CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - WHERE CULTURE AND PARENTING MEET with Leslie Priscilla

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Whitney is joined by Leslie Priscilla, founder of Latinx Parenting, about the intersection of culture, parenting, and childhood. They discuss the harmful parenting behaviors that are often excused as part of culture, the impact of colonization on parenting styles, and the importance of treating children with respect. They also talk about the challenges faced by Latinx families, such as the expectation to take care of parents in old age and the normalization of violence against children. Leslie emphasizes the importance of breaking generational cycles, being gentle with oneself, and finding a supportive community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Leslie Priscilla. She's the founder of Latinx parenting who's here to talk with me today about childhood, culture, and the rights of children within the home. I'm Whitney Goodman. Welcome to the Calling Home podcast. I'm glad you're here. There really isn't any one-size-fits-all way to raise a family, and parenting styles can really vary depending on the culture. That said, I think what sometimes happens is certain harmful parenting behaviors can end up being excused or brushed off because it's quote unquote part of the culture, which isn't necessarily true. And as you've heard of be said before, growing up and realizing that your needs weren't met as a child is really hard. And it's especially difficult if you're expected to take care of your

parent when you're older, even if you feel discomfort around this person as an adult. I really love this conversation that Leslie and I have because we talk all about the overlap of culture, parenting, childhood, how children are looked at in different parts of society and our world and cultures. And I think you're really going to love this episode. So, you know, what keeps you up at night? Why have you made this your life's mission? Well, right now, my toddlers are currently what keep me up at night because they come into my bed. but outside of that, outside of that, it's been just knowing that there's kids that are struggling in their homes. And I think one extreme of this was like the case of Gabriel Fernandez, which if people

were not familiar, was a really, really terrible child abuse case that ended up with Gabriel being killed by his parents. And so that's kind of the extreme. And that's not the case, obviously, everywhere, but I know that there are children that are maybe experiencing levels of disconnection that vary from their parents. And I happen to know the consequences of that disconnection because I was that child, right? I was a child who was disconnected from her parents. I was a child who didn't really feel that nurturing relationship because my mother was stressed out. She was a Mexican immigrant who came here at 15 years old. Didn't really have the tools, the resources, the inner capacity really to be able to offer to me the nurse.

and the modeling of what respect actually was. And so it's not just for the kids that are out there. It's really for the kid that is still in here. I don't necessarily see it as it's something that keeps me up at night, but it's really something that I know that I'll be working on the rest of my life. I love your dedication to this topic and to this population. I can really feel it through the content that you write. I also write about a lot of the same things, you know, about showing children respect and treating children like humans. And I'm wondering why you feel like there's still some pushback on that. Yeah, there's a lot there. I think that one of the biggest values that we hold in my culture specifically, and this is the Latino culture, so anybody of like the Latin

American diaspora is this value of respect. And so respect oftentimes is seen as, you know, it's a non-negotiable. Like you have to respect the elders, the adults in your family. And oftentimes that gets convoluted with obedience, right? So what it means to respect your parents to the parents sometimes means you have to obey what I say because I am the parent. And this didn't just, you know, happen. This is something that has been. been passed down by other systemic power dynamics that have trickled into our families. And so I started getting really curious about the ways that colonization has impacted our families because, again, not everybody has the experience of having an immigrant parent, right? So what is the immigration

experience? How does that impact the parent-child dynamic? How does the poverty that my mom grew up with impact her capacity to be able to parent me in ways that now I'm able to parents because I don't necessarily have that same struggle of having to go through that as a child, right? And so what I think is the challenge oftentimes is that because we know that our parents have sacrificed so much in order to give us in this middle generation, this generation that's kind of straddling two cultures, everything that we have is this idea that if I start to question my childhood, if I start to really reflect and think about all the ways that my needs went unmet, that feels disrespectful, right? And so it goes back to this idea of, am I respecting my

parents? Am I respecting my culture, my people? If I choose something different for my children, does that mean that I have to abandon the values of my culture? Does that mean that I have to abandon the ways of my family, right? And so when I became a parent 12 years ago, I started kind of looking at that. And I was like, I don't know how to be in connection and in relationship with this child without feeling like I'm sliding my parents, right? And so even as she was growing and she became a toddler, there was the suggestion to spank her, the suggestion to punish in ways that did not feel good to me because I had the privilege, the ability to kind of understand by that point, because I had been working with kids, the impact of disconnection on brain development, right? Like in simplest

