Intersectionality and Low Demand Parenting
In this deeply engaging episode of The Low Demand Parenting Podcast, Amanda Diekman sits down with Morénike Giwa Onaiwu—an activist, advocate, and thought leader in neurodiversity and intersectionality. Together, they unpack how intersectionality informs low demand parenting, highlighting the overlap of privilege and marginalization in parenting and life.
From understanding how societal norms rooted in white supremacy affect neurodivergent families to exploring the complexities of unmasking for marginalized communities, this conversation challenges us to reflect on how our identities shape the demands we place on ourselves and our children. Morénike shares practical insights on navigating cultural expectations, systemic biases, and building stronger, more inclusive connections across neurotypes.
This episode is a must-listen for parents seeking to align their parenting practices with authenticity, humility, and the realities of diverse lived experiences.
Additional Resources:
Dr. Onaiwu's books, including "Sincerely, Your Autistic Child"
Dr. Onaiwu’s work as Director, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN)
Dr. Onaiwu's Google Scholar page
"What To Say Next" book that Dr. Onaiwu mentions in the episode
Low Demand Parenting book: a love letter to exhausted, overwhelmed parents everywhere. Get the first chapter free!
Why is everything with my kid so hard?: Take the quiz to find your first step forward!
Low Demand Parenting Blog: a treasure trove of low demand wisdom
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Transcript:
Welcome to the low demand parenting podcast, where we drop the pressure, find the joy and thrive. Even when it feels like life is stuck on level 12 hard. I'm Amanda Diekmann, author, autistic adult, and mom of three. I'm not here as an expert, but a fellow traveler. Together, we're learning how to live more gently, authentically, and vibrantly in this wild parenting life.
Welcome.
Thank you so much, Amanda.
I am so grateful that you are here to share your wisdom. Because for some people, maybe this is their first time asking about what is intersectionality.
So let's move in first with a kind of a 101. What is this idea and why are you so passionate about it?
The term was coined in the 90s by a professor named Kimberlé Crenshaw, and she's still an active professor today. She's really involved in black feminism and legal studies .
We all have multiple identities. Every single person, every one of us. None of us are just one thing. We have a nationality. We have a gender. We have an age group, socioeconomic status. We have a faith belief or non belief. We have ethnicity. We have all of these things. So all of us have all of these things that make us who we are. We all have privileges and marginalizations as well. Everyone does.
It's a concept that's fluid. It's not the same. For example, I have a great deal more privilege than my cousins who are in West Africa. By virtue of being raised here in the United States, I have opportunities that they don't have. It's something that I didn't ask for. It's not my fault, but I do have it and I have to recognize and acknowledge it.
But then there's also areas of my life where I have challenges. And so there is not a single human being who is all marginalizations. We're all privileges, we're all a mix of both, and in different circumstances, sometimes one thing that's a privilege somewhere can be a marginalization elsewhere. And that should, we should all acknowledge that, but intersectionality is looking at the interplay of the marginalizations of these identities.
So all of our different identities, privileged and marginalized, overlap one another, you don't stop being a mom just because you're a woman, just because you're a whatever, and so all these things tied together. Sometimes they work in sync with one another. Sometimes they clash.
And so intersectionality, Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw was using a couple of court cases. One was de Graff in a raid versus General Motors. And then there was another one against the science lab in which it was found that there was a group of women who had sued for discrimination where they worked.
And the case was not found in their favor. It said you all are saying you're being discriminated against because you're Black, but there's Black people who work here. You're saying you're discriminated against because you're women, but there's women who work here. But what they weren't looking at was the fact that every Black person who worked there had to be able to lift a certain, it was like basically warehouse work, had to be able to lift a certain amount of weight.
And so most of these women who were, five, one, and, didn't have the physical capacity to work in those warehouses. And then there were women who were hired in the place, but all of the women were white or white presenting because they were in jobs such as receptionist and client facing.
Positions that at this time, in the discriminatory, society that was occurring at that time, which was a lot more overt, these women weren't able to get such jobs. Just because, it didn't look at the fact that we're working, but putting these things together makes things more complicated.
And so intersectionality is simply the intersection of the different aspects of your identity, particularly those that are marginalized, how they overlap and impact your life. And the. Illustration, she gives us about a four way intersection of vehicles. If you have cars coming from this way.
If there's no stop sign, yield sign or stoplight unless someone does something, they would collide and you don't know which ones want to collide with what. First, they're all going to collide together. You don't know which one's going to hit harder, but they're all going to have an impact.
