Decolonizing has been hard lately

There’s been a lot going on, and a lot to reflect critically on. I don’t want to call our efforts a failure, because I don’t think that language is constructive or helpful, but there’s a reason for the cliché it takes a village.

The bitter reality is that a lone family has a really hard time decolonizing parenting – especially as people of colour living as immigrants in a country with colonialism in its DNA. There is too much contortion and shape-shifting required to simultaneously survive in society and reject its model in private. The dual consciousness takes a toll, especially under the strain of patriarchy and generational trauma.

And so we become a statistic that confirms colonial stereotypes: another multicultural family that couldn’t make it work.

The truth is, for us, making it work looks different. We need to find another path, because the obstacles that are in our way are unsurmountable without losing ourselves in the process. We are never going to win at their game at the expense of our identities, because that isn’t what winning looks like to us.

For us and families like ours, the path has always been rocky and winding, and now the road ahead is paved with new challenges. We will find our way through them together and apart, like human and animal families have done for time immemorial.

The imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy doesn’t have a monopoly on the meaning of family.

But to be perfectly honest, I worry about the future of this planet and this child. I feel the weight on my shoulders of preparing him for the challenges ahead; they’ve always been there, but these changes to our life cause their gravity to shift. I recognize there’s so much work to do, and I wonder if I can do what needs to be done. I oscillate between self-doubt and resolve, and remember that the village is still the key.

So, if you’re reading this and any part of our story resonates with you, will you be my village?

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