terms, I was like, I know that in order for kids to learn, to be well, mentally, emotionally, etc. They have to have a connection to their parents. And so my parents didn't necessarily know that. So they're coming in, you know, with their opinions about what I should be doing with my kids. And my telling them, actually, I'm going to do things differently, created a lot of discomfort in me feeling like I was being a disrespectful child. Right. And so now my wounds, my childhood wounds are being stimulated. I'm feeling like a bad daughter, not only a bad daughter, but a bad parent because I'm not raising my kids in the way that my parents want me to raise. them, right? And so it took a lot of gaining the confidence, I think, to say, okay, actually

it's okay, it's safe for me to be able to build a new blueprint that is not even not a part of the culture, but as a part of the more rooted parts of my culture that have to do with indigenous values, with honoring children, with treating children as human beings. Yeah, I want to focus on that piece of culture because I don't know if you know this, but my mom is a first Generation American, and she's Cuban. And so I did grow up in a Hispanic family. My mom's child was profoundly different from mine, you know, socioeconomically, culturally, all these ways. We live in completely different worlds, you know, and I don't see culture as being these, like, negative things, you know, like hitting your children, things like that. To me, that, like you said, it is a

result of colonization, of trauma, of people not having the right resources. And I get, I get confused when people try to, like, say, well, it's part of my culture, you know, and you can't shame that. And I'm wondering if you come up against that as well. Absolutely. I mean, the whole movement to end chancra culture, right? So I've kind of coined this term, what is chancra culture? I love that. Yeah. When you look up Latina Latinx media, you'll see the glorification of this sandal, right, of this chancla that's being thrown at kids and usually it's being wielded by a mom. And so that's really interesting to know too that the mom is now seen as this disciplinarian that, you know, and it's like, okay, well, where's the dad, right? So we have a lot of conversations

within the Latinx parenting community about these things, but really the chancla has been the entry into this conversation where why is it that we are so prone to celebrating this, I guess, power over children in this way, right? is what it is. So why is that so acceptable? It's this idea of honor your mother and father, right, which comes from religious intonations and things like that. But we bring that and we've adapted these things into our families. And now we're wielding chankras. And honestly, not so much my generation anymore, but there's other forms of chankritasos, what I call chanketasos, that are emotional, right? And so it's anything that's related to power over dynamics and

authoritarianism in families, right? And it's also internalized. And so the way that I believe that I deserve violence and where does that come from? So colonization obviously has had tremendous impact to our families, the stress that our families are under, that they're currently under, right, because there's marginalization, there's exploitation in our families. And you don't often see parenting people kind of talking about those things, right? The ways that these power dynamics manifest in our culture, mind you, childism is not something that is just a part of Latinx families, right? what I call adult supremacy is not something that is just a part of Latinx families. It's really a global issue in the way that children are treated and honestly just dishonored, right, throughout the world is not just a Latinx problem. But I think when I talk about chancac culture, it's how is it expressed in our families?

You know, how have we been raised to believe whether we deserve violence or we don't deserve violence? And that was really my experience as I started working with parents over a decade ago is that a lot of the parents that I work with the Spanish-speaking communities, really believes like I deserved to be hit right I was that I was a bad kid and that was really difficult for me to hear because I knew in my training I'm like no no no no no no like kids actually don't deserve any form of violence yeah they deserve to have parents that are confident in the guidance and in the limit setting and are able to do that in a way that's respectful and in a way that's not disconnecting of the parent-child dynamic but violence no we actually don't deserve that and to look at the content that's created about la chancla to me it's a normalization

right so this is what is normal this is what is a part of our culture if you take la chancla away from us you're taking you know this this way of being in family away from us and it's like well maybe that's actually not a part of our culture maybe that was an adaptation into our families so that our children and our parents could survive right so we now have to exert power over children because we have all of these other power holders exerting power over us. But it does persist as such like a cultural phenomenon because I know in my generation among like my 13 cousins on my mom's side, none of us were like hit with the chancel out, right? Like it was something that was not continued in the generation, but they still send

