How Culture Affects Our Parenting
Episode 21: How Culture Affects Our Parentung with Melina Gac Levin of @parentpueblo
Join Rachael and guest Melina Gac Levin, as they have important conversations around culture, parenting, and sleep. They discuss what conversations parents should have before they have kids about how culture may impact their parenting and hear some advice Melina would offer to parents who come from different cultural backgrounds who are navigating potential conflicts or differences in parenting approaches. They chat about some strategies for parents who want to blend different cultural parenting approaches and traditions and how cultural values and beliefs influence the way parents make decisions about their children’s sleep, behavior, plus so much more!
Melina is an early childhood development specialist, graduate professor, writer, and mother. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Mike, and their two daughters. Melina’s professional background is as an educator and she spent over 10 years in the classroom. She holds dual masters in Infant and Family Development, Early Intervention & Early Childhood General and Special Education from Bank Street, where she now teaches graduate students in education and social work all about infant development. She is also the founder of PUEBLO which equips multicultural parents with the skills and knowledge to parent confidently together.
Freebie on discovering Your Parenting Values: designed to help couples understand themselves and each other, so they can have more nuanced and productive conversations moving forward
Pueblo Website: https://www.parentpueblo.com
Melina’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parentpueblo/
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
Listen to the full episode
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Rachael (00:00:03) - Welcome to no one Told us today. We're here with Melina, 11, and Melina is an early childhood development specialist, a graduate professor, a writer and a mother living in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and their two daughters. Melina's professional background is as an educator, and she's spent over ten years in the classroom. She holds dual masters in Infant and Family Development and Early Intervention, and early childhood general and special education. We could nerd on that stuff all day, I'm sure. And actually, I met Melina for the first time over on Hey, Sleepy Baby, because you were one of the families that we featured as A day in the life back when I was doing those a lot more often. I really need to get going on those again. They're so fun. But yeah, we got to see like a little peek inside your life and we connect it that way. And it was wonderful. So Melina, thank you so much for being here today. I'm really excited to talk with you.
Rachael (00:00:57) - Can you just start by giving us, like, a little more of a personal intro than what I just gave and telling us all about your work that you're doing now?
Melina (00:01:04) - Absolutely. Thank you. I'm so excited to be talking with you. I really am, and I think our day in the life might still even be up there in the highlights.
Rachael (00:01:13) - I think it is. I think I saved it to my highlights because I just loved it so much.
Melina (00:01:16) - It was really fun to do, and I think I've been following you not since the very beginning, but close because our oldest, I think are fairly close in age. I have a six year old and a three year old. Our stories are somewhat similar in that we started in the classroom, and then it was having children that kind of compelled me to do a different type of work. I was really interested in doing parents support, and so when I had my first daughter, I actually went back to the classroom for a year. But but after that, I left to focus on doing workshops for parents.
Melina (00:01:47) - I was doing, you know, parent groups consultations. It was going really well, and I was like slowly building this little community that I was really enjoying. And then I got pregnant with my second daughter, and I was all set to take a maternity leave. And then Covid happened.
Rachael (00:02:04) - Yeah, such a similar story to to mine because, yeah, our kids are so close in age and that was such a weird time.
Melina (00:02:10) - It was a very weird time. And I had already kind of planned to step back. You know, I'm watching all these people sort of pivot to doing online workshops. All of my stuff had been in person, and part of me was really drawn to sort of trying to figure that out. And then another voice in me said, you know what? You have a newborn. There's a pandemic. Like, let's step back and sort of, um, take some time, which I had good.
Rachael (00:02:35) - Excuses for taking a little time off. Yeah. Pandemic and new baby.
Melina (00:02:39) - The best. Two of the best. Yeah. And so I did. And one of the things that happened was that I did get to sort of see all this sort of virtual parent support kind of emerge in a bigger way and really reflect on how I wanted to engage in that when I did come back. And at the same time, you know, I was spending a lot of time at home with my husband. Yeah. And we had a lot of time to talk and reflect and do virtual therapy. And one of the things that really emerged for me out of this was the realization that culture is such a big piece of the conversation, and it's often missing, which is one of the reasons why I really appreciate that. You bring it up a lot on Hey Sleepy Baby, because it does influence everything. You know? My husband and I are a multicultural couple, and we're raising multicultural kids and trying to navigate. And I think a lot of the differences of opinion that we have are rooted in our cultural differences.
