A Conversation With Cindy Wang Brandt

Parenting Forward’s Cindy Wang Brandt is a writer, podcaster, speaker, and conference host who has built a valuable community around the concept of parenting with a focus on spirituality but absent of religious dogma.
Cindy and I sat down for an informal conversation and discussed our podcasts, being brought up in church (and then leaving church), how our own parents influence our relationships with our kids, and what it means to strive to raise kids who are socially, globally, and culturally conscious human beings.
You can find Cindy's work at cindywangbrandt.com, and be sure to check out her facebook group, Raising Children Unfundamentalist, a wonderful community for folks who want to parent in healthy moral and ethical ways, without the structures and strictures of organized religion.
You can find "The Talk" on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and If you'd like to contribute to the conversation by sharing your story about one of our episode topics, you can do so by sending a voice memo or an email to thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com. 

Transcript

You're listening to The Talk: a podcast where we explore the possibility of creating a radical new communication environment between parents and children. An environment that's open, honest, and candid, and where nothing is off limits.

Hi, everyone, it's Jeremy. This episode is an informal conversation with Cindy Wang Brandt, a writer podcaster and speaker, whose approach and perspective energizes spirituality and humanity by exploring the deconstruction of religious faith. Her 2019 book, Parenting Forward, has been called "a much needed awakening in a world too willing to close its eyes to its most marginalized, voiceless and vulnerable inhabitants." And her podcast, also called Parenting Forward, brings to the forefront valuable conversations with a wide range of guests who speak on everything from religious trauma, to decolonizing and de-centering whiteness in parenting, to purity culture in evangelical circles, and a whole host of other fascinating and important topics. Like myself, Cindy also believes deeply that communication between parents and kids can and should be open, honest, candid, and radically different from the way that many in our generation—especially if we came up in religious communities—were raised. Cindy and I connected a couple of weeks ago over Zoom, to chat about each other's podcasts, being raised in conservative evangelical communities, and the challenges and rewards of working to raise kids as socially globally and spiritually conscious human beings. Now, here's my conversation with Cindy Wang Brandt.

Cindy Wang Brandt: Hello!

Jeremy: Cindy! Hi, there!

C.W.B.: Hi. It's nice to meet you.

Jeremy: You too. I'm so happy that we finally were able to connect. Where are you located? I don't think I actually know.

C.W.B.: I'm in Taiwan. 

Jeremy: Okay, gotcha. 

C.W.B.: Yeah, we're pandemic free here. Did you know that?

Jeremy: I didn't know that. But I do know that a lot of the world is doing a lot better than we are at this point. 

C.W.B.: I know. 

Jeremy: It's a little crazy.

C.W.B.: I'm quite invested. Because my daughter is going to college this fall in America. 

Jeremy: Gotcha. Where she going?

C.W.B.: She's going to Wesleyan University, which is where Lin Manuel went.

Jeremy: Yeah. It was that a reason for her choice, or a deciding factor?

C.W.B.: Yeah. Such a fan.

Jeremy: Well, this is gonna be interesting. I'm so accustomed to just purely being on the interviewer, as I'm sure you are. And so I'm looking forward...I was thinking today, I was like, you know, I never talk about myself! I'm always, like, concentrating so hard on trying to formulate good questions, and follow the conversation and like, draw things out of people. And so this will be a nice time for us to just kind of talk to each other in a little more casual way maybe.

C.W.B.: Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy: Do you get interview jitters? I know you've been doing this a good while, but do you still get sort of...

C.W.B.: No, no. I don't get nervous very easily for stuff. And I have been doing this a long time, so...very comfortable in front of the mic. 

Jeremy: Yeah. You've been doing your podcast, Parenting Forward for what, three years?

C.W.B.: A couple of years. No, not three years, I think, at least a couple of years.

Jeremy: Well, you have you have episodes back to 2018, I noticed! 

C.W.B.: Okay. Well, I guess it has been a while but you know, for a while I went to bi-weekly.  So I don't feel like I have that many. Like I have a little over 100 episodes. I should have more if I had been doing weekly for three years.

Jeremy: Yeah. I know about you, or I became aware of you, through the Raising Children Unfundamentalist Facebook group. What came first, did that come out of...well did you found that group?

C.W.B.: Raising Children Unfundamentalist came first. Then the podcast.

Jeremy: Okay. And you started that group? 

C.W.B.: Yes. Yes. 

Jeremy: And it's grown to to be quite a thing.

C.W.B.: Yeah, it's like 20,000 people. I feel like most people may know me from that. Although some people know me from the podcast. And now I have the conferences. So there's different things. 

