Episode 165: Kindness Starts at Home - Parenting with Social Justice in Mind with Nat Vikitsreth

/

I am excited to share with you the latest episode of my podcast, where we will discuss parenting with social justice in mind.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nat Vikitsreth, a founder of Come Back to Care and a host of Come Back to Care Podcast. She is a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, transgender rights community organizer, and child development specialist. 

Here are some of the takeaways:

  • Learn how parents can put their social justice intentions into action, especially when they're exhausted and overwhelmed

  • Understanding decolonized parenting 

  • Balance between practical life skills and fostering values like kindness, community engagement, and anti-racism in your child

  • Healing childhood wounds when re-parenting our inner child, with a balanced perspective

If you enjoyed listening to Nat’s insights into incorporating social justice values into parenting, follow her on Instagram @comebacktocare and visit her website www.comebacktocare.com.

Resources:

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.

Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!

Laura: Hello everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent podcast. We're going to be discussing how we can go about incorporating social justice values into our parenting. Even when we're overwhelmed. I'm really excited for this conversation. I have a lovely guest who is just a star in, in what she does and is going to help us kind of break down all the ways that we can really be embodying the, the good loving kind, compassionate human beings that we want to be and the ones that we want to raise. So, please welcome to the show. Nat Vikitsreth said it's so nice to have you here. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do? 

Nat: Laura, thank you so much for having me on the show. I have been a big fan of your show and I really love the love that you pour into each episode to your listeners.

Laura: Oh, thank you. That feels so good to hear.

Nat: Absolutely. I am a social justice organizer in my transgender community started all the way back in Thailand in 2007 and then I began working with families and children. So by trade and training, I am a therapist specializing in working with children and families, specializing in social justice or decolonized parenting and inner child re parenting. And what that looks like is, you know, when you believe in social justice, you want to act on it and implement it. But then you. As a parent, you get pulled in so many different directions of caregiving task of keeping the household together, parenting, task of being conscious and intentional and loving and then just your own healing. And then at the end of the day, you're just left with a dry cup and there's no bandwidth left to do the social justice things you intended to do.

And my work is the privilege and honor of supporting families who believe in social justice action to weave those social justice actions like accountability, power with solidarity into their daily parenting so that they can promote their children's development at the same time and strengthening their social justice muscles too. So that when they go out in their community, they know in their body of this is what it feels like to show up with someone I love even though they look and sound different from me in solidarity and they don't have to ask my gosh, am I, am I taking up too much space? Am I taking enough risk because they know it in their body, they already that practice in their body with their children? 

Laura: Okay. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about what that looks like in practice in a family. 

Nat: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think one example that often comes to my mind is power with instead of power over as a culture in the west domination, coercion and control are quite normalized. That we got this expectation that our children need to obey. And we name that explicitly as a part of decolonized parenting work of where that domination coercion is coming from. And it could come from capitalism. We tend to extract resources from earth and exploit labor from workers. It could also come from colonialism, right? Where we go and colonize different lands and cultures and practices around the world. And we tend to absorb that and it trickles down into our home as a family rule, right? You can't disrespect me. You need to obey, you need to do what I said when I, when I say it.

Laura: Yes. Okay. So you've used the term decolonized, parenting. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means? Especially for those, for those who, this is a term that's new or maybe they've heard it before, but they're not exactly sure what it is. It's kind of break it down for us. 

Nat: Yes. Thank you for asking that. Laura, that's very important to name it. And the definition of giving is the definition. Parents in my communities are teaching me today because it's, it keeps evolving.

Laura: I love that. Oh my gosh. I love having a community where there's a reciprocity in the learning process where it's where it is a community of like cole learning and shared learning. That's so wonderful that you get to create that. 

Nat: Yes. Otherwise I would be another quote un quote expert. 

Laura: Exactly. 

Nat: Right.

Laura: Yes. 

Nat: Yeah, I will tell them that this is what it is. 

Laura: Yes. Positioning yourself as an informed learner in a family is so critical. You have knowledge, they have knowledge, we're sharing it and we're co creating our shared knowledge. Beautiful.

Nat: Absolutely. I know you get it. I know you get it right. Because decolonized parenting is deconstructing the parenting. Should the social conditioning and messages that we absorb and learn about. This is how a good parent is raising their child. And we deconstruct that and we kind of detangle the tendrils of colonialism and capitalism and white supremacy and patriarchy that are kind of taking the driver seat. 

