Conscious Parenting: Raising with Intention

Parenting isn’t just about raising children—it’s about raising ourselves. Conscious Parenting: Raising with Intention explores how mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and ancestral wisdom can help us break generational cycles and nurture children with love, respect, and purpose. Through deep conversations and practical insights, we’ll uncover how to parent in a way that honors both the child’s spirit and our own growth.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Conscious Parenting: Raising with Intention
• 0:00 Breaking Generational Cycles
• 0:00 The Role of Community in Parenting
• 0:00 Emotional Intelligence and Agency
• 0:00 Entrepreneurial Mindset for the Future
• 0:00 Empowering the Next Generation

Transcript

Welcome back, Shapeshifters. Today's episode is conscious parenting, raising with intention. Today's episode, we're going to talk about how parenting isn't just about raising others, it's all about raising yourself and how really utilizing ancestral practices, emotional intelligence, and our own self-awareness can help us break generational cycles and truly nurture the next generation of purpose-driven leaders. So for those of you who may or may not know, I am a mother of 19 years. I have a 19-year-old daughter and I have been co-parenting her with my ex-husband for about 15 of those 19 years. It's also worth noting that I worked as an educator for over 20 years. So I work with young people, I have a young person.

And I really believe that when you talk about young people, we're not just talking about the future generation, we're talking about the now generation because they're going to inherit the world that we are living in now. And as our Native American brothers and sisters remind us that every decision that we make, should really be thinking about the next seven generations forward. It's imperative for all of us, not just those of us who birth children. I know this podcast topic is about conscious parenting. But the reality is it takes a village. We all have to step up and the stewarding of the young people around us. So I'm talking to my war by aunties and uncles. I'm talking to cousins. I'm talking to parents, the tires and talking to everybody and really wanting to support you with some of the things that I learned along the way as an educator, as well as a parent to really support the future growth of this now generation. So let's get into it.

So the first thing is, I think we all agree, it is one of the most difficult times to be a young person on the planet right now. Young people are actually living in an anxiety epidemic, they are living in a loneliness epidemic, they are living in a time where their interpersonal skills are now declining at a rapid rate, their levels of isolation, they are in a world that is filled with electronics in a way that has never been lived in any other human generation of our time not only the connectivity of those products, but also the harmful effects of those products. And so it goes without saying that the old ways that we raise young people are not going to work anymore. And so we have to begin to adopt a more fluid and flexible idea of the container that we want to hold and support our young people in truly being their highest selves.

In one of my former episodes, I talked about indigenous communities and how in indigenous societies, typically upon a woman becoming pregnant to hopefully giving birth if that child survives, all the way to as that child moved through and advanced in adolescence and puberty, that there were a series of readings, rites of passage, and key times that the whole community came together to ensure that that young person stayed on track. And so it's important, one of the first things that we have to step into is the recognition that one person is not going to be able to make a huge impact in the parenting of a young person. So when I hear people say, you know, I don't really need, I can have a kid on my whole, don't really need a partner, I almost kind of gas because I'm thinking what at this service you're doing to that young person. And you know, this show is really all about tapping into those ancient principles of those who came before us as learnings for how we need to move forward. And so one of the biggest challenges that we had as it relates to young people is we just don't have enough hands supporting and surrounding our young people. And we often are living in this isolated society. We have more single parenting, even children when they're in home with their family are in another room on a device, right? People are more separate than ever before. And that separation is really one of the things that disconnects us, disconnects our young people. And so it's important when we talk about our own lives, our own leadership, and our own advancement as a society that we remember that we also have a responsibility to make sure that our young people are taught the proper ways of being so that they can benefit take advantage of society in a way that maybe former generations were not able to. So it's also important to recognize that this is one of the most exciting times to be a young person, that young people have access to everything literally at their fingertips and with the right toolbox, we literally can create one of the best, most self-aligned, emotionally intelligent, vibrant, well-confident, spirit-driven, generation of our time. We literally have the potentiality to create that. So let's get into my own personal motherhood journey. I got pregnant in my late 20s and I was married to my ex-husband at the time. And I guess you could say we were militant. We didn't know we were militant. I don't think we used that language. But when I look back at many of the things that we did, they were militant and they were radical.