Jeremy: Did the podcast start kind of as an outgrowth of conversations that started to happen in that group? Or what was the sort of evolution or convergence of those two things?

C.W.B.: You know, I just think that it was kind of a new thing: Podcasts. You know, back when I started, it was still kind of new. And I was an avid podcast consumer, I still am. I listen to podcasts all the time. So it's just one of those things where like, oh, I love listening to it. So maybe I can create one as well. And I do think podcasting is a really intimate medium. And I love that people feel close to me and yeah, it's just a great way to reach people in, like, more nuanced conversations than social media snippets. Yeah, I like it a lot. I miss writing because I used to be a blogger. And so I was writing weekly blogs at that time. And I think I'm...I think that's what I'm good at. I'm good at writing. So podcasting—I'm not bad at podcasting. But I, I think I miss writing. So I just have to try to fit both in somehow. Of course, it's similar, right? It's this idea of sharing ideas, right, just in different ways. And now, of course, now I think video is like the big thing. Although Have you joined Clubhouse?

Jeremy: I haven't. I've been hearing about it. Have you?

C.W.B.: Yeah, so Clubhouse is just audio. And that's supposed to be like the next big thing. So I can't decide if video is the big thing or audio is the big thing. 

Jeremy: Yeah. 

C.W.B.: But either way, writing is not the big thing anymore.

Jeremy: Yeah, nobody wants to put in that level of...investment. They want something that's like...at least to some extent is like passive input.

C.W.B.: Right. Yeah.

Jeremy: But at the same time, if you're listening to a podcast, at least for me, when I listen to podcasts, I have to be able to focus on that. So I guess it's maybe more passive than actually reading. But at the same time, if I miss 30 seconds of something because I'm distracted, I have to go back. Because I just can't process...

C.W.B.: Yeah, I feel like it takes more active listening for me to listen to a book or a podcast than it is for me to read.

Jeremy: When you started the podcast, did you start it sort of thinking, like, I have so many things to say, I want to get them out there? Or was it...was that sort of the impetus behind starting it?

C.W.B.: No, I think it was just...I like having conversations with people. I get really tired of my own ideas and my own voice, right? So I love hosting conversations, and I think so many times other people...your conversation partners stimulate your own thinking. And it's just fun to be connected with other people's work and offer it up as a resource. This is like this collective thing, you know? So same as Raising Children Unfundamentalist, like, Raising Children Unfundamentalist is not about Cindy Wang Brandt. It's just like all these people, and everyone gives their advice and shares their resources. That's the value in that. And I think podcasting is the same thing. Like, I'm bringing people's voices. And that's why I host conferences as well, like I host conferences because I get to bring the voices that I think are worth lifting up to people. So yeah, I like to think of myself as sort of a guide, connecting people to the resources that will help them. The tools that will help them do better in parenting.

Jeremy: That makes a lot of sense. And I think you're spot on with with that in terms of the way that you do it. Because what your podcast has been, for me, has been a really great resource to find...not only to find great information from people, but to find jumping off points that have, you know...I listen to an episode of yours, and then I go and find out more about that person. And then they lead me to other people. 

C.W.B.: Right. 

Jeremy: And I love the breadth of types of conversations that you bring. And it's sent me down so many wormholes of information and people that I'm so grateful for that I would not have discovered otherwise.

C.W.B.: Yeah, well, I mean, that's kind of my personality, you know, I am interested in a lot of different things. It would be hard for me to really niche down to one thing, which is why parenting is a perfect topic for me because parenting can encompass a lot of different areas. And I have explored so many things. Like, I've had series' on religious trauma, I had a series on parenting de-centering whiteness, I just had a series on sex, like those are all really different things, but somehow they come under the umbrella of parenting and so I get to explore. Follow my curiosities, but still hopefully be a helpful resource to parents. And so I really appreciate that. And I mean, I think in the end, it's about what it means to flourish as a human beings, right? And I think that's what parenting is.

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, that's the great thing about parenting. It's that you're guiding these tiny humans through...they've never experienced anything of the world when they're first born. And so you have the opportunity to guide them through every thing that they are going to experience while they're growing up, and then kind of set the stage for how they're going to think about things that they encounter outside of your home, and how they're going to react and how they're going to treat people outside of your home. And it's a huge responsibility but for a curious person with diverse interests—you're right, it's absolutely perfect, because you're introducing them, or you can introduce them to everything about the world.

C.W.B.: Yeah, that's such a great way to talk about it. It's funny, you're so positive about it. But to me, there's a lot of anxiety, right? Like we sure we want to show our kids, we want to guide our kids through what they're going through right now at the moment, but we're also really thinking ahead all the time to their life outside of our home, to their future and how we can equip them with what they're going to need to face all these potential outcomes. And it really can get a little overwhelming, doesn't it?

