October 21, 2021 • 30 mins
Having thoughtful anti-racist conversations is something that's important to Amy, so we are very excited to have Dr. Traci Baxley on this episode. Her new book, Social Justice Parenting, came out this week and it's something parents or caregivers should definitely add to their reading list! Dr. Baxley is a mother of 5, consultant, educator and coach dedicated to supporting families in developing diversity and inclusion. She shares with us how to talk to our kids about race, how parents in mostly white communities can raise children conscious of social justice, the importance of talking about Black Joy, and more.
Link to Social Justice Parenting:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063082365?ref=exp_radioamy_dp_vv_d
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
A little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty bay,
it's pretty beautiful thing that for a little moth kicking
with four. So today I'm excited to be welcomed by
Dr Tracy Baxley, and I'm pumped to have a mother
(00:40):
of five that is also an educator, a coach, an expert,
and author doing all the things to help us develop
diversity in our families and inclusion practices, which are so important.
We talked about that a lot on the podcast. But
you have a book that came out this week, so
we're very very excited about that, and it's called Social
(01:02):
Justice Parenting. Well, first of all, let me let Tracy
say Hi, Hi, Dr Tracy Vaxley. I am doing so good.
I think you can tell by the big smile on
my face that I'm very excited about this topic and
I am very excited for your book. I think it'll
be helpful to so many parents to have a resource
(01:23):
like this to dive into, especially you know mom to
mom or mom to dad or who whatever parents is
reading this, or whatever the caretaker looks like in the home.
But before we get into the details behind what you
do and your book and what you're passionate about and
why you're putting this book out. I would love to
hear four things that you are thankful for today so
(01:45):
that we can kind of do a little icebreaker here
with you and get to know you off the bat. Yeah,
I think. Um, I guess the first thing would be
my family. My children are my why so UM waking
up every day to those kids is you know, such
a blessing for me? To you? It would be the
platform that I have to speak from, UM having an
audience I call them my village, and UM really being
(02:09):
able to support parents in their journey and in turn,
it really supports me right in my own. We teach
a lift from each other. I think the third thing
today that I'm really grateful for I follow all of
my children on Instagram, and today I saw that my
daughter posted something he was away at college, and then
(02:29):
one of my my baby son, he posted a comment
to her saying how much he missed her and it
was excited for her to come home. And then my
oldest son, who also is away at college, then posted
something saying how he loved and miss everybody. So I
think that made my heart full, and so I just
(02:50):
felt so privileged to be their mom at that moment
that they were didn't need me to tell them to
do that, but they were doing it on their own
and I was kind of peeking in on that. So
very grateful for that. And then the last thing I'm
grateful for is the book launch this week. So a
lot of time and effort and love went into the
book and I'm excited that it's available to the world. Yeah. Well,
(03:14):
you mentioned as the second thing you're grateful for your village,
which I love the Instagram Kids story. By the way,
I feel like every parent if they were to see
an interaction like that, that's totally not something you're supposed
to see that. It's kind of it just means more
you're like, yes, okay, it did that part right. They're
all getting along and they're you know, that's your family
(03:34):
and they feel it. But you mentioned village, and I
had earmarked a part of your book that I actually
wanted to read back to you. Is that weird for
me to read read your words to you? But it
gave me goose bumps when I read it. But it's
page one seven and the section is called build your village. Finally,
(03:54):
I think it's important to create a trusting village to
fly with you surround yourself with other people who can
serve as confidence for your children. There may be times
when those other people in your village feel more like
a safe space to your child than you or your partner.
That may not feel very good for you, but do
(04:14):
your best not to take it personally. It doesn't mean
that you're doing something wrong. You're not. You are creating
a wall of protection around your child that allows them
to grow and be independent of you, all while remaining
in a safe, loving environment with people who want the
best for them. And I just wanted to read that
(04:34):
little snippet because it spoke to me on such a
deep level, especially being an adopted mom. I adopted older
kids and I wanted to connect with them and connect
with them, and my daughter got here at ten, she's
fourteen now. I just wanted to be that person for her.
And I do catch myself at times having to check
my my attitude if I'm feeling jealous of how she's
(04:56):
acting around other people, because I'm like, that's what I've
been craving. But I love that she feels close and
safe and connected to others and then they can come
back and they share with me things that are actually
very helpful. And it's not anything like we're, you know,
doing anything sneaky behind my kids back. But if it's
something that can be beneficial to everybody, and maybe it's
(05:18):
something that stays confident, I don't care. They don't have
to bring it to me, but I just appreciated this
validation of it. Doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong
because I have felt that maybe I'm not as good
as my friends are because they're not wanting to talk
to me about certain things. Thank you for saying that.
Thank you for sharing that. I think as parents, specialist moms, right,
(05:40):
we all feel it whether we're talking about it or not.
That's why I think it's so important that as parents,
as mothers, we start talking about the heart things and
mothering because it makes us all feel normal and safe,
right that we are all going through these different changes
with their kids as their ages and stages change. One
of the actors in the book is about self advocacy,
(06:02):
and part of building self advocacy is really about teaching
your children to create a team so I can use
different people for different areas of my life and know
that I'm going to the right person for the right thing.
So them being able to go to somebody else means
you did the right thing because you've created a wall
(06:23):
of safety, these different layers that no matter what age
and stage they're in, they will have the opportunity to
be able to talk about it and to be able
to get support. And that's really what we want for
our children to be independent where they need to be,
and to know that they don't have to do everything
by themselves, that they can find a team of people
that can support them through their through their lives journey.
(06:45):
I love that you said for even us moms, it
helps us feel safe because ultimately, as parents, that's what
we want for our kids is for them to feel safe.
But we're we crave it too, and so yeah, when
other moms can say things and share and not feel
isolated and alone, and it might take a little bit
getting vulnerable, Like if you have other people you can
(07:06):
connect with, it does help you feel safe. And it's
just crazy how much we all as human beings crave safety. Yes,
that's safety and belonging like those are the core to
to our human DNA right. Every every person, every human
wants to feel like they belong and um, it really
starts with us at home, creating those spaces at home
(07:27):
where our kids feel like it's safe. I belong here.
