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Lately, Mighty has been saying, “my momma don’t care,” about a variety of things, and ion like it. Recently she told Nana, “my momma don’t care how much candy I eat.” Another time she was eating all the snacks in the house with her friend, grabbing multiple things, saying, “we can eat alladis, my momma don’t care”. Another time she confidently told a friend with less screen time, “my momma lets me watch whatever I want.” Each time I overhear this, I cringe a bit and try not to go into “let me get you straight since you think I don’t care” mode with neck rolling and finger snaps included.…
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Rhinestone Rainbow-Colored Purse
The other day, Mighty and I went back-to-school shopping. It caught me off guard. She used to be fine with whatever I picked up from Old Navy or Target. But this time she insisted on going shopping together. It’s cute. She’s growing up and I get to be witness to all of these changes. So I’m watching, intrigued, as she critically peruses the backpacks. No more cartoon backpacks for her. It’s all pink and glitter now. As we are leaving, she asks if she can get a purse. I’m amused. You want to buy a purse? Ok. Nothing in the kid section interests her. Then her eyes fall on a…
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Trust and Decision-Making
Decision-making and trusting your child’s decision-making are both skills that require a lot of practice. Mighty and I learn together at the swim park. She tries out new skills and depths while I bite my lip to keep my mouth shut. I’ve been observing her over the past weeks as she has decided to conquer the deep end. Last week, she decided to get a life jacket for her first deep swim with a new friend. They floated a few times until they came back where they didn’t need jackets. This week, she decided to go again with a lifejacket. She swam around a bit and then swam back to…
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Parent Pick-Me Up
When I first saw this tweet, I was like, What’s the problem? My immediate response was to get a bit defensive for parents, but this #unschooling journey requires me to REALLY listen to children and reconsider some of the ways that we were parented. So I went through the comments. The way I originally read this is – I, the parent, will take you and your friends to a place and then one of the other parents can bring you home. But those aren’t the situations that were described AND the comments showed how that puts children in such a vulnerable position. A child wanting to go somewhere with their friends is…
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It’s not easy to transition to being an unschooling family but I suspect it’s way easier during a pandemic when you are usually in the house away from other people. Now that we are venturing out in the world, it’s putting some of my unschooling/conscious parenting principles to the test. I found this happening last weekend when we were attending an online conference. Mighty wanted to keep typing in the Zoom chat or come off of mute to respond to the speaker – you know, like we as adults do when we are online meetings. We add our thoughts, keep the conversation going, make jokes, right? But it was soooo…
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I’m tired. We are purging Mighty’s room to get ready for redecorating. This is the first time I’m really including her in this process. I’ve gotten rid of toys before in fits of frustration about cleaning or as punishment. She remembers and I can honestly admit those were not my best moments. So as we continue on this path of consent and autonomy, that also means partnering with her to purge the things that belong to her. I’ve introduced her to the Marie Kondo method of picking up one item and seeing if it brings her joy. So I am breathing and trying to maintain my composure as she ponders…
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This latest iteration of writing about parenting feels new, but Facebook reminds me that I’ve been talking about parenting for a long time. It also reminds me that your theory, your framing, and your intention can be right but your practice can be off. While I intellectually understood that “whupping” was wrong and could take that off the table, I still held fast to other punitive, controlling, corporal, and disrespectful ways of parenting that caused harm to my child. Self-compassion is critical on this journey of parenting. It’s one of the strongest parenting tools that I have. I guess I’ll keep talking my talk.
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Some of us have a deep discomfort with cutting a Black girl’s hair. Like anything that falls under parenting decisions, how our children wear their hair is intertwined with our relationship with our own hair and society’s view of it. That external gaze is a mug. I put a lot of emphasis on Mighty having a positive relationship with her hair. I read her colorful children’s books about natural hair. I looked for representation of little girls with natural hair in cartoons and tv shows. I bought posters, notebooks, and t-shirts with girls in afro puffs and braids. I did all the styles and configurations – beads, barrettes, braids, twists-ups,…
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Mighty has regular video calls with a variety of children and… they have their squabbles. We typically try to stay out of their conversations but sometimes we can tell they don’t have the tools to manage their conflict. The other day, one of them started yelling. Mighty said, “I’m not going to let you yell at me.” The child continued to yell and Mighty hung up.I heard her say to herself, “I learned that from my Mama.” Yes, you did. Continue on. #deschooling #deschoolingoutloud #consciousparenting #boundaries
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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…