Jeremy: Absolutely, it does.

C.W.B.: Yeah. So my daughter is about to turn 18 this week, actually. Happy birthday. And, you know, this is the last year that she's at home with us, and so I do feel this urgency. Like  this morning I was like, "have we taught her how to do laundry well enough?" You know? Anything from little things like that to like...I've been talking about sexuality a lot. It's  like how have I equipped her for intimacy? Have we given her the the information and the emotional intelligence and resilience enough for her to establish intimate relationships in which she treats her partner well, and expects her partner to treat her well? Those things are always kind of in our minds, which is why we need a community. It's so important to have a parenting community. So we can support each other through these anxieties.

Jeremy: Did you grow up in Taiwan? Where did you grow up?

C.W.B.: I did. I grew up in Taiwan.

Jeremy: And from what I know of you, it sounds like...well, no, I won't make assumptions. I would love to ask how you felt your parents did communicating with you as a kid and as a teenager? And was there openness there? And I know you were embedded in faith community as well. What was the interplay there? Were your parents very invested in that? And did that bring most of their perspective to their parenting?

C.W.B.: No, actually, I converted before my family converted. 

Jeremy: Oh okay. 

C.W.B.: So I was always kind of seen as the mentor in faith. 

Jeremy: Oh, wow. 

C.W.B.: Yeah, I know, it's an interesting dynamic, but we're all missionary converts, so...converted by missionaries. It's such a good question to ask about our parents, right? Like, when we think about our own parenting it's so good to reflect on how our parents treated us the things that we appreciate, and maybe not so much appreciate about the way that they raised us. I'll just say one, good and one bad thing. So I've been going through a series on parenting after purity culture, I hosted a conference on that. And going through those ideas made me realize how poorly my parents did to set us up for sexuality, because it was total silence. 

Jeremy: Yeah. 

C.W.B.: So that's one major shortcoming, I would say, of my parents, which is not unusual at all for that generation, and especially for me in an Asian family. But the one thing that they do really, really well—my parents—is that they've always just been quite unconditional in their support of our pursuit of things we love and want to do in life. And that's been especially precious in adulthood, ever since we left our homes, my siblings and I. We've pretty much been able to pursue what we want to pursue with their unconditional support. Like they don't try to place expectations on us. They're curious about what we're interested in, and they don't nag and they don't inquire. They don't judge. And that's incredible. And I really hope that I can emulate that when my kids are adults. And I feel how how it frees me and how it makes me feel loved and supported. And I'm very close to my parents and I think it's because of that. Like, the more freedom you give your kids actually is the best way to draw them close to you. The more you control them, that's how you push him away. Right? 

Jeremy: Yeah, that's so difficult to do. Because in the moment, as parents and as humans, we need to feel like we're in control of something. Of ourselves of...if we don't feel like we have control over ourselves, then we project that onto our immediate surroundings. And so it's so hard to think those steps ahead and to react to our kids in a way that...you know, you may want to control a situation and what you're projecting or what you're intending to do is not coming through to them in the same way because they're three five, eleven, fifteen, whatever. And you're their parental figure. So that letting go of control is really hard. Do you find that difficult, or have you found that difficult in raising your, your kids? Do you have more than one child?

C.W.B.: I have two kids, yeah. Um....I think...of course. I think control is our coping mechanism, it helps us feel safe. And of course, it's the opposite side of the coin of love as well. You care about your kids well-being and that's why you want to make sure that they're making good choices. And so you want to control the choices that they're making. So I don't want to judge us as parents for having that impulse—I think it's very human. But ultimately I really think it comes down to an issue of trust. Do you trust your child? And when I think about, my parents, they they trusted us so much. And they still will make comments like, "Oh, you you knew what you were doing." You know, even though I knew that I didn't know what I was doing. I knew myself. But it was like somehow they just trusted us. And they knew that we were going to be okay. I don't know where that trust comes from. Maybe I should have them on my podcast and ask them.

Jeremy: Absolutely you should! I've had a couple interviews with my parents. And it's been remarkably insightful. And not not only for me, but people who know me, and also people who don't know me have commented on just how the how natural the rapport is, I mean, for obvious reasons. But also, the insight that my parents have had...and my parents did a similar thing to what you're describing in terms of trust, not only when we were teenagers, but when we were young kids. And we lived in a place where it was not that hard to do. We had a big backyard and space, and we could have autonomy in that way. But I think that was really important for my development too. I didn't mean to cut you off there...

