Janice Johnson Dias - Parent Like It Matters: How to Raise Joyful, Change-Making Girls

In early 2002 I gave birth to my first childa girl born weighing just six pounds. It had been a long birth and a stressful labor, the baby finally pushing through only after the doctors had begun looking for an operating room in which they could perform a C-section. I was thirty-nine and had spent the previous six years planning for the day when I would be called Mommy. I knew I wanted a child. I knew the gender did not matter. I knew I was at a point in my life when I could devote time to being a mother. I was not caught up in some kind of dream birth plan, so a C-section wasnt stressing me at all. According to the doctors, the baby was two weeks late and her heart rate was spiking. I wanted her safe. I wanted her alive. I wanted her out of me. And, as she would do for the next eighteen years, just when we thought wed have to make a new plan for getting her to show up, she showed upa crop of black curls crowning. And ten minutes later, I was suddenly a mother.

Looking back on that time, when I spent long hours moving through the pages of What to Expect When Youre Expecting, I realize the book I wish I had had at my bedside was Parent Like It Matters. Instead of Dr. Spock, I wish I had had Dr. Johnson Dias. Her soothing cadence only enhances the brilliance on the pages youre about to read. What Janice Johnson Dias brings to us here is a manifesto for raising loving, intentional, brilliant, change-making young people. And while those of us raising girls will find this book astonishingly beneficial, there is something here for all of us. As evidenced by her own daughter, Marley Dias, a young internationally known activist, author, and scholar, Parent Like It Matters is a present-day blueprint for shining a light on ourselves and our daughters so that they can grow into the amazing young people we hoped to bring them here to be.

Like so many parents, my partner and I concerned ourselves with the education of our childwhich schools would be the best fit and how we would access them. Too late we learned that our neighborhood had changed so rapidly that our zoned school had seemingly overnight become more than 90 percent white. We had both been taught, through our own upbringings, the importance of education. Both of us eschewed private education for public. When our daughter was born, we remained intentional about circling her with extended family, both chosen and biological. We believed in the Village of Child Raising, the importance of our daughter knowing there are many ways to have family. And because, for a long time, I had not known my own father, we were intentional about our daughter spending time with her dad, a close friend of ours who lived in California.

Five months after our daughters birth, her father and his wife gave birth to a girl. This shifted our intentions once again. We wanted to make sure the sisters grew up close, making a point to come together for every birthday and holiday. Six years later, my partner gave birth to our son. And again, our family and our intentions shifted with the hopes not only of ensuring that our young people had room to figure out who they were and all that they could become, but also of blanketing them with the love of their extended family.

And yet

We hadnt truly thought about what kind of impact we wanted our children to have on the world. We hadnt thought about intentionally working toward their happiness, health, well-being. We had figured because we were activists, our children would naturally grow up to be activists. Because we were hardworking, our kids would be so too. And what about self-confidence? Didnt this too just naturally flow from mothers to daughters?

WellIve come to learn it does not. As my daughter grew, I began to see how she saw herself reflected through the gaze of the world around her. A world that too often didnt see her beauty. Her brilliance. Her shine. I knew then that other tools were needed. Even with our wonderful village, our nightly conversations around the dinner table, our showing up for every school play and parent-teacher conference. Even through the years of piano lessons and dance classes and huge birthday parties. Even as we traveled abroad for months at a time each year to help our kids understand more of the world and worked to expand their dietary and social palates. Even as we refused to shy away from conversations about alcohol, sex, toxic friendships. Even as we thought we were parenting intentionally, there was still so much we didnt know.

From volunteerism to visualization to living with purpose. From igniting social action to change-making. From the love we feel the first time we hold our daughters in our arms to the eternity of love that comes after that, our parenting truly matters. Janices warm and conversational tone brings us comfort and confidence, and her well-conceived assignments put us to task and show us the work weve yet to do. By the end of this book, we are able to see ourselves as parents through a new lens. And finally, we can truly see our children in all of their wonder and possibility. Ive learned that its never too late to begin to parent like it matterswith love, with intention, with gratitude.

As parents we often talk about how fast our children growthe long nights and short years. Heres to all of us using those years wisely, to create a better world and to teach our children to do the same.

Welcome to Parent Like It Matters. Both you and your child will be better because of this book. I wish you peace, joy, and so much love on the journey.