Even when I make mistakes, even when I don't do
the right thing, even when I'm learning and trying to
figure things out. This is a safe place for me
to be able to do those things. And so part
of the objective of the book really is to support
parents and creating those safe spaces for our kids. Because
you know, my saying is when we create those safe
(07:49):
spaces are belonging at home, we are raising children who
will be able to go and do that out in
the world for other people. So you know, we have
to think that we're not parenting in isolation, but we
are in fact parenting the children who were going to be,
you know, taking over the things in the world, and
we want to make sure that they have those core
values that were inclusion and belonging as part of that. Well, again,
(08:24):
the title of your book is social justice parenting, but
then it goes on to say how to raise compassionate,
anti racist, justice minded kids in an unjust world. Why
did you want to sit down and put this out
here for the world. Yeah, I think there's two twofold
It's a twofold answer, right. One is because I'm raising
(08:45):
black children and I realized that as much as I
want to keep them safe, help them navigating the world,
I can't do it by myself. And I really need
support from other moms and other moms who don't look
like me to really kind to be part of that
village and raising raising my children. And then the other
thing is I just think if we are creating and
(09:07):
developing and supporting these children, that will be these things
for others in the world. We can change a lot
of the division that we see right now in our society.
Like we are so divided on so many things, and
you know, everything is so black white, we don't see
the grays anymore. And I think we raise children who
really can see the gray. It really does create an
(09:29):
environment where everybody feels like they have a space, everybody
feels safe, um, and there's more equity in the world.
So it's partly selfish and partly you know, we want
to raise better children. Yeah, well, now I'm thankful that
if you want to call that selfish, fine, I'm thankful
because if you're putting it out there, then we get
to benefit. What age do you recommend parents start talking
(09:51):
to their children about race, whether they have white kids,
black kids, Hispanic kids, whatever the race is, Like, at
what age are we starting to talk about it as
early as you can? You can be really starting to
introduce that before they even start talking, like with the
books that you read, with the toys that are in
your home, with the movies that you show, you really
are starting to show them about diversity before they can
(10:14):
even speak it. You know, the studies show that kids
as early as six months really starts to recognize these
racial features and racial identities before they even are talking.
And so the long you wait, the more you may
have to kind of re teach. So I would say
that earlier the better I saw you mentioned a study
in your book or questionnaire that was done about you.
(10:37):
You can throw out the exact ones I'm just pulling
from my memory, but like there's a doctor, a lawyer,
da da da da, and then like a housekeeper or
janitor or whatever, and then you had kids assign race
to those jobs. Talk to us about that, because I
feel like that's a powerful example of exactly what our
kids just kind of repeating back what their eyeball see
(10:59):
all the time. Exactly. Yeah. So you say, uh to
five year olds, draw me a picture of a scientist,
or draw me a picture of a doctor. They're often
white men. If you say, drop, draw me a picture
of your bus driver, or even you have pictures of
different kinds of people in terms of race and gender,
and you ask who's the doctor, who's the bus driver,
(11:20):
who's the housekeeper. They've already made their mind of which race,
which gender are assigned to these roles in our society.
And again we haven't taught them that, but they've gotten
it from somewhere. So if we're waiting to have these
kinds of discussions with their children, their minds are as
they're growing up preschool, kindergarten, their minds are trying to
(11:43):
make categories of things. That's that's what they're supposed to
be doing. And if you don't help them with those categories,
they are creating it based on their limited experiences and
their limited knowledge, and oftentimes those categories can have some
stereotyping or some bias wrapped in them. I'm just thinking,
have maybe a mom or a family verse and thing
listening right now, that's like, oh, man, our kids aren't
(12:05):
young anymore. They're now twelve thirteen, and we didn't implement
any of this. What advice do you have for parents
that might be realizing, oh wow, I need to do
this differently. How can they approach it with an older child. Yeah,
I'd say it's never too early, never too late, right,
So if you have like free teen or early teen children.
One way that we did it a lot as my
(12:27):
children got oldest, we did it like at dinner time
or at our family meetings. We would bring up topics
and then we have conversation around those topics. Sometimes the
topics are light and fun, and then sometimes they are
based on what's going on in the world that we
talk about. And this way you get to see where
your kids gaps are, like what they really understand and
what they don't. How what they're saying does it align
(12:49):
with your core values of how you're trying to raise them.
And I think it's also important that you use teachable moments,
like things that are going on in the world, things
that you may hear your children talk about, things that
on social media that you're seeing pop up in your
own feeds. Having those conversations with your children and it
could be you asking them questions, what do you know
(13:10):
about X y Z? What have you seen? What have
you heard? How do you feel about that? So that
you're getting a better idea of what they already know
and then see where you need to redirect them or
add to their knowledge already. Yeah, I'm just thinking about
being a white mom raising black kids. There's certain things
I'm not going to identify with or I'm not going
(13:32):
to experience that they might. I'm just not. So I've
had to be super intentional about having well, since they're
from Haiti, specifically other Haitians in our life that live
in our town. We have Haitian friends that we hang
out with, some kids, some adults, and we have other
people in our life that I just had to really
make sure that diversity was a part of our family
(13:55):
dynamic and they didn't just look around and see a
bunch of white people the time. Yeah, you know, that's
so important to me because a lot of families are
not doing that. And really, even if you don't have
black children, even if you're white and your white children,
you should still be looking for diversity because that speaks
volumes to your children. Based on who your inner circle
(14:17):
is right. It sends a message. It may not be
the message you're trying to send, but it definerently sends
messages to our children about who's important, who's in our lives,
who's not. And it could really kind of play on
that whole idea of power and privilege when everybody around
you looks the same as you and your your your children,
and I think maybe too as parents are trying to
(14:38):
figure it out, it's hard to sometimes just jump into
social circles that you're like, oh, hey, you want to
be friends. But if it's coming from the heart and
you mean it, and you know that there's at least
someone you could reach out to and you could I
don't know what would you recommend someone being straight up
and honest, like, Hey, this is something i've read about
and I'm learning and I'm trying to see what this
(14:59):
could look for my family, Like I'm just wondering how
that conversation might go if someone is trying to reach
out to bring that diversity into their lives. But you
also mentioned earlier, like the types of movies you're watching
or the types of toys you're playing with, that's another
way to bring it into the home. While you can
try to build relationships outside because you wanted to be genuine.
