Revolutionary Mothering by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

But know that we are committed to mothering, an act that might be a bit different than what you’re running from, and we hope you’ll try it with us. If “mother” makes you want to run in the opposite direction, let us know. Ill be speaking to the other editors as well as contributors to the book, Cynthia Dewi Oka and Victoria Law. We in PURPOSE have begun investigating what our mothering lives like. Alexis Pauline Gumbs: Hi Im Alexis Pauline Gumbs, guest host this week on the Laura Flanders show, where well be discussing Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines, a new book I edited with China Martins and Maya Williams. Mothering can misunderstand, fall, and will need support too. Mothering does not know everything and even in the moments that feel clear, mother can get it wrong. Mothering can “fail” you and move forward with you.

Mothering makes space to sit in the contradictions.

It is the revolutionary nature of mothering that can hold our trauma rather than hide from it. She has found them to be queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the. Alexis Pauline Gumbs has spent hundreds of hours watching our aquatic cousins. Did they believe in mothering? Would they be willing to mother? Do they see themselves mothering in their PURPOSE work? This rich dialogue carried us around the world and back again, and Tara Daniels posed an important question: What happens when people associate trauma with the word mother? *in my Alicia Keys voice* Moment of honesty: it was not so long ago that I associated pain with my own mother while also aligning great joy to others who mothered me. Undrowned is a book-length meditation for the entire human species, based on the subversive and transformative lessons of marine mammals.

I decided to engage those most affected, our team, in a conversation around adding the language of “mother” to our mission. It fit like a sparkly catsuit on a Saturday night dance floor, but I knew I wouldn’t be wearing it alone.

Revolutionary Mothering by Alexis Pauline Gumbs