Shameless Leadership 827: Nefertiti Austin: On Adoption, Race, and Neurodivergence
Author and memoirist, Nefertiti Austin writes about the erasure of diverse voices in motherhood in the #1 Amazon bestseller Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender and Parenting in America. Nefertiti's work around this topic has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Romper, Adoptive Families magazine, Parents Magazine, SheMedia and countless others. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and radio programs including “The Today Show”, and multiple NPR outlets. Lately, she’s writing about raising her neurologically diverse daughter and jokes that adolescence is no match for menopause.
Most importantly, Nefertiti is the proud adoptive Shameless Mom of two children and two Shipoos - Monsieur Lafayette and Siddhartha. Nef and I connected through a mutual friend and two time SMA guest, Debbie Reber. Debbie was kind enough to introduce us and Nef was generous enough to say yes to my invitation to come on the show.
Listen in to hear Nefertiti share:
- What Black adoption looks like compared to typical white adoption
- Her intentional journey of building her family as a single adoptive mom
- How race and gender factor into parenting neurologically diverse children
- How having a neurologically diverse child changed her life in ways she didn’t see coming
- How she has had to explore her own triggers when it comes to her daughter's behaviors
- How the murder of Trayvon Martin became a wake-up call for her responsibility of raising a Black son
- What she wants white parents to know about how Black parents or parents of Black children parent from a place of fear
- What visible allyship feels for Black parents and children and how white parents can be more assertive, if note aggressive, in their allyship
Links mentioned:
- Connect with Nefertiti: Nefertitiaustin.com
- Get Nef’s Book: Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender and Parenting in America
- Nefertiti on IG
- Nefertiti on FB
- Nefertiti on X
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