Strength is Forged in Fire - with Susan

This is a meandering and fascinating conversation about Life. Susan is a mother, a wife, a woman who has been through the fire. We discuss the journey of motherhood and talk about post-traumatic growth, and that Life isn’t easy—and why it doesn’t make sense to want it to be. We talk about grieving, letting go, and trust. We touch on many topics including education, religion, grit, brain infections, stardust, biology, drugs, and the Theory of Positive Disintegration. This is a very different conversation (and you learn right away why) than previous episodes of Conversations from the Trenches with many resources named. I’ll link some of these below. If you’re curious to learn more about my thoughts on education, I’d encourage you subscribe to my other Substack: SM’s Essential Concepts (which I comp if you’ve paid for an annual subscription to StoicMom’s Newsletter—just let me know you’d like both by replying to any of the emails from Stoicmom or reaching out directly to stoicmom@protonmail.com) Susan describes the clarity and confidence in her values that were vetted through her painful experience with her husband’s illness; hearing about the fires that have forged other strong women helps me embrace this work that my daughter has brought to me.

There is some background noise that gets a little distracting. I hope you’ll endure to benefit from the gems that are forged in this conversation. ;)

I’ve added Unrest with Jennifer Brea to my watchlist.

I don’t explain this well in the episode, but it’s a children’s book I was referencing when talking about being stardust: You Are Stardust

John Taylor Gatto, author of Dumbing Us Down and his infamous resignation letter: I Quit. I Think.

Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn

Sandra Dodd, Radical Unschooling pioneer, who also happens to have a Facebook page: Transgender Questions

lisamarchiano.com where you can find her book, Motherhood; her scholarly article on social contagion: Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics

My related or referenced work:

Educating Freedom

Butterflies Becoming

Grant Me the Serenity

Testimony & Confessions

Pivotal Moments

I’ll take a shit sandwich, please.

Homework, Parts One and Two

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments! I’d love to finish some of the threads that were left loose—if there was one you’d would have liked to have followed a bit further, let me know!