My daughter Zami just turned 14 months old (I don't know if anyone here remembers when she was first born, our picture was on the News page the next day or so). She is growing so fast and smart as any 3 year old I've ever met!

Being new to this childraising thing, I'll share with you some of my partner and my ideas/practices in raising her:

First and foremost, she is our little friend. We give her the love and respect that we would give to our best friends. She sees us as her buddies as well. She is very affectionate and expressive and we try to reflect that to her in our interactions with each other and her.

She has been given a steady diet of breast milk and organic vegetarian foods. Sheeet, when I think of all the shit I ate as a kid (Twinkies, sneakin' Fruit Loops at my Grandma's etc) she is so far ahead of the game in terms of health, and she reflects that accordingly. She is the healthiest kid I've ever seen .. full of life and joy. We also haven't vaccinated her as we consider these substances poisons 9 not to mention the cause of many diseases that we're seeing today). If there's an out break of anything serious, we may reconsider this (and this goes for just about everything. We are not purists by any streach of the imagination, but we try to remain conscious of the truths that we are presented with).

We let her explore her world, which she takes advantage of. She is wildly explorative and inquisative. We sure nuff let her know when she's in danger and explain what that's all about, but we try not to stifle her natural inquisitiveness. We want more than anything for her to know freedom.

Although she is technically "biracial (African, Cherokee, French, British to be more exact), we will let her know of the cultures from which she comes, but pretty much identify her as black ... but black in the most broad understanding of that word (like how in England all people of color:Jamaicans, South Asians etc identify as "black" in a positive, empowered way). She has good relationships with all her family, but we generally move in circles that are dominated by people of color.

She is alraedy a fantastic drummer, dancer and singer. She knows of the world of the spirit (perhaps more than we do) and has joined us in our extended espiritual family/practice.

Names are important too, and she is named for Audre Lorde (Her auto-mythography is called Zami: A New Spelling of My Name). Zami (our daughter) is smart as a whip, already a critical thinker, and highly willful. We subtlly encourage rebelliousness in her, knowing that it will come to haunt us one day, but also know that she'll thank us for it one day ...

love and respect,
El Rey

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