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Podcast

Episode 15: Capitalism and White Supremacy in Schools and Parenting with Alisha from Traumatized & Thriving

I'm Adrienne.

I’m a former teacher turned unschooling mom of three. I teach parents how to break away from the status quo and be more present, so they can create an authentic life alongside their kids outside of school without overwhelm and burnout. 

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Summary

In this conversation, Alicia, a trauma educator and consultant, discusses the systemic issues within education and parenting, emphasizing the impact of trauma on learning. The dialogue explores the oppressive nature of traditional schooling, the influence of capitalism on education, and the importance of emotional regulation and self-awareness in children. Alicia advocates for a shift in perspective towards unschooling and a focus on nurturing children’s emotional well-being rather than adhering to conventional metrics of success. The conversation culminates in a call to action for systemic change in how we approach education and parenting, highlighting the need for compassion and understanding in raising children.

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Read the Transcript:

Adrienne (00:00)
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today I have my good friend Alisha on. We are new good friends. I’ll let you introduce yourself. tell us what you do. What is your zone of genius? What is your passion? What are you all about?

Alisha:
So thank you.

and I’m super excited to be new friends. So my name’s Alisha. I am a US citizen currently residing in Toronto. I moved to Canada in 2019 and I am a trauma educator, consultant and coach. And my current focus post October 7th has really been to

educate myself and as many other people that are willing to listen and that have the ability to incorporate new information once it’s received. That I think I figured out kind of why things are the way that they are.

And yeah, I try to help people understand that because I think that once we have a better understanding or once we have awareness around what’s going on, then we can hopefully take action to change it, but without awareness.

Adrienne:
And that knowledge, yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, that’s great. So I wanted to start with when I first started this homeschooling, unschooling account, my messaging was very much from a place of trauma.

because I have trauma from growing up in this Mormon cult. I have French Catholic school trauma and I have my dysfunctional toxic abusive home trauma. So I these three environments. I was never safe growing up. I was in a constant state of fear and fight or flight from those three systems kind of compounding on each other, not to mention capitalism and consumerism and other massive, massive oppressive systems, but those three very personal ones to me.

And so my messaging was definitely like, no kid should be subjected to any of those things, but with school in particular. And so I saw school through this lens of oppression and power dynamics and trauma and all these things. And I got met with a lot of like, hey, but there are so many well-intentioned teachers doing great work or criticizing the system isn’t the solution or not everyone can afford to home school and

pulling everyone out of the system isn’t the answer, da da da. So I’ve kind of gotten to a place where I’ve recognized more of the nuance. I’ve recognized that it’s gray. I’ve recognized that there are multiple solutions to this issue, which I do talk about a lot in my content. I do acknowledge that in most of my episodes. But today, I wanted to kind of set that aside. And yes, you and I both acknowledge that

There are socioeconomic privileges. There are race-based privileges, like a number of things that make it so that everyone just at the snap of a finger pulling their kids out of school is not what’s going to happen tomorrow. However, that doesn’t mean that the issues that you and I are going to talk about today don’t exist. They very much do exist and are the reality. And so I kind of wanted to make sure that we started there with this episode is going to be

nice and healthy, ragey and objective while we are still holding those multiple truths. So I just wanted to lead with that.

Alisha:
I love it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I also would like to just for people who don’t know me, I am autistic. So I speak very directly and I think of things, in a very different way than I think most people do.

which I love and now that I understand what’s going on, I appreciate that I think differently. One of the first things I wanted to say is all of those things are true and all of those things are factors. But at the end of the day, it is the system that is creating all of those things. And if we continue to engage in the system and school is a massive part of the system,

we’re gonna be stuck in it, right? It’s the difference between being able to see things like from the clouds and looking down at the forest versus being in the forest and only being able to see what’s directly around you. It’s much more difficult to navigate in a system that is built to make you sick and unhappy and stuff like that when you are

attending and surrounded by people who aren’t aware that they’re like in the forest. That’s what I mean. So and that’s where our beliefs comes from. So I get that people don’t have the option. But if we want to talk about pain, things have to give right like we can’t

keep participating in a system and doing the same things and thinking that we’re gonna get a different outcome. And I don’t mean that in any sort of like disrespectful way. I mean that in a very factual way, that’s how systems work. Right? So if we want a

Adrienne:
There’s a really…a really famous unschooling author. name is Akilah S. Richards and she’s Black and she wrote a book called Raising Free People and in it she talks about how we cannot expect to raise free people if we’re using tools of oppression. And so I think about that all the time with the church or at home or at school that if we’re using the oppressor system and using oppressive tactics,

