Letter from the Editor
What We Did This Summer
Dear Kindred,

What did we do here at Kindred this summer? As Stephanie Mines encourages us to do in her video presentation to the Kindred Fellowship Program below, we sought to "live into the mystery" between inner and outer climate change, moving forward with our commitment to make a difference and inspire as we are able. Our allies are many, Stephanie notes, as "those living systems want to communicate with us to give us what data cannot record. To give us the capacity to make the changes that need to be made and to inspire others to make those changes."

The Kindred Fellowship Program, created over a year during quarantine with a dedicated team of facilitators, including Reshma Grewal, our returning and seasoned fellow and now junior board member, and David Metler, our fearless social justice education editor. Below you will find the showcase presentations of our fellows, who spent the summer meeting with an international line-up of presenters to explore the systemic roots of social (in)justice in childhood through kindred activism: a theory of activism centering childhood in activism that is authentic, reflexive and relational. This "life-changing" pilot program, as one fellow says, is our attempt to support the next generation of changemakers, while passing on Kindred's quarter century of archival wisdom. Please enjoy the videos below from David, who gives us an overview of What We Did This Summer, and marvel at the fellows' showcase presentations.

Please join us tonight for a LIVE discussion with Darcia Narvaez, PhD, on the Breaking the Cycle short film, and THANK YOU for helping us to break 10,000 views this month!

We are here, and carrying on our mission to explore and share a New Story of Childhood, Parenthood, and the Human Family. Please let us know how we can better serve you and your community, and please support our nonprofit work with your tax-deductible donation. You can read our Guidestar Gold Seal of Transparency report and over 70 five-star Great Nonprofit reviews here for inspiration to give!

And lastly, my deepest gratitude to the visitors of our family's 4x8 pollinator patch, outside of a first floor window, who fed us soul food this summer, freely, and helped to make Kindred and all of its initiatives possible. The photo above is a Snowberry Clearwing Month on a native Skullcap Hyssop. You are welcome to view more of this summer's helpers in the gallery on this editoral's page here.

Enjoy your Kindred newsletter issue below,

editor@kindredmedia.org
Kindred Media, Editor
Kindred World, Co-Founder
TONIGHT! Breaking the Cycle Film Discussion!
Breaking the Cycle Film Discussion is TONIGHT!
Join Darcia Narvaez and Lisa Reagan for a discussion of the new short film, Breaking the Cycle. The discussion is free, but you must register to join.

August 10, Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET


Thank you for sharing the film and helping us to break 10,000 views this month!

Visit the film's site to view the film and discover resources.
Breaking the Cycle Film Discussion & Resource Guide
In the Discussion and Resource Guide you will find:

  • A LETTER FROM DARCIA NARVAEZ
  • WHAT TO DO NEXT
  • ABOUT BREAKING THE CYCLE
  • BREAKING THE CYCLE FILM SCRIPT
  • FILM DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  • ABOUT THE EVOLVED NEST 
  • ARTICLES AND RESOURCES TO SHARE
  • THE RESEARCHER AND THE BOOK 
  • FILM RESEARCH REFERENCES
  • YOUR NOTES SECTION

You are welcome to join the online discussion about the film at our Mighty Networks group here.

The Maternal Gift Economy
Are We Homo Donans?
The Maternal Gift Economy: We Are Homo Donans, Gift-Givers, Not Homo Sapiens

In this Kindred interview with Genevieve Vaughan, you will learn how our current COVID-19 quarantine, climate change crisis, and failing capitalist systems share a root cause: our need to return to our life-affirming Maternal Gift Economy.

We are born into a Gift Economy practiced by those who mother us, enabling us to survive. The economy of exchange, quid pro quo, separates us from each other and makes us adversarial, while gift giving and receiving creates mutuality and trust.

Two basic economic paradigms coexist in the world today. They are logically contradictory and conflictual but also complementary. They are connected with patriarchy, the construction of gender and the way we form our concepts. They permeate the culture.What we need to do is validate the one connected with satisfying needs and diminish the one based on the market, causing a basic shift in the values by which we direct our lives and policies.

Listen to the podcast here, and read Genevieve Vaughan's essays on Kindred here.
Next Generation Changemakers
The Kindred Fellowship "What We Did This Summer" Report!
In this video, you will meet David Metler, Kindred Fellowship Program’s co-founder, facilitator, and discover his overview, takeaways, and insights into this summer’s exploration of centering childhood in social justice education. KFP is an educational initiative of Kindred World.

The 2021 Kindred Fellowship Program's Showcase
Watch the Kindred Fellows present their "life-changing" experiences during this summer's inaugural and dynamic program. KFP's unique mission is to guide students on an innovative educational journey that explores the systemic roots of social (in)justice in childhood through Kindred Activism: a theory of activism centering childhood in activism that is authentic, relational, and imaginative. The program has been featured on the Centers for Partnership Studies Leadership blog, the Rutger’s University’s Childism Institute blog, and in an ongoing series on Kindred Media.

The program, its concepts, and curriculum were developed over a year – during quarantine – by a dedicated team.

Living Into The Mystery...
Between Inner and Outer Climate Change
In this outtake from her presentation to the Kindred Fellowship Program in July 2021, Stephanie Mines, PhD, shares how her person and professional background shaped her insights into a “fusion of trauma recovery and climate activism”.

