Hello everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert. And today I’m joined again with the fantabulous Neva Lee Recla.
Hi everyone.
And we’re talking today about radical parenting, which we’re super excited about because, well, we love Burning Man and everything’s radical at Burning Man.
We love being weirdos.
We love being weirdos, we do. That’s kind of our shtick. So radical parenting.
Radical Parenting.
We did in the disrupt reality reclamation episode. Neva Lee decides to inform the world that we’re not normal and proceed to share with people that we play a game in our house that if you make a sex joke during dinner and you get a reaction out of somebody, you get a point.
Sorry.
Yeah, sorry not sorry. This is what happens folks. If you’re not good with transparency, don’t give your kid a mic and a platform. Really, really bad idea.
Reckless idea.
What?
It’s recklessly unveiled.
The reckless unveiled, I like it. So you’re going to have to speak up my dearest. Well, you don’t have to, I guess you can mumble if you want. Let’s just be clear. You have a choice.
I do.
So radical parenting. Other than sex jokes at the dinner table, which we explained in detail in the reclamation, so don’t crucify us just for that. I can see the comments rolling in now. It’s really not that serious folks, but that’s kind of us, right?
It’s our life.
We like to question things. We’d like to disrupt things. We like to say, well what if and why would we want to do that? And do we even like doing that and do we have to do it that way? And so what’s that like for you? It’s kind of a weird question ’cause what else do you know? But you can observe the world and you can see what’s not that. So what do you think?
It makes me kind of grateful that I’m learning that kind of stuff at a young age.
It makes me kind of grateful that I’m learning that kind of stuff at a young age. Because that way when I’m older I have a kind of a box to put it in here.
Like what kind of stuff? What do you mean?
Sex jokes, cuss words, things like that. And also that helps me learn things and kind of explain things myself because I go to a lot of adult business conferences and so that way if someone says something sexual, I can be like, oh, I know what that means.
Well and I think that’s really where it came from. After you made that comment on the show I was kind of wondering how did we get started with this? And I gave an explanation on the show for one of the reasons why I think it happens, but I think another part is exactly that. What didn’t feel good as your mom was to be sitting in a room and you’re involved and it’s like as long as it was about business or being a kid or whatever, then you could follow the conversation? But then people would make these kinds of ridiculous little comments in your presence.
And I’d be like, what does that mean?
You wouldn’t though. You would just kind of look at me with this like a helpless expression like “Ah, what do I do here?” And then would act all weird and I mean it was just kind of gross and it’s like, so now you’re, then the only message you get in it is like whatever they said was somehow inappropriate, funny, gross, something was bad quote unquote about you witnessing it and it’s like how do you..
And the programming is, it’s bad. And I have had times where adults have cussed in front of me or they said something quote-unquote inappropriate in front of me and they’ve covered my ears. I’ve had times where someone has come up behind me and I don’t even really know them and they’ve covered my ears. I’m like, “What the frick are you doing to me?”
You live such a bizarre existence.
I do.
I’m so grateful that I get to just watch you do it and that I’m not doing it.
Yeah. It also had times where adults have cussed in front of me and they’ve immediately covered their mouths and been so embarrassed. And what I say to that is my parents were spies and we’re in the army. It’s fine, I’m used to it.
You’re over it, huh? Well, and honestly that part of the reason why, so on the flip side of things, ’cause I’m sure a lot of parents are listening and going, “Oh my gosh, I could never do that.” And what’s the thing? I want to be really clear: She just has a certain kind of countenance that she self edits really well. She kind of has her own rhythm and her own drum beat. And so she’s never, well I mean ,she self edits better than most adults. And so people can curse in front of her and everything and immediately, even if she repeats what that person has said, she alters the word for herself and we don’t treat it like a good versus bad. It’s more of like, “How does that land for you? What’s the vibration of it? Does it feel heavy and dense and gross when you say it? And if so, don’t say it.” So words like stupid and hate. There are words that we’ve just pretty much removed from our vocabulary. Not because they’re bad, but because they don’t feel good to say.
They don’t even feel good for me to say. And if you noticed, I did say frick or frickin, it’s almost more playful. I get to come up with my own cuss words.
But not really because we demanded that you don’t, in fact, there have been times when you were singing a song and you would switch up the word. I’m like if you’re singing a song and it’s one of the lyrics, it’s okay, ’cause we kind of do this free reign parenting thing. But she doesn’t. She just doesn’t. Nor does she, she may make little snide, not snide but little sidebar remarks that are kind of questionable in nature, mostly having to do with, I’m not going to say it. I’m not ready to be that transparent just yet. But it’s a trip. I’m telling you it is a trip to walk beside this one. But that piece of it, back to my original point, this is nine years in the making folks, so don’t think that you’re going to just start making sex jokes or cursing in front of your kids and that that’s going to go well for you if they’re older than two.
There’s also a difference is I’ve been used to it for nine years. Since I’ve been going to business conferences, since I was two, I’ve been used to hearing sexual comments or cuss words, versus your kid is seven and now you just bring it along. Don’t be surprised if they go along and start saying those things.
Right. That’s not a fair expectation to hold them to. I agree. And keep in mind this has nothing to do with sexual comments.
We are not telling you how to parent also.
We are not telling you how to parent also.
Yeah, we’re not telling you how to parent, right? Go for it. See how that works out. But what it represents is this dichotomy in our society about kid things are over here, adult things are over here, but then magically when they become adults, we expect them to know how to navigate those spaces.
Exactly.
How are they going to know how to navigate those spaces if they’ve never been in those spaces.
It’s also kind of like on the boys separated from girls. I did hot clothes for kids videos. Dang, I’ve been bringing this up a lot, about boys’ things and girls’ things. And I remember I was reviewing a Stormtroopers dress, and I was talking about how there shouldn’t be a difference between boys’ toys and girls’ toys.
Just toys. That’s what you said, it was so cute. Maybe we’ll put a link to that clip on here. So we’re going to keep talking about radical parenting and bring Neva back here after the break. But before we do, you can find her at nevaleerecla.com or superpowerkids.com, all over social media and all that good stuff. So when we come back from the break, we’re going to dive into radical parenting and maybe how you can start taking some steps toward radical parenting. Not necessarily to dive off the deep end and go full force. So stick with us and when we come back, we’re going to glean some information here from little Miss Neva and you’re not going to want to miss it.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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