Laura: Yeah, that are kind of woven in there into the fabric of it and we don't even know it's there. 

Nat: Right? And together we name them like, oh my goodness, this pressure that I'm feeling of signing my kids up for extracurricular activities every day of the week. Right? It's coming from that real pressure of wanting to prepare my child to be successful in society and we interrogate that standard of, but wait, who defines that success? 

Laura: Yes. Yeah. And, and do I share that definition? And what is true for me and true for my family and ultimately what's true for my child? Right? I mean, because they're the ones who are going to go out and have these lives, right. So we have to help them start that interrogation process too.

Nat: Absolutely. Absolutely. So can I just share a story, something that happened in my house that I feel like I would love your perspective on. And if this is kind of an example of some of the things we're talking about. So we were all sitting down to dinner a couple days ago and my daughter had just gotten back from the library with this giant stack of books. Books are her happy place. You know, she just is a ravenous reader and she had been up in her bed reading, which is just her, you know, it's so delightful. Her body feels so safe there. And so she came down for dinner and she, she was like, I really don't want to be here. I really want to be, you know, up in my bed reading and her dad was like, well, just grab your book and come and read here with us. And I had this like, ping in my like brain. I was like, that's against the rules because reading was not allowed at my table growing up, you know, and I was like, wait a second, don't break my rules.

You know, I was thinking this, but I said to my husband, wait a second, hold on you. You just said something that, like, there's a part of me that feels uncomfortable with. So I'd like to have a discussion. We've never talked about reading at the table before, you know. And so I just said to the family, like, as a kid. I, my sister and I weren't allowed to read at the table. How do we feel about that? And so we went around the table and talked about it. My younger daughter who was not the reader at this point in time, expressed some concerns. We talked about different options and she ultimately brought the book to the table, read for a little while, periodically took a break and engaged in the conversation. It was a really lovely and very like, I don't know, it felt very collaborative in kind of making that rule. But I had that ping that first ping of like, that's not okay. We have to sit at the table and be focused on each other and have all the conversations. Those research says family dinner is important, you know, like as all the things were in my, you know, but that's what we're, that's what we're supposed to be doing. Right? Is becoming aware on some level of some of those things.

Nat: Absolutely. And the part that you said, research said, and I know your listeners love research. My listeners do too. There's such a big difference between what research said and also how we implement it and adapt it and make it our own method.

Laura: Yes. 

Nat: Right.

Laura: Yes. Yes.

Nat: Becoming aware. That is the first part of decolonized parenting of wait, who is raising my child? Is it the researchers who did that study in the lab or is it my own value? Or is it capitalism or is it patriarchy or is it my in laws? And really interrogate that. And I love that. You put it into practice slowing it down and have a family discussion. How beautiful is that? 

Laura: I mean, I think that certainly doesn't happen all the time. That was a moment of clarity for me. There's definitely moments where I don't hit that. 

Nat: Right. For sure.

Laura: But, yeah, I do. I want my kids to feel like we're all equal in our home that we all have a place and we all have a say and there's times where my kids reflect back to me where they don't have that at my daughter's birthday party over the weekend, she wanted to have a disco dance party in the basement. And these kids, these kids are wild kids. They like go to a primarily outdoor school. Like I don't, I did not really want them in my house, but she came to me and she said, how come you get to decide, make decisions about what guests get to come in the house? That's a fair point. You know. So I mean, I was really proud of her for pushing back on me. That's really good to see her pushing back against injustice in our homes because that's the safest place for her to do that. I, you know, I, I feel like I'm derailing this conversation a little bit, but I do think that at all okay, because I mean, this is part of it too, is teaching her if we want our kids to be agitators, if we want them to be the people who are pushing back against injustice, we have to be ready for them to do it in our own homes, right? This is the safest to us. This is a safe place for them to do that to practice those skills. 

Nat: Yes. Okay. 

Laura: Yeah.

Nat: I, I so appreciate that. You know, when our kids push back on the rules that we said, what a beautiful testament to the strength of your relationship with your daughter. Oh, your trust.

Laura: So listeners, are you hearing this? So when your kids push back on your rules, they are demonstrating that they trust you to listen to them. All right, you've created safety for them. Good giant, beautiful job. 