I come from an African American, Southern background. My ex-husband comes from a West Indian background. And if you know those backgrounds, you know that they're very traditional. I grew up in a very Christian household, so did my ex. And so we both had our own personal awakening before we met. The awakening as it related to loving our own self, loving our own culture, being pro-black, eating healthy food, living well and really decolonizing our minds from a Western rhetoric. So we were very clear that we did nothing else, even the relationship didn't last, that we were going to create a new type of human. And that's something that I'm very grateful that even though our relationship didn't work out in that same form, that we both had a shared vision value-wise of what was important to us in terms of the way that we wanted to. And so that meant that we were all about breaking generation purses. And that would be one thing I think for all of us if we are in a child's life, knowing that many of the issues that we're dealing with right now, right now we can directly trace back to our child that it is not a secret. When you want to see why people are the way they are, all you have to do is go back to their childhood. So we know that childhood is so important and it does not start when the baby comes out. A mother is the first teacher of a child. That child is listening to the mother, is eating with the mother for the first nine months of its life. We also know that the brain of a child is developing at the fastest rate, if ever will, for the first three years. And so the early days of having a child are so precious and are so important. And so for that reason, it was very important to us because we did not believe in mainstream medicine.

We did not believe in vaccinating our child. We did not want our child's first vision to be them opening their eyes to fluorescent lights, being wrapped up in some blankets that I don't know have been washed how many times, being surrounded by strangers. So we decided that we wanted to have a home birth. I know home birth is not even something that everyone can do, so it's not a judgment. I'm just sharing our personal world sense. It was very important that our daughter was birthed at home, that she was birthed in love, that she was birthed in a community and environment of peace and stability. And that literally is what happened. I ended up having a successful home birth. And so our daughter was born natural. I was vegan when I was pregnant. So she was eating some of the highest quality food. I was not under a lot of stress. I had an amazing support system around me. I had a beautiful midwife who was also pregnant at the time, who was someone in my community. And when I think back of how bold that was 20 years ago, you know, one of the things that made it so simple for me to have a home birth was because I had six other girlfriends who had already been pregnant before me who also had home births and that I was in this village, if you will, of Oakland, California, of black women and black midwives and women of color who were able to come together in their motherhood practices, share their ideas, and just come together with a different level of intentionality as it related to being a parent. And I know that that's not normal. I know that everybody does not have access to that. But I also wanted to mention that in the...in the storyline, if you will, about the container that really was created before my daughter even was born. And so when my daughter came of age and it came time to put her go to daycare, know, parents had to go back to work, working family, we were able to have a family member watch our daughter who was an elder black woman. And so that relationship with elders, that relationship with being able to not have her in a super busy environment, to have her in an intimate space with one caregiver who loved her, who nurtured her, who spoils her, who also gave them the opportunity to be more active and agile as they were taking my daughter to the park every day and going around town. And so that relationship was really special. And my daughter went from there into a series of African-centered preschools, African-centered. She always was taught, one, that she comes from a people of greatness. That history of those people of greatness did not start at slavery. That her people were literally the founders of civilization. That when she called her teachers their names, she called them Baba and Mama. That they poured libation before they started the class day. That they were surrounded by stories and leaders that looked like them, that had the same hair texture is them and the same skin color is them. And so all of these ideas of so paid of colorism of not saying that my daughter did not have to encounter those that she was birth and reared in an environment from her very, very early ages that reflected her, that uplifted her, that believed in her and and sought a brilliance in her and not just saw that brilliance, but affirm that brilliance on a day to day level.

And as I said, it takes the village. So having her parents, having her grandparents globally, as well as having a series of black institutions that can rear her up. In addition to those African-stinnered schools, my daughter was a child of the city. And so that meant that growing up in Oakland, California meant that she grew up around some of the most diverse communities literally in the world. So she lived in a very black centered, but multicultural environment.


