This is what Radical Self-Love Looks Like in Parenting
Sonya Renee Taylor’s book “The Body is Not an Apology” teaches the readers how to love themselves. Not just in a “it’s OK that I have a soft belly” kind of way, but in a deep, spiritual way that tells you that all of the ways that you are, in your observable body and in your brain functioning, are deserving of love. She further teaches that you can’t fully love other people until you really embrace and practice radical self-love. All of our justice work must be based on loving yourself. These concepts are too complex for me to reduce to this space. Read the book. Need a preview? Listen to these conversations with the writer/activist: Finding Our Way episode 1 and We Can Do Hard Things Episode 168.
It took me over a year to read this whole book, not because it was long or difficult. It’s actually a short book and the writing style is very easy to follow. It feels conversational. I actually recommend listening to the podcasts before reading it, so that you can imagine the sound of Sonya Renee Taylor’s voice excitedly guiding you along the pathway. It took me so long to read because I had to stop and put it away for SEVERAL months. About halfway through, I realized that I was not going to be able to move into the sections on community love and justice building, without stopping to shore up my self-love. I had a constant critical voice in my head telling me that I should be doing things differently. I was trying to force my natural way of being into a more socially-acceptable box. And I would have thought, in my conscious brain, that I WASN’T the kind of person who would fall victim to that. I’ve always been the one who was OK going against the group. I never quite fit in in any of my friend groups growing up, which is why I ended up with multiple friend groups, that I could easily move in and out of, but always somewhat on the margins. I didn’t realize the many ways that I, as a nearly 40 year old person, had fallen into the “this is who and how I should be” trap. But there I was, still hoping to lose a little bit more baby weight, still worrying over my curly hair before leaving the house, still trying to keep a tidy house when my focus should have been on my mental health.
The first half of this book highlighted for me all the ways that I was allowing (even encouraging?) myself to be unhappy because I was prioritizing the ways that I thought I should be/appear. At this point, I was already starting to envision a different life for myself and my family. My career was already unraveling as my political beliefs became more radical. My mental health and marriage almost demanded that the pace of my life downshift. So, I set the book down and focused on living. With her words rattling around my conscious and subconscious mind, as I moved through my rapidly changing daily life over the next few months, and read other sacred texts that helped set up guide posts for me, I slowly began to develop an actual praxis of radical self-love, embracing both the theory and the practice.
In this season of my life, everything revolves around parenting. Thinking and talking about parenting is my passion and my chosen profession. Doing active parenting is my condition, as I have three young children who still need so much from me. I have long held specific philosophies and values about my parenting, and I had often found them to be a struggle to carry out consistently, when I was locked in battle with myself. Over the past few months, I have been delighted to find that the struggle has abated. It is easier for me to be the parent that I want to be when I’m loving myself. My radical self-love praxis has actually changed my behavior. My intention is the same, but my ability to act on my intention has increased without much effort spent in the moment. Here’s what that looks like:
My radical self-love praxis allows me to care for myself: body, mind, and spirit. This helps me maintain the nervous system regulation necessary to meet my children’s constant and complex needs without becoming easily exhausted or overwhelmed.
My radical self-love praxis allows me to accept my own emotions as normal and valuable. I have learned to feel my feelings and move through them, without over-analyzing them or feeling guilty for having them. This helps me show up for my children’s big emotions, to stay calm and present with them during big sads or big mads, to teach them to feel and move through their feelings, without enmeshing my own emotions with theirs.
My radical self-love praxis allows me to accept and work with my own particular systems of executive functioning. I’m learning to be gentle with myself when I’m easily distracted or struggle to get started on seemingly simple tasks. This helps me be gentle with my children when they do the same. Instead of approaching them with fear and anxiety (“You’re going to struggle in life if you don’t figure out how to fix this problem now!”), I can guide them back to their path forward and identify some trail markers that might help them be more independent in the future.
My radical self-love praxis allows me to accept my need to rest. My body needs rest, but so does my brain and my spirit. I have an evolving rest practice that ensure that these needs are met on a regular basis. This helps me show up for my children with a fresh, clear mind and heart, and a body ready to feed them, play with them, and snuggle them during late night wake ups.
My radical self-love praxis allows me to feel good about the size and shape of my body. This helps me avoid passing on toxic fatphobia and other beauty standards to my children. I’ve always been aware of not saying or doing certain things in front of my children to avoid hand-delivering those messages, but now that I’m truly welcoming my body as it is, I no longer have to bring so much consciousness to avoiding these messages. I am teaching my children to value my body and theirs, and hopefully others, just by living. (I do still sprinkle daily conversations with notions of body positivity and consent just to wage battle with the barrage of damaging messages they get about bodies from everywhere else in this society.)
My radical self-love praxis allows me to value myself as separate and free from the societal expectations of my appearance. I can wear my hair and dress myself in the way that works for me on any given day, whether I choose to put on something that makes me feel cute or lean towards convenience, speed, warmth, or avoiding doing laundry. This gives me space to allow my kids to practice independence as when they dress themselves towards their own style comfort. I have no expectations for how they look. We roll out of the house in whatever way we each feel comfortable (with some mommy-initiated edits to account for the weather). And, in reality, this has saved me a lot of money. I don’t need to feed the fashion industry just to keep up the appearance of being well-dressed and put-together. There is no negative downside. (I recognize this as a privilege of white and light skin, where people already assign us the label of “clean” and “acceptable” and “safe.” There is often a very real downside when darker skinned people “dress down.”)
And don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying something as simple as “I love myself so I love my kids more too” or even “I love myself so now I’m a better parent.” I AM saying that making shifts in my life to alter my beliefs and my behavior around the way that I feel about myself has changed the way I interact with my inner and outer world. Because parenting takes up so much of both worlds, I have noticed observable differences in how I am with my children. And, because I fundamentally believe that the way that we parent creates a powerful long-term shift in the future of our society, I believe that spending the time to learn to radically love myself, and in turn, radically love my children, has the power to create a small army of people who are moving the needle on community love and care, creeping us closer and closer to justice.