(15:19):
You do want it to be genuine, yes, but sometimes
we do have to put ourselves out there in very
uncomfortable ways. UM. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
But you can't let the fear stop you from trying. UM.
I think a lot of times that you have to
put yourself out of your daily routine, you know, which
could be going to more cultural um, multicultural events. It
(15:42):
could be going to like book reads by divers authors.
It could be either cultural festivals. It could be going
to a library that's on the other side of town,
you know, where there's you know, children story time. UM.
I have some people, some families in my parenting group
that one of the things I challenged them to do
(16:03):
something UM in that month that's different, and a couple
of them went to story time that was in another
neighborhood and they were able to connect and then have
played dates with groups of people who were different from
their them and their their children. So sometimes it does
make you have to go out of your way. The
intention should be there, like being intentional about making the
changes may require some form of you know, a little
(16:27):
extra effort. But you know, I guess you have to
ask yourself how important is this work for you to
raise your children more a diverse setting. I'll just say,
if you're thinking about it, it's very important. Everybody listening
right now, that's like, I don't know, is it important? Yes,
it's so important, Like if if anything, I feel like
we have waves of stuff that come into the news
(16:47):
that brings stuff to the forefront unfortunately, but then also
fortunately because that's how we're able to start having tough
conversations and then I think that's when people are like,
oh yeah, that's why I try to continuously have this
conversation on the podcast with various guests, authors, people that
definitely are experts in this, but also just friends of
(17:09):
mine too, just real conversations because it's just important to
keep it going. It's easy to get motivated for a minute,
and like you said, it's extra effort and then you
just dial back and you're like, okay, well check to
that box. And it's like, no, if we want to
make a real impact for our children the future, and
we don't want to repeat a bunch of this stuff
that we see that's happening that we find unbelievable. But
(17:31):
then it's like, well, what are we doing in our
own homes to fix it? Yes, we go back to
status quo, right, yeah, And I often, like on my
Instagram page, I will often put you know, remember when
we were putting the black boxes up as a way
of saying I'm standing behind black Lives Matter or black
lives And I will put a box up every now
and then like a check in, like remember you did this,
(17:55):
What what are you doing now? Like how has that
enthusiasm waned? Or have you really dug it? And you're
still doing the work. So this is like a check in.
It's not something that you could put off. Will you
share your Instagram real quick for everyone? It's at Social
Justice Parenting. At Social Justice Parenting, and so you're the
creator of that. I know we're we're talking about your book.
(18:17):
So that's the name of the book. But is that
also an organization? It is not. It is It's just
a parenting philosophy that I started as a part under
my kind of bigger company, which is called Brown Schooling.
But it's a part of that um. And so I
didn't like two years ago I started not writing the book,
(18:38):
but started writing chapters that kind of I was just
kind of emptying how I parent and what caused me
to really realize that I shouldn't just be parenting my
own kids, but I need to be parenting more than
my own kids, because right I really feel like this
idea this we're one big village, one big global village,
and we need each other. We need each other to
support each other in the growing um the rearing of
(19:00):
our children in order to be able to make those changes.
And so as I started putting these things out, little
pieces on Instagram here and there, I got asked to
do the Ted talk around it. And so that's kind
of when the official title of my old little social
Justice Parenting became a thing. You know, I kind of
built this foundation around the idea of always being active
(19:22):
as a parent, always thinking about others. How are we
showing up and supporting each other? And that title, um
just kind of struck. I love it. You mentioned Brown
Schooling and it's under that umbrella. What's the brown Schooling about? So?
Brown Schooling was the company that I started probably about six,
six or seven years ago, when I started home schooling
(19:44):
my children. So I was very intentional about what my
children learned when they were home, and a lot of
it had to do with their identity of who they were,
and we started talking about, you know, what brown people
did in the world, like how do we infuse it
into what they're learning. And then as I started developing
curriculum for my children around social justice issues, black history
(20:07):
and those kinds of things, I began to get people
wanting to purchase those curriculum and so we just started
because we when people started homeschooling, I would always say
no in brown schooling, and so that became the company.
And then under that, which is kind of the parent company.
That's where I do my consulting and coaching and all
that underneath that umbrella. And so you're in an interracial
(20:42):
marriage I am. Do you get any pushback when it
comes to that? Yes, yes, not as much as I
used to. You know, we've been together for twenty five years.
We definitely heard it all, saw it all on the looks,
the name calling when we were dating. But I don't
know if it's happening as much now. We've just learned
ignore it. But um, I also get some of that
(21:03):
in the black community, the activism space, you know, because
what I do is very pro black um in terms
of wanting some equity around the black community. UM and
sometimes being married to a a white man. Some people
think that that means that I'm not as serious about
the black community. But you know, I've known him since
(21:26):
fourth grade, and you know, you love when you love,
and uh, that's where it ended, Okay, So now I
need to know more about how y'all met in the
fourth grade and ended up getting married. I tell the
story in the book about how my family moved from
this very insulated black community where everybody knew everybody and
all the parents could love, you could chastise, you could
(21:47):
take care of you, and my family in the summer
of third and fourth grade moved to a very white
community where my family was actually the only black family.
And so the adjustments that that took were somewhere very hard.
But that's where I met my husband. He tells the
story that he saw me, I guess, running at pe
(22:08):
when we're doing racist or pe and uh, he saw
that I was fast, and he wanted to make sure
that he could beat me in a race. And so
that was that was his introduction to us. And then
we went on to middle and high school, together when
we went away to college, went away to work, and
we both came back home the same year and we
just got reacquainted and just started going out to catch up.