And I mean, multicultural in terms of race, terms of ethnicity, in terms of language, in terms of sexual orientation, diversity in terms of food choices, diversity in terms of ideas. As we learn in Ifá, the word for child, and our word for child is genderless in the Yoruba language, homo means to mold, it means to shape. And so part of our job as older people, as elders, as adults, is to shape and to mold our children and that diverse experience and exposure to a multiplicity of experiences and backgrounds, but still rooted in the idea that you are the beginning, you are beautiful, you are everything, so you can appreciate the multiculturalism around you. I grew up the opposite way. I actually was thrust into all-white environments and white-centered environments. Sometimes you will people of color, but it's still white-centered. I mean, being one of the darkest people in the classroom, I was not affirmed. And so it was very important for me as a mother, right, as the first teacher of my child, that my child was absolutely not going to have to deal with that to my best of my ability. Obviously, our children are going to go out into the world and we don't get to change the world but the self-confidence that she brought into the world was very different. And so, its studies have actually shown that those individuals who have a sense of self, who have a sense of who they are, are able to get along with, are able to navigate, even appreciate others in a way that doesn't go the opposite. Even down to her last name. Both of us come descendants of African slavery in the Caribbean and in the States. And so we knew that our names, they were connected to slavery. And so we took the very radical approach of getting our daughter a completely new name. We were like, you are the cypher breaker. I told you he was militant. You are the cypher breaker. You get a new name. You are still connected to us, but we're not going to limit your brilliance to these white slave names that have been passed through our black families. We're gonna give you a brand new name because you represent something different. So all of that fell under the bucket of breaking generational curses. So also emotional intelligence. And emotional intelligence is really giving young people agency, responsibility, and accountability. We never let the age of our child dictate the possibility of what she was able to do.

So we made sure she did paint. Age-appropriate chores started from the moment that she could talk. So I'm gonna teach you how to brush your teeth and then you're gonna brush your teeth. We were all clean on a Saturday. Here's the cleaning that you can do. There was never a time where she did not understand that you have to contribute in this household. I think one of the biggest deficits of the children right now in this loneliness and anxiety epidemic is young people just aren't active. They're not playing outside because no one goes outside anymore. They're on electronics. And so they're not building up the muscle of agency, of getting that Kundalini energy to rise, of building up the chi, of receiving the dopamine hit, of actually accomplishing something that you had to struggle or have tension with, and then to get over the other side of achieving it. That that actually builds up confidence, self-awareness accountability in our young people and we do everything for them and we rob our young people of that opportunity because we miraculously think that once they turn 18 years old that this magic is going to appear and they're going to now show up on time, talk and be confident and fill out applications or cook for themselves or clean their room. You haven't taught them anything. You have not put, have not all mold, you have not shaped the child. You're doing everything for the child. The child's telling you what to do.


And somehow you think that's going to give them an advantage in this society? Let's just be clear of the societal conditions that currently face young people. Young people are now competing against every other person on the planet. When they go out for employment, they live in a global market. Anybody can get it. No one cares that they're American. No one cares that they yo child. They're going to be looking for the best person to do the job.

We also know that young people are not going to be able to have one job, that most of us don't even have the ability of one job, that young people are more likely to be freelancing where they will have a portfolio of work, a portfolio of skills, a portfolio of projects, that the nine to five is becoming obsolete. So if they don't have multiple skills that they can monetize and take to the marketplace, they will not be able to compete.

We also know that when they get to that interview, when they get to train in that application, they are going to need to have confidence. They are going to need to be able to speak to someone. They are going to be able to have to communicate who they are and what makes them stand out. But your child doesn't even know how to say hi to a stranger when they walk in the room. They don't have a home train. So how are they going to have life train?

They can't get off the screen for two seconds to focus on the things that are required to be a human being. You have to get up. You have to be yourself. You have to clove yourself. You have to keep your room and your space clean. You might have spiritual practices that you have to do. You didn't teach them any of those things. So we're literally raising children that are not going to have any navigational capital.

