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5 ways to teach your kids about race without making them feel hopeless.

As a black woman, I wonder what it would be like to raise a black child in today's world.

I turn on the news or open my Facebook feed and see celebrities like Vybz Kartel and Azealia Banks defending skin bleaching. Black bodies are strewn across the media, seemingly victims of fear-fueled violence by police and the nation’s growing intolerance. Not to mention a presidential election that has unveiled some of the darkest perspectives and ideologies in this country.

Things look bleak, and far too often it feels like we’re moving backward, intent on repeating the mistakes of the past. Seeing these things hurts. So much of it feels like a personal attack because the people affected are just like me. My family. My friends.


Image via the Seattle Municipal Archives/Flickr.

Now, I’m not a parent. Far from it. But I wonder what it would be like to raise a kid in these times when racism and hate are increasingly mainstream. How do parents today protect their kids from the vitriol online, lack of representation in entertainment media, and the countless microaggressions in day-to-day life?

How do parents, particularly black parents, raise kids who are able to see and understand the ways in which race plays a role in their lives without them feeling burdened by this knowledge or internalizing messages of hate?

The answer, while multifaceted, is surprisingly simple.

I spoke with Dr. James Huguley, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work and Center on Race and Social Problems. A portion of his work includes the African American Parenting Project, which looks at these very issues and works to identify the ways kids are affected by parents who stress cultural pride and awareness.

Image via iStock.

He speaks with black families about their parenting methods and goals and asks them to share how they encourage and reinforce positive identity in their homes. Then, he analyzes the results of these efforts.

Here are the five key pieces of advice he shared:

1. Strike a delicate balance between educating your kids and burdening them.

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that parents are people, too. They’re using their history to inform what they teach their kids, but they have to be cautious to approach it from a balanced perspective. Dr. Huguley said:

“We see a range of ways in which the parents’ experiences have influenced how they interact with their children. For some who have experienced racial oppression firsthand — the parents from the South with really devastating racial stories and narratives — they want to protect their children, they want to make sure their children both see themselves positively and surround themselves with positivity, and that they're strong in the face of oppression or racism and don’t feel defined by it.”

Image via iStock.

Balance is key. Huguley said parents should aim to empower their kids, not scare them: “You want them to feel strong. Feel capable." But encouraging their sense of self-worth doesn't mean sheltering them from some of the harsh realities of the world. Huguley continues: "They can have a sober understanding of oppression, but at the same time not feel discouraged or that they won’t be able to achieve. They can know that there are challenges that we face but that they can and will still be very successful.”

2. Don’t just talk about cultural pride; display it at home.

How do parents teach kids about their culture's history (and its relationship to their present) without overwhelming them? With art. With experiences outside the mainstream that positively depict their culture. Exposing kids to cultural experiences serves as a form of positive reinforcement. While turning on the TV may yield a handful of largely one-dimensional depictions of what it means to be black, there are art exhibits, plays, books, and so much more that show kids that there’s no one way to be black; they just need to be themselves.

Image via iStock.

3. There’s no better antidote to the ways society fails children of color than community.

As Huguley put it, “the family is your first community.” What parents do within the home goes a long way and lays the foundation for how their children interact with the world, but there’s no better way to cement that message than to show kids firsthand that they are part of an incredibly diverse community of people. That community will vary for every family. For some, it’ll be a circle of friends or family. For others, a spiritual community. For others still, an activity may be what brings them together. Whatever the means, being a part of a community is key to a child’s sense of self.


Image via iStock.

Huguley said that when kids, particularly African-American kids, are raised within supportive communities and see representations that are “well beyond negative racial stereotypes, they can begin to understand more holistically, more intellectually and artistically, even relationally what it means to be a black person.” They'll see that being black is so much more than sound bites or caricatures — black people are allowed to be whole, too.

4. There is strength in our history.

Yes, slavery happened. Yes, there are so many systemic inequalities lingering as a result. Yes, it can feel like there will always be an uphill battle to fight. But framing plays a role in how kids view the past. The horrors of the past are not indicators of inferiority or weakness or a source of shame. It’s a sign of strength. Huguley said: “Our history is a history of overcoming. Parents have framed it that way. We have a long history of overcoming oppression, and it’s going to continue to be that way. We’re strong people.”

Image via iStock.

So when kids turn on the TV and hear about another police shooting or see that KKK members are seeking political office, they don’t need to feel discouraged. This is just one part in the continued battle, and we will overcome.