memes and videos about it. And it's still part of like the family discourse to a way, in a way. It's interesting because it's like it's child abuse, you know, when you really step back from it. But there is this normalization that happens of like, no, this is something that we do and it's funny and it's part of our culture. Yeah. In the ending chancla culture workshop that I teach, I play this video and it has like millions of views on YouTube and it's it's la chancla, right? It's like literally on like a pedestal like glowing and shiny and it's like that chancla, you know? And so it's meant to be funny. those videos, those memes, like, the intention is for those to make you laugh. And they make

us laugh because it's honestly for us, one of the first times that we feel seen in media, right? So it's like, oh, my gosh, it's almost like a relief. Like, oh, finally there's some kind of representation about the way that I was raised, about the way that I grew up. And so that sense of belonging that we gained from that is not necessarily a bad thing, right? It's not a bad thing to feel a connection to culture, to feel some kind of resonance in that moment when you're looking at those memes or those videos. But I do ask people to think a little bit deeper if that video was created and that was not between a parent and child, but between an adult, you know, child of an elder throwing a chancla at an elder, or if it was a male partner throwing a

chancla to their female partner because they didn't like the way that they cooked dinner or whatever it is, right? We have to think about these things a little bit deeper and say, why is it okay when it's about kids, right? Why is it okay when it's about exerting power and dominance over a child who has less power than you? Kids, you know, and Bell Hook said this. Kids are the only marginally this group that do not have the ability to organize, right? They can't form unions amongst themselves on a playground like we can't. And so as adults, like we have a responsibility to be able to really support their advocacy for themselves,

for their bodily autonomy, for their right to live healthy, happy, happy whole some lives. It's hard for us as parents in general, like me having the privilege of being a light skin Latina, of having the resources that I have, it's hard for me. So thinking about a family, you know, like Gabriel Fernandez, who was on welfare, her, his mom had like, you know, so much trauma growing up. So it's degrees of hardship. And so a lot of the stressors that Latinx family specifically are holding make it extra difficult to kind of release those power dynamics in the first. family, right? And so I'm kind of here inviting people to really think about these things deeper to recognize that we do have the power to be able to shift the narrative about whether we deserve violence or not and where that violence is still coming from and how we can organize to kind of

make it easier on ourselves to be in connection. You're reminding me of this quote that I can never remember who said it, but it's from a book that I read that when a child has to choose between saying they were bad or that their parents were abusive, they're always going to go with I was bad. And that feels so much easier and so much better to say. Yeah, absolutely. I think as I was growing up, I was like, you know, I think about my mom when I was five and I'm like, your parents could do no wrong, right? You're just like, I love my parents. Like anything that they do, that is the blueprint. Like that is the standard of what a mom should do or what a dad should do. And so there was not this questioning, I think, until I was in my adolescence. And I think a lot of adolescents

come to this place where we're becoming independent from our parents and we're really starting to kind of reflect. But at the time, as a child, like, you don't want to admit that your needs are not getting met, right? Or you don't even really know what those needs are if there's no vocabulary around those needs. If there's no vocabulary around the feelings that you're having, right, it's just about the behavior. And the behavior has an impact to your parents' reactions and responses. And so at that surface level, it's kind of hard to know what vocabulary to even use. you know, I don't like it when you hit me. It hurts my feelings. Like that would never have been something I was able to say as a child, right? And so I think there's a lot of disempowerment in that

way. Yeah. And I think people, when they reflect on their childhood, they think like, no, I, I liked my parents. I was choosing to be around them. Everything they did was fine. But really, that's a biological, like, survival instinct, right? To stay close to your parents, even when they are abusive, you will defend and cling to your parents because you know on a level that you cannot live without them. And so it's not really a choice. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think once we get to the point where we are reflecting on these things, it feels really uncomfortable. Like, it feels weird to be like, well, I know that they sacrificed all these things from me. I know that my mom migrated here when she was 15. I know that, you know, all of these things happened, even

before I was born. And so I'm trying to balance this compassion that I have for them with this compassion that I have for my childhood experiences. And that balance is really hard to strike sometimes. Right. So anytime on social media where I'm like calling for accountability of some of the things that our parents did, it's like, you're being too harsh, right? And sometimes where I'm like, no, let's be really compassionate and really sweet. And, you know, considerate of these experiences. People are like, you're, you know, justifying abuse. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I get the same exact responses. So I get that.

