54: Decolonizing Parenting with Yolanda Williams

We are exploring the world of parenthood today, but this episode might be helpful even for those who aren’t parents. We are all in some process of trying to reparent ourselves, and it can be healing to hear how people are parenting, how they are failing, and why they want to do better. I’m joined by Yolanda Williams, who has built the Parenting Decolonized brand. She is a single mom, a conscious parenting coach, and a racial justice educator. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights: 

●      Why sleep and parenting is a no-win situation for parents: the essence of the co-sleep vs. sleep train debate

●      Why parents have to figure out when their child is dysregulated and what works best for them–even if goes against “the rules”

●      How parents can learn about their triggers and how they project those triggers into the world

●      Why we don’t understand the fears, shame, and motivation that cause other parents to do what they do

●      How Yolanda feels about the parent-coaching industry

●      How Yolanda has built an intentional community in the absence of the ancestral village

●      How capitalism and racism have infiltrated our parenting techniques

●      Why Yolanda is working to form an intentional village community where parents help each other with whatever their “privilege” is

●      How to start decolonizing your parenting

●      What we should teach our kids about violence, restraint, bullying, and self-defense

●      A look at Yolanda’s recent parenting “wins”

 Resources and Links:

Connect with Yolanda Williams: Website, Parenting Decolonized podcast, and Instagram

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes

• Transcript

  KC Davis 0:05

  Hello you sentient balls of stardust, welcome to struggle care, the podcast about mental health, self care, wellness, by a host that really hates the term self care and is not super great at wellness. I'm glad that you're here. And I'm glad that you're gonna listen to me in this next guest. I've got Yolanda Williams on today who has an organization or company, what's the best way to say that is your company, your organization, your brand and brand got it? decolonizing parenting, and I love that. And if you're not a parent, I hope you stick around, I find that sometimes in the world of trying to reparent ourselves. There's something that can be really healing about listening to people talk about parenting, particularly listening to them talk about wanting to be good parents and how they're failing and, and how they're wanting to do better and what they think about parenting. So I'm glad you're with us. And Yolanda, I'm super glad that you're with me. Both of us had really rushed mornings. So rushed, I'm so tired. And the amount of podcasts that I roll into with zero plan would actually probably wouldn't shock many people. I don't tend to have a plan about anything.

  Yolanda 1:16

  I tell people, though, like it's like a like it's a thing. I'm just like, listen, it's conversational. I don't have questions. It's because I don't want to have them. I don't want to send you questions, because that means I have to do pre work. And nobody got time for that.

  KC Davis 1:28

  I know. And I try to check with people because I tried to appreciate that. Some people really need a plan. I am so happy to shoot from the hip. Yeah. Okay. So anyways, we were like talking about something and I was like, Wait, hit record, it's gonna be good. I was sharing that my morning was a little rushed, because I thought my daughter was sick. And then she made a miraculous recovery as many four year old to do once, she realized she had to actually stay in bed for the morning if she was sick. And so I had to rush her to school, and my older daughter actually sleeps with me. And we sleep really well together.

  Yolanda 2:00

  I don't, I haven't had a good night's sleep in four years is difficult. So like, recently, Casey had a post about sleep training. And I commented and I got I was like, well cried out is traumatizing. And the thing about me is I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, right? And some people agreed. So people were just like, you know, why would you say that? That's not what she's talking about. And the thing is, I understand the like, the desperation because I still haven't had a good night's sleep. Do you wake up, she just started sleeping through the night at three. But she sleeps so terribly that I wake up multiple times a night just to switch to the other side of the bed. She's, I am on the edge of reason of the bed, right? Like I'm like, floating, the way that my mattress is now like each side has a divot of me, and then in the middle of a hill. So it feels weird to even sit in the middle because it's just like, This doesn't feel right, because that's how poorly she wants to be under me. And I think that's from nursing whenever she wanted to, and she wants to be touching me and it's terrible. So I understand that like desperation just like I need to get some effing sleep because I'm gonna lose my mind. I feel well and I

  KC Davis 3:09

  think that's probably why my daughter and I sleep okay to like, it's so it's such a different experience is because I didn't co sleep from a birth, like I did sleep train, I did cry it out. And so she got used to sleep like she never really had that like skin to skin all night long. And so she just like lays there like a little log. And so I, you know, what I thought was really interesting. So for anyone listening, I did a post about how I had sleep trained, and I did use cry it out. And what I found really interesting when you had commented cried out as traumatizing is that because you and I have a relationship, like we have the beginnings of a relationship. We've talked offline, we've sort of chatted about things we did that live together. It was interesting to me how different it was to experience your comment, because my experience of it was like, hey, that's what she believes that's what she thinks.