C.W.B.: No, not at all. I think that if you interview your parents, it also gives them a chance to talk about things that you normally wouldn't talk about around the living room or over dinner, or whatever, right? It's like an opportunity to say some things that you might not normally say out loud, but you've just implicitly...We assume so much in our families, because there's so much shared culture that we just don't try to be intentional about saying certain things out loud. So I can imagine that you have some really good conversations and I feel like that's what your podcast is about, right? Like kind of bringing to surface difficult things that we don't normally...that we just assume that's implicit in our family lives. But how can we make it explicit? And not to, like, overshare and become really, you know, burdensome and cumbersome when it comes to like just hashing things out, but sometimes it can bring to light some insights on how your relationship dynamics are and how you can do better and how you can love one another better. So I appreciate your work in that way.

Jeremy: Well thanks. Do you find that you understand your parents better as you get older, or understand them in different ways?

C.W.B.: Yes, I think so. Yeah, absolutely. But I also think that we, as time goes on, of course, and there's some progress and new information...Like we're learning so much about mental health, right? Things that we never had the language for. And some emotional intelligence and resilience. Language, like how to regulate your nervous system, you know, these kinds of things. We just didn't use words like that. And I think being able to have these tools now to then both remember what my relationship was like with my parents and what it is now has been really helpful in understanding. I think adulthood is different. Your relationship with your parents—you don't see him every day. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited about this next season of my parenting life. Of seeing, you know, developing,  cultivating that relationship with my kids as adults.

Jeremy: So you have one daughter who's turning 18 and your other child is how old? 

C.W.B.: He'll be turning 15 in April.

Jeremy: Okay. It'll be an interesting period when she goes to college and for it to be just him in the house.

C.W.B.: I know! I don't know what to expect with that. I can't imagine because of course as long as we've had him he's had his sister around. But you know, it all evens out because for three years, we just had her.

Jeremy: Yeah. I was just thinking that—our kids are four and six—and I remember those first two years with just our first son, and he being the only one around. And then when we had our second son, there was like a period of feeling like, "Oh my gosh, we had this beautiful two years just together, and now, how is he gonna feel having to share that attention?" And then when he started Pre-k, then it was just me and the younger one, like during the days for a while, so we got our opportunity to do that stuff at that point.

C.W.B.: Oh, so special. 

Jeremy: Yeah. 

C.W.B.: Okay, so enough about me. Tell me about you and your podcast and why are you talking about parenting? 

Jeremy: Well, I'm pretty new to the podcasting game. My first episode came out, I think, in September of 2020. So I'm pretty fresh to it.

C.W.B.: Was it a pandemic passion project?

Jeremy: Well, it's partly a pandemic unemployment project. Because in my regular career, I work in entertainment—in theater. And so, you know, that's been shut down since March 12, or whatever, of last year, so I've been virtually unemployed since then. But I have noticed—for as long as we've had kids—I've noticed that other parents are often a little bit surprised at the way that my wife and I talk to our kids. If we're on the playground, or we're at a play date, or whatever, people seem to be a little bit surprised at the sort of level of candor that we have with our kids. And the inclusion with which we try to keep them within conversations and topics that are often seen as adult conversations, like, you know, "you'll learn about that when you're older", or, "you don't need to know about this at your age. That's something for grownups to talk about." And why can't we find a way to talk to our kids in inappropriate ways, at whatever age they're at, about anything? I spent time with a friend of mine a number of years ago, who had preteen boys at the time. And he was just going on and on with anxiety about the prospect of having "the talk" with them. This thing where you're a preteen, and your parents sit you down on the couch, and they've never said a word to you about sex before. And they tell you what they want to tell you in 15 minutes, and then you both run out of the room, because nobody really wants to be there. And then there's no healthy follow up to that conversation, usually, either. When people in the culture that I grew up in say "the talk", that's what they're talking about. And so my idea was to sort of flip that structure on its head, and eliminate the need for those big formal talks by just having these topics be part of easy, open, honest, candid conversation from the time that our kids can understand us. So that's really kind of where the idea came from. And I chose a whole bunch of topics to center each episode around. So there's an episode on death, there's an episode coming up on sex, there's a two part episode on bodies, there's an episode on gender, there's all these things that parents are often uncomfortable talking about, 

C.W.B.: Yeah. 

Jeremy: I interview a lot of parents. And I try to find parents who I think maybe have a certain unique perspective on the topic. Then I also talk to child psychologists and psychiatrists and other people who maybe are or are not parents, but have a particular expertise in the subject. So for each episode I usually have two to three interviews that I edit down and kind of shape a little bit of narrative around it. It's been such a learning experience for me because like you, I'm so interested in hearing people's perspectives and taking maybe like a little seed of the way that I think about something and then having other voices come in and expound upon or... 