Yeah. And it's just where people are, you know, like I have, I don't take it personally because I'm just like, you're not going to be where I am. Forgiveness is another thing. Like, do I have to forgive my parents? And I'm like, that's such a personal journey and such a personal choice that I will never tell someone they have to forgive some of the experiences that happened in their childhoods because that's your journey.

Right. And it's so rooted in black and white thinking, right? that like if we question anything about our parents, it means that they were bad and all the sacrifices that they made are canceled out. When you can have parents that immigrated that worked 10 jobs that did all of these things for you and still say that was great. I love that they did that. And there were some consequences to that that harmed me. And like I feel like that's really the dance like a lot of adult children and especially adult children of immigrants are navigating is like, how can I learn to hold space for both of those realities?

Yeah. I mean, you end up finding yourself in a place where the expectation is, and I'm experiencing this now in my mid-30s, that, you know, you're going to be the one to take care of your parents, right? Because there is really no retirement fund. There's no, you know, so it's like, I am not just mothering. Like, I'm not just parenting my own kids. I'm not just parenting my own inner child.

like I'm also having to step into the role of caretaker for my parents, right? And so this would be so much easier if we still lived in villages and the distribution of that, the labor that that would take was, you know, but it's just me and my sister, right? My sister's in New York. And so really it's like, it's here. And I think people kind of underestimate the impacts of that, right? And how that as another stress or another element to just kind of moving through light. And yeah, I think that, you know, In this work, it's something that I'm really hoping that people will begin to consider to make the conditions different, right? To really have something different, I think, in the generations to come where our parents are not experiencing this degree of stressor. Right. So I think something that both of us talk about is, you know, adult children and their parents having relationships in adulthood.

And I want to read one of the posts that I found on your Instagram that I thought was great. you said you should know that if you're mean to your kids and emotionally unavailable consistently throughout their childhood they probably won't want to be around you very much or at all when they grow to have the choice don't dig your own grave with the shovel of your own unexamined wounds i imagine that that is hard for some people to integrate and hear what is your experience when you say things like this yeah i um i wrote that when i was experiencing a lot of expectation from my mom to kind of be a spaceholder, right? And in my body, right, I've learned ways to kind of reconnect to the sensations that I experience around people

as a way to protect what I call my inner nina from receding harm, right? And so because of that, I'm hypersensitive now to when my mom is asking of things from me that I feel a lot of resistance that I wouldn't necessarily feel from a friend or from somebody who I feel really close to or who has been nurturing for me in my life. Because deep inside, there's still hurt, right? Deep inside, there's still just this, this nina who feels scared to have to be the parent's caretaker again, right? Because I think as children, especially children of immigrants and immigrants who have had significant trauma in their lives way before we were born, right? And who probably had parents who also had significant trauma in their lives. We are put in a position so

frequently to be emotional caretakers to them. And so I as a child was heavily parentified. My parents when I was about nine years old. My dad was not around after that. And so then it was just me kind of holding space for my mom, right? And so it didn't really matter what my feelings were. It was just kind of centered around, you know, the experience that she was having. And so I now as an adult, don't like that. Totally fair. I guess it's like this, the simplest way that I can put it is like, I, yeah, I'm like, I don't want to be that for this person that had never considered my needs really, you know, and like still doesn't to this day sometimes. Well, and now you have the power to say that. Exactly. And that's still uncomfortable, right? Like it's like, shoot, I wish,

I wish I could be, you know, like my best friend and her mom who are best friends together and have that experience and I have to really think about what's good for me at this time. You know, like what is okay for me to receive and to not receive and learn how to set boundaries around that. And so when I wrote that, it was really just this feeling of like, you know, I, and I tell my daughter, my daughter is 11 and a half and I tell her, I really, really want to make sure that when you get a phone call from me, when you are an adult, that it's not the feeling that I get when I open my phone and it's my mom calling, right? Which is one of dread and contraction

