AfricanAmericanParenting.com
If you haven’t checked out Akilah S. Richards Fare of the Free Child podcast of Raising Free People Network, you are truly missing out! This podcast focuses on all things around ways to work toward liberation.
In the most recent episode, Akilah shares resources for home and unschooling families as well as deschooling support because we could all use some deschooling.
Take a listen here –> https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/rfp/
It’s been too long since I’ve written on the blog. I have had a whilrwind of a year and different but similar challenges with my kids but I am recommitted to sharing my journey, support, knowledge, mistakes and resources with parents and anyone willing to join me here. I hope you leave feeling more encouraged and less alone than when you came.
Today I took my son to his doctor’s appointment at Children’s Hospital. It’s always an emotionally exhausting trip. The traffic is always a mess and he usually has back to back doctor visits which means we’re there for at least two hours. I try to make it worth the trip by also getting in some quality time. Being a suburban kid he loves the idea of spending time walking around West Philly and eating burgers off of the food trucks. Even though I had tons of work to do back at home and clients buzzing my phone we stopped at one of his favorite diners in town to ear. I watched as the rain started to drizzle , then pour then slow down to a drizzle and then back to a heavy shower. I wanted to do anything but walk out of there and get soaked but I saw him look out at the rain with anticipation. He smiled every so slightly and I was instantly reminded of the days I would laugh out loud watching the joy on his face as he jumped into the largest puddle he could find. I would keep an extra change of clothes and shoes in the car just for these times. We would search for the largest, mud-filled puddle in the playground or on the way home. He would look at me with this look of excitement and smile just as he approached the puddle as if to ask permission to take flight. It brought both of us both joy, a few strange looks from other parents, and an extra load of laundry in the house, but oh how we both laughed. He was a toddler then but those are moments he’ll never forget.
Today my son and I got caught in the pouring rain. We were two city blocks away from the car. I found myself trying to avoid the puddles as I watched him find the largest one to walk through. At one point we both met eyes and laughed getting our clothes soaked while running to the car. It took me back to those days I would stop the car just to let him jump in a big puddle. I saw the same joy in his eyes that I saw then as the scientist in him laughed at me trying to dodge raindrops all the way to the car. Laughter is sometimes the best medicine. I realized at that moment he was teaching me how to let go of what other people think and just jump in. Have fun. Get wet. Get soaked. Be cold. I’m learning to be more fun and less motherly these days. My children need that side of me. I need the joy moments too. Just wanted to share a piece of my sunshine today. Hope you are taking moments for joy today.
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“In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you can change that system. That is easier said than done.” — Ella Baker (Dec. 13, 1903 – Dec. 13, 1986).
Baker was a civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s whose career spanned more than five decades. She was instrumental in the launch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Read her profile on the Zinn Education Project website.
This portrait is available as a poster for $20 from Americans Who Tell the Truth.
We cannot afford to sit and wait for the current system to support our needs as it is, we need to take action that will lead to radical change. We do it not just for us but for our children and generations to come.
#bethechange #bethesolution
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With love,
Today would be the last day I walked my eight year old daughter to her school and walked away. I live directly across the street from her elementary school, the same school my son, now thirteen, attended when he was just six years old. As I walked away today, it occurred to me that not only have my children been a constant fixture at the school, but so have I. For the past eight years I have volunteered almost every school week in either of their classrooms. In addition I dedicated several weeks each year as chairperson of their MLK Day of Service, Co-facilitator of parenting workshops and for several years held positions on their PTG (Parent Teacher Group) Board. I am a staunch supporter of the public school system and I adore the children that I have had the fortune to cross paths over the years, yet it is time for me to walk away and take my daughter with me. I am walking away from the beautiful, dedicated
++teachers, parents and administrators I’ve met over the years as well as the snobby suburban self-righteous and often underlying racist ones. I am walking away from seven hours of free child care each day of the week as well as the teachers who sometimes send my child home in tears because they just “don’t have time to ” help her understand a concept in the way that she needs to learn it. I’m walking away from the convenience of sending her walking to school as well as the anxiety-driven nausea and headaches she is sent home with like stale lunch in her backpack. No one cares about the quiet trauma that is brewing in the psyche of these young children when they are pressured with more homework and testing than I’ve seen in eight years.
I never thought I could do this. As a single parent with no parents or grandparents to lean on, I didn’t think I had an option. I didn’t see any way I could have her learn at home when I had to work at least part time outside of the home and maybe even more if I was to afford the child care and/or alternative school that she would now need. I felt selfish because I didn’t want to give up my free time during the day when I had no clients and could pamper myself. I couldn’t afford to send her to an alternative school because they were expensive and seemingly out of reach for someone self-employed and a full time mom. And then the day came that my daughter came home and asked me the question “Mom, do you think I’m stupid?”. And I knew that it didn’t matter what I thought I could or couldn’t do, I had to. To be continued….
Parenting Today's African American Children 