5. Keep it age-appropriate.

Huguley reminds us that not every child is ready to process the reality of racial inequality. He encourages parents to have conversations with their kids, and to keep that conversation flowing. It’s not enough to have a single talk — it’s an ongoing discussion. The goal isn’t to scare kids, it’s to educate them and show them that they are more than a stereotype. More than a statistic. They are worthy.

Image via iStock.

This world is far from perfect, and though we’ve made huge strides forward, there’s a lot of work to be done.

Our differences should be celebrated — not attacked, denigrated, or used as an excuse for violent and abusive behavior.

The road looks bumpy right now. Too many people aretrying to pass off hateful and racist views as valid opinions. But this nastiness that we're seeing is part of a greater evolution, even if it feels like a downward spiral right now. We have to peel back the layers and confront the divisiveness before we can truly move forward.

The seeds of a revolution are sown — black parents today are saying enough is enough. They're equipping their kids to rise above the hate, showing them that they are so much more than the two-dimensional characters so much of society tries to convince them they are.

Image via iStock.

Joy

Woman builds an elaborate hotel in her yard for stray cats to stay cozy through the winter

People are calling it "Hotel Catifornia" and "The Fur Seasons."

A woman in China provides a cozy home for stray cats in her neighborhood.

As winter approaches, people may wonder how stray animals stay warm and safe. Stray cats in particular are highly adaptable creatures and their home is the great outdoors, so most of the time there's not much that people need to do to protect them. But when temperatures dip to dangerous levels, caring humans naturally want to make sure strays have a place to go to get out of the harsh elements.

One woman has taken that desire to a whole new level with an elaborate cat apartment she built for the many stray cats in her neighborhood. We're not just talking about a shelter–it's like luxury hotel living for her feline friends. The apartment has multiple rooms, cushy blankets that get taken out and cleaned and even a temperature-controlled water source so they're always able to find drinking water in frigid temps.

Check this out:


The woman who built the apartment actually lives in China and shares videos on TikTok.

Welcome to the Meowtel Catifornia

Of course, the clever hotel jokes and puns started rolling in first thing:

'Welcome to the hotel catifornia."

"Such a lovely place."

"They can check out any time but they won't ever leave ^^"

"I prefer Hotel Calicofornia."

"Meowriott."

"Given my skill, mine would be more like Meowtel 6."

"Pawliday Inn.'

"The Fur Seasons."'

"Meowne Plaza."

People loved seeing the care and ingenuity she put into the "meowtel," as well as how happy the cats seem with the arrangement. In fact, some people were sure their own house cats would move out just to go live in this kind of cat commune.

"My cat just looked at me and sighed…"

"All the neighbours be looking for their cats and they’ve bailed to live at the kitty motel."

"They’d pack their little bags and move in without a second thought."

"They wouldn't even wait to pack their bags."

"Alright Carol it’s been real but we’re gonna head out. Found a great deal on a luxury apartment so yanno… take care."


@5fimnl9m

Create a single apartment on the third floor of a four story winter cat shelter for stray cats#fyp #cat #cute #Straycat#salvation

Cats live where they want when they want

Those people may have been joking, but several people shared that their cats really did ditch them to go live with neighbors who had more desirable living situations.

"I’ve had two cats do this. One was annoyed at our second dog’s puppy energy so she moved in with an older lady a street over. We used to see her all the time until she passed. The other missed our kids being little so she moved next door where there’s a little girl. We talked to both neighbors and said if they get sick of them to let us know and we’ll take them back but both lived the rest of their lives with their new families."

"One of our cats moved next door because he loves children and wanted to be with the little girl next door. Because it’s a very small village, he goes to the school most days to wait for her and they come home together. School is 3 buildings away."

"We had a cat do the same thing about 20 years ago. She hated the barks of our new puppy and would put her paw on his mouth to try and stop it. One day, she slipped outside and I found her a month later, two streets over, hanging with a couple who didn’t have a dog. They said she just showed up at the door and moved in. I gave them all her cat food and hope she had a nice quiet life."


@5fimnl9m

After two months of production and renovation, the basic facilities for wintering stray cats in the courtyard are almost complete#fyp #cat #cute #Straycat #salvation

Is it a bad idea to feed and shelter stray cats?

People have differing opinions about whether it's good to feed stray cats or not, as cats can cause problems for local wildlife and it's not great to encourage an increasing stray cat population. However, there are responsible ways to care for stray cats, which includes spaying and neutering those in your area.

