Children as Teachers and Parenting as Activism

In this episode, Part 5 of our ongoing Post Capitalist Parenting series, Jo delAmor joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about raising children in the midst of a global crisis. We open our discussion with a nod to the late scholar and activist Joanna Macy and the Work That Reconnects which she developed and which has shaped and influenced both Jo and Della's work. We then talk about Jo's framing of the power over and thriving life paradigms and the role they play in how we parent under capitalism. Della and Jo talk about the false paradigm of separation and how this can be overcome through a deep understanding and practice of interconnectedness and how this can be imparted to our children. And finally, Jo invites us to see parenting as activism and to relearn the world alongside our growing children, partnering with them on behalf of life.

Jo is the author of Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for New Paradigm Parenting. She is also a mother, coach, and Work That Reconnects facilitator who has cared for and worked with hundreds of other people’s children of all ages in a wide variety of contexts over twenty years. In all her work with children, she has paid close attention to what the next generations truly need at this pivotal time on Earth, charting what works, what doesn’t, and what is being called forth from us as parents, mentors, neighbors, and teachers.

Further resources:

• Radiant Balance
• Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for New Paradigm Parenting, by Jo delAmor
• Parenting in Tumultuous Times: an online Work That Reconnects program for parents
• Paradigm as Choice in the Great Turning: a Work That Reconnects Network Webinar with Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe)
• Postactivism, Transraciality and Decoloniality: a WTR Network Webinar with Bayo Akomolafe
• Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Raising Free People, by Akilah Richards
• Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Columbus and Other Cannibals The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, by Jack Forbes

Related episodes:

• Listen to our ongoing Post Capitalist Parenting series
• The Work That Reconnects with Joanna Macy

Intermission music: "Believe" by Amanda West

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