  Yolanda 4:01

  It wasn't like, I was like, Man on you. Yeah,

  KC Davis 4:05

  I like doing personally. And it was like, easier to hold. Like, that's her opinion. It's not about me. And it was just kind of an interesting reflection on like the internet in general. Because when I don't know someone, like if I hadn't have known you, and you had commented that like I would have taken it as adversarial. Yeah, like I would have felt attacked, I would have maybe even like pushed back really hard on it. And I did push back really hard on other people that said similar things, but it was like you and I had this container, that content recontextualize that comment,

  Yolanda 4:41

  and I think that's the important thing we need to remember about social media, the way we interact with each other online. It's just so nasty sometimes. And I think a lot of times we assume that people are trying to attack you're trying to be negative. And really I was just stating like what I feel as effects. And it wasn't like I'm trying to shame and say and that's why I had to Like a second thing, like, I don't know, if this is what you're saying, I was trying to, like, clean it up a bit. And so many words, I didn't want you to feel like I was attacking you. And that's also why I made like, 5011 response videos, because I wanted to give more context. And that's the hard part is like, these are some very short form, communication style tic tock, you know, so we are with, I think now they've increased like 10 minutes, like, who wants to know, on tick tock for 10 minutes with somebody to talk, but I don't, because that's not what it's for. That's not what we want it to be for. So we get these three minute sound bites of someone's opinion. And we have to remember, like, it's not the totality of what they're saying, because you had to then go in and talk about in your reply videos, other people, you were like, expanding on what you were saying, and I didn't want it. You know, I'm, I'm sorry, if I, you know, if I did make you feel away, because I wasn't definitely wasn't what I was trying to do. And I thought about it. And I was just like, well, I probably could have said that differently. But it's something I feel strongly about. And there's some cultural reasons that I talked about why I feel the way I do. And I hope that, you know, I was able to clear some things up for you, because I'm not worried about anybody else.

  KC Davis 6:10

  Well, that's what was kind of interesting to me was that, I think, had it been anybody else I would have felt like, what you were saying was that I had traumatized my kid. And then like, the natural, like, jump from that, it's like, that's a bad mom. But because I've talked to like you and I have had, like, we had a long life about parenting. And so I know, at least I think I know, your general opinions about me as a person. So I was able to hold that opinion differently. And it was just an interesting thing. And then I, it kind of also brought me to, I was thinking so like, long about what was interesting about just that, this in general, this concept of sleep and parenting, and I mean, at the end of the day, it's like a no win situation. For moms in general.

  Yolanda 7:01

  And for the children, right, we are either choosing ourselves or choosing them. And so in your case, you were like, I gotta choose me because I cannot. And in my case, I was like, I have to choose her. Because of the cultural context of we she's already born into this body as a, you know, as a black child, a disabled woman at that, a girl at that, so I'm trying to do everything I can to mitigate trauma. And, and that means I have to suffer. And that's what I've been doing, I'm I'm gonna lie. To y'all, I have been, it's been really difficult to not sleep well, and try to run a business or just trying to be a good parent, it really is difficult. So I understand what you were saying, when you were just like, I would choose this way any day. For me, I didn't feel like I had a choice and choosing my child, because of you know, white supremacy, delusion. And all this stuff that she has to deal with are ready come into the world, with a mom who's traumatized by whiteness, that's the things that I have to hold. And so it's interesting how we can see the same, like talk about the same thing. It's just so from two different worlds. And I think that's why we need to learn how to talk to each other, to understand the context. Well, and I