How can you liberate anyone? You will not be liberated. Your children will not be liberated. Society will not be liberated. And if our goal, which for you and I, is that collective liberation and starting with parenting, starting with ourselves, all of that cannot happen if we’re just trying to use, trying to navigate within the oppressive system. It is so, so difficult. And if I use church as an example, so for a long time, there was this like,

there is a feminist Mormon movement. And so when I heard about, when I was still in the church, I was like, okay, great. Finally, like people are recognizing and here’s a place where I can affect change. And so you’re then like caught in this thing of, okay, I believe in feminism, but I still want to be a member of the church and be in my community and have all that. But all it was doing was like, you know that the image of like two people in a rowboat?

and they’re both rowing, but then you’re just going in a circle. That’s what I always think of because you’re not actually getting outside of the biggest problem, which is that that system exists. So that the church in particular, in my opinion, is based on controlling people using power. So whether or not you’re in the church and like, I’m a feminist, that’s what it’s founded on. And it is working exactly how it was built just like exactly how it was designed. That’s right. Just like government, just like school, just like all of it. If it’s designed to control people designed to, we were told very explicitly in the church that obedience is the number one law on earth and heaven. So like, if that’s your premise, there’s no navigating that within the church, right? And same with, with school. If the premise which it was definitely built to create factory workers to get people on board right boys doing this girls doing this which is how it was at the beginning. To create people who are compliant to.

work and learn according to a bell schedule, according to standardized testing, according to grades and test scores and assessments and a neurotypical environment and like all of these different things. It’s not broken. also works very well.

Alisha:

It’s not broken. Have you considered the similarities between the school systems in North America and the prison system in North America?

Adrienne:

Go ahead, that’s great.

Alisha:

So there is, you know, like wild similarity. We transport our kids and our criminals in school buses. Everyone follows everyone in a line. You have to ask permission to use the washroom. have to, you get one recess a day. go to the cafeteria to

Adrienne:

I even think I heard that in prison they actually get more outside physical time. was reading that and I was like, okay, wow.

Alisha:

Like I understand, I guess, the mentality of there are so many factors that prevent this from happening. But if we want systematic change at some point, something’s got to give. Because if we don’t change the system, nothing will ever change. It doesn’t matter. It’s like I said to someone the other day that’s like, I can’t believe you’re not voting. And I’m like, I’m it’s a system. It’s a system. It does not matter who we put in the roles if the system stays the same. Same organizational structure. You can change the color of the people, you can change their costumes, you can change their titles. But if the system remains the same, you’re gonna get a very similar outcome.

Adrienne:

And they’re all colonial imperial systems.

Alisha:

Yes, yes, they are. They put profit over people.

And it is the goal is to produce. Right? I think coming to Canada as an American too, it was so wildly evident that in the U.S. we are bred to be like productivity machines and to be productivity machines that are productive individually. We can’t be successful if we do it together.

We’re supposed to do everything on our own. And that mentality is harmful.

Adrienne:

Like the hyper individualism.

Alisha:

Yes, that’s not, we’re relational beings. We are supposed to live and breathe in community. I think it’s very clear, like evident by how society is and how disconnected people are that the experiment of capitalism, the experiment of fooling children the way that we do is not producing what we want. we’re going to blame all of this. I always say blaming is lame, right? It’s not, we’re not getting to any sort of solution. The reality is capitalism was never supposed to work in, it’s supposed to have like growth forever.

Right? It can keep growing, but we live in an environment that doesn’t have endless resources. So the entire system is not going to work. Capitalism in a whole also requires you to be codependent for it to work. Codependency in its simplest terms in my mind is looking for fulfillment, not survival, but fulfillment from external sources.

That’s capitalism. Codependency is addiction, not a chemical addiction, but it has all the same behaviors as addiction. That’s why everyone’s depressed. That’s why everyone’s sad. That’s why everyone’s in debt because everyone thinks that they’re going to keep doing all the things that are going to fill the hole that they don’t, it doesn’t. And that’s what we’re going into school trying to teach kids, right?

If you do all the things, then you’ll be happy. And I think a lot of people are realizing that that’s not the case, right? Going to university in the US doesn’t have the return on investment that it used to. I don’t know that it’s even worth your investment. I hired people for 20 years and there’s so many people with education now that I would have taken someone who had actual work experience over that, you know what I mean? So I don’t even know that the dream that they sell about following that process actually makes sense anymore. It’s propaganda to keep you running the machine, selling your labor. So you’re exhausted and tired and you can’t pay attention to what’s going on. And they can program beliefs. That alone is concerning, right? That a lot of the beliefs that we have are beliefs unconsciously until people actually do the work to sit down and be like, I wonder why I believe this should be this way. Most people walk around their entire lives with beliefs that they believe that are their own, but they were given to them by someone else.

