Today we’d like to introduce you to Lizeth Toscano and Leslie Priscilla Arreola-Hillenbrand.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Lizeth and Leslie Priscilla. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We came together first as friends in 2017 after meeting on social media. We discovered that we were both professionally trained by the same mentor: Ruth Beaglehole, we knew many of the same Nonviolent Parenting community members, and we spoke the same “giraffe” language (NVC)!
Once we began to connect more both online and in-person, we realized that the vision we had for not only our own families, the ways in which we could serve other families through our work, and our larger vision for our community was essentially… the SAME!
Since that realization, and much expressed awe for having manifested each other’s “answered prayer” in terms of a partner in this endeavor, we have been able to engage in a beautiful collaboration to continue evolving and fine tuning our goals for the Latinx Parenting mission. We are grateful to have found true teammates and champions of this work.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We have been intentional about the pace we have been building our organization. We are both mothers and from the very beginning agreed that our personal and family needs would come first. This meant that we would need to work on being patient with ourselves. We are both motivated, focused, and have a large vision we have been diligently working on. Ultimately though, we’ve decided that if we want to teach parents how to give themselves the time, space, and care to keep sane and well, then we need to be able to model it. We’ve learned that it’s important for us to practice checking in with ourselves and each other, knowing our capacities and worth, and being able to say ‘No’ or put projects on hold for when they make more sense. We’ve experienced severe burnout previously as employees of nonprofits so we know the dangers of not having a clear balance. We’re really trying to create a new paradigm not only for the families we are fortunate to work with but also within the organizational building of Latinx Parenting and the way we operate with each other as teammates.
Please tell us about Latinx Parenting.
Latinx Parenting is a bilingual organization rooted in social justice and children’s rights, the ongoing practice of nonviolence towards ourselves and others, self-reflection and connection, and community wellness for every generation. We offer family education in the form of our Parenting with Nonviolence (NVP) 6-8 week series, special topic workshops, and monthly support groups. Very soon we will be offering live webinars as well as online courses that are accessible to anyone with internet. We are focused on becoming more and more culturally responsive to and for the Latinx community and its allies. We’re also proud to call ourselves a trauma-informed and healing centered organization that is centered on building strengths and advocacy. Both of us see this as more than a “job”, we know the work of supporting families in this way has huge implications for the world we live in both in the present and for generations to come.
The work we do is unique in that we are intentionally working on decolonizing parenting specifically for Latinx families and we see this as a social justice movement. We want to make information available in a way that acknowledges and honors the richness and resilience of our culture rather than ignore it. Most of the gentle parenting pages out there barely, if at all, address the tremendous impact of culture on our family dynamics. We are very aware of the challenges of having to navigate the parenting pressures from Anglo-American culture AND the pressures coming from our families and extended families. We are faced with a dilemma of feeling like we need to choose. We personally experience those challenges too! What we hope to convey is that there is a way to practice parenting with nonviolence while also being proud of our roots. We believe that being connected to our children can and should co-exist with remaining connected to our culture and that our needs are all equally important. We often have to remind ourselves that our ancestors also knew the inherent worth of children and many of these practices we see in our culture that treat children as “less than” are very much a product of conquest and colonization.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
This is an interesting question, we definitely believe and trust the universe and timing of events including when we met. We have been fortunate to have been able to connect with so many other individuals who believe in our work and vision. We hope to continue cultivating growth and listening to our intuition and the universe’s signs when making decisions towards the growth of our organization.
Contact Info:
- Website: latinxparenting.org
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @latinxparenting
- Facebook: @latinxparenting
- Twitter: @latinxparenting
Image Credit:
Karissa Raya, Carolina Adame
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