Melina (00:03:42) - And sometimes we don't even realize it until we we take that lens. So that's what led me to do the work that I do now, which is really focused on supporting multicultural families with babies and toddlers as they start their parenting journey.
Rachael (00:03:56) - I love that, and I feel like New York, you're in Brooklyn, and that's probably such a rich. I mean, it is. It's such a rich cultural place. There are people from so many different places and walks of life and traditions, so I'm sure there's just like no end to the type of people that you get to interact with there. But then online, it's such a nice resource, too, for people that might live in an area where there's not a lot of people of their own culture. Right? And this is a topic I'm so happy that you're here, because it's a topic that's very close to our hearts. My husband and I as well, because we have a multicultural niece. She's being raised bilingual. We just want to be able to embrace her and her mom into our family and their and embrace their culture.
Rachael (00:04:36) - And, um, a lot of times people might not know the best ways to do that. And so I think it's just so important what you're doing. And so you founded Pueblo. Can you explain a little bit about what that is?
Melina (00:04:46) - Yes. So before the pandemic, I'd been doing all of the work under the name of babies and toddlers. Understood. Um, and my focus was really on helping families understand what was happening developmentally because I felt like that. Makes such a big difference in terms of how we make decisions and how we sort of interpret the advice that we're given. And then after I had this sort of aha moment like, this is the this is the lens that I want to be taking, I found a pueblo, which really takes a lot of the work that I had already been doing that is focused on infant and toddler development and what's happening in their brains and in their, you know, as they grow and helps families that are multicultural then bring their own cultural values to the conversation so that we can bridge people's desires, their goals, their their hopes for their family with what the research says, to make decisions that feel good for everybody in the group, both for the child and for both parents.
Rachael (00:05:49) - And so when you say research, what do you mean by that? Is there a lot of research out there on how culture impacts parenting? Or or are you talking more about the research of development?
Melina (00:06:01) - So I'm talking about both. So some of the research that I do is um, is looking at like brain research, looking at what's happening in terms of brain development. And in addition to that, you know, I have this background in educational theory. So there's a lot of, you know, diving into the theories from from educators about how children can be supported in their development. And then I'm also looking at anthropological studies and ethnographic studies that bring in these other perspectives on how children develop, because I think that can be really eye opening for families when you realize there's actually, like many, many ways to do this and to do well and they share things, but it can look very different. Um, so we bring all of that into our classes as a way to kind of expand what is possible for parents.
Melina (00:06:50) - And then we have a lot of self-reflection and these prompts for dialogue and conversation so that parents can get to the root of what it is that they actually want.
Rachael (00:07:02) - What do you find is the maybe the biggest pain point in multicultural families, where one parent was raised one way, the other parent was raised in a very different way because of their cultural backgrounds. What do you find they struggle with the most or have a hard, the hardest time? Kind of like meeting in the middle on.
Melina (00:07:21) - Ooh, there's so many things. I bet. And, you know, I think it depends. I think some of the things that I've supported a lot of families with sleep is one of them. Um, because there's lots I mean, you know, that, you know.
Rachael (00:07:36) - That's not surprising to me at all. Yeah.
Melina (00:07:38) - So sleep is a big one, and especially because I work with with infants and toddlers. And part of that is because I feel like you're setting a foundation for your child, but you're setting a foundation as a, as a parenting couple.
Melina (00:07:49) - So it's a really sleep is.
Rachael (00:07:50) - One of those first things that comes up. Right? Because it's I mean, it's an issue like from day one. So yeah.