(22:31):
And then, as they say, the rest is history. Okay,
So it wasn't like, you know, he was your fourth
grade boyfriend. He did that. You know, we ran the
same circles because we both played sports, so we did
a lot together, you know, in groups, but never dated
in high school. And so you know, I wasn't looking
for love with him. We were just catching up. But
we saw past the color thing and it wasn't a
(22:53):
big deal for us, and and and mostly it wasn't
a big deal for our families either. We I had
a couple of girlfriends that were looking at apprehensive. They
were worried about kids, I mean, our kids identity. I
got some push back from a couple of friends, but
generally we had no problems with our core group. You know,
it's it's been it's been a ride, but it's been
a positive ride. You know. We generally with our race,
(23:16):
we really haven't had any major hiccups. And the hiccups
that came were outside of our home. For your kids
to have a mom that even has made this part
of her life's work. It's like you are probably a
great resource for them and having to navigate anything that
may come their way. UM, having a white dad, black mom.
I'm just wondering the different things they may go through.
(23:38):
In case anybody listening right now has children in the
same I mean, is there conversations that have been tough
that luckily for skilled in answering, But is there something
you could share for parents that might be in that situation?
Like you, Amy, our kids all have unique experiences, right
with identity and growing up. You from having a transracial
(23:59):
family and me having a biracial family. Some of their
growing pains are going to be unique to them because
of of who they are and their and their family.
But I will say that it's really important that for
for both of us and and families like both of ours,
that you raise your children with the totality of who
they are. So we talk about what it is to
(24:21):
be black in the world. We also talk about what
it is to be biracial in our home, right. So
I let my children kind of identify the way that
they want to, Like my daughter identifies as a black woman. Um,
one of my sons identifies as a biracial young man.
They're all different and how they self identify. But it's
(24:42):
really important to me as a black woman, as a
black mother, that I'm teaching my children how to navigating
their brown scan out in the world as the world
will see them. And so those have been conversations we've
had all of their lives about you know, being safe,
how to present themselves in the world. Also, you know,
black joy to what that looks like, and how who
your ancestors are and how important that is and what
(25:05):
they sacrifice for you and all the wonderful contributions that
you know your answers have made and what beautiful things
that your skin, your hair and all those things too.
I'm so glad you said that, because that's what I
wanted to close everything out with the importance of learning
and talking about black joy. So break more of that
down for us. Yeah, I think when people, especially in
(25:27):
the media right everybody is talking about the talk, when
they talk about the talk that black parents have with
their children about law enforcement, about how they show up
in the world, nobody talks about the talk we have
with our children to be proud about who they are
and a lot of that has to happen in the home,
because if you don't give them almost like the armor
(25:48):
right of telling them the affirmations about how beautiful they are,
the affirmations about how strong they are, how they are enough,
sharing with them their backgrounds. I know my family we
did our ancestry to see like what village people came from,
like at least, you know, trying to figure that out,
and then we started trying to learn about those particular people,
what kind of village they were, what kind of royal
(26:10):
families belonged in that tribe, And so I think all
of that kind of armors them against the negativity they
may get in the world. So I think during the
work at home, talking about black history at home and um,
giving them the truth about history and who their people are,
I think is really important so that they have those
(26:31):
tools when they go out into the world that may
not acknowledge those things for them. When you say the
truth about history, do you have particular resources that are
good for parents to find that, because I don't know,
depending on where your kids go to school, the way
they're learning things might be very different. So where you
might just want to sit back and be like Oh,
(26:51):
it's fine, they'll cover this stuff in school. You can't
rely on teachers and educators to handle this part. If
you are able and you want a relationship with your kids,
and you you want to be a part of this,
you have to take on this responsibility absolutely absolutely. UM.
Some of the books that I love, I love UM,
(27:13):
The Zen Project, I love UM James Lowell's book The
Lies My Teacher. My history teacher told me, I think
it's called also anything, it's called rethinking schools. They have
a wealth of information and books about how you re
rethink history. They have one on Columbus, they have one
(27:33):
on Black Lives Matter, and they have a lot of
things through their organizations, and they're all reasonably priced. Those
are three resources that I use as my own students,
my own children when I'm homeschooling there. So I think
really getting at something that gives you all perspectives is
really important. Yeah. Sometimes I do get pushed back from
certain things, or people get defensive. But I see, if
(27:56):
you can be self aware if you're getting defensive. I
I do this my own self regarding all kinds of
things in my life. The minute I'm feeling defensive, I've
learned to check myself. So I just I'm going to
go ahead and put that out there if any of
this conversation, I already know that sometimes the comments are
there because I get anytime I have a guest or
a topic or we do it on I get certain
(28:17):
notes and people they mean well and it's not ever
totally mean or I get it a little bit. But
sometimes I'm like, oh, man, you're almost there. Like if
you're just self aware, you would know like, oh, this
is a this is like a red flag, like I
need to to check something. And like you said, learning
all perspectives. And I think that as white people, we've
(28:39):
been very privileged for a very long time to get
the white perspective on things. Yes, And I think what
you just said is really the key. It's the first
foundation in the social justice parenting framework is that reflection piece. Right.
We got to be courageous enough, vulnerable enough, honest and
(29:00):
off to be able to reflect on our own experiences,
our own ways of showing up for our children, our
biases and stereotypes and limitations before we can really start
to short our kids. Well. Dr Baxxley, Dr Tracy, what
do people call you? Dry? Just Tracy, Oh, I love
(29:20):
the doctor. So Social Justice Parenting is the book and
I'm reading the back here, and it says an empowering,
timely guide to raising anti racist, compassionate, and socially conscious
children from a diversity and inclusion educator with more than
thirty years of experience. So I encourage people to check
(29:42):
it out Social Justice Parenting. I will be linking the
book in the show notes. And Tracy, congratulations on the
book coming out this week. I know that that is
definitely something to celebrate, So I hope you get to
relax this coming weekend and celebrate. Thank you, Thank you
so much. Me. Yeah, I got one of my girlfriends
just during me a little launch party. So we're going
(30:04):
to do that Friday night. Oh so fun. Yeah. Well,
you deserve it. Thank you, Okay, bye bye now
A little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty bay,
it's pretty beautiful thing that for a little moth kicking
with four. So today I'm excited to be welcomed by
Dr Tracy Baxley, and I'm pumped to have a mother
(00:40):
of five that is also an educator, a coach, an expert,
and author doing all the things to help us develop
diversity in our families and inclusion practices, which are so important.
