Upstream - Post Capitalist Parenting Pt. 5: Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis w/ Jo delAmor

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

In this episode, Part 4 of our ongoing Post Capitalist Parenting series, Jo delAmor joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about raising children in the midst of a global crisis. We open our discussion with a nod to the late scholar and activist Joanna Macy and the Work That Reconnects which she developed and which has shaped and influenced both Jo and Della's work. We then talk about Jo's framing of the power over and thriving life paradigms and the role they play in how we parent under capitalism. Della and Jo talk about the false paradigm of separation and how this can be overcome through a deep understanding and practice of interconnectedness and how this can be imparted to our children. And finally, Jo invites us to see parenting as activism and to relearn the world alongside our growing children, partnering with them on behalf of life. Jo is the author of Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for New Paradigm Parenting. She is also a mother, coach, and Work That Reconnects facilitator who has cared for and worked with hundreds of other people’s children of all ages in a wide variety of contexts over twenty years. In all her work with children, she has paid close attention to what the next generations truly need at this pivotal time on Earth, charting what works, what doesn’t, and what is being called forth from us as parents, mentors, neighbors, and teachers. Further resources: Radiant Balance Raising Children in the Midst of Global Crisis: A Compassionate Guidebook for New Paradigm Parenting, by Jo delAmor Parenting in Tumultuous Times: an online Work That Reconnects program for parents Paradigm as Choice in the Great Turning: a Work That Reconnects Network Webinar with Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) Postactivism, Transraciality and Decoloniality: a WTR Network Webinar with Bayo Akomolafe Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer Raising Free People, by Akilah Richards Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer Columbus and Other Cannibals The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, by Jack Forbes Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing Post Capitalist Parenting series The Work That Reconnects with Joanna Macy Intermission music: "Believe" by Amanda West Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you’ll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Parents are paradigm makers. And so when we're raising a child, we're orienting them to the world. we are like the primary resource for this new human being to get oriented and to figure out who they are and what is this world and how are things and traditionally children are born into cultures that teach them you know the cultural constructs of their lives and that's how they develop their own paradigm of what the world is and in this moment right now when we recognize that the society our kids are being born into is dangerous to life, it is antithetical to life, and it's profane in this way, then we have a choice as parents to really orient them to a deeper awareness. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. As we're discovering more and more every day, it seems, the values and principles that underlie mainstream Western societies are deeply, deeply bankrupt. Selfishness, greed, competition, power over, wealth, individualism, these values all mixed together in a toxic cauldron that has produced an individual and a society that are deeply diseased in soul and spirit. And so in this light, how do we raise the next generation in a way that repels the toxic

values underlying Western civilization and instead fosters those of a post-capitalist path? Today, we'll be joined by Joe Delamore to discuss this very question. Joe is the author of Raising Children in the Mids of Global Crisis, a compassionate guidebook for new paradigm parent. Joe is also a mother, coach, and work that reconnects facilitator, who has cared for and worked with hundreds of other people's children of all ages in a wide variety of contexts for over 20 years. In all her work with children, Joe has paid close attention to what the next generations truly need at this pivotal time on earth, charting what works, what doesn't, and what's being called forth from us as parents, mentors, neighbors, and teachers.

And before we get started, Upstream is entirely listener fun. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support, you'll be helping us keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist Political Education podcasts are not easy to find, so thank you in advance for

the crucial support. And now, here's Della, in conversation with Joe Della Moore. All right, Joe, welcome. Welcome to Upstream. We love starting with folks introducing themselves. So can you introduce yourself as you are connected with this topic of today's conversation, post-capitalist parenting, including what does that mean to you? Yeah, thank you, Della. It's so good to be here. And I really, I love this term post-capitalist parenting. It's very much in alignment with my life and the way that I've lived and parented for the last 25 years. And what it means to me or what comes to me as I'm thinking about this is the awareness that capitalism is not the permanent thing that we might think it is. Now it's not going to continue on forever.

And that actually this version of extractive neoliberal capitalism that we're living in now is bankrupt. It's bankrupting our hearts, our souls, our lives, it's bankrupting the earth, and it itself is bankrupt, and it's not capable of continuing on. So in this way, it's telling us that there's another way of parenting, that there's a way of parenting that's outside of the scope of capitalism. And this is very much how I've lived my life. You know, when I was in my late teens, I left business as usual, departed from the status quo and what was expected of me under capitalism. And when I did that, I actually, you know, went to kind of seek out and journey into what it really meant to be human and to relearn and figure out how I could be human in this magical earth in connection with the earth. and that actually it brought up this craving, this longing for me for the first time to want to be a mother and to want to actually accompany another human on the journey of learning

how to be human. And so right from the very beginning, my connection with parenting and my longing to be a mother and to take care of children, my own and others, has been very much about how do we do this differently? How do we learn how to be authentically connected with Earth beyond capitalism, beyond modernity? And I love that you bring so much experience, being a nanny, a support person, a counselor, you know, all the, all the ways that you've connected with children, being a parent for over, you know, hundreds of children. It's quite incredible. So thank you for that that you're bringing. And then also for the book that we'll be bringing into this conversation as well. And so one thing we share in common is that we're both parents. And another thing that we share

in common is a common mentor and teacher, Joanna Macy, who recently passed away. So as we begin coming from gratitude, grounding with gratitude, would you share who Joanna Macy was and what was her influence on you and the work that you do? Yeah, I would be delighted to Joanna Macy. is and has been a magical presence in the artist. And she's the root teacher of the work that reconnects, which is a body of work that has been a big part of my life in recent years and has been developing over many decades, I think 50 years, pretty much the whole time I've been alive, Joanna was doing this work.