  KC Davis 8:11

  think the other you know, it's almost a similar idea is that the way that cultural things play out in my life as a white mother is like, there was just the fact that when I was sleep deprived, I was cold and angry. And I was incapable of being a conscientious parent, or a conscious parent, gentle parenting, respect for whatever you would call it. And you know, that I did not want to be that mother, that could not be responsive, right? Like that would have been, for me a legacy of isolation and coldness. And like we, you know, I am blessed to have a great relationship with my mom. But in general, like in the white world, the white community, like daughters and their mothers have a very complex, often screwed up relationship. And I think, you know, it's interesting when we talk about like, Okay, I chose me you chose your daughter, but I guess I see it a slightly different way. Because, like, the only when I look at like the options around sleep, whether it's like sleep training, and there are there are other ways of sleep training that don't involve like crying. I know a lot of people do like no cry solutions and things like that. I'm not as familiar with those, but it's like, it kind of seems like there's three options. There's like, Sleep Train your child to sleep in their crib alone. CO sleep with your child and a bed or just never sleep at all. To me that's like the only actual option that just never considers what you need is like just never sleep because then you can always provide, you know, the skin to skin, the clothes comfort, and there's no risk at all physical, emotional, like no risk at all, but That's not like, realistic. And I think in my head moms that closely, are going through the same process as moms that Sleep Train, like we're looking and going, Okay, we have to sleep, we have to sleep. And so if you have to sleep, the choices, you have to either sleep with your baby, or you have to figure out a way to get your baby to sleep by themselves. And there are certainly risk factors for both of those, like we talked about the risk factor, like I believe in looking at the research that is available, that there isn't enough sort of data that says, Look, we have this proof that this long term really negative impacts. Now, that doesn't mean that there are no negative impacts, it just means that there are no undocumented right now. And so I had to go in going it is a possibility that this could have a negative emotional impact. But for me, I also when I looked at ko sleep, I felt like there were still risk factors there. Namely, like safety risk factors, right? Like there is a possibility that a child could suffocate or asphyxiation in a co sleeping arrangement. And what I think sometimes happens, and I don't think you and I do this, but I think that like people who sleep train, will, the assumptions they make about the mother who co sleeps is like, she's laying in a fluffy bed of pillows, and she doesn't care about risk. And she's, you know what I mean? Yeah. And then like the mother that CO sleeps, when they see a mother asleep chains, she makes this assumption of like, she doesn't care about being responsive. She just shut the door and let the kids scream in their feces all night. When in reality, like

  Yolanda 11:43

  that is not what's going on for either one of

  KC Davis 11:45

  the mothers. Yeah, the mothers, I know that closely went okay. There is a risk here. Oh, yeah. But you took mitigating factors, right. Like, maybe you decided not to sleep with a big comforter? Maybe you decided to not drink? Maybe you decided to and like, that's what I did. Like I said, How can I mitigate the risk factors that this could have a negative impact. And so I chose, you know, okay, we're gonna do a schedule, like a pretty regimented schedule for two weeks before we do anything, so that you are adequately sleepy. And then I'm going to lay you down, I'm going to practice a bedtime routine. And then I'm going to lay you down. And then I'm going to leave the room for three minutes. And in three minutes, I'm going to come back in and for both of my daughters that actually ended up differently. So one of my daughters could not calm down in the crib, and like, I can tell the difference between I'm uncomfortable, I'm uncomfortable, and I'm dysregulated. I'm dysregulated. And so I found that she was dysregulated. She could not be regulated in the crib. So I had to pick her up and hold her until she regulated. And when I felt that regulation, I later back down. And I did it again three minutes. My other daughter what was interesting is that I found that if I picked her up, she got more dysregulated if I kept my little hand on her in the crib, and I patted her butt and I said Mommy's here. Mommy's here, then she would reregulate so like, I still co regulated with my kids. Right? Three minutes, we're out. Three minutes, we're out six minutes, we're out. Six minutes, we're out, always listening for that. Where's your window of tolerance, I want to make sure that I'm in what I deemed sort of like a comfortable level of tolerance and not a complete I can't loot right. And that was what I was comfortable with. Right? I would not have been comfortable with just letting them scream all night, I would not have been comfortable with vomiting and all this. But I also when I hear about that happening, I think to myself, Oh God that's painful to hear. And I would never do that. And I tried to also hold space for maybe if I was desperate enough, there's always

