Speaker A [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education, which is inclusive of, but not limited to what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and Our Classroom is officially in session.
Speaker B [00:00:27]:
Welcome back to Our Classroom. Today I'm joined by Caitlin Roeder, a licensed clinical social worker, behavioral health specialist, an author, and a mom of two. Caitlin's passionate about helping people feel seen, heard, and valued. Her picture book, Family Kisses, encourages meaningful conversations about consent, physical touch, and respecting how others feel, while also celebrating diverse families and representation in children's literature. Welcome, Caitlin.
Speaker C [00:01:03]:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for that very nice introduction. I feel like you kind of said it all, but I'll. I'll say a little more.
Speaker B [00:01:11]:
Well, it was easy to draw from given your. Your background and your experience, and certainly much to talk about here as I look at your lovely book, Family Kisses. Right. I took some time to read it to my children and process it a bit. But what inspired you to tell this story and why did you choose to do it as a picture book?
Speaker C [00:01:38]:
Yeah, so like you said, I've been a social worker for the last 15 years. I've been a mom now for almost 10 years.
Speaker B [00:01:46]:
How old are your children really?
Speaker C [00:01:48]:
They're nine and seven. And, you know, those roles, I'm, like, fully dedicated. It's fully encompassing roles. And for the most part, I feel pretty fulfilled by those roles and overwhelmed.
Speaker A [00:02:00]:
Join the club.
Speaker C [00:02:01]:
I started. Yeah, I know. A few years ago, I started coming up with, like, a little bit of a. Like a bucket list or bucket list so much as just, like, is there anything else I want to do? Like, being a mom is great. Being a social worker is great. I'm really busy. But, like, what else? Is there something that I want to do really, for myself, like, something new? I just want to step outside my comfort zone and try something new and different. And really what I came up with was writing a children's picture book.
Speaker C [00:02:30]:
Reading has always been a huge part of my life. From when I was a little girl, my mom reading to me. I would read nonstop as a kid. I still read nonstop as an adult. And I'm raising two little readers that even though now they can read on their own, they still cuddle up with me and let me read to them. So I wanted to create the kind of book that, like, I would read to my children and I would want to read to other children. And I'm always very intentional about the books that I read myself. But then the books that I read to my kids.
Speaker C [00:02:59]:
So I wanted to create a book that both celebrates diversity and also, like, teaches some important lessons at the same time. So that's. That's what inspired.
Speaker B [00:03:09]:
No. Thanks for sharing. Would you consider this a one and done situation?
Speaker A [00:03:14]:
No,
Speaker C [00:03:16]:
I'm not making any promises, but I've written a couple of other books. Like, three years ago, when I started, like, writing and starting this whole process, I had a few ideas for books. This was the main one and the one that I really ran with. But I do have some other, like, you know, versions of books. But I haven't yet committed to going through the whole editing process and gotcha publishing process with those. But maybe one day.
Speaker B [00:03:40]:
Well, as it relates to this book. Family Kisses. Why do you think conversations around bodily autonomy and consent have become so important for families today?
Speaker C [00:03:51]:
So I think the topics have always been really important, but I think finally families are wanting to have these conversations even more. You know, obviously these type of topics about consent, bodily autonomy, they can go very, very deep and should go very deep. But the conversations can start really, really simple. They can start really, really early. Earlier the better, because the more we get used to talking about these things with our kids, the more our kids get used to hearing it from us, get used to practicing, especially in safe settings amongst people who love them, the better off they'll be in the long run. You know, if we teach them to set boundaries with loved ones, they'll be used to setting boundaries by the time they get into trickier scenarios with people that may not always have their best intentions in mind. So practice, practice, practice and practice with loved ones. And I've heard from so many people who have read the book how much they can relate to it like adults, how much they can relate to it.
Speaker C [00:04:53]:
And it really wasn't until after I wrote the book that I realized how much I could relate to it. That, like, oh, I guess I wrote this book for myself as a little girl because I never liked physical touch. I'm still not a fan. I think I can be a very warm and kind person without touching anybody. So that's kind of still a boundary that I have for myself. But it was definitely not something that was respected or encouraged or talked about when I was a kid. So I think there's like a sadness to that, that so many people can relate. And was it the most, like, traumatic thing? I had wonderful loved ones, but, like, was it a good thing that they were teaching me when they were chasing me around the house to make sure they rubbed Their beard against my face.
Speaker C [00:05:34]:
Again, not the worst thing in the world, but really like a missed opportunity to teach something really important. So I think the generations that are having kids now are open to learning and wanting to do better and a little differently with their kids. And this is a. The book gives a good way to do that.
Speaker B [00:05:54]:
Absolutely. And the main character, Mei-Li. Am I saying that right?