But I came into this work when I was in my 30s, and I was a personal and cultural transformation coach. And I was at the time working with clients and people to really transform the way we're living within our own self and our psyche and our mind and our souls, in our households, in our communities, and really trying to unlearn and relearn how to be human with Earth in a good way. And so I was developing my own group work at that time. just, you know, trying to unpack and deconstruct some of the structures of modernity. And I think it was maybe 2011 that my sister introduced the work that reconnects to me,

and she introduced Joanna Macy to me through her books and her videos. I never had the privilege or the honor to get to hang out with Joanna Macy in person or attend any of her intensive retreats. So her wisdom, her teachings, they came to me through what she put out into the world through her books and her videos. And at that time, I began to study the work that reconnects and start to weave it into my practices and into my group work. And it was so, it fits so perfectly. It just, it provided such an excellent framework, just really supportive language around what's going on in the world, why we feel the way we feel about it, how we can make space for our feelings and allow that and why it's so important to know

how to move feeling, move emotion through. It was just so perfect and had also this whole body of practices, like this collection of practices that are really quite engaging and and really helpful for that unpacking and transformational process. So that was on the kind of more professional level, or I don't know, I don't really do the professional thing so much, but like on my vocational level. But on a personal level, her work touched me so deeply because she affirmed to me as an elder and as a mentor affirmed to me that my pain for the world was not a personal pathology. It wasn't a problem with me that I felt outraged at injustice or I felt grief and despair

or I felt a sense of anxiety around what was happening in the world. Those things were not some clinical issue that I had with my own personal mental health. They were actually healthy responses to systems that were not functioning well and are still, of course, not functioning well. So that affirmation from an elder that says, it's okay, it's not only okay, but it's healthy, it's good, it's excellent that you feel, that you can feel. That was really helpful for me and has really freed up a lot of energy for me to continue to do this work. And so that I was experimenting with weaving work that reconnects into my group work and my practices with my clients for a while. And then in 2017, my sister and I decided both to take the Spiral Journey Facilator Development program.

And then we really got to, like, dive in and get into the facilitation skills of work that reconnects. And that just snowballed right into actually me working for that program, the Spiral Journey program for several years, and then starting to work for the Work that Reconnects network, which is this great global. nonprofit that supports people who are interested in the work that reconnects all over the world. So since 2019, I've been on the team there as one of the four staff people and like all of my life has been kind of rotating through work that reconnects. It's just, it just seems like

it's permeating all throughout my life now. And in my role there, I get this really special, unique privilege and blessing of getting to see how Joanna's work and her love for life has just rippled all around the world and inspired and empowered thousands and thousands of people to come back to life, to reclaim that innate appreciation for enthusiasm for concern for commitment to life, you know, that she lived her life so beautifully as an example love. And the last thing I want to just share because it was so, so precious these last couple of months that when she started to move towards the end of her life, she had taken a fall and was in the hospital and it looked like she would recover and we were aware that

that was happening. And then it turned into a hospice experience that that was held in such beauty by her family and her close community for several weeks as she was moving towards death. And during that time, I was actually at a work that reconnects gathering in Colombia with this brilliant collective of people called Reconnectando. And there was 110 people. We were there together practicing the work that reconnects for healing collective trauma for six days and the gathering was called Miscellio del Alma, the soul's mycelium.

And so we were there in this like brilliant field of connection already pouring our love and gratitude out towards Joanna just for the work that she gave and and the main kind of coordinator of this gathering, Hector Arista Zawal, he he's so good at honoring the teachers and honoring Joanna. So like the love was already pouring out even before we knew she had fallen. And then during that time that we were resonating that field,

all this people from around the world started resonating with Joanna, paying attention to her and her process. And I felt this, the power of the choice that she made to live, her life with love and care and enthusiasm for the gift of life and to do it out loud in a way that gives other people permission to do that and how important it is for each one of us to do that. That it's like this essential responsibility to kind of take the baton and pass it and pass it and pass it and to help walk each other home in that way, to help each other remember, to kind of of almost like shake each other a little bit and grab each other's hands and say it is sacred.

It is special. It is incredible this life. Don't let them make you think anything other than that. And to bring in a quote from Joanna, this is from your book, which I hadn't heard before. So I want to just bring in her words. It is my experience that the world itself has a role to play in our liberation. It's very pressures, pains, and risks can wake us up, release us from the bonds of ego, and guide us home to our vast, true nature.