  Yolanda 13:49

  new ones people. And I even had to say, I have been working from home since I moved out here to Arkansas from California. I moved before I was up. Not before, while I was pregnant. When I found out I was pregnant, I moved near my family. And so I had the privilege of being at home and not necessarily having to leave the house to go do things. You know, she did not sleep well. And I learned that with autistic kids. A lot of them don't sleep well. So sleep training wouldn't have worked for her anyway, you know, and I quickly learned that when I told you my friend got me the sleep trainer. She did that was what she recommended was exactly what you just said. And I went and I redecorated the room. I got the blackout blinds, I got the white noise machine. I even got it was some sort of like a compression like sleeve that she hates because she doesn't like covers and so I got all these things and I was ready. I was like we gotta I gotta get some sleep. I would go sleep chain. I lasted an hour. I just couldn't do it. And because she couldn't do it and and it didn't matter if I was touching her if I picked her up, she was screaming. And I didn't know at the time that she was autistic. I think she I think I was about eight months. She was about eight months when I tried this and to get her diagnosis. She was 18 months or no, I'm lying after she was two, I've got that diagnosis. So I understanding that autistic kids, a lot of them don't have very good sleep, sort of routines and that kind of thing. I had to learn what was best for us as a family. And I think that is where I always tell people, I'm a conscious parenting coach, I tell parents, you need to figure out what works best for your family. In my family, there's a limited screen time. That's because we are neurodivergent people over here and screens actually helped me. They've been helping her learn how to speak, she has limited words, she has learned how to speak and sing using a screen. So we, it's unlimited screen time over here. For me, we don't go to bed early. She her bedtime starts it's about 10 o'clock. Anything earlier, she wakes up at 4am. And like this is this is clockwork. So when she goes to sleep, and it's like nine, I'm just like, wake up. Because she does not sleep through the night. Otherwise, okay, she wants to wake up at four o'clock and party. So I had to realize like, I cannot do things. Like everyone else. I can't follow all the rules. Like, you know, here's this book of things I'll the I had to do what was best for my family. And I think as long as we always keep in mind, like, like what you said, I can tell if my child is really dysregulated I can tell, I have to figure out what they need it, you figured out what each child needed and you went with that. It wasn't like you close the door. Because that's, that is what I hear when people say cried out, that's what I think of, because I have seen like on the shows like The nanny and stuff, they talk about doing that it's so brutal to me. And the history of just some of the some of these parenting techniques from like, you know, the boomers are so brutal to children. And, and so that is where my mind goes. But honestly, if you are like checking in and making sure like there is no thrown up there screaming into their horse, like to me that you're you figure out what's best for your family. That's your business. I'm just in my business is making sure children are

  KC Davis 17:04

  what's interesting about that is like, if I'm being honest about like, I truly believe, like I do not have, I don't look down on mothers that CO sleep like I couldn't. And there were a few nights where I would do maybe like the last hour because I was so sleepy. But like I don't know if it was my anxiety or what but like the risk that anything could happen. Even if I was fault, like mitigating the best I could like I couldn't get over it. I could not fall asleep. If I did fall asleep I jerk awake, I could not function. And so like, I was so afraid. And some of that was my own sort of like I had a really difficult time with infertility. I had two miscarriages and I had this like pervasive belief that like, I wasn't allowed to have good things. And if I did something bad would happen. And so it was like, I can't,

  Yolanda 17:55

  okay, okay, I'm gonna stop you there. So you just saying that, like something happened in my body. Because I have this, when GIA does something, and she scares the shit out of me, I get angry, I get so mad. And I really just started investigating that. And I realized it's because I have a fear that I can't keep her alive. It's a big fear that I cannot keep her safe. And I can't keep her alive. But you type a couple things together and what you just said, and I'm feeling like that is also a part of that anger that comes up for me, right? Because this child who is like so purely like loves me, like up, I just be like, girl, you love me so much. Love me less. Sometimes it's so it's so much. It's so much. I've never experienced a love like this. And it's overwhelming for me at times. And I'm scared of it. At times, I'm getting emotional. It's scary for me because I just want to protect her. So when she does something, I'm just like, oh my god, she could have died. And then all the stuff about myself would be true. But I'm not good enough to be a good parent. I don't deserve good things. I can't keep her safe. And I project that with anger, like, and I'm learning because that's my job as a conscious parenting coach, but also as a parent, to learn what those triggers are, and learn how I project those triggers out into the world. And so I'm learning that when I start to feel that fear and anger rise up, I leave the room. If she's safe, I just leave the room and I just kind of go and like punch the air or something. Because it's there. It's a trigger and it's real and I can't pretend like it's not but it's my responsibility to make sure I'm not projecting that onto her because it's not fair. I just want to make sure that she stays alive and she in every day. I have a sensory seeking autistic child. It's like why are you trying to kill yourself? Why are you got that in your mouth? Why are you touching that? What you know, why do you have a battery? I found a she was chewing on a battery. I was like why are you doing that? She walked over to me the other day and just vomited. I was like what the hell was going on? In the vomit was one of my crystals. It was huge. She was talking about it. I didn't know and I had to just walk Go away. I was just like, I don't know how I'm gonna survive motherhood. And Mike, can I be a mother? Like, I'm constantly it's a constant questioning of, Am I even cut out for this? You know,