According to the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon, here are the best practices for feral and stray cats:

- Spay/neuter to prevent additional litters

- Find homes for friendly cats

- Feed outdoor cats on a schedule

- Remove food & dishes when they are done eating

- Pick up scraps and keep the feeding area tidy

- Provide fresh water

- Provide a warm place for the cats to sleep

So go ahead and care for those kitties and keep them warm through the winter—just make sure they can't make any more kittens.



via ABC Action News

It's never too late to find your family. That's the heartwarming message being shared by Leah Paskalides and the daughter she adopted in 2021, then-19-year-old Monyay.

At the age of 11, Monyay was placed into a foster care group home. The pain of having to go through life without a family was always difficult, but it hit hard in her senior year of school. "My senior year is when I went through one of those, 'I don't want to do it anymore, I'm done,'" she told ABC News.

Monyay finished school a year early and took the extra time to focus on volunteering with foster children like her. But she faced a tough road ahead, as she was about to age out of the system.


According to the Children's Home Society of Minnesota, the 23,000 children who age out of foster care every year without families face many challenges. Only 3% earn a college degree, half will develop a substance abuse problem, 60% of boys are convicted of crimes, and 70% of girls become pregnant before the age of 21.

After she turned 18, it looked like she would have to enter the real world as an adult without any real support. But then her caseworker and mentor from the Safe Children Coalition stepped up.

Leah had always wanted to adopt Monyay but it was a conflict of interest with her work.

"She always said, 'I wish you could adopt me, wish you could adopt me,' and I couldn't because of the job and then I was watching a documentary where the person had been adopted as an adult, and I had never really heard of it," Leah said.

So she decided to adopt Monyay as her adult daughter. "It was important to me that she knew that she was wanted by somebody, that somebody loved her," Leah told Fox 13. "I could say that as many times as I want, but actions speak louder than words."

On Tuesday, a judge signed the paperwork making the adoption official.

Rose Rising on Twittertwitter.com

"Being told 'no' so many times, to hear that 'yes' and to hear them pronounce her as my mom, it's something that's like, oh my gosh, this is for real," Monyay told Fox 13.

The funny thing is the two didn't hit it off at first. Five years ago when Leah was assigned her case, Monyay didn't like her. "She told me what she was going to be doing and helping me out with my case, and I didn't like her; she'll tell you that," said Monyay.

But over the past five years, the two forged an unbreakable bond.

"She was very motivated and had aspirations for a future, and so I knew she just needed support," Leah said. "She was always a kid that did not deserve to go through life without a support system of a family."

The newly-formed family is sharing their story to bring hope to children in the foster care system by letting them know they can be adopted as adults. "It's never too late because I'm grown but I'm still being adopted," Monyay said. "Just because it didn't happen then it doesn't mean that it won't happen."

Monyay hopes to one day open her own group home for teens to help children who grew up like she did.


This article originally appeared on 4.28.21

@organizedchaos4/TikTok

"It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness."

The corner of the internet devoted to grime and muck being scrubbed away to oh-so satisfying perfection, otherwise known as #CleanTok, is mostly wholesome, cathartic fun. But every once in a while, controversy comes in.

For a mom named Audrey (who clearly has a passion for cleaning hacks, given her TikTok handle of @organizedchaos4), that moment came after she filmed herself doing a deep clean on her 12-year-old daughter’s room. Several people chimed in to accuse her of spoiling her kid, essentially.

Granted, Audrey admitted that she had posted the video “hoping that the trolls would get those thumbs a-movin’.” So when they did indeed come after her, she was ready.


“I surprised my daughter by cleaning her room for her. She's been getting herself up for 6 a.m. practices, she gets herself to school, she's out of the house before the rest of us have even woken up,” Audrey says in the clip.

“Keep in mind she's 12. In return for all that she's been doing, I thought it would be a nice treat if I just did a quick speed clean of her room. It was no big deal.”

Audrey goes on to say that the point of her follow-up video was to reiterate the importance of “extending grace.”


