Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities

by Victoria Law (Editor), China Martens (Editor)

Overview

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind focuses on issues affecting children and caregivers within the larger framework of social justice, mutual aid, and collective liberation.

How do we create new, nonhierarchical structures of support and mutual aid, and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? There are many books on parenting, but few on being a good community member and a good ally to parents, caregivers, and children as we collectively build a strong all-ages culture of resistance. Any group of parents will tell you how hard their struggles are and how they are left out, but no book focuses on how allies can address issues of caretakers’ and children’s oppression. Many well-intentioned childless activists don’t interact with young people on a regular basis and don’t know how. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind provides them with the resources and support to get started.

Contributors include: The Bay Area Childcare Collective, Ramsey Beyer, Rozalinda Borcilă, Mariah Boone, Marianne Bullock, Lindsey Campbell, Briana Cavanaugh, CRAP! Collective, a de la maza pérez tamayo, Ingrid DeLeon, Clayton Dewey, David Gilbert, A.S. Givens, Jason Gonzales, Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia), Jessica Hoffman, Heather Jackson, Rahula Janowski, Sine Hwang Jensen, Agnes Johnson, Simon Knaphus, Victoria Law, London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group, Amariah Love, Oluko Lumumba, mama raccoon, Mamas of Color Rising/Young Women United, China Martens, Noemi Martinez, Kathleen McIntyre, Stacey Milbern, Jessica Mills, Tomas Moniz, Coleen Murphy, Maegan ‘la Mamita Mala’ Ortiz, Traci Picard, Amanda Rich, Fabiola Sandoval, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, Mikaela Shafer, Mustafa Shakur, Kate Shapiro, Jennifer Silverman, Harriet Moon Smith, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Darran White Tilghman, Jessica Trimbath, Max Ventura, and Mari Villaluna.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604863963
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	10/05/2012
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Victoria Law is a mother, photographer, and writer. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, which won the 2009 PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award and earned her the 2011 Brooklyn College Young Alumna Award.

Widely known as the grandma of the mama zine scene and a pioneer in the genre of radical parenting writing, China Martens raised her daughter as a single mother on welfare and working poor while continuing to put out The Future Generation, the longest-running parenting zine in the history of the Western world (1990 to the present). Her daughter is nearly 24 years old and her zine has been anthologized into the book The Future Generation: The Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others (Atomic Book Company 2007).

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 Challenging the Status Quo

Audacious Enough Mama Fabiola Sandoval 9

Fathering the World Tomas Moniz 12

We're here ... We're Queer ... and that's not all Rei 15

Doing it Together: An Interview with Diana Block on Childcare, Movement Support, and Parenting Underground Victoria Law 18

Chapter 2 Building Blocks

The Red Crayon Jessica Trimbath 29

La Casita is ours! A Conversation with Children in Struggle Rozalinda Borcila 34

New Kids on the Block Ramsey Beyer 45

Lactivists do it Better: What Radical Parents' Allies can Learn from La Leche League International Mariah Boone 49

The Unfinished Universe Darran White Tilghman 53

Chapter 3 What's Gender, Race, and Class got to do with it?

This Poem Is in Honor of Mothers Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia 61

Is Everyone at the Table? An Interview with Noemi Martinez, Fabiola Sandoval, and Maegan "la Mamita Mala" Ortiz-Three Single Mother of Color Media Markers Victoria Law China Martens 62

How to Build a Community that Involves Single Parents Noemi Martinez 67

Mami vs. Mommy, Mami'hood vs. Motherhood: What do Mami Movements Need? Maegan 'la Mamita Mala" Ortiz 69

Support can be Conditional When you're Trans or Queer: An Interview Katie Kaput Jennifer Fichter Victoria Law 72

Performing Allyship: Notes from a Queer Migrant Parent a de la maza pérez tamayo 79

On Fear and Commitments Mustafa Shukur 82

Chapter 4 Collective Action

A Message from Mamas of Color Rising and Young Women United: Mother's Day, 2010 91

Reclaim the Commons Maxina Ventura 94

Experiencing Critical Resistance 10 (CR10) Through the Children's Program Kate Shapiro 97