And so it's a concept that means a lot to me. It really applies to us all. And especially if you're doing this kind of parenting, I'm pretty sure that in many ways it applies to your life.
Yes, absolutely. Let's dive into the low demand aspect of this. Low demand parenting is all about dropping demands and reducing expectations to create relationships of safety and connection.
But the things that we expect of our Children are very Contextual and intersectional. I found this in coaching parents around the world, that the things that they say are "have to's," like "good parents do this", or "this is what we do" is very different.
So how do we begin to think about these norms, these demands that we are constructing from a more intersectional perspective?
It's really hard because there's a lot of things that, are subconscious for us, and it really takes a lot of effort and intentionality to understand those things.
There's a lot of things that we think we've unpacked and unloaded, but there's a lot we need to examine about ourselves, and determine --have we really backed it up as much as we think we have?
Have we really removed everything?
If we're saying that, "okay I'm not going to insist upon a bedtime, for my child," but after a certain time they can't do this, or this, you are insisting on a bedtime. Or if you're saying "I don't care , what time they brush their teeth, they just need to brush their teeth." Do they? Will they die? Are the teeth going to fall if they don't brush one day? Or maybe just use the toothbrush or just use the mouthwash?
Some of it is inspecting that and is that really true? Or is that just something that somebody told me once and I've held on to all this time? And while we're talking about the neuro norms I particularly love some of the writing and sharing you've done about the ways that those norms themselves have been shaped by white supremacy and the ways that this is going unchallenged, even in the neurodivergent community.
Yes, and these are conversations that I have a lot because I know they're not pleasant but there are things that we need to think about and address because we all want to do better if this was hopeless if there was no chance there'd be no reason to bring it up.
, when something is what you've been surrounded with, it becomes like your normalcy and it's hard for it not to be, and so neurodivergent people, like you mentioned, neurodiversity is, overall, it's a sense of culture within a culture. But we still are bringing with it what we've been raised with or what we've been around and what we understand. And one example of that is for example,
it's a little better now, but a lot of the checklists they used to have online about, determining whether or not someone was neurodivergent or autistic, had a lot of the things that they shared were Western norms and often white norms. They were things that may not be true to one's experience if you're a person of color, and so are not seen, you are missed.
Other things, people need to think about things culturally, one example 📍 is language. Person first language originated from, developmental disabilities community and simultaneously from the HIV community, both of these communities of which can have a large number of individuals of color.
And so it's seen as empowering. It isn't seen as a negative thing or wanting to separate themselves. So when people say stuff like identity first language is is better and person first language is perpetuating stigma. I'm thinking "maybe it is to you because maybe culturally to you it's seen as separation, but maybe that's not how it's perceived by other groups. You're, projecting."
It might be better to say this is my preference, but this one is acceptable as well. A lot of the things that people say are non negotiables are things that aren't intersectional.
And I find that actually, interestingly enough, regardless of race, people who are adopting ways of parenting, that's more connected and inclusive. There's, low demand parenting unschooling, a variety of these different things tend to have a worldview that seems to me more like the people of global majority.
For example, there's 📍 an intergenerational component. And so things such as co sleeping or , doing things in a non traditional way because it works for the family are things that are welcomed whereas you see in a lot of advocacy, it's the lone wolf, it's me parents have no voice here.
These people have no voice. And for us, it's more intertwined. A lot of what drives us is our families and ourselves. We definitely want our voice projected, but we want these people alongside us. We don't want them not with us. We may not even want them behind us.
We might want them near us. And so I think that there's just things like this nuances that people share a lot of things that people talk about, unmasking or some of these things are very unsafe for people of color who are neurodivergent to do or very difficult to do. It, it's just really, it's complicated.
So I think that we really have to step outside of our own experiences and think --some things that are right for us are helpful for us are not for others. I remember having to change the way that I think because I always used to be very frustrated when people would talk about autism being You know, prison where your body's in, you're locked in, but your mind is intact.
And I used to be very upset about that and thought that was very ableist. And I was like, that is not true. It's not a prison. It's just how you all perceive it. But then I started realizing that there were some of our colleagues, for example, some of my minimally speaking colleagues have said that is how it feels to me because I actually, have difficulty with controlling my body.
It's not just about stimming and this, any other, it does feel that way. And so I started. Okay. I can't really say that. They may, accept themselves who they are in neurology, but this is still an element of their experience. And so for me to deny it or say, that's not the case is to erase their lives and their role in their community.