Nat: Yes. Because if, if our listeners were to be sitting with us in the same room and if both of us were to ask them, any of us were able to do that when we were little with those who raised us.

Laura: My mom's like famous refrain is don't say no to your mother. What she always said to us as kids, you know, but now she's like Laura, I'm so glad you let your children say no to you. That's so it's simple to see her growth too.

Nat: I love that, that intergenerational healing. It's never too late.

Laura: It isn't, it isn't. I mean, and so many of the people I think you want to be working with are doing that intergenerational work. They're really being those change makers in their own families. Okay. So we've talked a little bit about kind of unlearning the parenting shoulds that come along. Really starting to question. But what about the times when, I don't know, our parents voices just fall out of our mouths when we're triggered, you know, when we, when for, you know, there's every parent has those things that just, oh, set us off. What about those times? 

Nat: Yes. I mean, those times when we get triggered and then reactive. Right? And then we revert back to our old coping strategies that we're so familiar with. Right. And that could include sounding exactly like our parents when we promised ourselves not to sound like them. We would never intentions so beautiful. Right? But in practice that can look different. And I want to acknowledge that pain. I find that conscious parents in my community, they, they set such fierce intention and it's such a human thing to slip and react and revert and sound like our parents and that guilt and judgment that we just put on ourselves that can be so painful to hear.

Laura: Yes, so painful. And we, we enact the same parenting on ourselves that we're attempting to not enact on our kids. Right? So we were ashamed, blame, judged, met with guilt, discipline, punishment. And then we, we take that and we put it on ourselves whenever we make a mistake because that's what we know. And so there's an aspect there that we, where we really need to be working on that inner, that inner work. If we want to see that reflected out in the world.

Nat: Absolutely. And if I can add a layer.

Laura: Please, please.

Nat: To, to that decolonizing peace. Laura is that, that shame, blame and guilt. It's how we punish ourselves. And what's happening on the inside when we punish ourselves is not that different from the punishment that we see out there, right? In the prison, industrial complex, we often blame and shame people who are not following the status quo, punish them and lock them away.

Laura: Yes.

Nat: So when we can contextualize the behaviors that we do as parents in our home in a larger context where whatever oppression is happening out there trickles down into our family as family rules, then we can really remove shame off our back a little bit and build that breathing room to, to discern, oh my gosh. I don't want to do prison industrial complex in my home. What else can I do?

Laura: Okay. Let me make a connection right now between what we do in our homes and how we support change outside of our homes. Tell me how like to make that really concrete for our listeners, how we can do what we can be doing in, in the midst of busy everyday parenting school runs grocery shopping meal, prepping like all of these things. It's so easy to get so taken up into our individual lives. And we hold these values, we share these values and yet living them and enacting them in the broader world is difficult and challenging. During a season of intense parenting.

Nat: It truly, truly is. And I believe that a lot of parents that I see who have the best intentions and they are givers and helpers and when their cups are dry, they tend to go into either, okay, I'm gonna go out March, donate, save the world. I'm going to put my dignity and humanity aside. I don't care because I have privilege. So I'm gonna go out and save the world and they fall into that pattern of saviors instead of solidarity. Where you know what? I know, I'm tired and I know the world is on fire. I'm gonna take a moment to fill my cup a little bit and then I'm going to go out and support whatever I believe in. So there, there's that difference between savors and solidarity. 

Laura: Okay? Tell me a little bit more about what solidarity looks like in practice.

Nat: Solidarity looks like I see my humanity and I also see your humanity. I'm gonna go and support you and show up from a place of we're in this struggle together. Not because I'm more superior, not because it's charity, not because it's just a one time donation. But it's because my liberation is tied to yours. So I'm going to respect myself too in the process of showing up for you. And this seems very big, very abstract, right? Yet we see it concretely in mutual aid networks when we see people who are out marching on the streets and then they get punished and locked away. And some people show up in solidarity by marching alongside them. Some people send bail funds money to get those people out of prison. There's so many ways for us to show up in solidarity. And I believe to bring it down to parenting is that we practice that in our home and it starts with this urgency, right? When, when our kids are having meltdowns, we have this urgency within our body and our heart. Oh, I see your eyes light up that what do we need to do to get you to stop crying so I can help you? 

Laura: We become the savior. We try to fix it. 

Nat: Exactly. Exactly.

Laura: And I remember your conversation with Alyssa last Campbell. Yes. Yes. Just recently. 