and tightness in my body. I want my daughter to see me calling and say, yay, it's my mom. I can't wait to talk to her. And that is not something that I have the experience up, right? Which honestly has made me that much more committed to parenting in ways that are honoring of my kids and are, you know, not projecting of my childhood wounds. It gets really hard sometimes, obviously, because I don't have a blueprint for it. I'm creating it. I'm kind of like flying the airplane as I'm building it in a way. But yeah, I think it's really hard to kind of navigate that inner child, those experiences, and now your parent having, you know, their own internal experiences and healing journeys. Totally. And I think it's commendable and admirable that you're doing that

within your own family and, you know, walking the walk while you're also talking about this stuff. And I I guess I just come back to like what you wrote here, I think is actually maybe a radical belief in a lot of Hispanic families, you know, this idea that if you don't treat each other with respect, if your parent is harmful to you, you have a right to separate or to set boundaries because there are high levels of like obedience, you know, and ties to the family that should come without question. that's my experience at least you know yeah i completely agree there's this expectation that we're going to be able to sustain collectivist values when there hasn't really been this collectivist perspective of children

that's so well put yeah right so children are not necessarily included in the decisions that a family makes you just you know i remember moving out of my childhood home at nine years old and i was not told that i was moving that day like there was just no communication about it suddenly the next day we were living somewhere else and I was like whoa so when when those experiences are happening and I asked my mom actually recently I was like why wasn't there that communication like why didn't you tell me and she was like I was just so out of it at that time like I didn't even I couldn't even the hold space for myself much less a child right and so but it would have been nice right like it would have been nice to be communicated with it would have been nice to be included and there are some families unfortunately

that actively don't include children in the conversation or in their in their worlds you And so there is this expectation where it's like, you're going to be collectivist with me, but I don't have to be that with you. Right. Like it's about my needs as an individual. And I can shut you out, but don't you dare shut me out as you grow older because I'm your parent. Right, right. And we sort of are expecting children to learn like collectivist values and expecting them to deliver on them in adulthood while not teaching them or modeling that for them while they're children. 100%. Exactly. That's really enlightening. I haven't thought about it from that perspective before.

The other thing that I've seen you talking about lately on social media that I wanted to chat with you about was like this idea of men in Latin American families or in Hispanic families, leaving the family entirely, starting new families, you're really the first person that I've heard speak about this. And it was something that I spoke with. clients, you know, I'm practicing in Miami for 10 years. It happened a lot. And I'd love to hear about why you decided to speak about that. Yeah. So I grew up with a dad who had a father who had a family across town and then my dad's family. My dad himself has five children from three different women, right? So he was with me the longest out of all of my siblings. And so the more I started talking to other people. Over the last 10 years, I was like, wow, this is such a common experience. I didn't realize how normalized this was in our families, in our culture. And so the more that I've talked to people, the more I've realized that religion honestly has had a lot to do

with it. Like, we have, as women, become subservient in a way, right? Like, we're dependent on men. And men have known that. Like, men have been like, this is fine. As long as I can financially take care of this, you know, this woman and this child and this woman over here and this child, and it's okay. And then at some point, they were not able to, but they were still doing the thing. They were still, like, procreating with multiple people. And I think I'm feeling hopeful, though, because over the last three years, I've held something that I've called the Brown Fatherhood series to kind of bring some of those things up. And not to disparage the men in our families because there's been a lot of trauma that they've experienced. I mean, you look back,

back 500 years and the men in my ancestry witnessed terrible things happening to their families, right? And so this idea of machismo or like the centering of men was also an adaptation that sprung from colonization, at least in Latinx families. Patriarchy comes into that because we were matriarchal, actually, a lot of indigenous cultures and still, because indigenous cultures are not 500 years ago, we're here now, but there's matriarchy. And so the patriarchy was a shift that happened as a result of colonization. And so that's just one expression of it, right, where the man can kind of go and spread his seat everywhere and there's really no consequence to it. Meanwhile, the children and the women struggle and experience that

hardship. And so I wanted to bring that to light because it is such a common experience among us. And I want men in particular to look at that and really reconsider the way that they approach relationship and the way that they approach raising sons in particular. And I have two daughters and a son. And I'm not going to be shy about, you know, the history of my family because I want, I want that to be out in the open, right? When I brought this up, actually, in a family chat with my cousins, so I have about 27 cousins in a family chat on my dad's side. And I asked about this. I was like, you know, does anybody know any more details about this other family that our abuelo had? Like, can you share more? One of my cousins, who's a conservative judge in Colima,