Adrienne:

Well, yeah, and that starts so early on, right? So early. I talk about this in my coaching parents on unschooling, which unschooling is very much unpacking all of that. So homeschooling, a lot of times, people just replicate the same system at home. And they replicate that same obedience, schedule, assessments, you know, grade performance, all of that at home. And so it’s school at home, whereas unschooling is very much unpacking all of that, reframing all of that. Why do, how do we define success that’s different from over here? How do we define learning? How do kids learn, you know, all these different things. Anyway, one of the things that I talk about is how from a very young, young age, so we have our babies, we have our toddlers and we’re like, my God, they’re so adorable. Look at them learning and they’re running around and it’s fine. then they start to get to preschool age and immediately we are like, okay, am I doing the right things? they need to be in preschool because they need to start to learn how to sit down in a circle and listen to a lesson and they’re five and they’re not reading. that’s a problem. it starts to like build on all this fear and anxiety. My good friend, Caroline Sumlin, she wrote a book called, We’ll All Be Free and she talks about that liberation and she talks about how her in her mind, the number one tool of the oppressor is fear. And I see that all the time when I’m talking to parents about anything.

Alisha:

Fear causes consumption. It’s a it’s a PR and marketing like tactic. Anything that you look at is even if it’s good intention. Right. Like I want to help. But it’s fear makes humans in a capitalist system want to consume.

It might snow, go get salt. You know what I mean? Like everything. Crest white strips. You don’t want your teeth to be yellow. Everything is, even Ziploc, I saw a commercial and it’s like a kid struggling to open a bag and chips fall everywhere. And the message is you don’t want your kids to be embarrassed. Right. Buy our bags. Everything. And if you don’t, you’re, you grow up in a school, where you’re taught how to memorize and how to be obedient and you’re not taught how to think, right? Like how to think critically and you’re not taught how to really educate yourself instead of just taking what one source says as truth when you go through your life not knowing that you just because someone looks a certain way or has a certain tone of voice or because they have a certain title or something like that that they speak truth or even know what they’re talking about not teaching the skills to children on how to evaluate their beliefs continuously and where they came from. Otherwise, they’re just going to repeat the same beliefs over and over and over. You could do that for a lifetime and teach them how to think and teach them how to trust themselves and listen to themselves. Right.

Adrienne

Like we don’t we don’t we’re not interested because that’s convenient for us. Right. If our kids are to listen to themselves and say, no, mom, I’m actually not. I’m not going to wear a jacket or no mom. I’m not hungry. I’m not going to finish the dinner on my plate. Every single day. We are reinforcing. I know better than you.

Alisha:

Yes, that is what we need to not do because being older doesn’t have give you any insight into the internal experience of that little human.

Adrienne:

But even this idea that I have more life experience than you is absolutely true. However, their life experience is not your life experience. The way their brain is working is not how your brain works and what they’re feeling in their body right now is more important than what you think, how you felt as a child or-

Alisha:

And what you’re telling them is to disregard their internal experience. You’re saying, no, you don’t know how you feel. I do. And, and what you should be doing is encouraging your kids to be like, you’re not hungry. Okay. That’s great. good listening to your body.

Adrienne:

That’s right.

Alisha:

What does that feel like? Does your tummy feel full now? Does it feel all the way full? Okay. Well, let’s leave this over here. If you get hungry later, like it’s, if you want to, have a, human that is going to be able, an adult human that is going to be able to engage in a world where most people are not self-aware and not kind, and you don’t want them to be like crushed by the world. You have to teach them how to withstand discomfort and to stand up for themselves and to know how to listen to themselves and their bodies and how to calm themselves down. And the only way they’re ever gonna learn how to do that is if they’re allowed to do that at home. And I know this because I am very lucky. I have five children. I have 17 years between my twins who are the youngest and my older kids. So I did this already and I have a 30 year old, a 28 year old and a 27 year old. I just, they all were like elite athletes and all got like great grades in school and none of that helped them be good humans. When it came to dealing with life, all they knew was obedience. Because that’s what I did. That’s what I was like, okay, if my kids get good grades and they’re athletes and like, we’re like great family. And then when it came time to, I have a real life problem and I don’t know how to regulate my emotions.

If they taught emotional regulation skills in school, I’d be like, send them. If they’re teaching how to identify your emotions in your body and in other people, I’d send them.