  KC Davis 20:09

  man, okay, I have so many thoughts, but I'm gonna take a pause, and we'll come back after the break. Okay, we're back with Yolanda from decolonizing parenting. And here's something that so I see you eat with your own crosstable. Here's what's so interesting to me. Like, I have to admit that when I hear people talk about co sleeping, I sometimes have to battle, like my own assumptions about what that means, right? Because just like you said, you know, when I hear sleep training or cried out, I hear put them in the crib shut the door, you don't care about their needs. And when I hear cosleeping, where I immediately go to is this sense of how could anyone for their own fear or comfort, even take the slightest bit of chance that their child would be harmed? Like because to me, like, my kids feel so precious feel so right. And so like, because that's my context? It's hard for me when I hear people talk about cosleeping. Because I think what could be worth that? What could be worth that, even if it's a 1% chance, what could be worth that? But like, when I hear you, so if that's like, the only thing I hear about someone, like, that's what I feel, and I know not to, you know, I don't want to say that to them. Because what I have learned is like, when I listened to you talk, like you did right before the break about like that deep fear of like your worst fears confirmed, that you may not be a good mom that you may not have what it takes to protect them. Like, it makes me realize that you're just like me. And I see that humanity. And I see that like, like F like it, you love them so much.

  Yolanda 21:47

  You love them. So it's like, it's like, the worst thing sometimes is I was just like me looking at her. I'm just like, I would kill for you lady like little girl, I would literally go to jail for you, I would go underneath the jail for you. If that's a scary thing.

  KC Davis 22:01

  I have thought that before. And it's not a like boast. It's like a fear. It's like, if someone were to hurt her, I would not be able to control myself, I would go to prison will go to prison and see I have an extra layer. This is hypothetical in case someone is listening to this in the future. And I have in fact been accused of hurting someone. This is hypothetical, I would never actually do that. Okay, but ya know, it's terrifying. And that vulnerable moment, and it's always like 3am. And you and looking at this baby, and you're you feel so low and so inadequate. And I think that what's hard is to like, what I learned things about whether it like parenting tactics. Without context. It's like I struggle sometimes to hold the humanity of that other mother and not point that out. And I first of all, I love that, like, when you talk about decolonizing parenting, I want to get into that. And I love that when you talk about your house and you're like, like, there are really deep reasons, cultural reasons, like why we co sleep and I took you know, and I took steps to mitigate any risks to that. And we're at we have no limits on screen time. Like I love that talking of like, decolonizing parenting isn't just like a list of parenting decisions and traits. Oh,

  Yolanda 23:11

  absolutely not. We have to do this. That's the thing. One thing I'm very vocal about, especially on tick tock is how I cannot stand the parent coaching industry. I hate it, to be honest with you. And I'm part of it, y'all. It's because of the way that it is spoke, we speak about all these things in such binary. You know, I'm saying like really just black and white things, and that is broken a pistol folks off because the majority of the coaches are white. And so it just feels very regimented all the time just feels like you need to do this. And it's just like absolutely not. There's nuance that we have to consider we everybody has a different all kids are different, right? What we know universally is that all kids deserve and need kindness and empathy and patience, and love and guidance from their parents that's across the board. All kids need that what they every kid may not work well with certain types of the wet you know, communication styles. This is what comes with learning about your children. And I just hate the way that it feels like here's some tips and tricks to stop Trump stop tantrums. It's like no, that's not how life is.

  KC Davis 24:18

  And it's not even about the kid like what I can't stand about. It's like the people who are very sort of like hardcore, like, I spank and I do this and I do that there's this pride of like, I know how to do it. I'm strong, but then even on like the total opposite end when you get to like super crunchy moms that you know, they have their own list of like, I only breastfeed my only cause even then it's like it's still about them it's like liquid a good mom I am and I feel like parents are trapped in that like when they're trying to look for the quote unquote like right thing to do. It's like this minefield of making the decisions that make you a good mom. As opposed to making it child centered.

  Yolanda 25:03

  And that's my point, right? Because that's what I chose to do, I have to be child centered in everything that I do for cultural reasons. And when we talk about decolonizing, I had to open it back. And I read stuff around ancestral ways of parenting. And I wanted to do that. I did not want to do things that were sort of rooted in like an individualistic society. The problem is that we live in an individualistic society, right? And so the reason why I had to this day, I'm not getting any sleep and feeling sometimes trapped by parenthood by motherhood is because the village is dead for all of us, right? We are not living the way we're supposed to be living this whole siloed nuclear Yeah, well, yeah. But you know, the nuclear family structure is not a natural structure. And it's fairly new. And we have to understand historically, this is not how families functioned. And so when we start to look at like how race and class played a really big part into how we parent today, I want to know parts of that. The problem is that I don't have a village, right. So I'm trying to do things like ancestrally that require a village without a village, don't get me wrong, my family is out here with me, they help as much as I can, but we don't live together. And that's why I am doing the whole, I'm building an intentional community with eight other black mothers because I need, we all need to be in very close proximity to one another, to receive the help that we need to be better parents. So when I don't have it, because there's days I just don't, and those are the days I call just keep everyone alive days, where I don't do shit, but lay down and she gets to basically run the house. I'm just trying to keep her alive that day, because I don't have anything to give her a lot of spoons about energy and burnt out. If I was in a village, though, someone will come and take her right and entertain her and be with her and feed her properly. There's love chicken mcnuggets I happen on that day. And I don't care.

