Our Intention
At Somos Padres we think that parenting is deeply connected to our spiritual development. We believe that we are all on our life path, the sum of our life experiences, and those life experiences influence the way in which we choose to move thru our life, including and perhaps most especially how we parent. Left unexamined, we can end up repeating generational patterns that we swore we would never repeat or that served our parents circumstances but do not serve OUR highest good as parents. We also miss the opportunity to heal the emotional baggage that is keeping us from honoring our kids for who THEY truly are AND reclaiming our own true essence. We share our parenting and life story and the stories of other madres and padres who have embraced this spiritual path thru our podcasts and our writing because we want you to know that there are many ways to go thru this parenting journey. Our hope is that Somos Padres will help you find and/or refine yours.
Yesenia
Hello! My name is Yesenia and I am pretty obsessed with the topic of parenting. I was born in Central California, Tulare County. My parents are farmworkers who immigrated from Mexico. My parents taught me early on how to work in the fields, picking grapes in the summer and oranges in the winter. I later went on to receive my Bachelors from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and my Master’s in Social Work from the University of Southern California (USC). But even with all of that formal education nothing fully prepared me to be a parent.
I remember the exact moment when I knew that the way that we were parenting our children was not working. My oldest, Paulito, who was five years old at the time had just hit his little sister who was three, Vicky, for what seemed to me to be no reason at all and I asked him to leave the room because I did not want to spank him. After a few minutes I could hear Pauito who was in the hallway sitting at the top of our stairs. He was hitting his head against the wall and I could hear him saying: “Why can’t I do anything right? I don’t know how to do anything right. No one loves me. I always do everything wrong”. Remembering that moment I feel shame and sadness. In that moment I decided that I was going to look for other ways to parent our children. I hope that sharing the information that we have gained along the way will be of help to other parents.
Paulo
Hi. My name is Paulo and I am trying to become obsessed with parenting. But, as a high school teacher I am reminded on a daily basis how the way in which we parent our children can impact their learning in school. I was born in Michoacan Mexico, and together with my parents and six brothers we came to this country when I was 13 years old. We worked for many years following the harvest of the cherry through the states of California and Washington. It was there that I learned about the opportunities that education can offer and I decided to continue my education. I received my Bachelor’s from the University of California, Davis and my Master’s in Education from the University of Loyola Marymount of Los Angeles. But even so, no university education would prepare me for the greatest challenge of all…parenting.
I have decided to be a part of this forum because now that I am a father I realize that the way that I was trying to educate my children, in particular my son, was not working. One afternoon while driving home from work my son who was three at the time was crying incessantly. I would give him one toy and then another and then a snack but my son would not stop crying. So then I pulled into a parking lot and I proceeded to spank him because I believed at that time that he needed to cry for a reason since he wouldn’t stop crying with anything that I gave him. The next day the same thing happened. I was about to pull over again to spank him when I heard, in between his wailing, “sing papi, sing papi, sing papi”. I asked him if he wanted to sing and he raised his head in agreement. I felt horrible after that day. I reflected on my actions and I knew that I had made an error. I knew that I did not have the tools to navigate through that moment with my son. From that moment on I have begun learning other ways to interact with our children and I hope to share those with you here where I hope that the information shared will be helpful to other parents who are looking to try other ways of parenting.
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Our family life
These are some snapshots of our family life!