Melina (00:07:55) - Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was one of my sort of entry points into this too, was sleep. Um, and we can talk about that more. Yeah. Um, but so sleep is a big one. I'd say feeding is another one. There's a lot of sort of tension around how to feed babies, both from, you know, thinking about like in the very early days, like, you know, whether people want a body feed or whether they want to use formula or what they what's available to them and what they're able to do. Um, and then you layer in sort of what grandmother did or what their support for. And so then those those decisions can get complicated. And then I would say as kids get older, it's more of the discipline. Yeah.
Rachael (00:08:35) - That makes a lot of sense. And then do you find that because I know you're raising your daughters to be bilingual? My my niece is also bilingual, as I mentioned.
Rachael (00:08:42) - And so do you find that that's ever kind of like a point of discussion where parents might, like, one parent might feel left out of the conversation because they don't understand that native language? Or do you feel like that ever comes into play as something that parents kind of butt heads about?
Melina (00:08:58) - Yeah, I mean, I think. It can be things that it can be something that they butt heads about. But I think it's also just something that's really complicated. So yeah, even for my husband and I. So we're raising our daughters bilingually. I Spanish is my first language. My husband actually also speaks Spanish, so we learned it later in life. But it was a priority for us and even for us, where we're both on the same page about this being a good thing that we want for our children. It's still really hard. It's still we find these moments where, you know, I get frustrated because we're not, you know, we're we're switching into English a lot because it's there's, you know, both of us are actually kind of reaching our limit of what we can explain to our six year old when she's, you know, asking questions about the universe at bedtime.
Melina (00:09:43) - And I'm like, I don't know the word for something. Yeah. Um, and for my husband, even more so, so, so I think it just brings up a lot of different emotions. And I think it's not even just about being on different pages. Always. Sometimes you're on the same page, but it just reads differently to you.
Rachael (00:10:01) - It's just hard.
Melina (00:10:02) - Yeah, yeah. So it's a constant conversation.
Rachael (00:10:05) - And there's a lot of misinformation about bilingual kids as well, especially in terms of like literacy and language development. Can you talk to any of that at all?
Melina (00:10:15) - Yeah, definitely. There is a lot of misinformation. Everything from you know, I have parents who come in and they're asking about, you know, whether introducing a second language will confuse their child or will slow down their development, which it doesn't, just for the record, it doesn't come into their development. And then there's all these other additional layers about whether people feel safe speaking their language in public or in other places outside their home, whether people feel like their language is valued because Spanish is the language that we're speaking with.
Melina (00:10:51) - My daughters, I see how. It's both a privilege and a burden that it's considered useful. Right. So at least right now. So. So there's a sense that like, I actually feel like I'd be very judged if I didn't teach them Spanish. And at the same time, it's actually really hard to, to, to really keep it up. So, so it's really it's it's a very complicated picture. And then for us, it also came into play when we were thinking about schools. And I think that's, you know, it's a little older um, as kids get a little bit older. But once you're thinking, but even with babies, you're thinking about it when you're choosing caregivers.
Rachael (00:11:29) - Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, like you were saying how kids might not feel safe speaking their language, or they may feel self-conscious speaking their language. If we're not raising bilingual kids, how can we talk about this in a way that encourages them to be inclusive and curious and to embrace kids from different cultures?
Melina (00:11:49) - A lot of this comes from modeling it.
Melina (00:11:51) - Yeah. So I think as parents, a big part of this comes from from us modeling it. Um, you know, my because we live in Brooklyn and because of the community that we've sort of built around ourselves, we actually have a lot of families in our orbit who speak different languages that my daughters don't understand. Right. Um, and so, I think making an effort to learn how to greet those children in their other languages and to greet those families and to show our children that that we're making an effort to connect, right, and to show them that those other languages are also welcome. And I think as children get older. Some of us are having explicit conversations with our kids about. This is why I'm switching to English right now. And that, I think, can be important too.
Rachael (00:12:38) - Yeah. So in an ideal world, what conversations would parents be having maybe before they have kids or when they have very young babies about how their cultures might impact their parenting? Because I know you have a freebie about discovering your parenting values, which is designed to kind of help parents and couples understand themselves and each other so that they can have, like, more nuanced and productive conversations about this stuff.