Gosh. Yes. I love what you're bringing here, which is, it's like a real humility. Can we speak about our own experience and back off on so much projecting of " this is how it is for everyone."?
That is such a white supremacist move of " I'm going to take my experience and then blanket it onto the world."
Absolutely.
It's, there's this willingness to be teachable and to be wrong and that you're offering up that I think is so important. And you brought up this particular aspect of balancing of unmasking as a concept that that I think many people are saying this is the way forward is for autistic people to come out into the world and mask.
And yet there is. Because of intersectionality and the identities yes, maybe that's true from a white experience, but from a number of other identities and intersections. That's not safe. So I'm thinking about the ways that my kids, like one of my kids will yell at me in public or hit me or hit his siblings and that would be perceived as very dangerous.
And perhaps people even, intervening, in dramatic ways that I can drop the demand that he behave a certain way because of my identity, because of my cultural privilege and that for other kids, even if it's not aggressive behavior, even just Stemming or yelling that those behaviors might be also perceived as aggressive.
So how Absolutely. Do you, you can either speak to this, like how do you balance this in your own life, or how do you help others who are thinking about the reality of their intersectional identity and dropping demands like unmasking?
I think that I like welcome people to really dwell in that gray zone because of the fact that.
We do want to promote authenticity but we also want to understand the practical reality that people have. And the example you just gave me, it was a great one if your child's dysregulated and they're, bashing on and hitting, it's not because he hates you, it's not because he's violent, he's having a difficult time, he's thrashing, he's trying to regulate himself, and you understand what that means, and later on, he'll have an opportunity to calm down, he'll talk through it. But like you mentioned, Happening at home is one thing.
If it happens in public people might stare, but it's less likely that they're going to, it won't be perceived in the same way that it would with another family. I know it's different for everyone, and some children can't camouflage or mask anyway, not even if they wanted to, they are not ever going to be successful.
Some adults as well. But I explained to my children Okay, this is how people are going to think of thing A or thing B, even if that's not you mean of thing A or thing B. And I know sometimes it's hard to be to think about those things in the moment in difficult times. So these are things I've told them about in during times that.
They aren't, having a challenging day. When they are able to process and internalize new information. I explained to them, they'll ask me certain questions why I do certain things and I'll explain. so for example that I We'll explain that I might, let certain situations go just because it's, it's simpler and easier, as opposed to, what would be true to me, which would be, to my ethics might be to address the thing.
It might not be the time. There might be a better way to do those things, a safer way to do those things. So I explained to them, for example, that When I had the talk, which I hate, but with my older children, I explained to them, if you were in a situation with an authority figure and they're asking you a lot of questions, rapid fire questions.
I know at home, we don't have to do our contact and all that. I know you're at school. You don't have to do it, but please do it with these people. And they're looking at me. I'm like, I know it sounds ridiculous. But because of the fact that people perceive when you look away as if you have something to hide, or you're shifting, or whatever, even though I know that's something I told you not to do, try to do it.
For, even though this is something that is not good for you, because it's a lesser of two evils in this situation. I'll tell them to try to find a way to stim internally, try not to rock. And again, I know this is not healthy or normal to the suppression, but try to use your internal stims, things that song lyrics around your head or whatever, because you can move less.
Try to move very slowly and deliberately, do not engage in echo, which even though we encourage it because it's processing, it's how we understand things and retention, they'll think you're being mocked. So basically I'm teaching you how to be fake momentarily to survive. And I'm teaching you that if someone does something to you that's, that's wrong, you let it happen and we'll worry about it later, whereas usually I would say, no, this is unfair, this is wrong, or whatever, in a situation where you have more power. In a school setting or with your siblings, you can be like "no, that isn't fair because this and the other," you cannot say that in this instance, you need to just, make it through the situation and move on.
I think that's hard for people to understand, and I think it's also hard for some people to understand why. Okay such and such setting this school or this type of therapy or program is harmful. Why would that person have their child in that thing? And so I think that they need to think about what are the alternatives if they don't?
What happens to this person in a culture where people call child protective services for a child playing in the park alone, if you weren't using the "gold standard of medical care," or if you weren't giving your child what is considered a, " a legitimate education" in their eyes , what risks are are you placing yourself and your child in?
So I think that sometimes we just have to understand that people don't have the circumstances that we have sometimes.
We might have a lot of challenges, but we might still have privileges that they don't, that allow us to, openly say things or do things a certain way without realizing the costs. For myself, I used to mask, , at work years ago. And when I started to unmask it was very freeing, but I think I realized also it was the time that put a target on my back.
