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.…

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…

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,…

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

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…