We talked about that a lot on the podcast. But
you have a book that came out this week, so
we're very very excited about that, and it's called Social
(01:02):
Justice Parenting. Well, first of all, let me let Tracy
say Hi, Hi, Dr Tracy Vaxley. I am doing so good.
I think you can tell by the big smile on
my face that I'm very excited about this topic and
I am very excited for your book. I think it'll
be helpful to so many parents to have a resource
(01:23):
like this to dive into, especially you know mom to
mom or mom to dad or who whatever parents is
reading this, or whatever the caretaker looks like in the home.
But before we get into the details behind what you
do and your book and what you're passionate about and
why you're putting this book out. I would love to
hear four things that you are thankful for today so
(01:45):
that we can kind of do a little icebreaker here
with you and get to know you off the bat. Yeah,
I think. Um, I guess the first thing would be
my family. My children are my why so UM waking
up every day to those kids is you know, such
a blessing for me? To you? It would be the
platform that I have to speak from, UM having an
audience I call them my village, and UM really being
(02:09):
able to support parents in their journey and in turn,
it really supports me right in my own. We teach
a lift from each other. I think the third thing
today that I'm really grateful for I follow all of
my children on Instagram, and today I saw that my
daughter posted something he was away at college, and then
(02:29):
one of my my baby son, he posted a comment
to her saying how much he missed her and it
was excited for her to come home. And then my
oldest son, who also is away at college, then posted
something saying how he loved and miss everybody. So I
think that made my heart full, and so I just
(02:50):
felt so privileged to be their mom at that moment
that they were didn't need me to tell them to
do that, but they were doing it on their own
and I was kind of peeking in on that. So
very grateful for that. And then the last thing I'm
grateful for is the book launch this week. So a
lot of time and effort and love went into the
book and I'm excited that it's available to the world. Yeah. Well,
(03:14):
you mentioned as the second thing you're grateful for your village,
which I love the Instagram Kids story. By the way,
I feel like every parent if they were to see
an interaction like that, that's totally not something you're supposed
to see that. It's kind of it just means more
you're like, yes, okay, it did that part right. They're
all getting along and they're you know, that's your family
(03:34):
and they feel it. But you mentioned village, and I
had earmarked a part of your book that I actually
wanted to read back to you. Is that weird for
me to read read your words to you? But it
gave me goose bumps when I read it. But it's
page one seven and the section is called build your village. Finally,
(03:54):
I think it's important to create a trusting village to
fly with you surround yourself with other people who can
serve as confidence for your children. There may be times
when those other people in your village feel more like
a safe space to your child than you or your partner.
That may not feel very good for you, but do
(04:14):
your best not to take it personally. It doesn't mean
that you're doing something wrong. You're not. You are creating
a wall of protection around your child that allows them
to grow and be independent of you, all while remaining
in a safe, loving environment with people who want the
best for them. And I just wanted to read that
(04:34):
little snippet because it spoke to me on such a
deep level, especially being an adopted mom. I adopted older
kids and I wanted to connect with them and connect
with them, and my daughter got here at ten, she's
fourteen now. I just wanted to be that person for her.
And I do catch myself at times having to check
my my attitude if I'm feeling jealous of how she's
(04:56):
acting around other people, because I'm like, that's what I've
been craving. But I love that she feels close and
safe and connected to others and then they can come
back and they share with me things that are actually
very helpful. And it's not anything like we're, you know,
doing anything sneaky behind my kids back. But if it's
something that can be beneficial to everybody, and maybe it's
(05:18):
something that stays confident, I don't care. They don't have
to bring it to me, but I just appreciated this
validation of it. Doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong
because I have felt that maybe I'm not as good
as my friends are because they're not wanting to talk
to me about certain things. Thank you for saying that.
Thank you for sharing that. I think as parents, specialist moms, right,
(05:40):
we all feel it whether we're talking about it or not.
That's why I think it's so important that as parents,
as mothers, we start talking about the heart things and
mothering because it makes us all feel normal and safe,
right that we are all going through these different changes
with their kids as their ages and stages change. One
of the actors in the book is about self advocacy,
(06:02):
and part of building self advocacy is really about teaching
your children to create a team so I can use
different people for different areas of my life and know
that I'm going to the right person for the right thing.
So them being able to go to somebody else means
you did the right thing because you've created a wall
(06:23):
of safety, these different layers that no matter what age
and stage they're in, they will have the opportunity to
be able to talk about it and to be able
to get support. And that's really what we want for
our children to be independent where they need to be,
and to know that they don't have to do everything
by themselves, that they can find a team of people
that can support them through their through their lives journey.
(06:45):
I love that you said for even us moms, it
helps us feel safe because ultimately, as parents, that's what
we want for our kids is for them to feel safe.
But we're we crave it too, and so yeah, when
other moms can say things and share and not feel
isolated and alone, and it might take a little bit
getting vulnerable, Like if you have other people you can
(07:06):
connect with, it does help you feel safe. And it's
just crazy how much we all as human beings crave safety. Yes,
that's safety and belonging like those are the core to
to our human DNA right. Every every person, every human
wants to feel like they belong and um, it really
starts with us at home, creating those spaces at home
(07:27):
where our kids feel like it's safe. I belong here.