Speaker C [00:06:00]:
Yes, yes.
Speaker B [00:06:01]:
Which I noticed was a blend. The name mainly was a blend of your daughter's names.
Speaker C [00:06:07]:
Yeah.
Speaker B [00:06:08]:
Which was really lovely.
Speaker C [00:06:10]:
Yes. Obviously, they are the inspiration for everything. So I had to, like, create a character that combine their names, combine their looks a little bit. Obviously that was very intentional.
Speaker B [00:06:21]:
No, that was great. That was great. I pointed that out to my children.
Speaker C [00:06:23]:
Thank you.
Speaker A [00:06:25]:
Now, why was Mei-Li's biggest balance
Speaker B [00:06:28]:
honoring herself while participating in something she loves, important for you to capture?
Speaker C [00:06:35]:
So I feel like balance in general is so important, and it's important for us as adults to be open to that. You know, there are certain things when it comes to parenting that are non negotiable, certain things when you come as a parent that you just will not allow. You cannot bend the rules, and that's totally fine. But outside of those things, there are a lot of things that we can adjust and adapt and be flexible. And that teaches our kids something really valuable too. So I think personally greeting relatives is one of those areas that we can be flexible. Of course we want our children to be polite and respectful, and especially within certain families and certain cultures, that is super, super important. But is there another way we can greet our loved ones if they're not comfortable with touch? You know, can we still be respectful and polite without tying that to physical touch? And that's really what I wanted to portray in the book.
Speaker C [00:07:34]:
And at the end, everybody is feeling good with such an easy adjustment and, you know, switching from a wet, sloppy kiss to blowing a kiss. Such a simple adjustment for the adults and. And yet it meant so, so much to little Mei Lee and taught her a lot too well.
Speaker B [00:07:53]:
Talking about adjustments, maybe you could keep building on that notion and share what it is that parents, teachers, and caregivers learn from the way that adult support Mei-Li rather than speaking for her.
Speaker C [00:08:07]:
Yeah, so when I was writing this book, I was part of some, like, critique groups and stuff with other children's book authors. And a lot of people gave me feedback about how important it is to make sure the main character is the hero in the story and solving her own problems. And I totally get that. And like, nine times out of 10, I would probably agree with that. But with this particular story that I was trying to tell, I thought it was really important to feature a trusted adult like Grandma stepping in and solving the problems and giving adult readers, like, a roadmap for how to do that. Because with things, adults do need to swoop in and help our kids. Our kids, you know, from the get go, can't solve their own problems. And certain things are big enough and important enough that we do need to step in and help.
Speaker C [00:08:55]:
And to me, consent and bodily autonomy, those are the type of things that, like, we need to step up and model how to set those boundaries for our children. We can't just, you know, let them flounder and hope that they figure it out. And really, like, I. I love my whole book. I am biased. I love the whole thing, but you should. Part of the book. Thank you.
Speaker C [00:09:17]:
My favorite part. And what, like, made me cry while I was writing it. And every time I read it, I get a little emotional. Just the one line that says, grandma listened. Because, like, that's all it takes as adults, you know, rather than thinking we know it all, we have all the answers. Sometimes we just need to listen to our children. And it's. It's definitely good practice to teach our children how to stand up for themselves and speak up.
Speaker C [00:09:43]:
But as adults, it's good practice for us to. Not only to set the stage to make our children feel comfortable and make them comfortable speaking up, but then to take the next step and actually listen when they do tell us how they're feeling. So that I was very. I was very intentional with everything in the book, but with that page in particular, the pausing, letting me speak, listening. I really wanted to, like, hone in on that and show, like, as. As an adult reader, this is what we need to do. Just sit with your children, give them the space to speak and listen to them.
Speaker B [00:10:19]:
You know, practicing active listening is a discipline. And indeed, I think many of us probably believe that we're better listeners than we actually are. But if we take the time to zoom out and just assess our own actions, we would probably be humbled by what we see. And so this is a good reminder, you know, that line in that scene in the book is a good reminder to all of us as adults that we need to slow down and be. Yeah. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry.
Speaker C [00:11:01]:
Yeah. And listen. We're not perfect. Again, I wrote a whole book about, like, listening and talking to your kids. I'm a social worker. It's part of what I do. And I Fail a lot with my kids. Sometimes they're talking to me, I'm not listening, or they say something, and I said, no, no, no, that's not true.
Speaker C [00:11:17]:
But whenever you can catch yourself and slow down and listen, you know, each time we fail, it's just an opportunity. Like, you know, I'm gonna try it again next time and try to be better next time. So it's something that we really need to practice, and nobody. Nobody has it perfect.