Adrienne:

Okay, but here’s the thing, because I think there are teachers that are like, let’s listen to our bodies, blah, However, are they allowed to act on that? So I’m going to push you a little bit further and say like, sure, explicit teaching, explicit instruction about that. Do they have the space to do that? Because my answer is always, always, always no. There is no way that 30 kindergarteners all have the space to be dysregulated, to practice talking back and saying, Hey, that’s not fair. I don’t like you treating with

me this way, teacher. I don’t like how you talk to me. There’s no way that just from a logistical, whether you agree with it

Alisha:

logistical, you also couldn’t create safety. No. Right? you need safety to be able to have that type of engagement. wasn’t being serious. I’d send them. meant for that. Yes. Yes. I wouldn’t, if they were teaching things that were actually going to help us evolve into mentally healthy humans, that are gonna teach us how to engage with each other, that are gonna teach us how to have difficult conversations and withstand discomfort in ourselves so that we don’t stay in the same place for hundreds of years. Right? Like that’s, again, they don’t teach you how to think. They don’t teach you the skills that you need to actually function in life, which are, how do I calm myself down when I’m anxious? How do I not let everyone else’s experience impact my internal experience? How do I create safety for myself instead of needing everyone else to change their behavior so I can feel safe?

Adrienne:

But they’re not interested in that. Because what they’re interested in is keeping us all with our heads down working and running on fumes because then we can’t think and then we can’t connect with each other and then we don’t build community and we’re all just these hyper individualistic people who are buying, buying, buying, not thinking about anything. They’re not interested in us resolving any kind of health issues because they thrive on us buying pharmaceuticals.

Alisha:

conflicts of interest.

Adrienne:

That’s right.

That’s right. they rely on- can’t live without Yes. Sure. Student debt, like we know that student debt is, my God, they just prey on, first of all, minors to get them to go into a ton of debt by selling them on the stream, keeps them in debt forever so that you’re living paycheck to paycheck so that then you’re buying you know, your nails are doing whatever, because those are the things that keep you going, just having these small little luxuries, because we all can’t fathom the idea of maybe actually like demanding wages that match living expenses so that we can actually not be all burnt out and all of us hate our jobs and all of us are in like soul crushing environments. The book I was going to tell you about is called The Myth of Normal. And he taught it’s Gabor Mate, and he talks about how the experiences that we’re having right now, like we see these rises in depression and anxiety, whatever he’s like, those are all normal human responses to the very toxic environment and society that we’re living in. So that society, this is not normal how we’re operating.

Alisha:

That’s also why you don’t want to send your kids to school. I will just say that because we learn from imitation, right? Because we’re relational beings and the collective is ill, right? And ill in the sense that, and I mean this, I want to make sure that it is very clear that I do not believe that it is any individual’s fault. I think the depression, all of that stuff is a symptom of capitalism. And that’s mostly what I wanted to tell people is you feel like shit and it’s not your fault. It’s because you’re in a system that wants you to feel like shit so that you can’t think enough, literally, when you’re in a state of stress, your cerebral cortex shuts down. You do not have the ability, if you are anxious or in fear, to think as clearly, critically, strategically, creatively. That’s why we have 7 billion people who feel hopeless.

That’s the system. If you feel hopeless and disconnected from the possibility of change, from that, you know what I mean? From that truth, that’s the system working on you.

Adrienne:

How it’s supposed system’s telling you.

Alisha:

Yeah, the system’s telling you to feel hopeless. Yeah. It’s telling you it’s, and if you’re going to school, you are surrounded with other people who also feel like there is no solution and they’re hopeless. One other thing I wanted to mention really, really quick. I don’t know anything about the background of this school. So if the Montessori school is like the devil, I don’t know. But I do know that the five largest brands all are run by people who did not go to public school in North America. They all went to schools that encouraged you feel like you have to go to the washroom. You don’t ignore your internal experience, you get up and go. You don’t like what’s going on here and you can do something else productive. You go over here, encourage difference, encourage thinking. And it’s very clear that it results. I mean, it’s still in the system, but just that, right? We need so many more people who are good humans and who are going to I don’t know how to say this, use their like good humans and use positive energy force to get into leadership positions because I think the only people that we have in them now are there because they have some version of narcissism. And I think that the universe and energy, I don’t know that energy knows intent. So I think an undying belief in yourself and your abilities will get you pretty much whatever you want. But most of the sane people have been so beat down by the school system, by capitalism, that we think that believing in ourselves and thinking that we are worthy of abundance and all of that stuff is like them. Well, and I want to say some of the sane people have to start believing in themselves if we want to change things, right? Like we have to have that. And if you want your children to be like that, you have to demonstrate it because I told my daughter every single day of her life that she was gorgeous and smart and creative. And then I looked in the mirror and was like, I don’t like the way my butt looks right now or whatever. And you know what my daughter took on? She didn’t take on the mommy thinks I’m beautiful. He took on what she saw me do.

Adrienne:

That’s right.