Rachael (00:13:05) - So what would be like your top piece of advice?
Melina (00:13:08) - So I think the top question I would I present to parents that I think gets to the root of this is to consider for themselves first what they see their role as a parent being. And then to share that with each other and have that conversation because I think. You know, I think it's easy to assume that we all know what a parent is, but actually we come at it from very different perspectives. So you might see your role as a protector like that might be the top thing that comes to your mind is like, my job is to protect my children, or your job might feel like it's to help them develop right to like help them achieve, or that your job is to shape them, or that your job is to just, you know, just discover who they are. Um, and those are really different. All of those are really different perspectives to bring to the table. And I think it's a conversation we don't often have, but it drives so many of our decisions.
Melina (00:14:15) - Right?
Rachael (00:14:15) - Yeah. That's something I honestly, I've never even thought about it in that way. But I could see how the way you think about that, or the way you define your role, could impact so many of the other decisions that you make. Yeah.
Melina (00:14:28) - Yeah. And so and that's really what I try to do with all of the classes, is to try to ask those questions that get underneath, because I think one of the sort of misunderstandings I think about multicultural parenting is that the hard thing is that, like, I want to go sleep and I don't want to go sleep and it's like, yeah, that is tricky, but it's what's underneath that that makes it hard to have that conversation. Because if you don't realize, like it's because one of you really wants her baby to be independent and the other one doesn't really value that, or like, yeah, then you're never really going to get to the root of that disagreement where you can actually maybe problem solve and come to a solution that feels good for everybody.
Melina (00:15:09) - Yeah. And where everyone feels heard.
Rachael (00:15:12) - Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up, because obviously at the top of my mind is always sleep. And I do hear this. Yeah. All parents. Right. All parents of kids under I'd say seven are just waiting for the day. They can feel like they've slept. I hear this all the time, though, from both multicultural families and families that are of the same general background. Right. Where one parent and I'm going to just say that I'm generalizing. Usually, dad, if it's like a hetero couple, usually the father or the dad or the man in the relationship is the one that's kind of like, I am sick of co-sleeping. I don't want this baby in our bed. They're going to need you forever. Like you need to get space from this baby. They need to be independent. Like all these beliefs about where the baby should sleep and why. And in this example, the mother is kind of like, well, this feels right to me.
Rachael (00:16:04) - This is easiest for me. I like this, this is working for me right now, and it's not going to be forever. And with co-sleeping, it's kind of hard to find a middle ground, um, because it's like either babies in your bed or they're not there somewhere else. Right? So there are creative solutions for sure. And you can do like a hybrid or, you know, you can spend one half of the night in baby's room and one half of the night in your bed or whatever. I talk about stuff like that a lot, but I'm so curious to hear, uh, how you guys approach sleep, because you talked about it like a tiny bit on that day in the life you did for us. But I would love to kind of hear just a little bit more about how you approach sleep in your family with two different backgrounds.
Melina (00:16:46) - Yeah. So so something that might be interesting to people to know is that even though I have this, this master's in infant development. We didn't actually even touch on sleep in any of my classes.
Melina (00:17:00) - Um, and, you know, maybe a little bit in the sense that people brought it up with the families that they were working with, like the family that I'm observing has questions about it, but we never really touched on sleep development. And there's a lot of reasons for it, in part because I think the framework is one that is not about like how to with babies. So much is just like, this is the general arc of infant development, and this is how we can support families and making decisions that feel right for them. But because of that, I came into parenthood not really knowing what to expect other than what I was kind of hearing around me. And here, at least in my sort of circles in Brooklyn, like sleep training was a big thing. And the alternative was like attachment parenting.
Rachael (00:17:51) - Like full kind of the extreme version, right? Yeah, yeah.
Melina (00:17:55) - And so I didn't really see that there was a middle ground. And once you're already sleep deprived, it's hard to get your head around anything.