Even when I make mistakes, even when I don't do
the right thing, even when I'm learning and trying to
figure things out. This is a safe place for me
to be able to do those things. And so part
of the objective of the book really is to support
parents and creating those safe spaces for our kids. Because
you know, my saying is when we create those safe
(07:49):
spaces are belonging at home, we are raising children who
will be able to go and do that out in
the world for other people. So you know, we have
to think that we're not parenting in isolation, but we
are in fact parenting the children who were going to be,
you know, taking over the things in the world, and
we want to make sure that they have those core
values that were inclusion and belonging as part of that. Well, again,
(08:24):
the title of your book is social justice parenting, but
then it goes on to say how to raise compassionate,
anti racist, justice minded kids in an unjust world. Why
did you want to sit down and put this out
here for the world. Yeah, I think there's two twofold
It's a twofold answer, right. One is because I'm raising
(08:45):
black children and I realized that as much as I
want to keep them safe, help them navigating the world,
I can't do it by myself. And I really need
support from other moms and other moms who don't look
like me to really kind to be part of that
village and raising raising my children. And then the other
thing is I just think if we are creating and
(09:07):
developing and supporting these children, that will be these things
for others in the world. We can change a lot
of the division that we see right now in our society.
Like we are so divided on so many things, and
you know, everything is so black white, we don't see
the grays anymore. And I think we raise children who
really can see the gray. It really does create an
(09:29):
environment where everybody feels like they have a space, everybody
feels safe, um, and there's more equity in the world.
So it's partly selfish and partly you know, we want
to raise better children. Yeah, well, now I'm thankful that
if you want to call that selfish, fine, I'm thankful
because if you're putting it out there, then we get
to benefit. What age do you recommend parents start talking
(09:51):
to their children about race, whether they have white kids,
black kids, Hispanic kids, whatever the race is, Like, at
what age are we starting to talk about it as
early as you can? You can be really starting to
introduce that before they even start talking, like with the
books that you read, with the toys that are in
your home, with the movies that you show, you really
are starting to show them about diversity before they can
(10:14):
even speak it. You know, the studies show that kids
as early as six months really starts to recognize these
racial features and racial identities before they even are talking.
And so the long you wait, the more you may
have to kind of re teach. So I would say
that earlier the better I saw you mentioned a study
in your book or questionnaire that was done about you.
(10:37):
You can throw out the exact ones I'm just pulling
from my memory, but like there's a doctor, a lawyer,
da da da da, and then like a housekeeper or
janitor or whatever, and then you had kids assign race
to those jobs. Talk to us about that, because I
feel like that's a powerful example of exactly what our
kids just kind of repeating back what their eyeball see
(10:59):
all the time. Exactly. Yeah. So you say, uh to
five year olds, draw me a picture of a scientist,
or draw me a picture of a doctor. They're often
white men. If you say, drop, draw me a picture
of your bus driver, or even you have pictures of
different kinds of people in terms of race and gender,
and you ask who's the doctor, who's the bus driver,
(11:20):
who's the housekeeper. They've already made their mind of which race,
which gender are assigned to these roles in our society.
And again we haven't taught them that, but they've gotten
it from somewhere. So if we're waiting to have these
kinds of discussions with their children, their minds are as
they're growing up preschool, kindergarten, their minds are trying to
(11:43):
make categories of things. That's that's what they're supposed to
be doing. And if you don't help them with those categories,
they are creating it based on their limited experiences and
their limited knowledge, and oftentimes those categories can have some
stereotyping or some bias wrapped in them. I'm just thinking,
have maybe a mom or a family verse and thing
listening right now, that's like, oh, man, our kids aren't
(12:05):
young anymore. They're now twelve thirteen, and we didn't implement
any of this. What advice do you have for parents
that might be realizing, oh wow, I need to do
this differently. How can they approach it with an older child. Yeah,
I'd say it's never too early, never too late, right,
So if you have like free teen or early teen children.
One way that we did it a lot as my
(12:27):
children got oldest, we did it like at dinner time
or at our family meetings. We would bring up topics
and then we have conversation around those topics. Sometimes the
topics are light and fun, and then sometimes they are
based on what's going on in the world that we
talk about. And this way you get to see where
your kids gaps are, like what they really understand and
what they don't. How what they're saying does it align
(12:49):
with your core values of how you're trying to raise them.
And I think it's also important that you use teachable moments,
like things that are going on in the world, things
that you may hear your children talk about, things that
on social media that you're seeing pop up in your
own feeds. Having those conversations with your children and it
could be you asking them questions, what do you know
(13:10):
about X y Z? What have you seen? What have
you heard? How do you feel about that? So that
you're getting a better idea of what they already know
and then see where you need to redirect them or
add to their knowledge already. Yeah, I'm just thinking about
being a white mom raising black kids. There's certain things
I'm not going to identify with or I'm not going
(13:32):
to experience that they might. I'm just not. So I've
had to be super intentional about having well, since they're
from Haiti, specifically other Haitians in our life that live
in our town. We have Haitian friends that we hang
out with, some kids, some adults, and we have other
people in our life that I just had to really
make sure that diversity was a part of our family
(13:55):
dynamic and they didn't just look around and see a
bunch of white people the time. Yeah, you know, that's
so important to me because a lot of families are
not doing that. And really, even if you don't have
black children, even if you're white and your white children,
you should still be looking for diversity because that speaks
volumes to your children. Based on who your inner circle
(14:17):
is right. It sends a message. It may not be
the message you're trying to send, but it definerently sends
messages to our children about who's important, who's in our lives,
who's not. And it could really kind of play on
that whole idea of power and privilege when everybody around
you looks the same as you and your your your children,
and I think maybe too as parents are trying to
(14:38):
figure it out, it's hard to sometimes just jump into
social circles that you're like, oh, hey, you want to
be friends. But if it's coming from the heart and
you mean it, and you know that there's at least
someone you could reach out to and you could I
don't know what would you recommend someone being straight up
and honest, like, Hey, this is something i've read about
and I'm learning and I'm trying to see what this
(14:59):
could look for my family, Like I'm just wondering how
that conversation might go if someone is trying to reach
out to bring that diversity into their lives. But you
also mentioned earlier, like the types of movies you're watching
or the types of toys you're playing with, that's another
way to bring it into the home. While you can
try to build relationships outside because you wanted to be genuine.