Alisha:

Right. We’re animals. We imitate. So if you want your kids to exhibit behavior, you have to exhibit it yourself. Yeah. So many parents are expecting kids to behave in ways that is like so outrageous to me. It’s like, hey, little child, you regulate your nervous system, cause I can’t.

Adrienne:

And I don’t know how and I’m four years old.

Alisha:

Exactly. To do it and to figure it out when you should be demonstrating how to take breaths, how to not be reactive, how to be like, Hey, I’m activated right now. So I’m going to go regulate myself. That’s how your kid’s going to learn how to withstand discomfort.

Yeah. By watching you do it.

Adrienne:

Yeah. Well, and that’s what I teach because parents number one are like, my God, like what curriculum I need the ideal curriculum. And I’m always like, throw that in the garbage. What you need is to focus on yourself because I promise you, if you spend the same amount of time, energy, resources, stress, worrying about your own self, your own triggers, your own behavior, how you talk to your kids, unpacking all of that, conditioning yourself to rewire your brain, all these things that you were not taught growing up. If you spend all that time parenting yourself, instead of hyper fixating on your five-year-old’s behavior and what they’re doing wrong, and instead seeing that as like, these are messages to me and to their own body about what’s going on for them. So let’s look at that as them communicating to me what’s going on. And it’s most likely about the environment, right? Kids are not like, intrinsically like a giant mess, they’re reacting and responding to the environment around them. And if we start to see tantrums as being normal, or we start to actually understand brain science for children and childhood development and spend all the time that you would on trying to make a curated Montessori playroom or a Pinterest perfect homeschool classroom and doing your lesson plans and blah, blah. And you actually just spent time on like childhood development and spent time on regulating and spent time on your finances so that you are not like maybe budgeting areas, right? Like I see parents all the time. And again, this like classist thing, but let’s say you have a bunch of parents whose kids are in five different sports, which costs money and gear and blah, blah, blah. And they’re doing their fake hair and their fake lashes and their fake nails and whatever. Maybe.

Instead, and then, and then they’re stressed to the max and like, I don’t know why we are so stressed like this. Why are we, why am I yelling? Why am I yelling at my kids? Why are my kids stressed out? Why are they disconnected? Why are they, you know, all these things start with what are your priorities? What do you value in life? Do you prioritize their emotional wellbeing? Cause if you do, if that is a bigger priority to you than their grades, your behavior, how you talk to them, your decision-making is going to be completely different.

And like you were saying, people walk around just like on this roller coaster that we’ve been all set on to, you put your kids in preschool and then you put them in kindergarten and then you care about their grades and then you put them in baseball. Yeah, yeah. then you put in college.

Alisha:

challenging anything that you think. I don’t care if it’s like I should get up and empty the dishwasher. All of it. It should be challenging. Why do I think I should do that? Yeah. Where did that belief come from? You think your kids should go to preschool? And if you have the option to have them home with you, like, why? Where does this belief come from? And as a grown adult, we get the opportunity to be like, I don’t know that actually, that belief is an agreement or an alignment with who I want to be moving forward. So let’s change that, right? Like it’s the, I think the like kind of autopilot that everybody is on. We don’t evaluate why.

we think and believe the things that we believe. And the other thing is that I would think should be in a school curriculum is teaching kids one about beliefs, emotions too, and then also your core values and having children really understand that that is how you are going to guide your life. Is to know that if you are clear on what your core values are,

than you know personally, professionally or whatever, when things, were in environments or around people and things aren’t in alignment with your core values, you’re not gonna feel good. Your body will not let you be calm in environments you were not meant to stay in. And if you do not learn that as a child, you will be an adult who spends years at jobs that you absolutely hate because you don’t know that your body is telling you that you’re not in alignment.

You’re not supposed to be here. That’s why you’re not comfortable.

Adrienne:

I saw this coach, she’s a parenting coach the other day and she was like, her reel was saying, hey, kids right now, especially in September at the beginning of school, they look at school as this unsafe place. That’s why they’re in a state of fight or flight. What we need to do is rewire their brains to teach them that school is a safe place. And I kind of blew up and made my own thing about it and was just like, but what if school is unsafe for them?

And all we’re doing is telling them that how their normal intuitive human response about going to a place where they don’t feel safe. What we’re telling them then is that is invalid, inaccurate, and we know better.

Alisha:

disregard their experience.

Adrienne:

We’re going to rewire their brain. Because we need them to go to school.

Alisha:

So that they can work. So that they can sell their labor when they’re older and so that we have the time to sell our labor.

That’s it’s all about.