  KC Davis 26:56

  Well, the proximity thing is huge, because like, I'm really blessed to have some very close friends, close, emotional, intimate, vulnerable, I can tell them anything. But none of them live near me with the exception of one or two. And the ones that live near me have kids my similar age, and you would think like, oh, they're such great help. It's like, No, we can't help each other at all, because we all have the burden of our own whole nuclear family and house and care tasks. And like, it takes all of our time just to take care of what we have here. And you know, one town over, it takes all of their time to take care of their stuff, they're in the schedule, that it's actually really hard to get together. And when you do get together, it's like you can get together for a social thing. But that's different than like, Let's wash our clothes down by the river. Like, you know what I mean? Or like, my kids are going to run over to your house because I have something to do and then maybe I'll make dinner and we'll eat together. I mean, it's I used to be jealous of like it no way like covet, like Mormon polygamist wives, but I do sometimes get jealous about like the setup of, you know, three houses together with one shared backyard, and everyone is just helping each other. And

  Yolanda 28:12

  I mean, but you can still you can do that. Now, though. Maybe you can, like I'm literally working towards that very thing, we're gonna be limited. But I'm literally working towards that we're going out to Georgia performing a land trust. And we will do that exact thing, farm and everything else. Because the systems are not set up for Healthy Families. If you really think about it, everything when it comes to how we sleep, our children sleep to us, our decision to go to college, everything is really centered around capitalism. It really is. I'll send you this video when we get off. And it's around the why sleep training came about. And a lot of it was rooted in racism. But a lot of it was also because of capitalism, because of the church that says, hey, sleeping communities, perverse. It's not supposed to do it. It came from disease because people were so nasty back in the day, that it like people were catching diseases loving to live in such close proximity together.

  KC Davis 29:08

  So you're forming a community, intentional

  Yolanda 29:11

  community. So I'm doing that because I am trying to go back to that village where we are there for one another, there's a communal kitchen, but we have our separate dwellings and so on and so forth. It is necessary, like we can do that. But even just the other day, a friend of mine came called me and she was just like, hey, if you need me to help you with Gia while you get prepared for your parenting conference, let me know. And I was just like, yeah, so she came over and watch GIA while I worked. Like that, to me is a way that we can be in community with one another. It doesn't have to be where I hope that everyone starts getting back to the whole village mentality in an actual village, but since a lot of us feel like we can't, I want us to start thinking about like, how can we use what privilege we have to help someone else and fight Versa, right? People hear privilege and they get so upset because they think I'm only talking about race, but I have privilege of time, because I work for myself and I work from home. And so that same friend, I will pick her daughter up from school three days a week, from school and take her to the Child Development Center and come home, hour and a half out of my day, to help a friend who otherwise would not have child any way to transport her child. That is me being a village member and a community member. She then was just like, I want to help you do the same thing. So she came over my house and helped me with Gia with in brought her daughter and they played well I worked. And I was able to get some work done distraction free, kinda with the help of another adult, right? So we can figure out how can we be there for each other if you have the resources where you have time, and you love to cook. And you know, your friend does not have time, but they but they need a home cooked meal, cook some extra food, and maybe they can, I don't know, watch your kids sometimes like we start to talk to each other and figure out what each other needs and what we can do for one another, and start to live that way. So we're not so dependent on these systems, and we're not so individualistic.

  KC Davis 31:09

  That's great. Okay, after we take a break, I want to come back and ask you about some specific things that people can do to start to decolonize their parenting. Okay, we're back with Yolanda from decolonizing parenting. And I do want to say one thing that I love about you can I do

  Yolanda 31:28

  that? Oh,

  KC Davis 31:32

  one of the things that I've noticed about a lot of parenting experts in parenting spaces, particularly the ones that are led by white women, is that whether they intend to do this or not, there's this message that if you could just master and they do this even in like gentle parenting spaces, if you could just master gentle parenting, you wouldn't be struggling so much with parenthood, you wouldn't have so many behavior problems with your kid you wouldn't have like, it wouldn't be this hard, like. And so a lot of a lot of it draws a lot of people in because they are experiencing a really tough time with parenting. And they're looking for like the hack that will make everything easier. And what I appreciate about you when you talk about parenting and conscious parenting is that even when we are doing all of the quote unquote, right things, we're being conscious parenting, we're being responsive, we're being we're in an environment, that itself is going to be the barrier. And so we're still going to have survival days, we're still going to get angry and need to walk out of the room. And that's not because we're not being a good enough conscious parent. It's because there's no amount of conscious parenting that is going to overcome being a single parent or living in a capitalistic society, or needing to go to work when you haven't slept, or having been traumatized by your own parents, and now still dealing with this. And I find that that is rare in the parenting world to talk about that. At the same time.

