Self-mothering as a means of making sure the do-better begins with you
Gonna hone in on that mothering energy that’s swirling around this month–they assigned a Mother’s Day, I don’t care about any of those days they assign, but I damn sure love to hop onto the waves of any good, gratitude-centered energies, and this is my contribution to that. It’s also a great way to ease on into this month’s focus, doing better! the Do Better Series. This week I’m reading a Self-Mothering essay to remind you why and how this do-better gotta start with you first. I wrote it in 2016, and published it on everydayfeminism.com a couple months after I published the very first episode of Fare of the Free Child podcast.
Photographer credit – Instagram: @astro.nic.visuals
This week, as part of a series on parent founders of Self-Directed Education spaces, you’ll share in one woman’s journey. Sonia Fernandez Leblanc, a White woman who was born and raised in Dominican Republic, and her husband—a Black man from Puerto Rico (who was raised in St. Croix and in Dominica where his family is from)—are raising two brown girls in the American South, and wants to be part of the change in relationships among people in the world by raising more self-aware, socially just, liberation-minded children. Sonia will tell you how she ended up creating community, joining efforts with her community, and finding, then founding, the Sudbury approach that met her community’s needs. Her Baltimore beginnings, her dismay around education, moments of jealousy and plenty of joy, all of it, straight from Sonia, founder of Nashville Sudbury School in Tennessee, US. #BIPOCinSDE