(15:19):
You do want it to be genuine, yes, but sometimes
we do have to put ourselves out there in very
uncomfortable ways. UM. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
But you can't let the fear stop you from trying. UM.
I think a lot of times that you have to
put yourself out of your daily routine, you know, which
could be going to more cultural um, multicultural events. It
(15:42):
could be going to like book reads by divers authors.
It could be either cultural festivals. It could be going
to a library that's on the other side of town,
you know, where there's you know, children story time. UM.
I have some people, some families in my parenting group
that one of the things I challenged them to do
(16:03):
something UM in that month that's different, and a couple
of them went to story time that was in another
neighborhood and they were able to connect and then have
played dates with groups of people who were different from
their them and their their children. So sometimes it does
make you have to go out of your way. The
intention should be there, like being intentional about making the
changes may require some form of you know, a little
(16:27):
extra effort. But you know, I guess you have to
ask yourself how important is this work for you to
raise your children more a diverse setting. I'll just say,
if you're thinking about it, it's very important. Everybody listening
right now, that's like, I don't know, is it important? Yes,
it's so important, Like if if anything, I feel like
we have waves of stuff that come into the news
(16:47):
that brings stuff to the forefront unfortunately, but then also
fortunately because that's how we're able to start having tough
conversations and then I think that's when people are like,
oh yeah, that's why I try to continuously have this
conversation on the podcast with various guests, authors, people that
definitely are experts in this, but also just friends of
(17:09):
mine too, just real conversations because it's just important to
keep it going. It's easy to get motivated for a minute,
and like you said, it's extra effort and then you
just dial back and you're like, okay, well check to
that box. And it's like, no, if we want to
make a real impact for our children the future, and
we don't want to repeat a bunch of this stuff
that we see that's happening that we find unbelievable. But
(17:31):
then it's like, well, what are we doing in our
own homes to fix it? Yes, we go back to
status quo, right, yeah, And I often, like on my
Instagram page, I will often put you know, remember when
we were putting the black boxes up as a way
of saying I'm standing behind black Lives Matter or black
lives And I will put a box up every now
and then like a check in, like remember you did this,
(17:55):
What what are you doing now? Like how has that
enthusiasm waned? Or have you really dug it? And you're
still doing the work. So this is like a check in.
It's not something that you could put off. Will you
share your Instagram real quick for everyone? It's at Social
Justice Parenting. At Social Justice Parenting, and so you're the
creator of that. I know we're we're talking about your book.
(18:17):
So that's the name of the book. But is that
also an organization? It is not. It is It's just
a parenting philosophy that I started as a part under
my kind of bigger company, which is called Brown Schooling.
But it's a part of that um. And so I
didn't like two years ago I started not writing the book,
(18:38):
but started writing chapters that kind of I was just
kind of emptying how I parent and what caused me
to really realize that I shouldn't just be parenting my
own kids, but I need to be parenting more than
my own kids, because right I really feel like this
idea this we're one big village, one big global village,
and we need each other. We need each other to
support each other in the growing um the rearing of
(19:00):
our children in order to be able to make those changes.
And so as I started putting these things out, little
pieces on Instagram here and there, I got asked to
do the Ted talk around it. And so that's kind
of when the official title of my old little social
Justice Parenting became a thing. You know, I kind of
built this foundation around the idea of always being active
(19:22):
as a parent, always thinking about others. How are we
showing up and supporting each other? And that title, um
just kind of struck. I love it. You mentioned Brown
Schooling and it's under that umbrella. What's the brown Schooling about? So?
Brown Schooling was the company that I started probably about six,
six or seven years ago, when I started home schooling
(19:44):
my children. So I was very intentional about what my
children learned when they were home, and a lot of
it had to do with their identity of who they were,
and we started talking about, you know, what brown people
did in the world, like how do we infuse it
into what they're learning. And then as I started developing
curriculum for my children around social justice issues, black history
(20:07):
and those kinds of things, I began to get people
wanting to purchase those curriculum and so we just started
because we when people started homeschooling, I would always say
no in brown schooling, and so that became the company.
And then under that, which is kind of the parent company.
That's where I do my consulting and coaching and all
that underneath that umbrella. And so you're in an interracial
(20:42):
marriage I am. Do you get any pushback when it
comes to that? Yes, yes, not as much as I
used to. You know, we've been together for twenty five years.
We definitely heard it all, saw it all on the looks,
the name calling when we were dating. But I don't
know if it's happening as much now. We've just learned
ignore it. But um, I also get some of that
(21:03):
in the black community, the activism space, you know, because
what I do is very pro black um in terms
of wanting some equity around the black community. UM and
sometimes being married to a a white man. Some people
think that that means that I'm not as serious about
the black community. But you know, I've known him since
(21:26):
fourth grade, and you know, you love when you love,
and uh, that's where it ended, Okay, So now I
need to know more about how y'all met in the
fourth grade and ended up getting married. I tell the
story in the book about how my family moved from
this very insulated black community where everybody knew everybody and
all the parents could love, you could chastise, you could
(21:47):
take care of you, and my family in the summer
of third and fourth grade moved to a very white
community where my family was actually the only black family.
And so the adjustments that that took were somewhere very hard.
But that's where I met my husband. He tells the
story that he saw me, I guess, running at pe
(22:08):
when we're doing racist or pe and uh, he saw
that I was fast, and he wanted to make sure
that he could beat me in a race. And so
that was that was his introduction to us. And then
we went on to middle and high school, together when
we went away to college, went away to work, and
we both came back home the same year and we
just got reacquainted and just started going out to catch up.