Melina (00:18:05) - Yeah. Um, so I did a lot of late night googling, which was very ill advised. And I knew as I was doing and I was like, this is of course, there's like a regression like every week, like if I go to sleep week, sleep regression, like something will come up. Um, and so we kind of, you know, our baby was really, really easy. And so we had our crib in, um, in our bedroom and I was like, we're going to she's going to sleep in our room for the first six months to a year, because that's what they say to do. And I, you know, I had a co sleeper next to the bed because she wasn't going to be in the bed. And so you know, like all the things that that had been told to me by our pediatrician and that I was kind of absorbing from my surroundings is like the right things to do. We were going to do. And it was great. Until she was four months old.
Melina (00:18:51) - And so classic. Yeah, yeah. And so how.
Rachael (00:18:54) - Predictable of her.
Melina (00:18:56) - I know. Right. And so we were, and we were on a trip to London to visit my sister in law when she hit that regression. And I think my husband and I just like, very quickly spiral like we thought we broke our baby. We never should have traveled like, yeah, you know, we were spending hours, like, bouncing her and carrying her and singing to her and like, nothing was working, right? Like nothing. I mean, it was all working, but not we. We thought not.
Rachael (00:19:25) - Easily. Right.
Melina (00:19:26) - Right. Um, and then we came home and that was when, like, the googling started and we ended up landing on, you know, a book that was, you know, scientific is what it claimed. And that kind of spoke to both of us. And we were like, okay, we can't agree on what to do here. Someone like, please tell me what to do.
Melina (00:19:45) - And so we tried it and it felt horrible because, I mean, it was sleep training, right? So like we would put her down and we would say our phrase and it was always the same phrase, what felt which felt like really weird and inauthentic, but in my like, sleep deprived brain, it was like, of course, like she needs it has to be the same. Oh yeah.
Rachael (00:20:04) - Everything makes sense when you're, like, desperate and sleep deprived. Like I believed some crazy stuff too. It's still feel bad.
Melina (00:20:10) - Yeah. I was just like, I can't make eye contact. And I have to, like, say this, like, very specific phrase and a very specific way. And then I'm going to leave. And it was like, it felt like we sat outside the door with a timer. And, you know, I think the book said we could go in for 5 minutes or 7 minutes. And I always wanted it for because it just it was like the one little thing that I was like, at least this like, give me like one less minute.
Melina (00:20:35) - And she actually started putting herself to sleep. So it worked. But she was still waking up at night and she was in her bedroom. And so we had a couple nights where we would like, let her cry with us in the bedroom. And that was horrible. It just like felt so like she could see us. And I was like, this makes no sense. This just like doesn't feel right. So. So we stopped and I started, you know, I had a wonderful doula when I was pregnant with her. And one of the things she showed me was how to co sleep safely. And she was and I remember at the time just being like. Okay, sure, but I'm just going to file that away for later.
Rachael (00:21:13) - I'm never going to actually use this, but thanks.
Melina (00:21:14) - Yeah, exactly. I was like, that's great that like, that worked for you. But like, you know like we know that she's going.
Rachael (00:21:20) - To be different. Yeah. Yeah.
Melina (00:21:22) - Um, and so then I just brought her into bed and it was so much better for us.
Melina (00:21:27) - Yeah. And then, you know, in addition, I think one of the things that really helped us was that my sister in law is married to an Indian American man who they he co slept as a child and his sister did. And it's a part that was a part of their home from the beginning. And so we had this other example. This is the sister who I was visiting in London. So we had this other example very directly where I was like there just sleeping with him. And that seems to work right.
Rachael (00:21:55) - And they're still going to grow up and be like completely normal, well-adjusted humans. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so how did you approach it with your second, did you just go right into co-sleeping, or did you try the crib again?
Melina (00:22:07) - Oh, we went right into co-sleeping. Um, I mean, it was also she was born in June of 2020. So we were at that point living with my parents. We moved into my parents house kind of inadvertently. We went for a long weekend, and it was the weekend that New York kind of shut down and we were like, I guess we live here now.
Melina (00:22:27) - Yeah. Um, and so we got a king sized bed in my childhood bedroom, and we just all slept in there. And I think especially because it was that sort of height of the pandemic, it just felt so comforting to have her. Yeah. But I also had this example now of my three year old where I was like, she's not going to be little forever, right? You know, like, this isn't a forever thing.