Um, It felt free. Internally, but it also, made me unsafe. So I was safe in terms of being my real self and I was unsafe in terms of now my job stability was threatened and ultimately, that accumulated over time.
And I can speak to it from a white perspective something that I think about often is my ability to drop a demand like Send it, my kids don't go to school, but like sending them to school in the same clothes several days in a row because they can't change clothes.
But I can do that. I have the privilege to do that.
They call CPS so fast. You know what I mean? Like your kid's hair. So that's, and that's the challenges. There is a a colleague of mine named Natasha supernova mama, who has two, who is autistic and has two autistic little girls.
And so her girls, their hair is locked, which is a twist, because the idea of constantly washing, combing, brushing, the sensory part of that is, is like horrendous for her little girls. But yet, if you, if your child's hair is considered unkempt, or their clothes are not like this, it can be very problematic.
People will say that you're neglecting your child, that they're harmed, that they're, if your child's self harming, if they're a person who scratches themselves you're going to be the one that's Look at something is wrong, so if your child wants to eat the same thing every day, you're going to be looked at as not giving them adequate nutrition, like all of these things are criminalized.
You're just under additional scrutiny that other people have. So you may not care that your kids barefoot or in the same clothes. You may be fine with it, but you might have to force them to change because you know that the domino effect is going to be, a catastrophe for you and your family.
Yeah, exactly. And I also think as a white parent of white children who are neurodivergent and developing friendships with other neurodivergent kids, that's something that's really important for me is to teach them, Hey, something that you are doing, if it was done in a black body is going to be perceived as dangerous.
And so you need to be looking out for your friends, you need to stepping into those environments and providing your privilege can be somebody else's safety.
Yes.
And they aren't going to see that. Like your kids are like, that sounds crazy. My kids are like, that sounds crazy.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm like, yeah, but it's true.
And this is your job because of the body you were born into and you need to wield it for good. And not for evil because just standing by or, perpetuating is not an option for you.
That is so important. And I think that's what a lot of people miss about these conversations.
Like they get caught up in like frustration or guilt. I'm thinking it's not about guilt. It's about life places in situations where sometimes there are responsibilities upon our shoulders that are difficult to bear, whether it's having to act a way that's not authentic for you or having to get out of your comfort zone and help someone or use its privilege to switch and manipulate a situation, not because you want to, but because of situation that you're around.
An example of mine is I lived in Southern California for a number of years. one of my best friends, we learned, we used to make these drives to Arizona. We learned very quickly. that although I was a better driver, my friend needed to drive because I got stopped so many times. It was just when we, when my friend drove, we didn't get stopped.
So it was like his, burden as my white male friend was, this sucks. I don't like being on the road, but I'm going to go ahead and drive. It's going to be better. We're not going to be stopped. It's not going to have this drama. And he wasn't resenting me for it.
It was something that he recognized that he could offer that he could contribute. So it's an additional task, but , like you mentioned we're a community. So we all have to be there for each other. This person is bearing, the brunt of it in one way and you were bearing in another.
Yeah. That's a way to confront these realities, not from a place of blindness of just unmask, just do it. Mm-Hmm. like That is not helpful, but facing together that we all desire a life where we can be our full selves, and yet we're operating in a system where that is not equally safe.
And so then we need to enter into that in lockstep,
Yes, not resistant, not hiding, I tell people privilege can be a superpower or it can be a weapon. How are you going to use it? Some people are given the privilege of being on a certain platform, and they use that space to share others experiences.
If you have the privilege, like for example, myself, of being a person who can speak to communicate, although I'm a part time AAC user there are a lot of concepts that I can share that might not be my direct experience or something that is the highest priority for me, but it very much is for another part of our community.
But because they have not been brought to the table, that doesn't mean that voice has to be absent. They should be at the table. But if they're not, I'm gonna share their spot. They're going to be in spirit at the table as best as I can as an ally to share that perspective.
And I think that's what we need to learn to do. We need to lean into those things, not hide from them.
All right. I have one more question for you. And I just wanted to say before it's over, like I'm loving this conversation. Thank you for showing up today. This has been amazing. So I want to ask you about intersection when it comes to crossing neurotype.
So if we have a neuro typical parent, raising a neurodivergent child or a neurotypical partner with a neurodivergent one and. That's another place where the culture and expectations might clash and there's also power and privilege at work in those dynamics.
My parents have English as their second language, they almost always like when someone asks a question, pause, it's just a quick little pause, but they pause a moment before they just answer.