Speaker B [00:11:32]:
Absolutely. And. And it's also essential for us to admit that we fail. Right. And to share that with our children, like, hey, I messed up. Because, you know, they get to see us embracing our humanity and our own flaws. Right. I'm sure they have plenty of opportunities to see us correcting their failures and flaws, but I think it's equally powerful when they see us acknowledge that, hey, I messed up, you know, I apologize 100%.
Speaker B [00:12:08]:
How can I rectify this?
Speaker C [00:12:10]:
Yeah, absolutely. And so much easier said than done. I don't know if it's our natural just ego or that. We're adults. We know better. And of course, we do know a lot. And it's also stuff that we were raised with. Some of us were raised without ever having their parents take accountability.
Speaker C [00:12:26]:
And still to this day, as adults, never having their parents take accountability. So, you know, it's. It's hard to unbreak those things, and it doesn't come overnight. It is not easy. You don't get it right every time. But as long as you're, like, trying and just continue trying to.
Speaker B [00:12:45]:
Yeah. And in our household, we. We make space for that. You know, we kind of build it into our family routine or. Or family check in time, our family devotional time. Or it's like, all right, you know, this is after we do our gratitudes. Hey, you know, is there anything that we need to take time to repent for? You know, we. Anybody need to apologize for any actions that they did.
Speaker B [00:13:09]:
You know, let's pause for a moment and think about that. And it is a humbling time. I have found it. You know, maybe it's been easier for the kids to engage in the practice than us as parents, but I have found that setting that expectation for the family holds up a mirror. You know, now I have to respond to that accountability for myself.
Speaker C [00:13:31]:
Yeah.
Speaker B [00:13:32]:
And then I have to really deal with what's happening internally in my mind and more importantly, in my heart about, you know, whatever it is that transpire that I need to respond to. And, you know, if I'm wrong, then, hey, I need to Own this in front of the family. And, and so that's been a good and healthy practice for us. That has really helped me to grow as a parent. And I think Lorena would probably say the same. It's. It's been great accountability and I think otherwise, otherwise it's, it probably would be easy for me to kind of shake looking in the mirror and admitting, like, I messed up in my parenting.
Speaker C [00:14:16]:
Yeah. That your children are lucky to have you. That is, that's an amazing practice and I might, I might steal it from you. I'm not, I'm not sure if I'm ready to look at my flaws every day and apologize every day because it is hard. But I'm going to think about that maybe.
Speaker A [00:14:32]:
Well, this, this is doing that.
Speaker B [00:14:33]:
This is a weekly practice.
Speaker C [00:14:36]:
Okay.
Speaker B [00:14:36]:
I mean, you know what?
Speaker C [00:14:37]:
That actually makes it easier to swallow. Okay. Every night at the end of a long workday and parenting, I don't know if I'm ready to apologize.
Speaker A [00:14:45]:
We're not quite, we're not quite there
Speaker B [00:14:47]:
with the nightly daily prayer. But this is a weekly. Yeah. When we, at the beginning of the week, when we're like, all right, we're setting the tone for the week, you know, here's the time to make it now. I'm not saying that, you know, something transpires throughout the course of the week and we really need to address it. We'll address it, but it won't necessarily be like a whole family, you know,
Speaker A [00:15:09]:
it won't be a public address.
Speaker B [00:15:10]:
It's like, I, I offended you.
Speaker A [00:15:12]:
Let me sit down one on one.
Speaker C [00:15:13]:
Public address.
Speaker B [00:15:14]:
Yes.
Speaker C [00:15:15]:
That's amazing. Once a week, Once a month. Once a year. For some families, like, anywhere you start is good. So once a week I might gonna try to build that into my routine. That's really cool.
Speaker B [00:15:27]:
You let me know how that goes. Well, after reading Family Kisses, I certainly and my children were able to embrace the message of and think about the importance of setting boundaries and asking for consent as it relates to physical touch. So that was good for us to kind of sit in. And as Dominicans, you know, culturally, we're very touchy feeling. I'm not saying every Dominican is, and even me. And sometimes I'm like, ah. But culturally, you know, it definitely is a thing. So it would be interesting to see how more people within my culture would respond to the message you're communicating in the book.
Speaker B [00:16:18]:
But I'm also wondering, what is one message you hope that readers will walk away with?
Speaker C [00:16:26]:
Asking me to narrow down is so hard. I'm A very well.
Speaker B [00:16:31]:
If you have multiple.
Speaker A [00:16:32]:
If you have multiple messages that you
Speaker C [00:16:34]:
want, I'll tell you all the themes. All 25 themes. No, it really. It is hard to, like, narrow down because depending on who reads it and depending on how I'm reading it, like, I take different things out of it. But somebody. I did a book reading recently at a bookstore, um, and one of the parents said, this is something that she's trying to teach her child. And she. She said, anything but yes means no.