And, yeah, Joanna had a big influence on my life and vocation as well. And Robert and I got to be in retreat with Joanna and interview her in her home and be with her a few times, but it was actually in a work that reconnects practice. called the callings and resources practice that the idea of upstream podcast was formulated. So we have a lot of gratitude towards her, as well as her insights on the upstream question. You know, what is the upstream root cause of the challenges of our time? She really has given us so much insight and also felt experience to those root causes and then those systemic solutions. So thank you for sharing that and those stories. And I would do want to offer a caveat to this

conversation, you know, this conversation, you know, if we're going to frame it in the work that reconnects, we're going to focus a little bit more on the shift in consciousness realm, the area of paradigms and worldviews, or maybe we can say the inner dimension of post-capitalist parenting. But I just want to note that this is not to say that the material and structural changes and needs are not important. Of course, there's actually a dialectical relationship to those more inner and outer or material and structural and paradigm and worldview areas of parenting. But just want to frame that for this conversation. Anything you'd want to add about that point? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they're completely in relationship to one another. The form that

we create, the structures that we create, the societies that we create, the relationships that we create are all coming from our thought forms, you know, our paradigm, our mindset, our worldview. And I really love the previous episodes that you've recorded with Toy Smith and Brett O'Shea and Kristen Godsey that cover all of those material and structural elements. And yeah, my work, my work does tend to focus more deeply on the inner dimension and on that paradigm shift that I feel is necessary in our own minds and households that directly connects to and supports the world that we're creating. Like, I feel like I love this upstream concept or, you know, the way that you're framing it because that's, that's really how my work has been born,

is to like go back to like, where does it all come from? And what do we have agency over? And I feel like the main thing that we have any kind of agency with is our own minds, you know, where we put our attention and how we orient our own awareness. Yeah. And so diving into the upstream question, you know, so the show is called upstream going upstream from the challenges of our time to the root causes. One of the root causes that you identify is the power over paradigm. Or you say POP for shorthand. But trace this journey for us and how does the power over paradigm show up in parenting? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, like I said, I felt the pain of the world. I saw the injustices of the world. I was kind of analyzing and processing through my understanding of what

is going on in the world and went upstream, you know, like this is my process of how I kind of came to do this type of work and why I landed at really focusing on working with parents is because to go upstream from any of the big colossal atrocities and issues in our world will bring us eventually to that mindset that causes people and groups of people. to make decisions in this way that cause war and cause suffering and cause harm and cause degradation in all sorts of ways. And so tracing back or, you know, going upstream from all of those big issues brings me in my mind to this paradigm. And I use the word paradigm. I know a lot of people use the word paradigm in various different ways. Like sometimes I think in smaller ways. Like,

a new paradigm for business. But like what I mean is like the base level of our understanding of who we are and what the world is, like the baseline assumptions and ideas that all of our other thoughts are built off of. So when I trace all of this back, it goes for me to what I'm calling the power over paradigm. And this is, I want to credit Woman Stand Shining, Pat McCabe, for using this phrase. And also, Rain Isler, doesn't exactly use that phrase, but her work is very, very much speaking to the power over paradigm. And so this is not something I invented, you know, is this something that people are, we're learning about, we're noticing, we're understanding that there is a worldview that all of this capitalist stuff is built on.

that is based on the idea of separation. And it includes a very basic tenant of hierarchy of worth. And so therefore, it allows oppression and exploitation. It actually demands oppression and exploitation. And so to just kind of break those down a little bit, the first one there is this delusion of separation, this concept, this rule at the base of all of it, that the world is made up of discrete separate entities.

I, me, myself, my personality, my body, am like somehow a contained being separate from the food that I eat, the air that I breathe, the trees all around me, my child, my husband, my everybody around, like, how, and that's just such a strange thing to even talk about because even though it's the basis of our society, it's so absurd. Like, really, actually, I am a conglomerant of microorganisms and flesh and air and breath and like all of the ancestors that lived and lived and lived and died and died to make it possible for this particular version of Earth to express itself in this particular moment with this voice, with this mind, and I am absolutely entangled with all that will come from me,

and there is no, it's like not reality to be separate. So that's why I call it this is a total delusion. But once you have that delusion and you believe it to be true, then you can have a sense of, oh, well, these discrete entities are better than those. And creating a hierarchy of worth that then supports oppression and exploitation. And so we're talking about capitalism, extractive capitalism, neoliberal capitalism. It requires this mindset of separation and oppression and exploitation in order to function.

And I think, you know, I really, I want to highlight in this as well that as I'm understanding it, it's like it's an illness, it's a disease, It's a not accurate way of perceiving. It's a distortion. And there's several indigenous peoples of Turtle Island that have identified and describe and understand this disease and use the name Wittico or Windigo to elucidate what this actually is for human beings to be kind of overcome with this disease. disease and delusion. A good resource for that is Columbus and other cannibals. So this

delusion, this distortion, this disease that we'll call the power of a paradigm, or we could call it wetiko, causes all of these huge, massive issues. It's where racism comes from, genocide, slavery, all the wars, the modern wars, the way that they're waged. extraction, pollution, the enormous gap in welfare and well-being and wealth that we see around the world and in different communities. And it's all like because of this kind of sense of things not being sacred, like the world not being sacred. It's like this whole, this society being profane. Like nothing really matters and it's all just for the taking. So all that to be said, I know that you were asking, like, how that connects them with parenting

and why I do this work and particularly focus on parents. And it's because to understand all of that and to embrace all of that and then to think, well, what can we do about it is to go into, like, how can I change my own mindset? But also, where did my mindset come from? Where does any of our mindsets come from? they come from the world that we're raised with him. So I like to identify that parents are paradigm makers. And so when we're raising a child, we're orienting them to the world.

