Nereida Babilonia has lived in Philadelphia her entire life and wouldn’t live anywhere else. Her perfect day involves her husband Pete’s sopa de arroz, a good cup of cafe con leche, thrifting, working on a puzzle, and spending time with her family in their living room. She loves the sound of laughter when hosting family and friends,  the spine cracks of a new children’s book and an audience to read them to. She currently is looking forward to many milestones in 2016 and is desperately trying to get her family to become a hiking family. She is a member of Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, where she plays a mean tambourine. 

Five days before this blog piece was due to Hannah at The Mennonite, I shared with my colleagues Chantelle and Lizzie that I haven’t found a parenting blog I enjoyed reading past a couple of sentences in. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t enjoy them per say; these blogs are all well written by very smart and educated individuals doing their parenting best every single day.

It occurred to me that very moment by the copier that all the blogs I’d saved on my computer were written by bloggers who are not parenting in my style, for their family realities don’t sound and look like mine.

Where are all the parenting blogs by people of color!?

There are a lot of blogs on parenting styles: there are lists about how to get your kids to be more kind; get off social media; get involved at church and school; and sleep. It’s incredibly overwhelming. While they can be helpful, these lists and blogs don’t reflect all of our realities and our voices as parents of color.

Asian, mixed race, black and brown families are not what is popping up on my newsfeeds often enough. That has to change. This is my chance, my space, and my little time to do that, and I want to thank you in advance for reading.

Pete and I have parented four individuals and we have been doing so for 23 years.  One actually edited this for me (Hi, Lan). By no means do we consider ourselves experts and there even might be tiny room for improvement.

We most certainly use the word please, ask for things nicely and don’t spank. But ere is the part that might shock you: We also use words like “NOW!,” “NO!,” and even, “I don’t think so!”, with Puerto Rican attitude, neck twisting, and THE LOOK included. And (you might want to have a seat for this one), we run the show. More specifically we the adults, the grown folks, the mama and papa, run the show at our home.

I would like to believe there has been space for flexibility, mistakes and lots of grace; however, our desire to raise our children to be thoughtful and respectful outweighs our desires to please them, to avoid conflict and to allow them to become disrespectful to themselves and toward those around them.  Do we not want them to one day be adults that other adults want to spend time with on purpose?

And here is the part that will blow you away. How do you get your child to not text while having dinner, you ask? Three words: “Give it here.”

We have rules. We’ve made conscious decisions about what we do and what we won’t. My husband and I are stern: We don’t think everything our kids do under the sun is special; we don’t celebrate clean rooms or chores being done; and I certainly don’t need a blog or list to tell me the top 10 ways to do what we’re already doing. Our style sometimes goes against the grain: we’ve said yes to things that would make another parent’s head spin (think purple hair and nose ring and international trips for service work and adventures instead of bragging rights or nice photos).

Meanwhile, we are those Latino parents that stay behind for the entire practice time. Pete or I sit there watching and waiting, waiting and watching. We wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s just the way it is. Leave our child behind with strangers?!  Mall drop off? Nunca. Not greet every single adult with a kiss on the cheek when you enter or leave a Hispanic home? YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND.

We have amazing family and fellow parent friends with different parenting styles then us. We spend time in each other’s homes and we’ve fellowshipped and worshiped together. There are other parents, who, if we are honest, we stay clear away from.

It would also be wrong not to mention that there is no way we’ve done this alone. These parents have prayed with us, listened to our woes and been our allies and our partners. They have loved our children, corrected them, celebrated with us at quinces, graduations, and dream-come-true experiences. I’ve been able to take and learn so much from them and incorporate into our family what I’ve appreciated the most from their home dynamics, traditions and simplicities.

Some of these parenting lessons have been life-changing and amazing additions to our own: what’s a better way to say I absolutely love that your family does this then by saying, “We too will do this”?

Pete and I have six years before all four of our young people will be adults. We have actually started a countdown just for fun and it gets the kids all bothered.

I’m going to be honest: there is an unexpected sadness when I think about not parenting our kids in our home. Every day it seems like they need us less and less. However, I am extremely proud of our family system: how we celebrate, how we function and how we love each other.

Every other Wednesday, we’ll be publishing posts about parenting, faith formation, family and Anabaptist identity. You can also read past parenting posts.