  Yolanda 33:06

  Yeah, it's disappointing. And it's the reason why I choose to be so vocal about my own hangups and my in my own mistakes, who I want to humanize this whole thing, it is not just about like, talking softly and giving choices and like absolutely not the conscious part of conscious parenting is you being conscious of your trauma, your mood, your mindset, how your social economic status may be impacting right your decisions that you're making. And it's going to look different for everybody because of these issues around race and class and privilege. So my parenting as you know, a black single mother, who is has a visible disability, but who was able bodied parenting, an autistic child is going to be completely different than yours, right? And I want to hold space for for all of that nuance. And just tell people like, the more that you go within, the easier it does get, the more habit you can form to be conscious. But I feel like what these coaches are doing is telling people how to do conscious parenting, instead of How to Be conscious people. And so that's where it's different for me, because I just want you to be a conscious person, because those conscious as we learn more about ourselves, about our triggers, about how we respond to those triggers, how we communicate our coping skills. It's not just the parenting that's affected. It is literally every single relationship with every human being we come across. And so my goal with conscious parenting is not just about these kids, it's really about the world, right? Because I think about how many hurt people are walking around here and we don't know how to communicate. I mean, look at that thread or thread like we can see it people don't want to talk to one another. We don't care to have respectful communication with one another. So many hurt people walking around here being hurt, and just bleed all over everybody and not caring. And I just envision a future where people do care because we've been empathetic, we've listened to them, we've told them that their voices matter that their feelings matter. But there's boundaries, right? You don't get to speak to me like that just because you're upset. We've taught them boundaries, we've taught them respectful communication intact. And we've also taught them that everyone is not deserving of respect all the time. Right how to advocate for yourself, when to be violent. Like, for me as a revolutionary, there's space for violence in this world, just not against the most innocent among us, which is children. So it's like having that conversation being teaching those things to our children, for a more liberated future for everybody. Like, that's what I how I approached my coaching business, versus like, it feels like very present, the way that people are coaching people versus me, I'm more like, futuristically, we're doing this for future generations, I want my daughter to not have to go through the things that I'm going through now. So I'm hoping that she is just like this, because it's like, normalized, and it's who she is, if she chooses to have children, that they're that she she just does this naturally. She's a conscious parent naturally. And it's just the freakin preset. It's not, you know, she didn't have to learn it. It's just who she is, it becomes who our children are. And if we had millions of people who is just how they are, the world will look completely different.

  KC Davis 36:14

  It's so powerful, what you said about violence, because I, whenever you hear parents be like, if somebody hits you hit them back, and it's like, that doesn't sit right with me. And when I became a parent, and I have kids, there's also something that doesn't sit right with me to tell my daughter, there's never a reason to push them why there's never a reason so and I've told her before, like, if you don't like the way that an adult is touching your body, you tell them to stop. And if they don't stop after the first time you start screaming and pushing, right like, and I've told her also, if anyone is ever hurting your little sister, you are to immediately physically engaged with them. Like you said earlier, like everything is nuanced. But like I don't find any benefit and teaching my white daughters that passivity is always the right thing. And like you said, it's not about violence is never the answer. It's about oppression is never the answer, right? Like, no, don't ever push or hit your sister. She's little. She's your sister. But absolutely. Anybody else do we ever be let anybody else do it either. One of my good friends who's also a therapist, who does parenting stuff, like I tell my kid, never start a fight. But if somebody else starts one, you need to end it need to finish it. And she doesn't mean like, be bigger, stronger, hurt them. She just means like, you're not gonna lay there and just let somebody punch you.

  Yolanda 37:40

  No, no, we're not. I don't want you to ever start anything. And that's the problem like, and this is why I follow up so close with her at this at the park. Because she is like I said, She's autistic. She doesn't understand boundaries, right? So just the other day at the park, she pushed this girl so hard, and I was very close. So I was able to to tell her like, I'm so sorry. She's not supposed to be doing that. And I do. It wasn't looking at me. But I was just like, Gia, we don't push it like we need to go over here. The problem is that, again, folks just see the action and they don't have any there you know, and all these things will circulate on like tick tock and what would happen if your child got pushed by this bigger child, my bigger child is autistic doesn't understand boundaries. So um, as a parent, I'm right up behind her. But that's also my fear. So as a child who is autistic and cannot speak up for herself, because she does not speak very many words, that she's going to be harmed. So I'm very overprotective of my kid. And I hope that she's able to do some sort of self defense classes because I want her to learn some jujitsu. I want her and um, I want self defense in like the martial arts because they also teach you like restraint. Yes, restraint.