Rachael (00:22:49) - That perspective is so important. And it's something that's it's so unfortunate that when it's your first like, you can't possibly understand that even if people tell you, like, I promise this gets better, it gets easier, it ends. You can say that to someone till you're blue in the face, and maybe it's a little bit comforting, but you still can never truly understand that until you're through your first baby's like, infancy, right? But it is so true. It becomes so much easier to handle it when you know that it's really. It really does not last forever.
Melina (00:23:15) - Yeah, yeah. And I feel like whenever we would have a hard night with my oldest, I feel like we would wake up in the morning and be like, this is it, this is it forever. Yeah. She's just never going.
Rachael (00:23:24) - To sleep in our life now. Yeah. And you'd wake up in like, a panic. You would try to, like, fix it immediately. Try to figure it out. Like what went wrong the day before? What was wrong about their schedule? What did you do wrong at bedtime? Like you would try to do all this math and figuring out why it was so bad. And now, I mean, I'm on my third, so she has a bad night now and it like, doesn't even register. I wake up in the morning. Like what? I don't even know what happened. It's fine.
Melina (00:23:46) - Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think I think I actually might have learned this from you, but one of the things that really helped me was to not look at the clock.
Rachael (00:23:57) - Oh yeah, that's a game changer.
Melina (00:23:59) - Because it really felt to me like when I was looking at the clock and kind of tracking how long she was awake, first of all, it woke me up more. Yeah. Oh, it's so.
Rachael (00:24:09) - Much harder to go back to sleep when you're, like, doing that math and panicking about how much sleep you're.
Melina (00:24:14) - Getting. Yeah. And then it also sort of pits you against yourself, like night against night, where you're just like, I'm either winning or I'm like, losing, right? Like I'm doing better than last night or worse than last night.
Rachael (00:24:25) - And that's such a good way to put it. And you're really never winning when you're doing that. Yeah.
Melina (00:24:29) - And it doesn't track with how I felt either. Right. Like she can have a night where she woke up more and I felt better than a night when she woke up less, so it didn't actually matter.
Rachael (00:24:38) - It's so true. Lenny had a really great night. Like her best night of her life a few nights ago, where she only woke up once super briefly, and that was the best night of her life.
Rachael (00:24:48) - I still woke up exhausted the next day, and there are other days where she wakes up a bunch of times and I feel fine. And like I go about my day and I work and I take care of my other kids and it's totally fine. So yeah, you're right that I think sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit with how we can function on little sleep, and everybody's different and has different sleep needs. But yeah, covering up the clock or just taking the clock out of your room, not looking at your phone. Seriously, it's such a game changer. If you're listening and you haven't tried it, it, um, it'll make you feel so much better. Yeah. So what do you think? Just before we wrap up, what do you think are some of the most important things parents should be looking at when it comes to infant development? Because I know that's a huge part of your work as well. And we've touched on it a little bit as it relates to sleep. But do you find that there are a lot of, um, like differing ideas amongst cultures is how infants should develop? I mean, I'm sure that there are.
Rachael (00:25:41) - Right, because I know there are other cultures that want to hold baby all the time, or other cultures that are like, no, you have to put the baby down so that they develop correctly. So like, what are what would you say to parents who are kind of either at odds with each other or themselves or just worried about how their infant is developing?
Melina (00:25:57) - Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I feel like there's like two questions in it.
Rachael (00:26:02) - Yeah, there were probably like five in there.
Melina (00:26:05) - Um, so I think one of the best. Things that we can do for babies. Development is to work on the relationship, like the parent relationship. Um, and I think. Part of that is because really, what babies want from us is to be in relationship with us and they want to be, you know, then that relationship can look real, right? Like it should look real. It should be different from my baby to your baby to, you know, my other baby.