said, you know, we shouldn't talk about that. Like we, let's just leave that. Let's just leave that behind. He has sons, right? He's like, let's just leave that behind. Like, we don't talk about that in the family. Basically, like, we don't talk about Bruno for anybody who's watched Encanto. Like, we, that's not something that we talk about. You know, and there's so much of that in our families where it's like, why? Why bring it up? And it's like, because we have to learn from it because those were real experiences, because women were hurt, because that hurt was passed down to children, because there were impacts to it, right? And so I thought it was very interesting that even in 2023, there's people saying, oh, no, no, no, let's not talk about that, right? In my

generation. And so it just kind of shows you like how much more work there is to do. Yeah. What do you think the impact of that has been, whether that was on you personally or the people that you've heard from who have dealt with this? Yeah, there were so much. many comments under that post. I think we had over 600 people sharing their experiences. Yeah, I saw there were so many comments. Yeah, and the DMs came in. I mean, the stories are, some of them are really, really bad to the point where, you know, it's like violence and abuse, like all of these really terrible things. And so those have very clear impacts to the people that are experiencing it. I think for me, it wasn't, I think, until, you know, sometime within the next,

the last 10 years, because my dad really was the person that I felt was very affectionate with me growing up. He did not hit me, right? My mom was kind of, again, the disciplinarian with La Chancre, like all these other things. And then I realized last year, he was telling me that he only had to change my diaper once, right? He was like, I only had to change your diaper once, and I did not enjoy the experience, so I never did it again. And I was like, what a luxury. No wonder my mom was like so stressed out, right? Because the support. was not there. And so, I mean, like, no shade to my dad, because he, you know, had his stuff growing up, too. But I think that when we normalize those things, when we say, like, this is just kind of how the men are,

which, again, is not just a Latinx problem. It's like every culture that encounters patriarchy has this problem, too, where we go on accepting and taking it kind of from the men in our families. But when our mothers, I guess, are not given that support from their partners, if their partners are, you know, males, that's going to create stress. That stress is going to have an impact on the relationship to the kids. And so that's the basic, right? That's just like stress equals disconnection most of the time. And if we don't talk about those things and we can't address it, we can't change it.

Right. Absolutely. So there was another post, you share so many good things. There was another thing that you shared that I want to talk about. This was somebody else's post that you shared. I think it's at Rant Mission. And the quote was, people don't want to see children liberated

because then they must face the reality that their own childhoods were stolen from them, which is painful inner work to do in a world where we are all barely surviving. What stood out to you about that post? I encounter quite a bit of resistance sometimes in the community. And I'll give an example. I have a cousin who I grew up with.

I visited him and his siblings and his mom, his dad, my aunt and uncle in November on Thanksgiving. And I had this really beautiful picture of myself and him and my other cousin laughing when we were adolescents. I think he must have been like 10 and I was like maybe 12 or 13. And we had just gotten out of the pool and we're like laughing. And so my cousin has just gotten out of prison at this point in November. when I approached him with this picture and I'm like, I want to recreate this picture. I'm so hopeful, right? Because I've been doing all this inner child work. I'm just like, I want to recreate this picture with my inner child. I was so excited. And immediately he said that

that doesn't exist anymore for me. And I was like, what do you mean? I still see him in you. Like, I still see, you know, this version of you. And he got like really obviously upset by this idea that he was going to reconnect to this version of himself. It was just like a hell no, I'm not doing that. Like, he ended up kind of like storming away. And I was like, shoot, I didn't realize how that was going to come off. Like, you're my cousin, right? And so I'm not approaching a random person.

It's like, you're my cousin. I thought that we had this relationship. And so it was very difficult for him. And it made me really reflect on how challenging, how impossible sometimes it feels to deal with the grief that comes up around our childhoods when everything. around us is also adding grief to our lives, right? And we're not even able really to name that it's grief that's happening. So it's expressed in other ways like anger, like, you know, depression, like significant anxiety, right? And it's like all of these things are caused by

the inability to deal with some of the adversity that has happened, not just in our childhoods, but in our histories and still in our environment, right? Like, he's coming out of prison, and I'm like, let's reconnect to your inner child. And he's like, F you. Like, that's not, like, I'm not there at all. And so I recognize that that is very much the case still. I mean, you know, when I talk about La Chancla, even, there's people are like, wow, your page is so, you know, it's so big.