Nat: Yes. Just recently that when we're not regulated and we move in to support someone who's not regulated. 

Laura: Yes. 

Nat: Like diving in without any floaty noodles without parachute.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. 

Nat: So you have to move quickly in, right?

Laura: And I love what you're Yeah. So I feel like you're doing it. Just this beautiful job of illustrating the. The way in which the, what's happening in the macrosystem is mirrored within our microsystems. You know. So if we think about this from a systemic perspective, we're all, it's like a Russian doll, you know, one of the Maruska dolls there, we're all nested within each other and it echoes through. And so, yeah, and I mean, what a beautiful way to think about when my child is having a meltdown. How do I step into solidarity with them? You know, instead of savior is yes, beautifully illustrated. Thank you, Nat. 

Nat: Oh Thank you Laura. And, and it can be as concrete as saying to our toddlers. You know, I know you want play. Do you're safe right now? I'm feeling tension in the back of my neck and I know this is when I'm getting frustrated. So please take this book, I'll join you in three minutes. I just need to move my body, take that breath, take that sip of water and I'll be right there with you and we can go that, get that play doh together. 

Laura: Thank you for making that so concrete and giving the permission to take those steps for ourselves. I mean, so that's what we're talking about. When we talk about self care. I feel like self care, you know, is just this really over utilized term. Everybody is annoyed with it. They're like they're overhearing it. But what it, what it's about is regulating, you know, figuring out what our unique systems need in order to feel nourished and whole and well, and what a beautiful thing to model for a child who's having it, you know, wanting to play with the play doh that, you know, mom is tuning in to themselves. Dad is listening to their body. You know, those are like, really important things for a child to seem modeled to them. 

Nat: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Remodel social justice action through daily parenting. right? Most of the time, most of the time, the key is most of the time.

Laura: Right.

Nat: And then we're able to support them that, you know, I'm feeling feelings and they're not permanent. I have a way to move through them, using my body, using my words, my affirmations, whatever that is. But I'm important too. Yeah. So I'm gonna fill my cup and then I'm gonna show up for you, right? And with self care in my community, it seems so indi individualistic and I'm going to both and it okay, individualistic and it's so important. So I often use self care as an invitation for parents in my community to be really naughty, really, really naughty to capitalism and capitalism. 

Laura: Yeah. Okay. Tell me more. How, how III I have to understand this more.

Nat: Because the, the quote unquote good parenting is that imagery, Laura of you're calm and you're smiling, you have your makeup on, you take a shower every morning, right? And you're just like slowly squatting down next to your child and say, oh, I know you're feeling X Y and Z when in reality it's not that, that's like capitalism, patriarchy. Telling us to do Marty. Not mothering. Gender inclusive. 

Lauara: Yes. Yes. Because we're told to lay ourselves on the altar of motherhood, parenthood. Yes. 

Nat: Exactly. So, to be really naughty to that conditioning is to say, you know what I am important too. I am a mom and I'm also Laura.

Laura: I think that that's really hard for people to do. So what do you, what do you think parents need to know in order to believe you? That that's something that they can and should not, should but can and, but they, yeah, that they can do for themselves and for their family that it would be beneficial.

Nat: Yes. Yes. Thank you for asking that Laura because I don't want our listeners, our parents who are already busy loving their kids themselves, healing, re parenting and doing all of these things. Exactly. And also they haven't eaten and it's like 1:45 p.m. central time. Right? They're like, oh, here's another thing I need to do. But I often invite families to shift that question of what else do I need to do to? Who do I need to do it with? Who can be that trusting comrades. Coconspirator co parent that I can slowly learn that I don't need to carry everything and be a martyr that I can like, say, hey, because of my upbringing. I'm not good at expressing my needs because it wasn't safe. So, can I just practice it with you? Like, can I just say I need 15 minutes to myself and you come and check in on me in 15 minutes and then we'll carry on.

Laura: It's really special having people you can do that with people that you can be vulnerable with and kind of bring those conversations out into the light. I'm thinking about, you know, I, I have a couple of friends who I can do that with where we can be really upfront about what's hard and ask for support and help. But I'm thinking about the parents who are listening right now, who don't have that, who don't have that in their lives is do you have any like recommendations for how they can go about finding that in, in someone maybe someone that they already know or just like mo like, you know, I feel like we're all just so hungry for deeper connections too. So like, do we have any, like, where can people find that? 