We are like the primary resource for this new human being to get oriented and to figure out who they are and what is this world and how are things. And traditionally, children are born into cultures that teach them. you know, the cultural constructs of their lives, and that's how they develop their own paradigm of what the world is. And in this moment right now, when we recognize that the society our kids are being born into is dangerous to life, it is antithetical to life, and it's profane in this way, then we have a choice as parents to really orient them to a deeper awareness and to be conscious of the orientation that they get, the paradigm that they are raised into. So I feel like we are, you know, very much active participants in creation. It's not like

it's over. It's not like it all happened and creation is done. It's still going on. We're in deep time and we're participants in the act of creation. And so each moment is feeding into or creating the next moment and what's possible within it. So how we raise our children is how we feed the future, how we make something else beyond capitalism possible. Absolutely. And it's, as I'm listening, it's also not easy, right, that I really hear you. It's such a moment to moment, you know, how am I, my own paradigm, my own worldview, but also then how am I exemplifying that in my actions, my thoughts, my words, as a parent. And, you know, just to get maybe concrete for a moment, you know, one area of culture that we can really see this in is in literature. And I love that your book touches on, you know, children's books, for example. And a quote from your book, you say, for example, if we want to teach children how to love and respect animals as their relatives, we may choose to limit the way animals are objectified, belittle,

commodified, personified, and distorted in their toys, clothes, and books. And you give some examples, Curious George, Richard Scarry's busy, busy town, and what do people do all day. So maybe can you talk a little bit about an example of how literature, children's book, can personify or exemplify this power over paradigm and maybe an alternative. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a good pull from the book there. So I was writing the book while I was in this three years. stint of nannying in Portland, Oregon. And like you mentioned before, I was, I took care of a lot of different kids. I was actually, for a period of that time, I was doing temp work. So I was in and out of different households. And the first thing that I would do, you know, because when you're

nannying, when you're taking care of little's reading is a huge thing that you do. You want to sit down and read some books. It's a good portion of the day to cuddle up and read some books. So the first thing I would generally do is, like, go to look in the book collection and, like, sift through it. I would, like, sort it out and find the books that I felt instilled decent values and, like, life-affirming values and that weren't just a reinforcement of humans' imposition on the earth and this, like, weird modernity thing. And sometimes it was hard. Like, sometimes I have to put a lot of the books in the back because there's so many different ways in which we subtly and subconsciously reinforce this concept of human superiority

and hierarchy of worth and just this like this anthropocentric kind of twisted weird worldview. Yeah, so like this one about our more than human relatives, so our animal allies and family. This is a big one like circuses and zoos and ways of objectifying animals are really common subject matter for little kids' books. And it's one of those places where you can just see how normalized it becomes, how it's like, oh, that's just fun. Oh, that's just great. But what I really want to do in my own life and with the children that I care for is recognize that we're sharing this life experience together with beings of all kinds and that the trees, the plants, the animals are not our wallpaper. They're not our environment. They are here with us. We're here with

them. And to learn and grow in a way of mutuality and respect is really critical. It's really key. And so there's definitely some decent kids books and media out there that that helps to bring those deeper awarenesses through. And I've tried to collect some. And yeah, maybe at some point I'll be able to get a little collection together to share. Thank you. Yeah. One, one thing as I just had a baby. There's so many books that people have given us. And one of the ones Charlotte's Webb, people gave to us and said, oh, and this is a banned book. And I looked up, why was that? Why was Charlotte's Webb banned? And it was because they say that the idea of a talking animal might be very confusing to a child and actually only humans ought to be the ones

talking. So this idea of, you know, an animal having, you know, words and emotions and feelings ought to be banned, essentially. And then the most offensive children's book to me is the giving tree. I like absolutely, it's horrifying to me and so sad to me. It brings up so much grief of this tree that just gives and gives and gives and this child that just takes and takes and takes until it's just a stump, that I actually rewrote it as the giving earth and did like a whole, you know, redo of that book. But I really hear you on like interrogating, questioning the paradigm behind these books and then inviting the alternative. Tell us about Curious George, because that was one that I hadn't thought of before. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that one is just like such a blatant

expression of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. Just, I mean, it's one of those stories that was part of my childhood I guess so it was kind of in my awareness as like oh yeah curious George is kind of cute and so da-da-da but then when I was reading it with this little boy that I took care of for a while he loved Curious George so I had to read it over and over but as I was reading as an adult I'm just like what this big tall white dude in a yellow hat and suit goes into the jungle and see he's a monkey that he wants. So he traps it, takes it, away from his home and environment and puts it on a boat and takes it away. And then basically this animal is now

in captivity, like, displaced from his real life and his real reality. And there's, like, all sorts of little tropes and things throughout the book with the police officers and putting the monkey in jail and oh it's just it's awful it's awful awful awful yes now we will read it with new eyes so we've gone deep into the power over paradigm and how that has directly caused and impacted and influenced the problems that we see and the alternative invitation is the thriving life paradigm and i love how joanna macy invites us to see this time as not just you know going from business as usual and really being in the great unraveling, right, feeling all the pain and suffering of today, but also turning towards the great turning, this time of turning

towards life in every moment, which I really feel is imbued with this thriving life paradigm. So tell us about the invitation of the thriving life paradigm, introduce it for us, and maybe give us some examples. Great, yeah. So I want to start by crediting and honoring Woman Stan Shining Pat McCabe. who uses this term, the thriving life paradigm, and from whom I've learned a lot about this paradigm, but also about the fact that we have a choice in paradigm, that there isn't just one way of being. And so I actually got a chance to interview her for a webinar