I'm like, I'm looking at people like, you know, certain comedians that have made La Chancla jokes their whole business. They have like two million followers, three million followers. And I'm like over here with my dinky little, you know, enchunkie culture movement, which is amazing. Like it really has grown beyond my expectations. And at the same time, I'm looking at this whole other paradigm that feels like the Goliath, right? And I'm like, we all have to start throwing stones at this because if not, it's going to, it's going to eat us alive. And, you know, for me, it's been really empowering. But again, I've had the privilege. I've had the academic education. I went to school for child development. I did get, you know, corporal punishment, but not as bad as some of my

cousins, right? I didn't have the same exact experiences. And so my, the ability for me to access that part of myself is and was and has been in some ways a lot easier than some other people in the community. And so it's not to discredit the hardship, but it's It is, again, just an invitation, right? It is just like, let's start to look at it. And let's just agree that we don't actually deserve violence. You know, we don't deserve for our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our hearts to be violated by the wills, the whims of the adults in our lives or anybody that has power over us. Yeah, it seems like, you know, when you hear people talk about this and saying, like, well, I turned out fine.

I'm okay. That's what we do. To me, it's like they have this lid so tight, you know, on what happened and what they had to kind of shut down and suppress to be able to tolerate that, especially if it was extreme and went on for long periods of time that I, like you're saying, deeply empathize with people who cannot go there because they don't have the skills. But it really comes to this head where it's like, I can't be different with my own children. I can't change things in the future if I don't go there because I can't see my child in that way without seeing myself. And I think anyone that has become a parent, you know, you start to see your childhood through this really crazy lens. And it's hard to keep that lid on when you have a little kid in front of you, you know.

Yeah. I feel so fortunate to be seeing. the effects of the foundation that I've kind of laid for my oldest child especially. She's really into Titanic right now. She's like obsessed with like 23-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio, which was also my reality when I was 11 and a half years full. And she was like, why do you like it so much? I'm like, honestly, because it makes me feel connected to you at the same time that it

makes me feel connected to this version of myself that was, right? And so it's like if we can bring those things. together where it's like my relationship to you is healing to the relationship that I have with myself. That is really the goal that I have. And it's not on them necessarily to be the guinea pigs or whatever for this relationship with myself, but it's a byproduct that happens. As I've been focusing and really nurturing this relationship with my daughter and I went through a separation last year and it really has been a testament to the foundation again that I have laid for her where She's navigating it pretty healthily, I would say, right?

And she knows that I've always been transparent with her and everything's kind of out on the table appropriately. Obviously, I'm not, you know, going into details that maybe she wouldn't be able to cope with. But I think for the most part, it does offer us that opportunity for our own healing. And that really has been what parenting has been for me is that catalyst to look at myself and to say, what are the ways that I can be more intentional about, the legacy that I'm leaving, not just for my kids, but for their kids and their children. And so it's hard, right? It's deeply challenging. A lot of wounds come to the surface, and I'm inviting that because I want to look at them, right? It's like a wound is kind of where we know where to shine the light in. And I just have to make sure that I'm supported in that. And that's where

therapy comes in. That's where friends who share the same language come in. That's where, you know, taking space when I need to comes in. That's where balance comes in. And so there's all these tools that we do have access to that I think a lot of people don't recognize that we have access to. Yeah. And I think as I hear you talking, I hear how worth it it has been for both you and your children, you know, to walk this path. And like, I think we can feel like questioning our culture or turning our back to certain things can feel like we're abandoning who we are, but it sounds like you've been able to get like even more in touch with your culture through this process, which I think is a beautiful thing. Yeah, I think identity is so important for kids,

right, for them to really know who they are. And I think for me, having had the experience of growing up in Mexican culture, being exposed to my family. family and all of the beauty and all of the, you know, kind of darkness that comes with that also. And then navigating this American culture, going to Catholic school, my entire life, you know, really being exposed into the white world, I guess, you know, this, you know, very Catholic, very white, like world was a lot to navigate in the formation of my identity, right? And so that to me is an ongoing process. And so for my kids, I want to make sure that they know that they are supported in that identity development and that I am really confident in