Adrienne:

Remember earlier when you were talking about, the feeling of helplessness. So what I immediately thought of, there’s so many people who see kids, they use the phrase, kids are more resilient than you know. So don’t worry about it. Or kids, there are so many kids that thrive in school. And the way I look at that is all that has happened in that scenario is your kid has realized not going to school is not an option.

They have realized how to play the game of how to get good grades, of how to mask, of how to behave properly to be accepted, all of these things that are super, super unhealthy behavior. And that is us seeing them as being resilient and thriving when all that has happened is that they have decided to, or realize that their only choice is to stop being true to themselves, right? well, my teacher, like, I know the rules. can’t move my body when I want to. I can’t go outside when I want to, I can’t talk to my friend when I want to or sit by who I want to or all of these things. And you’ve given them all of the explicit and implicit messaging that their voice doesn’t matter, that they can’t speak up, that they can’t point out injustice, especially when it’s to someone in a position of authority, like a teacher or a coach or a parent. And they’re taught again, this conditioning that like, bullies, those are kids on the playground who are like,

punching you and taking your lunch. The bully is not the teacher or principal here demanding that you act completely developmentally inappropriate, that you mask for six hours a day, that you have to adhere to these standards that are completely unrealistic and unreasonable for children, for any humans. Because I talk about this all the time that like,

Show me an adult that would put up with what they have to put up, kids have to put up with in school. It would not happen. And if it does, we are, we, I think we’ve all been in jobs similar to school, but at least we’re getting paid and at least we have the choice to quit, or at least we have some semblance of human autonomy where we get to go to the bathroom when we want to or whatever, right? Like it, it’s slightly better, but there’s no way that adults would put up with any of that.

But because we don’t see children as full humans, it’s okay, right? For them to be in these scenarios.

Alisha:

I think it goes back to the just people really aren’t thinking about how they’re acting, right? Because it is what everyone around them is doing and people aren’t able or willing to think critically about what’s going on. I think, you know, to anyone who says kids thrive in school and look, some kids do great, I would be like, okay, well, let’s look at the…

rates of depression of kids these days. Let’s look at the adults. How are we doing? Right? Like we can’t just say like,

Adrienne:

are they thriving in this system? Because thriving in the system means getting good grades. So is that actually thriving? right.

Alisha:

Exactly. Like how are you defining thriving and how are you defining what success is? My daughter literally like got a full ride at the University of Maryland to play soccer.

for athletics and academics. And that was great. And it did not help her learn how to navigate life. Because school teaches you, like it literally teaches you obedience. It teaches you and the people who don’t do good in school are the ones who are all like entrepreneurs now and stuff like that because they were the ones who weren’t good at just listening. And they’re like, like me, I’m like, I can’t work for someone else. It won’t work. It won’t because the second they go do something like try to do something unethical or something, and my sense of justice is gonna come raging in and it just doesn’t work. I think that’s also, I do this because I am fully aware that the reason why I felt like I couldn’t read my whole life, I was undiagnosed autistic my whole life. So I was put in classes with learning disabilities, I never tried to read a book until I was 30 years old because I did not believe that I could read. I could listen, but because of how I was treated in a school system, I never tried to. I’ve read hundreds of books now. Once I was like, I maybe I should just try it. And it’s great. But like that belief for that long, because that’s

what the school did. The school was like, well, you’re not like everybody else. So there’s something wrong with you. So we’re going to put you over here. And I first 30 years of my life thinking that I was stupid, that I did not have the ability to learn. Like, I truly believe that I did not try in my life, my parents believed the school. So like, there was no talk of going to university, there was no talk of doing

anything like that because my parents believed that the school is right and I was just not smart like everyone else. I’m really, really smart and I can absorb information really, really well. But that’s kind of my point. You’re leaving it up to people who don’t know how to regulate fair emotions. I remember my older kid came home from school grade five.

First day of school and he’s like, the teacher was yelling at us and telling us that we were driving her crazy. And I told her, I stood up and said, well, my mom says that I’m not responsible for your emotional reactions. And I was like, okay. So, I’m like, I know mom says that too, but I don’t know that most people like get that, right? Like most people go through life believing that they have no power.

That’s right. Right. And that everyone else needs to behave in a certain way because they weren’t taught, like you should be in school, that all that power lies within you. All of it. Learning to regulate your internal system is game changing. When you can keep your prefrontal cortex online and not be in a state of fight or flight, you can think clearly.