Whose City? KIDZ City! Sine Hwang Jensen Harriet Moon Smith China Martens 101

Homeflueness Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia 105

Mothers Among Us: The Prison Birth Project Marianne Bullock 108

Organizing within an Anarcha-Feminist Childrearing Collective Crap 111

An Open Letter to Movement Men David Gilbert 116

Men Running Childcare London Pro-Feminist Men's Group 117

Continuing the Struggle: Lessons Learned from Mothers and Children in Zapatista Communities Victoria Law 119

Chapter 5 Lists, Lessons, and Concrete Tips for Supporting Children and Caregivers

Tips on How to Support your Friend During Pregnancy Jessica Hoffmann 129

Taking Care of your Friends Postpartum Clayton Dewey 131

Babyproofing for Punks Clayton Dewey 133

Supporting your Friend who Lost their Newborn Infant Mikaela Shafer 136

Concrete Things you can do to Support Parents and Children in your Scene: Suggestions Brainstormed at La Rivoltal, an Anarcha-Feminist Conference in Boston, 2006 137

Lessons from Planning Radical Childcare China Martens 139

Radical Childcare Collective Start-up Notes Amariah Love 144

Wizards Around the Rainbow Encian Pastel the Bay Area Childcare Collective 152

Activities for Children Rahula Janowski China Martens Victoria Law 162

Creating Family Space Jason Gonzales, Revolutionary Parenting Caucus, and a-parenting Listserv 164

Don't Forget Familiez on the Rez! Mari Villauna 166

Concrete Ways to Support Parents and Children Fighting White Supremacy from a Pan-Afrikan Perspective Monalisa Lennon Diallo a.k.a. Oluko Lumumba Agnes Johnson Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie 167

Holistic First Aid for all Ages Traci Picard 169

Chapter 6 Different Approaches

Taking Community-Building Seriously Heather Jackson 177

Equal Access: community Childcare for Special Needs Jennifer Silverman 180

How do we Integrated Kids and Adults? What are our Expectations about Integrating with Each Other as a Community? (snippets from a discussion on the a-parenting listserv) Laura Gyre Simon Knaphus Briana Cavanaugh 184

Call to Destiny A. S. Givens 187

Supporting Unschooling Families Sasha Luci 193

Ways to Support Single Mothers mama raccoon 196

At my Church, we call it "Radical Hospitality" Coleen Murphy 198

Chapter 7 Don't Leave Anyone Behind

Accessibility Stacey Milbern 205

Don't Leave your Mental Health Behind Lindsey Campbell 208

Parental Caregiving and Loss: Ideas for Caregivers and their Allies Kathleen McIntyre Cynthia Ann Schemmer 211

Un Corazón separado por una frontera/A Heart Separated by a border Ingrid DeLeon Carina Lomeli Poor Magazine 218

Through all the Transitions: A Duet on Caregiving, Family, and Community Jessica Mills Amanda Rich 221

Contribute Biographies 226

Acknowledgments 234

Editorial Reviews

This book is mind-blowing, brilliant, and urgently needed! It is full of useful models and strategies for creating resistance that breaks down barriers to participation for children and people caring for children, and integrates deeply transformative commitments to building radically different activist culture and practice. This is a must-read for anyone trying to build projects based in collective action.”
—Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

“Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is an essential resource for the interdependence revolution in progress. As a queer, chronically ill woman of color who loves and needs the parents and kids in my communities, I am hungry for these on the ground stories of how parents, allies, comrades, fam and friends are rewriting the world by refusing to hold mamas, papis and kids anywhere but at the center of our movements and communities, where we’re supposed to be.”
—Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, co-editor, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities

“Activist mothers Law and Martens propose that radical movements interested in winning must welcome parents and their children—the youngest rabble rousers. They have created a practical guide for us all to do just that, but with zero guilt trips and moralizing. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind puts teeth into the slogan, Another World is Possible by showing us what a healthy left might look like.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times

“A powerful mixture of self-help and literature, putting ‘family values’ in a new light and on the agenda of social justice movements. And it’s not just self-help for radicals who are parents, but food for everyone who seeks to become their better, more compassionate selves.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, activist, teacher, author of Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years: 1960-1975

From the Publisher