She shares at the 20 minute mark: “The extremity of climate change has the potential to wake people up, and there’s still that sliver of time, and then there is the mystery, that data may not be everything. That mystery piece needs to be factored in and needs to be lived in, which is, and this is how I live, that regardless of the data, I’m going to keep doing what I am doing to make a difference. Despair and pessimism, even on a neuro endocrine level, on the level of biochemistry, is illness-inducing. So, being able to stay in a forward moving, inspired direction is one of the places where the inner and outer climates meet. In that mystery place, which is connected to that sliver of opportunity, is our connection with the natural world… those living systems want to communicate with us to give us what data cannot record. To give us the capacity to make the changes that need to be made and to inspire others to make those changes… since I fused my work as a trauma specialist with climate activism, my communication with the natural world has accelerated.”

August Is National Breasting Month
Breast Milk Is Medicine For Babies
By Darcia Narvaez, PhD

Among First Nation Peoples, breast milk is understood to be the child’s first “medicine.”

An increasing number of scientific studies are demonstrating why calling human breast milk “medicine” may be more than a metaphor. And because it is National Breastfeeding Month, it is important to keep up with the research showing how important breastfeeding is for the nation’s children.

Native Breastfeeding Week is now Indigenous Milk Medicine Week and is celebrated August 8-14.

"We can heal trauma through Indigenous Milk Medicine. It’s called Epigenetic memory. Reclaim your place as a healer when you reclaim the milk medicine back for your Indigy babes."

Listen and download the Kindred interview with Native Breastfeeding Week founder, Jaysha Lyons-Hawk.

"In decolonizing practices of motherhood such as breastfeeding, we can promote food sovereignty, body sovereignty, and the healing of the next generation. In decolonizing feeding practices, we follow the needs of our children.” 

Breastfeeding Resources
The Men Of ROBE: Standing At The Intersection Of Fatherhood, Infant Mortality, Breastfeeding And Social Justice

Class Conflict, Breastfeeding Policy And Creating Systemic Change: An Interview With Joan C. Williams

Breastfeeding Disparities In The African American Community

Features
The Antidote to Exhaustion: Wholeheartedness
By Kelly Wendorf

Is the antidote to your exhaustion and overwhelm wholeheartedness? If so, where can you find it? And what do you need to let go of so that you can give your most whole hearted gifts to the world?

Raising Children In The USA Today: Changes Needed In Policies And Structures
By Marvin Bram

The next Amendment to the Constitution, the twenty-ninth, should stand to children as the Equal Rights Amendment will stand to women. An Equal Protection Amendment must make clear that the protections of adult assault and battery law will be extended to all children from birth. The necessary if not sufficient condition for seeing to a humane future is the cessation of the corporal punishment of children. 

Pam Leo On Family Literacy As Social Justice, And Her New Book!
Listen to Pam Leo, author of the beloved book, Connection Parenting, share how family literacy is both connection parenting AND a social justice issue. The Book Fairy Pantry Project was awarded a Stephen and Tabitha King grant for $25,000 this month to distribute Pam Leo’s new book, Please Read To Me, to Maine families (see press release below). In this interview, Pam shares the creation of the book, which included bringing together seven Maine illustrators.

Pam also shares her brand of “community aRtivism” in putting the surplus of books in our communities together with the families who have few or none. As Pam explains, literacy is a social justice issue because your level of literacy in childhood determines your survival and thrive capacity as an adult.

BONUS: If you listen to the end, you will hear Pam read her poem, Please Read To Me, in the new book to us!
 
Book Review PODCAST
Connection Parenting: A Review of the Beloved Classic By Pam Leo
Mary Tarsha and Darcia Narvaez review the beloved classic, Connection Parenting, by Pam Leo. The book is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year.


Read the written review: Are You A Connected Or Controlling Parent?
Kindred News
Book Fairy Pantry Project Receives $25,000 Grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation
The Book Fairy Pantry Project is the proud recipient of a $25,000 grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. The grant is supporting the distribution of BFPP’s founder, Pam Leo, and her first children’s book, Please Read To Me. Leo is also the author of the beloved book Connection Parenting.

“This goal of this campaign to lower the high risk for illiteracy of babies born to under-resourced families in Maine who often cannot afford board books for their new babies and may be unaware of the value and importance of reading to their babies early and often,” said BFPP founder, Pam Leo. “Without books in the home from the very beginning, parents are unable to give their babies the strong foundation they will need for one day learning to read and they will miss opportunities to strengthen their vital parent-child bond through reading to their babies.”

RESOURCES
Discover the Nine Components of the Evolved Nest in this Self-Directed Learning Center
The Evolved Nest is our neurobiological path to reclaiming our humanity and breaking the cycle, as the new film shows. If you would like a simple way to explore the nine components of our Evolved Nest, check out this overview page on the Evolved Nest website. Each component has its own webpage with a collection of videos, podcasts, articles, and more (like a childcare check list) pertaining to that Evolved Nest component.

The Evolved Nest and Kindred Media are sister initiatives under the parent nonprofit, Kindred World.

DONATE
Please Support Kindred World's Nonprofit Initiatives
Why do we need citizen-supported media? Because, as the Sustainable Human Film says below, this is how we will tell our own stories, learn about one another, and collaborate to create a compassionate, sustainable world. Enjoy the video and check out our Breaking the Cycle short film created with our partner, the Sustainable Human Film company.

Kindred | www.KindredMedia.org