Nat: Yes. What do you just name? Just really brings grief to my heart that that isolation is so prevalent when we have to play this hungry game of capitalism where we have to work and there's no time to build that real trusting community. Right. 

Laura: Yeah.

Nat: Yeah. And sometimes we just need a little, a little something to tide us over until we can find that someone or that community and it could be with our plants, with our pets with, I have this pom, pom pens that fidget that I can just like. Oh, I'm also fidgeting right now. Yes. And, and these tools that we can rely on to fill our own cup. Yeah. With a full and clear awareness that I'm not flawed for not having community around me. I'll get there. But for me today in this moment to get through the day, I just need to like go water, my plants, go pet my cat or go fidget with my pom poms or putty or move my body and find that resource and strength or go to my ancestors altar and find that connection through spirituality, right? It could be connection with the land with the ancestors, with pets and plants and people. Yeah. Or sometimes it's ourselves in the inner reserves until we can find that community. 

Laura: Yeah.  I really like that. I really love learning how to be a, a well within yourself so that you don't run dry. I just, I would love to talk a little bit about how lonely and how isolating it can be to be a parent and why like how do like, so I, I love that you brought that out as a, as a kind of a results of capitalism. I feel very curious about like, how do you engage in pushing back on some of those things? You know, like, you know, like thinking about, okay, so how does it benefit capitalism? Like who's benefiting from me feeling isolated? Right? Who's benefiting from, from me spending more time on social media than like going out and meeting my neighbors? You know, like I just like, I just feel like there's some questions there for us to be thinking about as, as parents in this community, you know.

Nat: Yes, absolutely. And we can name the conditions that were in the water that we're swimming in where if I don't work? 

Laura: Yeah, I don't have food, housing and health care. That's period and point blank.

Laura: Yes. 

Nat: So the big ask of parents to always be constantly attuning to their kids playing with their kids, reading multi-language books to their kids, right? Like how, how do you do that when you have to attune to capitalism? When you have to play the hunger game of capitalism, you can't attune to your kids or play with your kids. 

Laura: Yes. Yeah. So what do we do? We do?

Nat: We do what we need to do to get there and take a sip of resources along the way. Meaning we do what we need to do for our cups to not get dried as we're trying to survive.

Laura: And maybe they give ourselves a little grace in like recognizing this really difficult position that we're in as parents, you know, that we are just in this place where we are raising human beings in an environment that isn't ideal for them with demands placed upon their parents that aren't ideal for a family, you know. Not at all. 

Nat: Yeah. Not at all. And cultures around the world has interdependence at the heart of child rearing practices. Someone else that you trust can step in and cook, can step in and clean and step in and you can take a nap, can step in and you can go lay down. Yeah. And we don't have that here in the west.

Laura: No. And what's amazing is our, our children's biology, like we was promised a village, their children are coming into this world primed to form at least four significant attachments. 

Nat: Yes.

Laura: And yet most, you know, most kids come into a two parent household and those are their, those are there or, you know, or one parent household and those are their significant attachments. We're meant to have at least four. A human baby is meant to have at least four. 

Nat: Yes. So giving ourselves grace, like you said, Laura and operational I that in a day to day practice can sometimes look like what would be an acceptable outcome today. And maybe it's just showing up fully and being truly present with one daily routine for 10 minutes. 

Laura: I love that. It doesn't have to be, you know, we're so all or nothing and like in this world we're so all or nothing. And I really love that we can just skip. Maybe we can be all in for 10 minutes and that, yes.

Nat: And that's good enough for that day. And that all or nothing is so a by-product of white supremacy either or binary conditioning.

Laura: It really is. Yeah, I really appreciate how you bring, bring those things kind of to the front and talk about them. I feel like it's, we tiptoe around it and I really love that you're laying it out. I would feel very, I think that there's probably people who are listening, who really want to lean in to learning more on that. And learning how to see that for themselves in their own lives. And I think you teach that. I think you teach how to do that, right?

Nat: I do.

Laura: Can you tell us a little bit about where people can go to learn from you both as a free resource if you have a podcast and in your programming?

Nat: Yes, absolutely. And before I go there, I just want to give you props, I'm able to come on here and lay down like frame by frame because you've set up such a beautiful learning environment for your listeners to practice this conscious, respectful, like beautiful intentional parenting practices that they can design and today I can come in and lay another layer down another lens that is social justice actions. 