You decided they don't have to have responsibility and that they don't have to be accountable to anything. they don't feel like it today. So what if we only got to do the things we felt like doing? We wouldn't do anything. And sometimes we'd now misconstrued agency as we give our young people agency over the wrong things. We should be giving them agency over opportunities to express their gifts in a healthy manner and to take on responsibility, but agency to make decisions over things you don't have enough of a context over. You haven't lived long enough. You might not know what's always best for you. I might ask you what you want to eat for dinner and you might say French fries and tater tots, but I know that you need some green leafy vegetables. I'm not going to listen to that. We still as parents and as the village have the responsibility to mold and shape our young people with the positive choices and so building up that emotional intelligence had in conversations building their communication skills expanding their vocabulary so when you ask them what is going on with them if they have a range of vocabulary words to pull from to not just say I'm fine. I'm good. I'm not good even some adults don't even have the vocabulary to truly express their emotions. I was always very vulnerable with my daughter. When there was something that I couldn't afford, I said, hey, that's not in our budget right now. There isn't this inexhaustible sense of money that you have to learn that money is earned, that money is sacrificed for. It also meant that there were things that she wanted to purchase. If you're already getting allowance and your grandparents got you money, hey. I love to support you, I pay half there. Are you willing to pay half of it? Starting to teach them that financial literacy, teaching them that discernment very early on. After my divorce, I've been in other relationships and my daughter's seen those breakups. And some of them have been very difficult because she's actually had a relationship with some of my former partners. But even in that, I'm modeling vulnerability. I'm modeling that sometimes relationships don't work, but that doesn't mean something's wrong that we can heal, that we can talk, that we can compost and experience, and we can alchemize it for something new, but I'm not gonna hide it from you. So when I hear parents saying, we're hiding this from our kid, as if children aren't the most in tune people, they are energetic sponges, they are soaking up every emotion that is happening in that household, not just what she's saying, but what they are seeing, feeling, intuiting, and experiencing.

So thinking that by hiding unhealthy situations from our children that we're somehow saving them from the toxicity of the harm, I would actually say you're doing even more damage to your children because one, you're showing them that it's normalizing hiding betrayal, deceit, lack of communication, and you're also not giving them the opportunity to build that resiliency. To go through something and come out on the other side is giving your young person a level of resilience and self-awareness that they're going to be able to take to the bank, if you will, as they become an adult. Because as they become an adult, life is going to life. So I was always very upfront with my daughter. And my daughter was able to see that her mother is a human, not someone putting on a show. So another thing that we want to make sure is that we're giving our young people as much exposure as possible. As I mentioned earlier on in the episode about the conditions of the future of work, And so that means that all of these different aspects that I'm naming, emotional intelligence, having a sense of cultural pride, confidence, resiliency, accountability, responsibility, they actually become the toolkit for the future. They're going to be able to enter the world at an advantage because they have a cache of these skills. So through exposure, we begin to give our young people the opportunity to start exploring what it is that they enjoy doing. So I was always very observant of what my daughter's natural skills and abilities were, knowing that some of the things that I was really good at as a child weren't necessarily her strong suits. And there were things that I was not good at as a child, I'm still not good at, that my daughter was just naturally gifted at. And so that means that I gave her an immersion in so many cultural activities, artistic activities, sports activities, spiritual systems. And I would ask her every quarter, hey, what's something that you're passionate about? point my daughter was really wanting to do filmmaking. I found this after school program on filmmaking. She went through it and she was like, I do not want to be a filmmaker. And I know some parents when their children show an aptitude for a particular skill, they have a tendency to want to keep them in that skill.


I know parents who have enrolled their children in art school and like a middle school level and by the time their kid gets to high school, they don't want to play the instrument that they got into art school for. And instead of their parents saying, you know what, you can try something new. like, well, you've been taking the violin for four years. You have to continue the violin. You've been doing basketball for four years. You have to continue to do basketball because they think, if you don't stick with this, it's too late to find another thing.