from the work that reconnects network that is called Paradigm as Choice with Women's Stand Shining. so that's a great resource for kind of getting more into this but basically the the thriving life paradigm is the ancient enduring authentic paradigm of earth is actually the design of life it's kind of we could say it's kind of the blueprint of how all this works all this reality all this creation works and it actually is what capitalism has been stealing from to fuel itself for its short-lived experiment in greed, but it's going to outlive capitalism by far, by far, by far, because there's no getting around the natural dynamic balance in the long game. Everything is accounted for within the intelligence of Earth. So if we're

stealing from this thing over here, or we're over-exaggerating one element, of the system, like hyper-increased wealth for a certain portion of the human population or just the excessiveness of human consumption in general. If we over-exaggerate one area, you can only do that for so long before it has to topple over the edge and then get kind of absorbed into the flow of the living system of Earth. So this thriving life paradigm is like, it's like bigger and deeper and older and more beautiful and so much more creative than any of the aspects of, you know, this short-lived experiment with modernity and capitalism. And in the thriving life paradigm, all thriving is mutual. So this is a really, I feel like a really good, tight phrase to remember and to carry with.

with us that comes from braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, all thriving is mutual because we are an interbeing, like Ticknan says, we are. So no one separate entity can actually thrive at the expense of the others. If any of us has a win at somebody else's loss, that's not thriving. That's just success measured by the short-sighted kind of human delusion of separation that we've been talking about. So thriving really is all beings living in accord with their own natures, each one dying in their own time to feed the next, which is the way that one of my other teachers, Martine Prechtel, will describe wellness.

It's like life and death happening in its own natural cycle and natural way. and this is this regenerative, always creative and dynamic reality of Earth. So I feel like that's just so essential to have at our base to understand that it's not, and it's not something that we're making up or when we say it's a choice, it's not a choice to like create that. It's a choice to align with it because it already is. It is the way that life is. It's why life exists.

It's why there's even material here for capitalism to extract and suck up, you know. So, yeah. You're listening to an upstream conversation with Joe Delamore. We'll be right back. When you're an old one sitting by the fire. All around you, the children gather and ask for the story of when the old world burned and into the new one everything turned. You're going to say, you cannot be what you cannot see.

You can't become what you cannot see. don't believe there was a future that we'd seen for you my loves we did believe first we cried and we grieved for all we had to lose then we awaken the dreamers to weave the world in you and we say you can't You cannot be what you cannot see. You can't become what you don't believe. There is a future that I see. For you, my loves, I do believe. I do believe.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, The rivers are clean and the oceans too The gardens grow and the whole world knows We are one, we are one And you cannot be what you cannot see You can become what you don't believe There is a future we must see for all we love we will believe We have all the dreams all the creativity

We have all All we need But you cannot be You cannot be what you cannot see. You can't become what you don't believe. There is a future we must see. For all we love, I will believe. Because you cannot be what you cannot see.

You can't become what you don't believe. There is a future that I see. For you, my loves, I do believe. believe I do believe there is a future there is a future that I do believe.

That was Believe by Amanda West. Now, back to our conversation with Joe Delamore. Let's go into an example of how the power over paradigm and the thriving life paradigm show up in parenting. So let's focus on the area of discipline or accountability when raising children. So how would power over discipline, how does that look and feel? And then what is the thriving life paradigm alternative? Well, I feel like the household is a really, really good place to experiment with and practice mutual thriving and to really, you know, deconstruct and re-create our own way of thinking and being. I think most of us are probably pretty familiar with power over paradigm discipline in the household.

It looks like, you know, do as I say, not as I do. it looks like don't question my authority because I said so I'm your parent it can look very violent sometimes it can look very passive aggressive sometimes it basically is like the child is a subordinate they've come into the world you know less than and the parent is the one kind of calling all the shots and I don't think that's healthy and I don't think it's accurate so you You know, like I said before, like I feel like the more actually authentic paradigm, the way that things work, is this thriving life paradigm. So when we want to stretch out of maybe our, you know, of our conditioning in the power

of a paradigm and our business as usual conditioning, we can start to experiment with how is it to be here together with our children, to really actually honor and respect them and partner with them through their lives, through all the decision-making, through all of the ups and downs and ins and outs. And I like to kind of use the word co-navigate. You know, how is it to co-navigate the complexity of this time moment by moment with our children?

And a lot of people might think that you have to, you know, maybe wait until they're older to do this. There's a certain age when they can kind of intellectualize enough to be able to partner with them. And I really, I don't think that's the case at all. I think it requires intuitive connection to be able to meet children where they are all along the way, right from the very beginning.

And I feel like actually, you know, you've recently had the experience of welcoming a new one into the world. And there's a beautiful awareness of the birth process that, you know, know, I think previously was thought to be initiated by the mother, but now, you know, kind of recent studies show that there's a hormonal signal sent by the child inside the mother, and there's this communication, this hormonal communication happening that signals like when it's time for birth and how to even come into the world and how, and the whole birth process and of course it's unique for each parent-child couple or parent-child combination

how a child comes into the world but it's it's this we have to negotiate that together like we have to find our way through that together and so even at that time through pregnancy and through birth and in their infancy and in their babyhood there are ways that we can really be honoring this other human being fully as like a deep and wise being in our lives that we're partnering with. So, you know, you asked about discipline and when it comes to like trying to maybe we can use the word maybe like manage behavior, we're learning like what actually is healthy, what works, you know, what's going to work in this household? Does it work for us to yell at each other?

