I read a couple of game-changing books this year. In the fall, while awaiting COVID results in isolation from my family, I read Untamed, by Glennon Doyle. In a series of vignettes, she explores how we become caged by society’s expectation, and how she found her way out of her own cages to create a life more fulfilling and authentic than what she could previously have imagined. She talks about how we need to find our own Knowing, deep inside of ourselves, and work to make the world outside match the most beautiful vision we can imagine. One week later, I nearly quit my job standing up for my values. Dangerous book. Dangerous, exhilarating, empowering book. I highly recommend it!
Earlier in the year, I read and viewed several interviews with Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar and activist, and the author of several books, including Stamped From the Beginning and How to be an Anti-Racist. My son received an abridged version of the first for Christmas, and I’m looking forward to borrowing it. If you’d rather watch a video, check out this one, where he describes his research and insights about racism.
Basically, Kendi discusses his theory that racism is not the result of negative views of Black people, but that racist policies CAUSE negative views. This is an important distinction, because it points at policy as the primary problem, and policy change as the path to reducing racism. He also talks about there being no such thing as non-racist, and that one can be both racist and anti-racist, thereby removing some of the stigma and encouraging responsibility for choosing anti-racist actions. Definitely worth a read!
I’m now reading The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson. It talks about the brain science behind offering your children more control over their own lives, even if it means allowing them to make decisions that aren’t what you would choose for them. It suggests that there are very few irreversible decisions, and that, given the right support and information, children will usually make decisions that work for them. The authors recommend the ‘Parent as Consultant Model’, which works on the following premises:
- You are the expert on you.
- You have a brain in your head.
- You want your life to work.
So far, I have found this book to be liberating in a way that no other parenting style has been. For several years, and very much for the past couple of years, we have been moving this direction, if for no other reason than because we’ve run out of other options. It’s hard to buck society’s norms around parenting, but we are finding that it’s working. As we’ve backed off and allowed our son to operate with fewer expectations, his mood has improved, our relationship has improved, and the family is operating in more positive ways. The short-term battle looks a bit bleak – our son is free-lancing his education and it’s not an exact science – but he has stopped trying to sabotage his own life to prove to us that we cannot control him. In the longer term, this feels like a huge success, and I am hopeful that his internal motivation will come back online. He has recently started talking about his future, and what he might like to do with his life. This I take as an excellent sign, and I hope I can be the parent guide he needs to find meaningful direction in his life.
Out of the Well 