Raising Conscious Kids in an Age of Social Justice | Dr. Traci Baxley EP 850

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:13What do you think a parent should be equipped with before their kids are able to communicate with them? What do you think should be the baseline of their understanding on how to raise conscious, compassionate kids? I think, first of all, you have to recognize it is messy and you're going to make mistakes. It's not a straight path. is very windy and there's no one right way of getting there. So I think walking in with that idea that I'm gonna get it wrong, it's gonna be uncomfortable. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is really important. And not really thinking that you have to make huge changes.

0:54If you are moving forward a little bit, today that's good for you. And that social justice doesn't mean that you are at every rally. I really believe that social justice and activism really starts in your own house. Like, what are you saying to your children? What are you reading with your children? What kind of conversations are you having with your own children? How you're raising them? What are the core values in your house? That really is the start of really social justice work. Because my little saying is, what you do in the privacy of your own homes shows up in the public spaces. Right. It's like, what kind of kids are we raising?

1:33You know, do we want to raise the kids who are kneeling on the necks of other people? Right. Because if you talk to Derek's friends, they say he's a good guy. He was a nice guy. Right. Right. So do you want that to be your child because you're not having these hard conversations and you're thinking that they're learning, they're picking it up, they know better, they're good people. We're finding that that's not enough anymore. You know, there's a difference between raising good people and raising pro-justice kids who are, you know, the activists, the agitators, the ones who are proactive and standing in the gap for other people.

2:14Absolutely. I like that you said it's messy and you're probably not going to get it right a lot of the times as a parent. Even if you think you've been educated, you're still going to say the wrong thing to your kids. It's going to be messy in some ways. in terms of the messiness with social justice or raising them to be as conscious as possible. There's still going to be people that are believing in another way, that are going to think that your way is the wrong way. And they're going to be very aggressive in their stance, with their beliefs against you. So how do people deal with the cancel culture that's happening?

2:51Even when you feel like what I'm doing is right, I feel like what I'm doing is just, or I feel like I'm having good intentions. And it being messy, but then being judged by your friends, your family, your community, if you're standing up for something, how do people navigate that when they also just want to fit in and be light and survive and just not be made shamed for their... How do you balance, right? Yeah. How do you deal with that? I think if you are really active in the anti-racist work, you are going to lose people. Yes. You are. You are. There's no way around that. So it depends on how important the work is to you.

3:31And your belonging may have to be with a different group of people. Right. Right. As you start to change and grow, sometimes the people who we used to hang out with or the people that we used to be in our inner circles, they may fall off. And you have to be aware and prepared for that. And I think people don't want to see performative anti-racist or activist work, right? They don't want to see people just putting stuff on their social media and then never addressing it again. And so I think coming from it from a sincere way, saying that now I'm at the point where I know I need to do better, right?

4:13Now I'm at the learning stage and I am learning and growing and listening. And even if I'm not saying much, it's because I'm listening. And I want to take in and get more knowledge and stand in the gap using my platform, my power, my whatever, in ways that other people's voices are being heard. Yeah. So I think oftentimes people are being canceled because they are instead of staying standing for the work, they're really standing for themselves in the middle of the work. Right. And so I think less talking, more listening, more allowing those who are being marginalized to be in the front while you're in the back.

5:05Helping and supporting and empowering in ways that you're following and not leading. Right, yeah.

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6:10Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.