Does it work for somebody to, like, stay up all night and blare their music? Does it work for, like, leaving dirty dishes all over the house? Like, these are the types of things that might cause disciplinary action. But really, they can cause creative problem solving. Like, what are all the needs in the household? And how are we going to mutually meet those needs in a way that is mutually beneficial to everybody? And how do we see ourselves as part of this collective? of beings in this household.

In your book, you share the quote from Brooke Hampton. Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth for what they believe is what they will become. So that reminds me of what you're sharing. And, you know, your book includes so many examples of the thriving life paradigm and particularly many post-capitalist parenting examples

from the global majority or the global South. Can you share some of those examples? Because listeners are very interested in that kind of global perspective. And as Joanna Macy, you know, has articulated, it's not just this seeing with new eyes. It's seeing with new and ancient eyes, the ways that people have been living and seeing the world for many, many generations. Yeah, absolutely. So I think we need to address first that the people of the global majority are the vast, vast majority of people on the planet who are not white or not privileged within the constructs of white supremacy and that this whiteness is actually an affront on our intrinsic humanity. So it's a social construct

that has been created and inflicted upon people generation and generation and generation through this ruthless imperialism and colonization. And it has been done by and to people with pale skin to the point that it became a marker of spreading this fatigua disease, this greed, this insatiable displacement, has become this marker that supposedly benefits white people. people, but really, like, nobody benefits from this disease. This disease puts all of us in jeopardy. But the issue with this is that the people who have been privileged by this system have a

harder time seeing it for what it is. So that is, like, white people in comfortable situations and lives often are not so willing to see the delusion for what it is. They're not so willing and able to understand what harm is actually happening. So I often find myself really inspired by and drawn to the lived experiences and insights of people of the global majority within modern society, precisely because they're really able to see and respond to the failings of this white supremacist, neoliberal capitalism much more clearly. And they're living the solutions to it out of necessity. So one of the big examples, that I want to share, like, you know, right off the top when you ask that question is

Akela Richards and her work on raising free people. She is a black American mother of two who is from Jamaica and has chosen to de-school her children, unschool her children, and deschool herself. And she has, she's so brilliant. And there's a lot in the book about her. Also, of course, she's written her own book called Raising Free People and has a great podcast. So she's put out a lot of resources that explain her process. But her insights, she's a great example of why that wisdom from people of the global

majority is so important. Because she's like, this system isn't serving my family. This system is not designed for our success and well-being. The thing is, it's not designed for any of our success. success and well-being. It's designed to extract from us. So when somebody is able to articulate that and shine the light on it so clearly like Akula does, it can be very helpful for the rest of us to learn from. And then, of course, also I've mentioned Women's and Shining a couple of times. She's a Denei elder who just has a brilliant understanding of modernity and power of her paradigm because

she's able to live and walk into paradigms because of her cultural and spiritual inheritance as an indigenous person on Turtle Island and walking in, you know, the modern world and functioning within it. So, um, and also I got to bring also in biocomalafe, he's able to see multiple sides of things. You know, he's able to understand beyond just the conditioning of modernity because of his experience, his lived experience as an African man and as a deep connected person. So these are some examples of people who are like, you know, living and functioning and working and analyzing and deconstructing modernity from inside of it. But I also want to just highlight some of the other references in the book where I'm referencing and

connecting with intact cultural wisdom that predates or is just operating completely outside of modern society. And I feel like these accounts really help to illuminate that the power paradigm of modernity and capitalism is not only is it not the only way of living, but it hasn't been around very long, and it's definitely not the best. You know, there are other ways that humans have lived and been able to sustain in place for thousands of years in high functioning regenerative ways. And so I share some stories of the Dagara people that, that I learned from reading Maladomasomei and some stories from the Tutsa Heel people from

Martine Prechtel's writing. So these are, you know, as we're deconstructing and trying to shake off the conditioning of power over paradigm and remember that that's something, that that, that inkling that is way, way, way deep inside of ourselves, I find it really helpful to hear and connect with accounts of not only individuals, but whole cultures of people who have lived completely differently than what the power over paradigm would say is the only way. Thank you. So one of my other favorite invitations from your book is to view children not as a tabula rasa or a blank slate, but instead this idea that you just spoke about that, you know, children are very wise and can actually be teachers for us. And you even

spoke this word unlearn, which is a real big part of this show, you know, a lot of unlearning about so many topics, including parenting. So just to bring in a couple of quotes, and then I want to ask you about this. One of them is from Bioakumalafe's partner, Eiji, Eiji Precious Clement Acumalafe, she said, quoted in your book, to her child, You are wise, not a tabula rasa. You have the royalty of mountains, the determination of swooping hawks, the experience of bursting pollen. and the joy of opening flowers written into your bones. This is the reason why we said once you were born,

once your father held you in his hands, and once I breathed into your face, that we would follow you just as much as we wanted to instruct you, that we would listen to your questions, not merely as things that you didn't know, but as clues about what we may also need to unlearn. This has been our journey. And then also Sagduru, a quote from your book again,

when a child comes into your life, it is time to re-learn life, not teach them your ways. So I love this idea as children as our teachers. So tell us more about this invitation, children not as a blank slate or a tabula rasa, but as wise beings who we can learn with and from. Yeah. Oh. I just love that passage from E.G. from Bios Wife there. That's just like so beautiful.