@organizedchaos4 When we throw empathy out the window, we throw grace out the window. If you saw the video and your first reaction was to say, “why isn’t she doing it herself?” Ask yourself, “have I EVER left a room messy because I was overwhelmed, tired, busy?” If so, then you are in no position to judge a child for the same thing. #grace #kindness #help #parenting #cleaning #kids #mom ♬ original sound - Organized Chaos | Audrey


That's what I did for my daughter. She had fallen behind on her room and I helped her.,” she says. “It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness. We all have setbacks, we all have failures, we all make mistakes and if you say you don't you're lying. By extending grace we are spreading kindness, we are spreading compassion. If you can't extend grace to your own children then there's no way you're going to extend it to anyone else in the world and that's a scary world to live in.”

Audrey then argues that being kind to others often makes it “easier” to be kind to ourselves, which is “vital for our mental health.”

She then concludes, “so if you watched the video yesterday or you're watching this one today and you're thinking negative thoughts, ask yourself, ‘Am I quick to judge, be resentful, be negative or am I quick to extend grace or ask yourself have I ever stumbled and wish grace had been extended to me?’”

Down in the comments, we see that Audreynis certainly not alone in her thinking.

“Kindness costs nothing and provides everything,” one person wrote.

“This will only inspire your daughter to keep working hard and give back when she has a chance to, and know she can rely on you when she struggles,” added another.

Several other moms even chimed in about doing something similar for their kids.

“Exactly I did the same thing for my 23-year-old daughter who works full-time and is a full-time college student. She’s 100% independent. I just want to take some off stress off her plate,” one mom shared

Another said, “I do this for my daughter still, and it's her house.”

As with all things in parenting, balance is key. Of course we don’t want to instill laziness, but at the same time, kids can’t be expected to overachieve in all areas, at all times. Adults can’t even manage this without a little help. Sounds like this is truly a case of a good kid acting as responsibly as humanly possible, and a mom just wanting to help out where she can, all why'll teaching her the world can be a safe place. Hard to see anything wrong with that.

Wellness

Justine Bateman boldly embraces her aging face, putting a new spin on 'aging goals'

"I find it wrong that women absorb the idea that faces need to be fixed. That it's being treated as a matter of fact."

Aging is a weird thing. We all do it—we truly have no choice in the matter. It's literally how time and living things work.

But boy, do we make the process all kinds of complicated. The anti-aging market has created a 58.5 billion-dollar industry, with human beings spending their whole lives getting older spending buttloads of money to pretend like it's not happening.

I'm one of those human beings, by the way, so no judgment here. When I find a product that makes me look as young as I feel inside, I get pretty giddy.

But there's no doubt that our views on aging—and by extension, our perspectives on our own aging bodies—are influenced by popular culture. As we see celebrities in the spotlight who seem to be ageless, we enviously tag them with the hashtag #aginggoals. The goal is to "age well," which ultimately means looking like we're not aging at all. And so we break out the creams and the serums and the microdermabrasion and the injections—even the scalpel, in some cases—to keep the wrinkles, crinkles, bags, and sags at bay.

There's a big, blurry line between having a healthy skincare routine and demonizing normal signs of aging, and we each decide where our own line gets drawn.

This is where Justine Bateman comes in.


The 58-year-old actress/filmmaker is turning the idea of #aginggoals on its head by simply, boldly embracing her face as it is. No apologies. No avoidance. Just a simple message of "Yeah, this is my face."

She hasn't always had such radical self-acceptance. After Googling herself during the writing of her first book, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, she saw that the autocomplete after her name read "looks old." So she looked at the photos people were sharing of her 40-something-year-old face as "evidence."

"I thought my face looked fine," she told PEOPLE. "Because of some of the fears I had, unrelated to my face, I decided to make them right and me wrong....I became really ashamed of my face, ridiculously so."

"I looked the same the day before as I did the day after," she said, "and yet I felt totally different about my face...The only difference was that I had read the criticism."

That experience led her to explore how society views women and aging, a topic she explores in her new book Face: One Square Foot of Skin. It also led to her truly embrace her face, just as it is.

Instead of fighting the aging process like many of us do, she decided to fight the fear attached to it.

"I hated the idea that half the population was perhaps spending the entire second half of their lives ashamed and apologetic that their faces had aged naturally," Bateman writes in her book.

She also shared with PEOPLE how she feels about society painting the physical signs of aging as inherently negative.

"I find it wrong that women absorb the idea that faces need to be fixed," she said. "That it's being treated as a matter of fact. I feel that we've skipped over the phase where we talk about whether or not we should criticize women's faces as they get older."