I think we need to do that if there's these differences. We need to have an understanding to take an additional look at things because a lot of it is going to be learning.
For example, we have phonics and then we have sight words. Some of those words make no sense. You just have to memorize them. There's nothing logical about that word whatsoever. E I G H T, but that's eight. Okay. And so with A T E, sometimes you just have to accept that the thing makes no sense, but this is what it means.
This is the symbol for this or for that. That's what we have to understand about a lot of our communication. It shouldn't be only the neurodivergent person learning the ways of neurotypicality and stretching and changing.
It should be the other way around as well. We should all be coming together. For example I have a relative who feels ignored if you don't communicate with them. I can go years without talking to someone and still consider them one of my closest friends, and as soon as we connect, it's like we never stopped talking, but this person, I've put in my calendar. I now text them every couple of weeks. It's something I can do that's out of my comfort zone to help them, even though I think it's ridiculous.
To me, I don't care, but I'm doing it for you. So similarly, certain things that people might have to do, with their spouse or with their children that you don't get. You have no idea why this light is so bothersome to this person. You flip the light on in the kitchen, the person's shielding their eyes.
To you, it looks fine. To them, it's a bright fluorescent flashlight in their face. You might not get it, but you know what it means to them.
There is a book by a couple Sarah and Larry Nannery, it's called What to Say Next. And Sarah Nannery is an autistic mom married to a neurotypical husband. Basically he translates the world for her.
She'll be at work, there'll be a situation and then she'll send it to him. "What does this mean?" And he's " oh, they're not really meaning this. They mean this." He helps her with decoding and we can do that with one another too. Your child came into the room, you could explain to the neighbor that your child came in and didn't say hi.
It's not because they're rude, but they don't say hi when they come into the room. They have a routine. They go straight for, I don't know, the refrigerator or whatever. They acknowledge you, but not with small talk. It's not rudeness. It means this.
My son likes to share food and some of this food I don't like. And I would try to say "no, it's fine. It's fine." And so I've learned that if I can just take a little small bite, whether I like it, I don't have to pretend like I like it. That's a love language for him. He's going to insist. He just needs to see someone else take part in the eating as well.
I'd so much rather just say, "Oh, that's great. I'm glad you like it. Oh, it's yummy. Know. I don't want to try it. "And, and I can't expect him to honor my no, I can tell him to do that. But I can also yield, so like I can have boundaries, but sometimes those boundaries can be flexible.
I think we should be like a cytoskeleton as opposed to a cell wall. Sturdy and with our boundaries intact, but flexible to let things in and out as we need to as situations arrive.
I love that metaphor. I'm going to tell my husband that he's a scientist.
I'm thinking of this morning. I never do this, but I messed up and I kissed the Top of my son's head. Cause I was just right there and it just happened and he screamed and grabbed it and it would be so easy to dismiss that. " Come on, I just kissed you," but for him, it is physically painful for me to cross that boundary.
And I know not to do it. And I messed up and I apologize big time because that was a transgression and I did it anyway, and that's a way of honoring, like for him, his experience is that this. That this kiss was incredibly terrible. And it doesn't help me at all to say I just kissed the top of your head.
So realize, okay, we're both neurodivergent, but this is a sensory difference that he has that isn't mine. It isn't natural to me. So maybe I just got into autopilot mode and kissed, but I owned up.
I was accountable. I was like, Whoa, sorry, hon, that I shouldn't have done that. And I realized that, I think that our kids see that authenticity in us. And I think it helps them. I'll say something and my children will come back and be like, mom, you were wrong about this.
And the other, I'd be like, Oh, wow. You're right. I was sorry. Like I think that it builds trust.
I can tell that you are an incredible parent and yeah, it's, it must be a real gift to be your child because of the kind of nurture and love that you're offering. And also thank you for bringing all of us into your wisdom. It's been such a gift to talk to you today.
Thank you.
Thank you. Parents, I just want to say, if you're thinking you screwed up, you didn't do this right, you didn't do that that probably means that you're on the right track to becoming the parent you want to be. Just the other day I was running behind on something and I was like, oh, I, everybody's upset at me. My husband's No one's upset at you.
He went to the kids. Are you upset at mommy? I said, mom, and so in my mind, because I was upset at myself, I mentioned that. And so I was just thinking, okay, wow, like we can be so self critical even when we're telling ourselves to be gentle with our child. We need to be gentle with ourselves sometimes too.
We need to be a low demand parent ourselves sometimes too.
Absolutely. I fully second that. Letting things go for ourselves is so important in this life. Thank you.
Thank you.