And I think that it's one of these things that we could say, oh, our children are our teachers and not really get that depth that she's expressing there. So I love that she expresses in this way because it's like I was saying before about the deepness of our interbeing and the truth that I am not a separate entity. I am not a discreet, separate, cleanly parsed out being. I am the spilling over of my ancestors. And like Joanna Macy and the work that Reconnects actually has some great practices and invitations to feel into and understand the whole fact that I exist here in this moment with this spine and these hands. and this ability to perceive in the ways that I do and all of that comes from this long,

long, long lineage of the gifting way of life, from generation to generation to generation as life has explored itself and adapted and expressed, it spills over from generation to generation to generation. And so each one of us is, is so wise and carries so much. And we don't just come, you know, from nowhere. We come from Earth. We are Earth expressing herself in this like really rich and deep way. So when a new child comes into the world, or actually a child comes from the world, so when we welcome a young human being into our house, household into our arms. They are this spilling over of life, of generations and generations and generations of wisdom, layered and layered and layered and not just human wisdom,

but from all of life. And so I feel like as we decouple our awareness from the power over paradigm, from this delusion of separateness, and as we surrender, as we spill ourselves into life and we surrender to the belonging that is what I believe actually the true reality, then it becomes very clear to see children coming into the world. They're partnering with us on like many levels, on multidimensional levels. We're part of this complex unfolding. Like, why did this child come right now? And I think many parents can relate to this awareness that children have their own kind of energetic path that comes along and that you can't necessarily just decide to have a child. It's not just your own decision. And you can't always necessarily

decide not to have a child. You know, it's sometimes much more subtle than that, much more magical than that, of like why a child comes into our lives, why and when and how and who they are and what stories they're carrying. And then, of course, any of us who have been with children or raised children, we know that they have a lot of personality. And they come in pretty strong with that at the very beginning. Like, I think if you're perceiving this being as they are, you'll see clearly, oh, wow, there is a lot going on in this little one. And if you have more than one child, you'll notice very clearly, wow, they're all very different. You know, if you have four children, you could say each one of them has their own temperament, their own energy, their own needs.

If we want to see it in the way of like karma, you could say they have their own karma, they have their own constitution. They just are not as simple as a project of a parent, you know. And this is something that I think is such an important thing to deconstruct and shake off and get out of the conditioning that your child is like a thing that you're doing, that you've decided that you wanted a kid and now they are an extension of you in that way. And I think in some of your other conversations on this podcast, you've talked about like children, they shouldn't be an extension of your ego, you know, and it's very easy in power over paradigm and in capitalism, it's all reduced down to the ego and into the material kind of, I don't know, reputation

or something. That's not what's going on here at all. It's way cooler than that. It's way more magical. It's way more complex and rich. So I feel like the invitation is, you know, when a child comes into our lives, we humble ourselves to them. We get curious and we experience the blessing that this energy has come into form that is a partner for us to walk with in life. And hopefully for a long time,

you know, hopefully you get to really develop connection and learn to walk alongside this human being for a long time and learn a lot together. Yes. Thank you for bringing in that, you know, a child is all of the wisdom of the ancestors and all the beings, the countless beings that they are made up of and that they are coming from and they are coming from the earth. I love that, that reframe, that paradigm shift. And, you know, that reminds me about the work that reconnects really does this work on deep time and working with our ancestors as well as the well-being of future generations.

And one of the quotes I remember Joanna sharing Sister Rosalie Bertel, something like, you know, all of the children that will ever live are alive right now and our ovaries and gonads, you know, and so it's this like we are also carrying with us the future generations. And one of the quotes from your book that I hadn't ever heard before, Neil Postman, this idea that children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. What a beautiful way to see children that are kind of our investment, we can say, but also our being with, our creativity, our love that we're pouring in

is a living message to a time that we will not see. That's a beautiful reframe. And then this idea in general that you offer of parenting as activism, right? And I think this is central to post-capitalist parenting, that parenting is part of the great turning, part of the activism, the shift in consciousness, the holding actions,

but also the transformation of systems, right, systemic shift to a post-capitalist world. So I want to hear about what does this mean to you, this idea of parenting is activism. And just to bring in another quote, you offer Vivek Patel. Conscious parenting is activism, and activism is hard. Activists are cycle breakers. Breaking cycles requires deep change, and that takes time. So activists need a lot of patience. It can be deeply pain. So we need the ability to bear great pain. It is often exhausting. So we need to be good at loving ourselves and taking care of ourselves. Conscious parenting is activism. You are changing the world. So tell us more about this idea of seeing parenting as activism. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll

I'll weave in that it is what I think I would consider more post-activism, which is a term that Biocomalafe coined. And so it's something kind of beyond even activism. And again, actually, I got an opportunity to interview bio for a webinar with the Work the Reconnects Network that's called, I think it's called post-activism, transraciality, and decoloniality, and we can link to that. But his proposal here is that our activism for the world, you know, acting on behalf of the world requires us to really understand and engage with the world.

So typically like regular activism within the construct of modernity and business as usual is kind of fighting, fighting the systems. And, you know, there's a place for that. As necessary, like Joanna says, in the Great Turning, there's these different dimensions of holding actions and shifts in consciousness and guidance structure. So holding actions are the ones that are like fighting the system. And you typically think of that as activism, like marching on the streets, writing the letters, chaining ourselves to bulldozers, that sort of thing.