You can do things that you can’t do. You see possibility where there wasn’t any, right? When you’re in a state of disconnection.

it is kind of like what’s going on now. It’s that sense of hopelessness. And if we can’t figure out how to get like a lot of people to realize that your brain, your brainstem that has the fight, flight, freeze or fawn is going, it doesn’t tell time, right? It has no concept if you are in utero, six months old, 15. So if you are not doing that constant reevaluation of

I know this is how this feels and teaching your children how to do this. Okay, I know it feels like X, but let’s talk about what’s actually happening and figure out if this is just our brain working exactly the way it’s supposed to, but telling us something that we’re like in danger when it thinks that we’re still six months old and we are now eight or 15 or 45 and a fully functioning human whose brain is still telling you to be scared in the way that you would be when you didn’t have the skills to protect yourself that you do now. If we do not teach our children how to do this, we are going to continue to have a lot of really unhealthy people that are just unconsciously because it’s how our brains work, recycling old beliefs, operating systems, right?

It’s really hard to get out of it.

all like inflammatory diseases that we don’t know where they came from. I’m pretty sure they came from the fact that we started

Like same time they started coming was when synthetic rubber was introduced and we stopped connecting to the earth. It also that is, it makes you depressed. It makes you, like I said, not feeling like you have any power. And it keeps you on that, I’m just gonna go home. I’m gonna turn on Netflix, right? I remember my grandmother, my Southern black grandmother used to be like, it’s programming.

you’re watching programming. And I used to be like, I want to watch like a soap opera or something, right? But I don’t know that she meant it like that, but I worked in the PR industry for 20 years and it is, it’s the fact that most people don’t understand that everything you consume is put there by someone by intention. And

Like I said, like they’re not, you don’t have time to learn about that stuff and they’re not teaching it in school. Well, and if we want everyone rushed, right?

Adrienne:

If they keep us on rushed, that’s kind of where I see such a big issue. So yes, yes, the beliefs and the preconditioning programming and all that. But if they keep everyone rushed, there’s no time to unpack. There’s no time to regulate. There’s no time to have discussions with your kids. There’s no time to rest.

there’s no time to do all those things that then dismantle capitalism, right? Because this colonial capitalist idea runs on just obedience. runs on your worth being tied to your performance and your productivity. It runs on not resting. It runs on exploitation, which we see with colonialism, imperialism all over the world from like physical resources to exploiting all of our emotions, all of our labor, all of our, all of it. It’s just exploiting people, squeezing out the last bit of juice from people and things and animals and plants and whatever that you can. That’s to me at the core of what capitalism is, right? Is using people and then throwing them out and really not caring about their health.

Alisha:

It’s, it’s, it’s exponential growth and efficiency. Yeah. Profit over humans.

That mindset is what is taught in school. It is white supremacy culture to give people in leadership positions, like empathy and like a sense of comfort that the rest of us don’t enjoy or don’t get to enjoy. And that starts in school, right? Where it’s like, and a lot of it starts at home too, where it’s like, I’m the adult, I’m the older one.

So what I say and what I feel matters. And what that ends up having ends up resulting in is a lot of adult humans who don’t think that they have any power, don’t think that how they feel matters and are stuck in the system. Not being able to see that that is why, but that is, like you said, that’s the system working. They want you depressed.

they want you to feel hopeless and they want you to feel like the only option that you have is to vote for a lesser of two people. That to me is like a distraction. If you separate yourself, truly separate yourself from it and if you are able to, it’s pretty easy to see. It’s only when you’re like,

in it, like I’m not in a work environment with a ton of people that have like beliefs that are a certain way. I’m very like, I think I’m able to not be as influenced or easily influenced and I’m not living in the US and I know that the fear, underlying fear, is making my family met people that I know because I know that fear makes it so that you cannot think clearly, right?

You’re reacting.

Adrienne:

You’re reacting instead of responding intentionally. is the goal.

Alisha:

And everybody’s fighting with each other, which is what you want. In the communications industry, we would say that it didn’t matter all the time if it was good news or bad news. It matters that you’re relevant. They’re still talking about you. You’re still top of mind.

It would be very hard for I think the average person who’s like working a job and stuff like that to listen to mainstream media and stuff like that and not feel hopeless. Yeah, or feel hopeless because that’s what they want you to feel because then you’re obedient. Yeah. Then you’re docile because what happens there may be like a couple thousand of them. There’s seven billion of us. Like if that is not a system working.

Adrienne:

Yeah.

Alisha:

Like from like a systems working standpoint, not talking about like all the death and stuff like that’s pretty incredible.

Adrienne:

Yeah.

Alisha:

We have, are so incredibly disconnected from each other that like, have witnessed stuff that if it is not like, like people will be like, I’m just not okay. And I’m like, thank God, because that means you are human and you still have a little bit of connectedness to humanity. Because the people that are fine right now, I’m terrified.

Yeah, that is such a reflection of how disconnected from humanity you are or how indoctrinated to just care about yourself and really think that that’s gonna save you.