Speaker C [00:16:59]:
And I had to repeat it, like, three times. I'm like, wait, wait, say it again. Anything but yes means no. And I was like, oh, I gotta get that. Like, on a shirt like that. That is a slogan. That is cool. It is so simple and yet so powerful.
Speaker C [00:17:12]:
And obviously it's something that can get very, very deep when we look at the very, very deep issues in our society. But teaching consent, bodily autonomy from an early age is so important. And what we just talked about, listening to our children is so, so important. As grownups, of course, we're always making decisions. We can't always have it be discussion, you know, like, strap yourself in. That's. That's not negotiable. I'm not gonna not, you know.
Speaker C [00:17:39]:
Oh, you don't feel like being strapped in. Oh, okay. But there are a lot of times when, if we just slow down and listen and respecting their. Their little voices whenever we can, because we're raising. We're raising the next generation, we're raising adults, and the things we teach them now is so important. So listening and I could do better with that. And I'm going to do that once a week, apologizing to my kids. I'll try to listen more, but those are my, like, big takeaways.
Speaker C [00:18:12]:
And I will just mention there is a page. Again, I was very intentional with everything, and it was an amazing process going back and forth with the illustrator, doing, like, draft versions with them and being able to give feedback like, oh, no, no, no. Can you include this in it? And one page, the page where Mei-Li feels that uneasy feeling in her tummy. That was very intentionally done and drawn to really get at that, like, gut feeling. Listening to your gut feeling, that uneasy feeling, the butterflies in your feeling in your tummy, teaching kids to, like, be aware of that. Because I think oftentimes we ignore that feeling. And you have to teach people to, like, be in tune with. With how they're feeling.
Speaker C [00:18:58]:
So that. That was really an important lesson, that. That gut feeling. And again, you could just read this book and Then close it and be done with it. Or you can really, like, delve into some of these themes and have some of these discussions, which, of course, is my hope. Yeah, that little face and the butterflies. The illustrator I worked with, Kristen, was amazing and really, like, it was incredible seeing, like, my vision for the book come to light because I could not have, obviously I could not have done it myself. I could not have drawn anything.
Speaker B [00:19:32]:
No, Kristen did a great job and the illustrations, the illustrations complemented the writing. So really appreciate the, the collaboration y' all did on this project. For those who want to learn more about you, more about your work, who, who would love to learn more about the book, maybe they want to bring you in to, to read the book. You know, uh, my kids are at summer camp right now at PAL here in Tampa, Florida, the Police Athletic League. I. I could see this book being read at summer camps such as the ones that they're at, where there's a lot of kids from a lot of different places who engage in a lot of different ways and would benefit from hearing this story and processing such a conversation. Where, where can folks get in touch with you?
Speaker C [00:20:22]:
Um, Instagram. I am, I'm slowly but surely having a lot of fun with Instagram and trying to build a little bit of a following there. I, I am exclusively like, following book related people. Like, I just am all encompassed in books there and I love that because it's such a beautiful world and people like you that I've connected to through Instagram. So Instagram, I'm on there a lot. So that's one place. It's a diverse and progressive books. Diverse with the underscore and progressive books.
Speaker C [00:20:54]:
I'm also on Facebook. Also diverse and progressive books, but all one word. I have a Facebook page. I also have a shop on like an affiliate shop on bookshop.org if you're familiar with bookshop.org I love bookshop.org I try to buy all of my books through bookshop.org because the proceeds go to. Not the proceeds, the sales go to books like local bookstores instead of Amazon. The book is also available on Amazon, you know, if that's more convenient. But I love bookshop.org and I do have a shop there where you can purchase my book from, of course. But then I also have book recommendations that I've read to my kids and I, you know, would stand by and vouch for.
Speaker C [00:21:35]:
These are fabulous books. So those are also available through the bookshop.org shop, which is just my name, Caitlin Roeder. All one word.
Speaker B [00:21:44]:
Well, folks, you have the information that you need to follow up accordingly and get this book Family Kisses and read it to your family, read it to children, read it at the daycares, read it in spaces in which we need to continue to think about, talk about, and teach about boundaries and physical touch and consent. Such important conversations. And as Caitlin mentioned, the sooner that we have these conversations, the better, because we want to teach our kids to be proactive in terms of communicating their boundaries and to understand what their boundaries are and for others to understand those boundaries. So thank you for the message conveyed in this book. Thank you for having this conversation with
Speaker C [00:22:24]:
me today, but thank you so much for like it means so much to me. My goal is always to see and understand other people and it's really a cool and wild feeling to have people see and understand me and my book and what I was trying to get across. So thank you for seeing and understanding that and for this opportunity.
Speaker A [00:22:45]:
As always, your engagement in our classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the stream, and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germán.