But the invitation that I have here is parenting kind of as post-activism. in the sense of kind of everything we've talked about so far in this conversation of like really deeply transforming how we are, how we understand the world, so that we can serve the well-being of the world, serve the well-being of the future by literally being different within the world. So you were talking about the work that reconnects concept of deep time and the concern and really the responsibility that we have to the ones yet to be. And I want to bring back what I mentioned earlier in the conversation is that each moment feeds the next moment.

Every choice that we're making is creating the possibilities of choice in the next moment. And so as we're raising our children, we're actually feeding the future. We're creating the possibility of future. and we're experiencing now the choices that our ancestors have made. We're experiencing right now very specific consequences of choices that have been made for, let's say, these past seven generations, getting us back to the decisions that were made right during the Industrial Revolution, to choose to separate ourselves to, and I know you speak about this in some of the other.

conversations like the enclosure of the commons and the privatization of land, the displacement of people from land, the kind of industrialization and urbanization of humanity. Like we are experiencing those choices on a really intense level now. And similarly, we can be making choices and deepening into different ways of being that would then and will then affect those future beings. So I feel like it's critical now at this point in time to really commit ourselves to learning how to be human in a functional way within the construct of earth, within the fabric of life, within this web of relations. And to do that through our parenting empowers, you know, the next generation to continue to do

that work and continue to do that work. You know, Joanna Macy calls this time period the great turning because she says those future beings, those ones yet to be, are going to look back at this time and say, that's when they started turning. That's when they started turning back towards life. So this is, we're the ones. We're the ones here right now alive, raising children. And this is our time to really take that seriously.

Yes, absolutely. And we're going to go into our closing invitations, closing invitations for those listening. And we will absolutely link to your book and link to the webinars and resources that we've mentioned. So just to name that. And yeah, I think the main thing that I'm really going forth with is, you know, that the root cause of the challenges that we see is, you know, this kind of first. step is the power over paradigm, the supremacies, right? Human supremacy over nature, patriarchal supremacy, white supremacy, global north supremacy over the global south. And then that is really coming from separation, right, to have power over we must see ourselves as separate from. And so this reconnection, the work that reconnects is really work of our time to reconnect ourselves with our ancestors and ancestral traditions, lineages, eco-spiritual traditions, but also reconnect ourselves to this, yeah, this deeper sense of time, both past and present, and this more expanded sense of self, this ecological self, this vaster, truer nature of who we

are. And to invite us into this thriving life paradigm. And I love that you spoke to all the people and ways that people have upheld the thriving life paradigm and that we can experience and also read about a thriving life paradigm that is out there. So to notice it in our own minds and cultures, to appreciate it where we see it still alive, and then to practice it, whether that is the work that reconnects or to practicing it in all parts of our life, but particularly in our parenting. Because as you're speaking, parenting can be a real beautiful role in the great turning, right? That gift to that future that we will not see that message to the future, as Neil Postman said. So what are your closing invitations for those listening? What do you want to

leave us with? Well, I love how you just brought it all together. So it's all of those things that you said to lean into that. To respect and honor yourself enough to recognize that you are a magical expression of the living earth that is exactly on time you are made for this moment you're listening to this right now because you are here alive vibrating with all of this complexity and also that your children are made for this moment so to respect and honor them enough to see them as capable of meeting the complexity of this time And there's so much more that we could get into with that, but, you know, just my invitation to you as parents right now is to take heart and have courage and to recognize that you're part of something very special and very magical. And I know it's very, very common for parents right now to feel guilty.

It's very common for us to feel afraid and anxious. and so I just want to encourage you to open up to the possibility that's here, the possibility of being an actor, a co-creator, a co-navigator, a co-navigator with your children, and to see them as allies, to see them as partners in this beautiful work. And then, you know, the other invitation like you mentioned is to go ahead, and read my book, raising children in the midst of global crisis, because it'll give you an opportunity to kind of like be held in this conversation in a longer, deeper way and to see places where you can, you know, bring this work. It has a lot of very practical aspects to it,

so you can kind of see how you can weave this work into your household. And then also to come and practice with me. So you can go to my website. Whenever you happen to listen to this podcast, I hopefully will still be facilitating my online programs for parents. I try to do an eight-week program like two or three times a year. And that's an opportunity to be with a cohort of other parents who care and feel deeply from all around the world and to be held within that work that reconnects experience. So to be facilitated through the process of really unpacking and unearthing and moving the emotions through and connecting, you know, all of this with how you're going forth in your household. So those are my invitations. Yes, thank you for those

invitations. So so many great quotes from your book. So let's close with one more. Would you read the one by Cole Gibran for us as we close our conversation today? Sure. So this is from the prophet by Khalil Gibran says and a woman who held a babe against her bosom said speak to us of children and he said your children are not your children they are the sons and the daughters of life's long for itself they come through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you you may give them your love but not your thoughts for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite and he bends you with his might that his arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Joe Delamore, author of Raising Children in the Mids of Global Crisis, a compassionate guidebook for New Paradigm Parenting. Joe is a mother, coach, and work that reconnects facilitator, who has cared for and worked with hundreds of other people's children of all ages

in a wide variety of contexts over 20 years. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to Amanda West for the next. intermission music, and to Della for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. Upstream is entirely listener-funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways in which you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and

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