"I think getting all this plastic surgery is just people pleasing," she continued. "You don't want people to criticize you anymore so you appease them. The more you do that, the further away you get away from your true self. It doesn't work for me. If somebody said to me now we could do some surgery, wouldn't I be signaling that I'm super insecure? To me, it would."

In her book, Bateman describes what people are really seeing when they look at her face in its aging glory:

"You're looking at f***ing determination and truth and creativity. You're looking at loss and sorrow and the effort for a deeper perspective. You're looking at satisfaction and happiness. You're looking at a manifestation of a connection so deep and rooted that it's more real than I am. You're looking at my face."

YES. What a refreshing perspective to add to the conversation surrounding beauty and aging. It's odd that seeing a woman simply accept the lines in her face is inspiring, but it really is.

Perhaps we should recalibrate #aginggoals to be more about how we feel than how we look. After all, if anyone is "aging well," it's the woman who feels—as Bateman told Vanity Fair—"empowered to walk out in the world with an attitude that says, 'Fuck you, I look great.'"

Right on, Justine Bateman. Thanks for helping us embrace our faces just as they are.


This article originally appeared on 4.15.21

From Your Site Articles
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Who knows where kindness may lead?

Often, we have little awareness of how our actions might affect the lives of others. Our kindness simply goes into the ether, maybe to return as good karma, who knows? And most of the time that’s fine, considering that the act was probably done to help someone else, not for recognition. But still, have you ever done something kind for a stranger, and wondered, whatever happened to that person?

In 1999, two sisters boarded a plane from Amsterdam to the United States, fleeing their home in the former Yugoslavia. The Republic of Yugoslavia had been continuously bombed by NATO for three months during the Kosovo War, in an attempt to thwart widespread ethnic cleansing of Albanian civilians. The sisters didn’t have a penny to their name—they left behind everything they knew. Only one of them could speak English.

A woman sat next to them on the plan, and, reminded of her own daughters, was moved by their frightening plight. She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. Inside she placed dangly earrings, a $100 bill and a handwritten note, which read:

“I am so sorry that the bombing of your country has caused your family any problems. I hope your stay in America will be a safe and happy one for you–Welcome to America–please use this to help you here. A friend from the plane–Tracy.”

The word “safe” had been underlined. For the refugee sisters Ayda Zugay and Vanja Contino, that had meant everything.


Zugay recalled to CNN, "It was the first time that I felt, like, relief. This is a safe place, and we can build a future here. We went from this drastic horror into this beautiful act of kindness." Zugay’s CNN interview would later help her and her sister reunite with Tracy 23 years later, and let Tracy know just how life-changing her gift was.

The search for Tracy had been a passion project years in the making.

For Zugay, Tracy’s note became a “diamond in the dark” as she navigated through her new life in America, facing prejudice toward immigrants. The impact it made was so great that every year as Memorial Day and Thanksgiving approached, Zugay would renew her search.

Over the years, Zugay had enlisted the help of airlines, hotels, Reddit and several refugee organizations. In a recent video, Zugay shared what little clues she uncovered:

“Tracy, by this time, would be a middle aged or an older woman who is amazing at tennis and had traveled for it in the past. She would have flown from Paris, where she stayed at a Holiday Inn and where she played tennis, to Amsterdam, where we met on that flight. She would have flown from Amsterdam to Minnesota, and this would have been on May 31, 1999.”

Though people were moved by her story and offered information and encouragement, she mostly met dead ends. That is, until her CNN story began circulating. More than 2 million readers saw it, including one of Tracy’s close contacts.

As Zugay surmised, Tracy (whose last name we now know is Peck), was indeed a tennis enthusiast. In 1999, she got a chance to travel internationally to play and watch the French Open. Her friend Susan Allen, a tennis coach, saw Tracy’s note on social media and recognized the handwriting.

Allen was able to put Peck in touch with Zugay and Contino, who now live in Boston and Connecticut. The three were able to finally share a long awaited emotional reunion over Zoom.

The sisters gave Peck two decades worth of stories: how they were able to survive the entire summer off of that $100 bill by eating pancake mix and Coca-Cola, how Zugay was able to graduate from Boston University and work with a nonprofit and how Contino became happily married with two children, instilled with Peck’s inclination to pay it forward. As they shared the untold chapters of their story, Zugay wore the dangly earrings given by Peck all those years ago.

We might never know where our goods deeds lead. But one thing is for certain: kindness is powerful. That next act of generosity toward a stranger could be the very saving grace they needed to change their life forever.


This article originally appeared on 5.6.22