Melina (00:26:37) - Like, all those relationships need to be authentic. And I think the more that parents can be, you know, if you happen to be parenting with another person, the more that that relationship can be strong, even if you're not together. Right? Like there can still be like a strong parenting relationship and some dialogue. Um. I think that's really, really beneficial in terms of both parents feeling like they can bring their authentic selves to parenthood and to being in relationship with their baby. Um, I think many people go through this. I definitely have gone through this with my husband, where I feel like I've gone through phases where I feel like I'm saying things to my baby, and in the back of my head I'm thinking like, is he judging me for this? Like, is he hearing this? Does he agree with this? And I know that he's had the same experience where he's like, he's sure that I'm like judging him for that. And sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not.
Rachael (00:27:32) - Like, let's be honest.
Melina (00:27:34) - Um, but we've gotten to the point now where, like, that's a conversation we can have, right? Like it feels. And I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells, like making decisions about whether I'm, you know, pulling a kid into bed at night or, you know, helping them tie their shoes, which, you know, he's much more, um, wanting them to be independent. And for me, I'm just like, they'll get their. Um, so that's one of the places in our relationship where that tension can arise. Um, but I don't feel like either of us at this point is, you know, making decisions, wondering what the other person is thinking about them and feeling held back in our relationship with our kids. Um, and so I think that working on your relationship and, and having those conversations can be really helpful. Um, but they can also get really sticky and hard and tricky. So one of the things that I've, that I include in all my courses is this framework for how to have difficult conversations and really encourage people to step back when you need to.
Melina (00:28:40) - Right. Like sometimes you just need to put a pin in it and be like, I'm not regulated.
Rachael (00:28:44) - Right? Oh my gosh, for sure.
Melina (00:28:46) - For this, I'm not going to enter into this generously. So maybe we return to this at another point. Um, so I think that that's one thing is like really like working on having those conversations and, and getting to know yourself and what you want to bring to parenthood, I think, is really important. Um, and that. You know, in terms of like people who are worried about how their baby's developing or wondering about what they can do to support their baby's development. There's lots of different approaches to this. You know, some folks are very interested in, you know, playing with their baby and like, teaching them things and, and showing them things. And some folks really want to give their baby a lot of space to figure things out on their own. Holding milestone lists lightly can be helpful because that's another place that, you know there's.
Melina (00:29:41) - It's such a broad range usually.
Rachael (00:29:44) - And there's so much anxiety out there about meeting milestones by a certain age and comparing your baby to other babies. I see that a lot, too. Um, and yeah, every baby is just on their own little timeline.
Melina (00:29:54) - Yeah. And one thing I found when I was researching that I thought was super interesting, I was doing research for the for my, you know, year one, uh, class. And one thing that I found was that there's actually a culture. And of course, now I can't remember where in this moment, but where. Some of the physical milestones are actually skipped over because of the ways the babies are handled. So there's like a certain particular way of like crawling that babies in that culture don't do until much later. Oh, interesting. And so, so it just sort of helped me consider how the way that we handle babies and the way that we move babies, actually, you know, it's all in conversation with what they're doing naturally.
Melina (00:30:38) - But that earlier isn't necessarily better, later isn't necessarily worse or better. You know, it depends on your perspective. Um, and so it's, you know, those lists of milestones I think can be really helpful once if you feel like, wow, this is a really big difference. Maybe I'm I should talk to somebody who can help me evaluate, but they can be held more lightly and with curiosity. Um, also.
Rachael (00:31:05) - I love that Melina. It was so fun to chat with you in person in real life. Kind of. Um, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can people connect with you and learn more about your work and parenting and culture?
Melina (00:31:19) - Thank you. Yeah, I had such a fun conversation so people can connect with me. I'm over on Instagram at Parent Weblog and I have a website parent pueblo.com where people can find the parenting values freebie if they're interested. I have some other freebies up there as well if people are interested. And um, especially for people who are navigating multicultural parenting.
Rachael (00:31:43) - Amazing. I'll put all that in our show notes so that people can find it easily. And again, thank you so much. I feel like we could have chatted all day about this, but, um, I really appreciate the work you're doing for parents. Thanks, Rachel. Me too. Take care.