Adrienne:

Because if you can live in your privilege bubble and your kids can live in your privilege bubble and then you’re there from birth to death, that’s okay with a lot of people. I think there are a lot of people that are happy to have that be their life.

Alisha:

I don’t think they’re actually happy. I don’t think they’re actually, I think they are happy because I worked with a lot of people who made tons of money and I watched them as they made more and more money become more physically ill, become more mentally ill because it is a sick system. It’s addiction, right? So if we keep trying to build exponentially, right? And just like forever grow. we want to be like empire, we will get that way too. It is the system, right? Like that’s what I want people to understand is this is not like a personal attack on like individuals. This is trying to get people to understand that how you feel and a lot of the beliefs that you had and that you’re giving to your children are going to keep perpetuating the same harm that has been happening for hundreds of years. It is the system. They’re not your beliefs. You think that people deserve, you know, like peace, because that is a characteristic of this, like peace in a higher role, because that’s a characteristic of this system. It’s not because you actually believe that. That was a belief that was given to you by the system that we live in, right? And we are gonna keep repeating that stuff. I do it all the time. All the time. I was raised by my Irish American mother who’s very racist. Didn’t know she was, but she is. And so I’m constantly having to check myself and be like, is this, is me rushing, it’s white supremacy. I don’t want to exhibit that type of behavior. I’m not gonna be linear with my like scheduling. Rest is rebellion.

Anytime I’m like, I should do this. I should do the dishes. I’m like, fuck the dishes. That’s rebellion. I’m not doing it. And I show my kids that. And when I’m struggling and I can’t figure out what I should do for myself, because I still have a lot of times where I fall back into that mindset and that place. And I use this all the time, but I’m like, okay, if my kids were in the exact same situation, what would I want them to do? Would I want them to care for themselves? Would I want them to go whatever and whatever I would want the people who I love and cherish the most on this planet to do is what I do for myself because I know the only chance I have of ever getting them to love themselves in that way is from watching me love myself in that way. That’s how I fight the internal chatter of, you know, don’t take those four hours and go like hug a tree by yourself in the woods because you need it, right? Like that is where I’m like, okay, but if my daughter called me right now and was like, I’m totally stressed out and I feel like I should do X instead of taking care of myself, I would be like FX, go take care of yourself right now. And if that’s what I want my little babies to do, I know because I have watched it in my older kids to do it myself. You have to, otherwise you were gonna end up with kids that you’re watching do the things that you see were so painful to you. And that pain is not something I ever want to feel again. That is my motivation is to never feel that again. When I see my older kids experiencing things that I know is me and that I knew at the time, I don’t know, wasn’t great. It’s painful. Like I, I use that as motivation when I don’t, I’m like, it’s selfish to take care of myself. I’m like, but I want to see my kids taking care of themselves.

Adrienne:

Yeah. That is a great place to end on. Cause I feel like we’ve gone full circle with rage, which is great. I love it. But we’re back to like, we love our babies. We love all the children of the world. Right. Palestine, Indigenous Children Today is September 30th. It’s Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada, where we honor and recognize the tool of oppression of residential schools that the government used in Canada and the Catholic Church used in Canada to once again disconnect Indigenous children from themselves, from their family, from their arts, from their culture, from their language, and force assimilate them into a capitalist white supremacist system. That same thing is going on. We don’t have quote unquote residential schools that are open anymore, but the same tools of oppression are being used. And maybe kids are not getting killed and thrown in furnaces like they were, but it’s the same mentality of forced assimilation. It’s the same mentality of conformity and obedience, and rewards and bribes and threats and punishments. And so you and I, I love that you ended on that, that we look at our children, we think of our inner child, we think of what we needed as children and what do they need? They don’t need grades and test scores. They need love. They need regulation. They need that supportive loving environment. And so I think we should end there with that. Like if we can re-look at our kids, reframe our kids, as what we needed with our inner child and then give that same love and acceptance and whatever to ourselves. We didn’t want to be rushed as kids. So why are we rushing our kids? We didn’t wanna be yelled

Alisha:

You don’t even like to be rushed now. That’s right, yeah. Yeah, like why, yes. that compassion, Yes, yes. So let’s We will have a world full of amazing little humans if we do that.

Adrienne:

Yeah, okay, I very, very much.

love and admire and respect you, Alisha. And I thank you so much for coming on. I am honored to have you on.

Alisha:

I was so excited when you reached out. I followed you for a while. So I’m super excited. This was awesome. Thank you so much. Yes. Okay. We’ll chat soon. All right. Bye.

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I’m a former teacher turned unschooling mom of three. I teach parents how to break away from the status quo and be more present, so they can create an authentic life alongside their kids outside of school without overwhelm and burnout. 

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