  KC Davis 38:49

  Yeah, that's what I actually really this is totally a tangent at this point. But it's important. I love jujitsu. I plan to have both of my daughters do it because especially some of the gyms like they actually teach it with an anti bullying curriculum where they talk about like, we never use our skills to hurt anyone. But if somebody is hurting us, or if someone is hurting someone else, we use our skills to hold that person down and call for a teacher.

  Yolanda 39:14

  It's a mindset shift for kids into really how we think about violence needs to shift and in the thing about violence in a country that is was literally built on violence. It perpetuates violence every day and how it does not take care of its citizens and skews the perception of what violent people look like. We have to be cognizant of the messages that we give our children, especially white children around violence I posted on Tik Tok recently, a black woman said White people don't want their kids. And I was like, Who told you that shit? Like, they certainly do. What are you talking about? But that is the perception that a lot of people have. And that's why when as a black coach, I hear that some White people should I'm not doing that I'm not doing a gentle parenting. That's why people stuff. And I'm just like, so what I'm hearing you say is that white people are more inherently gentle, and that inherently more loving with their kids. And we are not. That's what you're saying. And you may not know, that's what you're saying. But you're basically regurgitating really racist rhetoric that and that's just absolutely not true. And then the thread of people are just like, I got my ass kicked, like, What are you talking about?

  KC Davis 40:24

  Yeah, when I think about the stereotypical picture of like, a father with a belt saying, like, come here. It's always a white father, like, at least that's what I saw. With friends and family. And what we have started to land the plane here. And here's how I would love to end it. I'd love for you to share something in your parenting that is working really well, right now, just like a joyful sort of like, maybe it's a strategy or intervention or like a way of being that is seems to be working really well for you.

  Yolanda 40:56

  So when Julie and I got COVID, back in January, I was trying to figure out what the hell we're going to do for 10 days. And it turned out, she teaches me so much this is the whole point of that is that she teaches me a lot. And I feel like if parents are open to allow their children to teach them things, they will learn so much. What she taught me was the value of slowing down, and the value of visioning. Because she was like, I don't want to grab this house. I'm like, I don't know what to do. So we would just take drives in the country, and I was resisting every day for 10 days, we took a drive because she was like, I gotta get this house. But now it's like a thing that we do. We take drives through the country almost every night. And this is, you know, we're trying to move on to a farm in the country. So it actually allows both of us to like, just be in the environment that we that at least I want to for us to be in and I get to vision, and I get to slow down and I get to not be on my phone because I'm always on it. And I really get to like point out things to her. Oh, do you see the cows because I live in Arkansas, y'all. Do you see the cows? Do you see the horses like and we stopped sometimes and like look at ducks and there are walks into the pod. And her just sort of because she used to throw tent like she would just she would fall all the way out if we didn't leave the house. And that was the only way and I thought it wasn't going to be enough. And it is every day, she puts her shoes on the wrong feet. And we go and we get into the car. And she is so excited just to take a drive. And we've seen deer you know, as we were just like, Please don't come in front of me there. Don't do that. But it allowed us to slow down allowed me to slow down and to vision the life that I hope which is a slow life, which is eat a life filled with ease and rest and more visioning and not this frenzy that we're constantly in, and not the social media that I'm constantly on. This is what I'm what she made me do is what I actually want to be doing. And I but I resisted it. So just listening to her and being able to learn from her. Is has been, that's to me the biggest lesson. It's just like, she knows things too. She knows things and be willing to listen to it.

  KC Davis 43:03

  Okay, so where can people find you if they want to come and learn more from you?

  Yolanda 43:06

  Okay, I have a website, parenting decolonised.com. I'm also on all the social media. So Instagram is spelled funny. So I'm just giving you the I'll give you the link. But I'm on all social medias. And I also have my own podcast called parent to be colonized. And it's available anywhere you listen to podcasts, or Spotify. And I talk about how we can be colonized our parenting to raise more liberated children. I do send to the black family. But these conversations are for everybody. Because I believe especially for white people we need to be y'all need to be hearing these stories and understanding these things as well.

  KC Davis 43:42

  Well, Yolanda, thank you so much. This was an awesome conversation.

  Yolanda 43:45

  Yeah, so much fun. Thank you for having me.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai