself, why am I choosing this again? That, fellow parents, is the feeling of giving up privilege. It is truly a practice, as in we practice every day, to create a more equitable household. It’s hard. Very. The amount of unlearning and reparenting myself that I have to do to make space for her is incredible. And…

The calls for allowance are getting stronger. And I want Mighty to have her own money. But this #deschooling process makes you think about ALL the systems, not just school, and how they are all intertwined. Our household is our child’s first community. We learn how to interact with other people and the world from how we interact in our house. The values our children take into the world are greatly influenced by what we do in our house. If we want our greater communities to change, I think we have to start imagining how our households need to change in order to ripple outward. In essence, it’s future-making. I’ve…

Lately, almost every time I suggest something, Mighty says something different. Want to clean your room at 4:00? She immediately says 4:30. What movie are we watching Friday night? She says let’s watch it on Saturday. And on and on. It feels like a constant negotiation. Earlier in the day, she told me she wanted Chinese food. So when I was about to leave, I asked what she wanted from the restaurant. Actually, she now wanted pizza. I felt hot. Like temperature hot. This too much. The only reason why I’m even getting Chinese is because you wanted it and I’m trying to take your suggestions seriously. Nope. You can’t…

Mighty and I were watching KC Undercover together with the lights off, like a movie theater, when she decided to get a bowl of ice cream. When she came back in the room, she turned the lights on. I asked, kind of whiny, why she turned off the lights. I was already comfortable and the lights were super bright. They were disturbing my watching experience. She said she wanted the lights on so she could see her food. Of course, in my mind, she don’t NEED the lights on to see ice cream, so I told her to turn them off. She said, more forcefully, no, I want them on.…

What I’ve been thinking about lately – how we categorize Mighty’s things as “mess” that needs to be cleaned up and our things are “house” – as in that’s just how the house is. That feels unclear. Let me explain. Almost nightly as Mighty prepares for bed, we often tell her to take these socks that you took off, these toys that you brought down here, this book you were reading, these papers that you were doing your artwork on, this iPad, all of this stuff – take it back to your room or put it up. But, I have forgotten socks on the floor. I’ve left my laptop. I…