(22:31):
And then, as they say, the rest is history. Okay,
So it wasn't like, you know, he was your fourth
grade boyfriend. He did that. You know, we ran the
same circles because we both played sports, so we did
a lot together, you know, in groups, but never dated
in high school. And so you know, I wasn't looking
for love with him. We were just catching up. But
we saw past the color thing and it wasn't a
(22:53):
big deal for us, and and and mostly it wasn't
a big deal for our families either. We I had
a couple of girlfriends that were looking at apprehensive. They
were worried about kids, I mean, our kids identity. I
got some push back from a couple of friends, but
generally we had no problems with our core group. You know,
it's it's been it's been a ride, but it's been
a positive ride. You know. We generally with our race,
(23:16):
we really haven't had any major hiccups. And the hiccups
that came were outside of our home. For your kids
to have a mom that even has made this part
of her life's work. It's like you are probably a
great resource for them and having to navigate anything that
may come their way. UM, having a white dad, black mom.
I'm just wondering the different things they may go through.
(23:38):
In case anybody listening right now has children in the
same I mean, is there conversations that have been tough
that luckily for skilled in answering, But is there something
you could share for parents that might be in that situation?
Like you, Amy, our kids all have unique experiences, right
with identity and growing up. You from having a transracial
(23:59):
family and me having a biracial family. Some of their
growing pains are going to be unique to them because
of of who they are and their and their family.
But I will say that it's really important that for
for both of us and and families like both of ours,
that you raise your children with the totality of who
they are. So we talk about what it is to
(24:21):
be black in the world. We also talk about what
it is to be biracial in our home, right. So
I let my children kind of identify the way that
they want to, Like my daughter identifies as a black woman. Um,
one of my sons identifies as a biracial young man.
They're all different and how they self identify. But it's
(24:42):
really important to me as a black woman, as a
black mother, that I'm teaching my children how to navigating
their brown scan out in the world as the world
will see them. And so those have been conversations we've
had all of their lives about you know, being safe,
how to present themselves in the world. Also, you know,
black joy to what that looks like, and how who
your ancestors are and how important that is and what
(25:05):
they sacrifice for you and all the wonderful contributions that
you know your answers have made and what beautiful things
that your skin, your hair and all those things too.
I'm so glad you said that, because that's what I
wanted to close everything out with the importance of learning
and talking about black joy. So break more of that
down for us. Yeah, I think when people, especially in
(25:27):
the media right everybody is talking about the talk, when
they talk about the talk that black parents have with
their children about law enforcement, about how they show up
in the world, nobody talks about the talk we have
with our children to be proud about who they are
and a lot of that has to happen in the home,
because if you don't give them almost like the armor
(25:48):
right of telling them the affirmations about how beautiful they are,
the affirmations about how strong they are, how they are enough,
sharing with them their backgrounds. I know my family we
did our ancestry to see like what village people came from,
like at least, you know, trying to figure that out,
and then we started trying to learn about those particular people,
what kind of village they were, what kind of royal
(26:10):
families belonged in that tribe, And so I think all
of that kind of armors them against the negativity they
may get in the world. So I think during the
work at home, talking about black history at home and um,
giving them the truth about history and who their people are,
I think is really important so that they have those
(26:31):
tools when they go out into the world that may
not acknowledge those things for them. When you say the
truth about history, do you have particular resources that are
good for parents to find that, because I don't know,
depending on where your kids go to school, the way
they're learning things might be very different. So where you
might just want to sit back and be like Oh,
(26:51):
it's fine, they'll cover this stuff in school. You can't
rely on teachers and educators to handle this part. If
you are able and you want a relationship with your kids,
and you you want to be a part of this,
you have to take on this responsibility absolutely absolutely. UM.
Some of the books that I love, I love UM,
(27:13):
The Zen Project, I love UM James Lowell's book The
Lies My Teacher. My history teacher told me, I think
it's called also anything, it's called rethinking schools. They have
a wealth of information and books about how you re
rethink history. They have one on Columbus, they have one
(27:33):
on Black Lives Matter, and they have a lot of
things through their organizations, and they're all reasonably priced. Those
are three resources that I use as my own students,
my own children when I'm homeschooling there. So I think
really getting at something that gives you all perspectives is
really important. Yeah. Sometimes I do get pushed back from
certain things, or people get defensive. But I see, if
(27:56):
you can be self aware if you're getting defensive. I
I do this my own self regarding all kinds of
things in my life. The minute I'm feeling defensive, I've
learned to check myself. So I just I'm going to
go ahead and put that out there if any of
this conversation, I already know that sometimes the comments are
there because I get anytime I have a guest or
a topic or we do it on I get certain
(28:17):
notes and people they mean well and it's not ever
totally mean or I get it a little bit. But
sometimes I'm like, oh, man, you're almost there. Like if
you're just self aware, you would know like, oh, this
is a this is like a red flag, like I
need to to check something. And like you said, learning
all perspectives. And I think that as white people, we've
(28:39):
been very privileged for a very long time to get
the white perspective on things. Yes, And I think what
you just said is really the key. It's the first
foundation in the social justice parenting framework is that reflection piece. Right.
We got to be courageous enough, vulnerable enough, honest and
(29:00):
off to be able to reflect on our own experiences,
our own ways of showing up for our children, our
biases and stereotypes and limitations before we can really start
to short our kids. Well. Dr Baxxley, Dr Tracy, what
do people call you? Dry? Just Tracy, Oh, I love
(29:20):
the doctor. So Social Justice Parenting is the book and
I'm reading the back here, and it says an empowering,
timely guide to raising anti racist, compassionate, and socially conscious
children from a diversity and inclusion educator with more than
thirty years of experience. So I encourage people to check
(29:42):
it out Social Justice Parenting. I will be linking the
book in the show notes. And Tracy, congratulations on the
book coming out this week. I know that that is
definitely something to celebrate, So I hope you get to
relax this coming weekend and celebrate. Thank you, Thank you
so much. Me. Yeah, I got one of my girlfriends
just during me a little launch party. So we're going
(30:04):
to do that Friday night. Oh so fun. Yeah. Well,
you deserve it. Thank you, Okay, bye bye now
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