Again, not in tune with the actual realities of the marketplace. The marketplace and the job market says actually the more skills you have, the more competitive that you're going to be. And those of you who get locked down into doing one thing are not going to have as many options, are not going to have as many choices. And so when my daughter said, hey, I want to try something new, I always supported her. And it wasn't really until she got out of high school and I realized how all of those little camps and experiences and programs and things that she had the opportunity to pursue all shape the work that she does right now. And so making sure that we keep it fluid and spacious enough to give young people choice doesn't mean you get to start and stop. No, you're going to complete this program so we can give you three months, six months, nine months, give them the window where they have to complete something and allow them to build those series of projects up so they can start tuning in to what their special sauce is and what they really love to do. And that leads me to entrepreneurship. If there's any one mindset that we have to begin instilling in our young people is to be an entrepreneur. I never raised my daughter to get a job. Going to school to get a job was never something that we talked about in my household. We talked about going to school to refine your gifts and creating the career, creating the life style that you want. And so that's a different mindset shift because one, it puts the onus on you rather than thinking that college or some job is going to miraculously give you the life of your dreams. And also means that our young people recognize agency earlier on and to start building up that cache of skills because you don't have to wait, right, for the job to appear.


When you bring a competitive skill set and special sauce to the marketplace, people want some of that skill set. And so building in that entrepreneurial mindset meant that I was always looking at my child as an investment, that I was investing in the people, the social networks, the environment, the skills, the training to support all of them bringing their gifts to the world. So by the time we got to that place of college. We had to really assess was college going to be the highest leverage MOOC for her. Because a lot of people go to college to figure out what they want to do in life. And let's be clear, no matter what college you get into, you're going to send the first two years of college doing general requirements that have nothing to do with your area of interest, with your specialty, with what you're passionate about.

We also know that college degree and even a master's degree is no guarantee for employment in this current economy. We also know that the average college graduate is graduating with thousands of dollars of debt that are less than the average job pays them when they graduate from college. So by the time my daughter got to be 17 years old, she already had a portfolio of projects. She already had launched her own brand.

She already was speaking another language and living in a foreign country. She already had a level of confidence, accountability, and responsibility. She had already graduated high school a year early. She already was volunteering in the industry that she wanted to work in, building skills. She had already gotten yoga trained and certified in a skill. So what was college going to do for her?

And so rather than placing her in a classroom, we placed her in the classroom of life. And so she was blessed that one of those volunteer opportunities through her network and her portfolio of projects, she was actually offered a position. We then used the money that we would have spent in sending her to college to relocate her to New York City, which was a city that her father's family is based in, the city where her industry is located, and now she's living there in a shared roommate situation. And we're paying a fraction of the costs that many of our friends are paying to send their kids to college to figure out what they want to do. And so that for us became more of an investment and more of a way to continue to shape and mold our child so that she could continue to bring her gifts to the world.

On the moment that she was born, she was around spiritual ceremonies, the power of prayer. My daughter has her hand of Ipah. She has her own shrines to maintain. So all of that cultural awareness and cultural skill set has really empowered her because we never dumbed her down. We understood from a very young age that she had everything that she needed in life and education. Just like we planned that C, our job as parents, our job as adults our jobs as community is to shape our children and mold them with the highest nutrients, the highest environment possible. And so the more that we can do that by rejecting and decolonizing those old ideas of what it means to be a parent, of what it means to raise a child, to empower children to truly be, as I spent in the earlier, the best generation of our time. So when people talk about young people and they talk about the apathy of young people, I don't believe that rhetoric because I know that for every child of mine, there's children out there just like her that are being raised by purpose-driven adults just like you, and that we collectively are going to create a generation of young people who are going to lead us in to the future that we want to see. And so if you are in a young person's life, think about the simple ways, the simple shifts, that you can begin to incorporate some of what you learned today into their lives. And I promised you we'll have a future that we can all be proud of. And they will be able to be the stewards of us. Because one of the reasons we want to take immaculate care of our children is because our children will be the ones to take care of us when we become elders. And even when we transition into the next realm, when we will become ancestors. So who will be chanting our names?

Who will be the ones that keep our shrines alive if we don't impart this critical knowledge to our young people? And it starts today. All right, shapeshifters, that's what I have for you today. Until next time, keep shifting. Bye.