my identity as a Mexican-American woman, as a Chicana, that I don't actually hold any resentment towards my parents, you know, for the things that they're not able to, that they were not able to offer me. They're still hurt, but there's not like an active resentment against them, right? And so I think being able to communicate that with my kids, especially my older daughter, has been really important to me and has shown really positive outcomes. so far. That's great. Yeah, I think you're bringing up the point that like when we have context for our parents' behaviors and we're able to have understanding and also see like how we can move forward on our own and not put ourselves in the position to continuously be harmed, things can

be a lot easier to carry. And like it's easier to be in that both and space. The last thing I wanted to know is, you know, for anyone listening, whether it's a therapist, or, you know, a person, like, what do you want people to understand about the unique issues that Latinx families are are dealing with right now in the world when it comes to parenting and breaking generational cycles in their families? Yeah, there's so much. I mean, I'm so grateful because I'm able to work with a publisher right now. I'm writing the book around, you know, Chancla culture and kind of had to move through some of these dynamics. I'm so excited. Amazing. But I think the biggest thing that, I feel parents need to know is that we have 500 years of colonization that has happened, right?

And one of the chapters I'm writing, I'm like, something has happened. Like, there has been a very, very enormous occurrence that has happened and has had this impact. And so I think as parents, in my generation, those of us that have, you know, the ability to access information and to have conversations about this stuff, I think we place a lot of pressure on. ourselves to break all the cycles in this lifetime. So true. And I have felt that. You know, I've been like, oh my gosh, like I have to be completely the opposite or I have

to, you know, if I keep doing this, it's like I'm parenting from fear sometimes. It's like I'm so scared to do that to my kids. I'm so scared that my daughter will look at her phone and feel anxious when I call her, right? And so that fear isn't even necessarily out of complete fear. it's out of a love for what is to come or what I hope is to come, right? And so what I have to do is just plant the seeds. Like I just need to be able to plant the seeds to do what I can. I am navigating my own healing with my parenting and I want parents to be so gentle on themselves and non-parents too, right? Because this is not just for parents, this is for anyone who has

been a child and is on a healing journey. So my hope is that people kind of understand that this is this is one lifetime, right, that we don't have to break 500 years of colonization in the one lifetime. Like, it's, it's, yes, release the pressure. Find your community, you know, find people who are going to uplift you, who are going to just be that sounding board and that, and that relationship. I love the idea, the concept of chosen family has been really huge for me because there was grief that I experienced in not being able to, or not feeling like.

like I wanted to expose my kids into a lot of the toxicity kind of that has happened in my extended family and to be able to choose my family and to say, okay, these are cousins, right? Like, these are aunts and uncles because that was something that was beautiful in my culture growing up and having parties and really being with cousins. And now I don't really have that. I have one sister. Again, she lives in New York. I have a half-brother who lives in Las Vegas, you know, four hours away. And I don't really have that for my kids. And so it's really empowering or it has been really empowering for me to be able to find my community. And so I would encourage parents to be so gentle with themselves or anybody on this healing journey and to find your community.

I love that. And I can so relate to you about the feeling like you have to break all the cycles. I think it's a function of like our work too. You're just like inundated with all. all these stories all day long about how things can go wrong and you're like, I must not mess this up. So I get that. Well, I feel like we could talk all day. There's so many other things that I would like to ask you about. So I'm sure we'll do this again. But you mentioned a book. What else is next for you? Yeah. So I also train professionals. So in addition to working with parents, I also work with therapists and teachers and anybody who really works with the Latino community. And so one of the goals that we have with that is to just, you know, give that cultural context, to give cultural sustenance the ability to not just have cultural competence, but cultural sustenance,

right? A deep humility for the people of a certain culture. And so I'm hoping that people will tap into our professional offerings. We have a training that we hold every March and every September that is eight hours long. And we also, you know, I'm so excited. and so grateful to have really amazing partnerships that we've developed where I'm able to provide direct service to parents, but then also train the professionals. So I'm hoping that people will tap into that. And then obviously our offerings on our website, which is lackadixparenting.org. I'm hoping people will check that out and follow us on Instagram. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I think this is going to be a really

helpful episode for so many people. And I appreciate it. Good luck with your book. Thank you so much. You know,