Spoonie Parenting Manifesto *free download*

An intersectional approach

I’m excited to share this Spoonie Parenting Manifesto with you all! As an artist and parent living with hidden disabilities, it can feel difficult to find “my people” (which I know is also an illusion). I have found incredible connections with other parents who also live with various disabilities. But, not too many folks who are also practicing artists. It’s kinda a niche community! I also struggle to know my audience. Am I speaking to artists, to mothers, or to disabled folks? And what about my many privileges? Am I writing about those?

I need to talk about the privileges I hold before I get into the disability because it needs to be stated that much of what I have to offer the community is only because I am not struggling to put food on the table. And that means that my offerings will still hold a lot of bias and blind spots. So please! If you read or download the manifesto, (available at the end) feel free to critique and question the suggestions on it. This is a living document!

Here’s a few privileges I take for granted (but don’t want to):

• I identify with the sex given to me at birth

• I have light skin and therefore am deemed “normal” to others

• My disabilities are hidden and therefore easier to mask

• I come from middle-class background which affords me a comfortable lifestyle

• I live in a country that offers free healthcare

• I am in a hetero-normative marriage which gives me financial and other benefits

• I can purchase clothing in my size from most stores

• I have a level of physical ability that makes it possible to work occasionally for money

So those are a few of the privileges that I really want to make visible. These do not erase the daily pain and struggle I live with. But I know that holding a lens of intersectionality is really important when we consider our multiple identities.

I am grateful for the work of Kimberley Crenshaw when it comes to holding multiple truths,

Intersectionality is a term coined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. This term describes how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap (Coaston). In other words, identities are complex and multiple. The term 'intersecting identities’ was used by organizers in the 2017 Women’s March to describe how people are “impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues” (Coaston). Intersectionality is essential to inclusive sustainable development because it can provide an understanding of the exclusion that we currently see in development initiatives. For example, development initiatives that address violence against women of color can be co-opted by identity politics, which often conflate and ignore intra group differences (Crenshaw 1). Violence against women is shaped by other dimensions of identity aside from gender, such as race and class (Crenshaw 1). This is just one example of many that elucidate how oftentimes, identity politics play a larger role in policy-making and development programs than intersectionality. We must change the perception and the narrative from one of identity politics to one of intersectionality.

There is a body of work being developed around Rest as Resistance by Trisha Hersey, the Nap Bishop. Many white people read and engage with her work (you can see it here) and resonate with it. She is always willing to welcome us. But, we must take seriously the position she holds as a Black woman with a history of extreme violence throughout America, and anywhere enslavement of Black people was permitted. If we look at the Rest as Resistance art and writing and jump into adopting it for ourselves, we risk co-opting a movement that is not meant for us.

Rest is resistance to capitalism and it is for everyone. But! The movement of Black people resisting work, toil, exhaustion and servitude because of the colour of their skin is real and must not be diminished by our (white folks) own struggles. These struggles are different and it would be a grave generalization to combine them. 

Where does that bring me? I have written an essay for the parenting community I belong to about my personal journey living with fibromyalgia and other hidden disabilities. It took me several weeks to write! Through that process I began the work of recognizing where the roles of oppressive systems have harmed me and contributed to my condition.

I am a woman raised in a patriarchal, evangelical home with a relatively recent immigrant storyline. I know some of the generational trauma brought into my life as well as early childhood trauma I experienced. Though all these threads add up, I also have a personality with preferences and styles and ways of moving through the world that also contribute, whether for good or not so good. These complex layers make writing or saying anything so difficult! If only life were as simple as a meme.

Humans endure, and courageously move forward under harm and we also perpetuate harm. Both are true. This manifesto is something to hold onto in the dark times. I’m sure I will create more manifesto’s describing ways we can face the harm we cause and the courageous acts we can take in not turning away from it. Yes please.

So hold these suggestions with adaptive language and personalize it for yourself. Start to look at your unique and complex layers of trauma and intersecting identities and map out the life you are living. If you don’t have time for that level of introspection because you are in the heat of raising young ones, start with recognizing that caring for children is unpaid work and that caring for your own body is work. There is only one of you. Start to strategize and literally write down each scenario where you are struggling and make plans to accommodate, and address your situation with love and care.

Ableism (which comes in many subtle, internal and external ways) really wants to erase our needs. It wants to assimilate us into a body we don’t have. The sooner we can recognize that our body is good and worthy of love, the sooner we can access the care we deserve.

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