Laura: I really appreciate the layer that the nuance. And you know, it's clear how much you love parents I love parents too. I love getting to work with them. 

Nat: Yeah.

Laura: I just want them to feel supported and I really feel like that from you too. Thank you. So I support parents through of course, by naming these things and unlearning these oppressive conditioning and re parenting their inner child. And we do that a lot of self reflect work. But I'm a somatic therapist too. So we work with our triggers from the bottom so from our body.

Nat: I love that. That's so cool. Oh my gosh. I didn't know you were a somatic therapist. We could have had a whole episode on that. I'm so interested in somatic practice. I know a lot of doing it and doing it in a trauma informed way because a lot of us have to disconnect from our bodies. 

Laura: In order to be safe for sure. 

Nat: How do we slowly get back into that and notice different points of tension, discomfort in our body and honoring that as a way to give us information of, oh, there's something sticky there that I can heal when I'm ready. I do all of that in a seven week social justice, parenting and inner child re parenting cohort called the In Out and through program. We figure out ways to like, you know, when you ask yourself, what, what do I do in this scenario with my child? And you kind of figure out the child development science and your own social justice values and let that guide your answer of what you do next. And a lot of times the barrier also is our inner child wounds that we develop when we were little. So we unpack that in our cohort to and repairing our inner child and repair the ruptures in the lineage with those who raised us. 

Laura: Oh, that sounds so beautiful. It sounds too like you that this is not a course where you would, the parent would go and learn things kind of didactically, learn scripts to go home and say to their kids, it's not a do this. And it sounds to me like your program really teaches parents the way of self inquiry and self healing so that they can do these important work that they're doing in their families and in the world. 

Nat: There's so, yeah, absolutely. There's so many beautiful resources about what to do with the children and what I'm offering is what to do with your inner children and start there and then whatever scripts or strategies they want to do, we'll figure it out together. But we first center your healing.

Laura: I love that. That's, I think that's so important. I think that there is definitely a place for the what to do with kids. And oftentimes, you know, for, for some people that's enough and then they, they're on their way for a lot of us myself included. It's not enough. I can know all the things to say. And saying them is a completely different story, you know.

Nat: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And it breaks my heart when parents give up and feel like, well, I'm just going to stuck, always being anxious, always being worrisome. And we can interrogate that a little bit. Of course, we have to be anxious because of this and this and this you have to do to protect yourself and there's a way to get unstuck. 

Laura: Yes, I love that. So I have a program called Parenting from Within that tackles a lot of these same topics, but it does not have the social justice lens which I just think is this really impactful layer. I'm so glad that there's someone teaching this from this perspective. The world is lucky to have you. 

Nat: Oh, and the world is lucky to have you too. And I'm not saying that to like, oh my outfit is beautiful. You look great too. I'm saying that from a place of parents throughout history have been disenfranchised and disempowered and how beautiful that parents have options and agency to choose to do your program, do my program or listen to this podcast or my podcast. 

Laura: I love that. I, you know, I, I very rarely meet someone who feels that way about parents that parent like sees parents as a, as a potentially vulnerable population that need to be met with care and the way that sometimes I think parents are are are marketed to is so irresponsible because we're so vulnerable where we're so, we, yeah, we have such deep craving to do what's right. You know.

Nat: And, oh my gosh, I, I was with, an Arab refugee family yesterday. Laura and the dad was talking about just how much he's so worried about his daughter. I don't need that worry. Like I keep hearing how much he loved his daughter and wanted to protect her and be there for her. That kind of love, that radical love. It's like it gets me out of bed every morning. I need to do this work in ethical ways and caring ways, which you do. Yeah. 

Laura: Yeah. Oh, well, I'm so glad I'm so glad that we have heard from you and you have a podcast too, right? 

Nat: Yes. Yes. So a lot of things we talked about today, they can go learn more in the podcast episodes. It's meaty, it's juicy and collective but digestible. I would say awesome. 

Laura: So now thank you for being here with us today and just thank you for being in the world. 

Nat: Thank you, Laura. Thank you for being you and learning and unlearning together. 

Laura: Oh, it's wonderful that we get to do that. 

Nat: Yes. Thank you. 

Laura: Thank you. 

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. 

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too. 

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!