C.W.B.: Challenge... 

Jeremy: Absolutely. Challenge the way that I was thinking about a certain thing and it's been so so remarkable.

C.W.B.: Oh, I love it. I love and absolutely agree with you that there should be absolutely nothing that we can't tell our kids. I don't really understand it either. When people are like, well, "We're gonna table this until you're older," right? I mean, the one thing that I can think of is like violence. Like some people really want to shelter their kids from violence. But even that, like, I feel like that's not an age thing. Because I'm in my 40s and I can't watch violent things. And I can't talk about very violent graphic scenes. And it's not to do with age, it's to do with sensitivity and personality. It is not because a child is too young, there are kids who are very young, who can tolerate violence. And so I just really want to disrupt...this myth that somehow our age is limiting to us. And of course, young people have a smaller vocabulary, and you do have to be age appropriate. And I don't like I don't even like the word age appropriate, because what's age appropriate? It's, it's more about the child and the person and their capacity.

Jeremy: It's about knowing your kid and what they can handle. 

C.W.B.: Yeah, exactly. So just like anybody, if you were to talk to somebody in another culture, you have to learn their language in order to communicate with them. And it's the same with us, in our parenting. So we have to learn the language that will reach our target audience, which is our child. But there's nothing that should be off limits, and especially if your child is asking you the question, then they want an answer, right? And they deserve an answer from you. Even if it's an "I don't know", or "let's learn about this together." But there's so many things, like sex is one big thing where people feel like you shouldn't talk to kids before they're ready, but it's like, young kids are touching their genitals and experiencing pleasure. Their sexuality is alive and well, even before puberty. People say you shouldn't talk to kids about race. And it's like, "No, even babies can recognize that their caregivers have a certain color!" You know, this is documented and surveyed. And so really, we can talk to our kids about anything, we just have to maybe make the effort to become an accessible voice to them, which is just a justice issue, right? Accessibility is justice. So I, I love that you're doing that. 

Jeremy: And I love what you said just before about learning things together. Because I think one place where parents are uncomfortable, or one reason parents are uncomfortable talking to their kids about things is because they feel inadequately knowledgeable sometimes. 

C.W.B.: That's right. 

Jeremy: And so that's one thing that I've really leaned into with my kids is, if they ask me something and I don't know, instead of trying to make something up so that I feel like an authority figure in their life, and like, I'm not breaking that illusion of being the all-knowing parent, we just learn about it together. I just say, "I don't know, let's find this out. Let's Google this. Let's ask these people." And that experience in itself can be such a bonding experience. It can be such a trust building experience. What better way to show your kids that it's okay to be fallible. That it's okay to not have everything together.

C.W.B.: Yeah. And this is especially relevant for my podcast, because we do talk about spirituality. So it's like, yeah, if your kids ask you questions about spirituality, you don't actually know the answer! 

Jeremy: Right. Right. 

C.W.B.: The best thing you can do is well, let's explore this together or to share—I talk about this a lot—to share your story. Your story of how you came to learn this and how you've come to decide on this. I think this is a really valuable skill to when it comes to fostering civil dialogue. Is this sharing your perspective, modeling how to say, "Hey, this is how I came to this conclusion. And let's help you figure out what your conclusion might be. 

Jeremy: And making it clear that that's exactly what it is. That it's a path that you've come along, and that it's not infallible truth that you believe is unassailable.

C.W.B.: Yeah. Which is hard for me because I'm an enneagram eight. I don't know if you're familiar with the enneagram, but we can be very..."This is the way."

Jeremy: Why is it important for you to keep—with your podcast and with your platform—to keep the spirituality side of it and the faith side of it so present.

C.W.B.: In the very politically tumultuous four years that Trump was in office, you hear...there's been so much commentary on why Trump supporters are the way they are, why the system broke down. There was the racial justice movement from the death of George Floyd. And there's all these issues that people consider to be very relevant to what's going on in society. And only some people connect that to spirituality and religion. And I just think that it needs to be more, because I was raised in conservative evangelicalism. And I know how much it permeates your worldview and how it affects everything that you do, and your outlook, and all these things. And so I feel like there's a huge correlation that's being missed, often. And so I think that's what we need to be talking about. And I mean, I don't know if I was intentional and keeping the spirituality part of it in at first, it was just my story, my own story, because I grew up with religion. And so I needed a way to talk about my own experience and how it impacts my parenting. But as I do try to venture out into mainstream conversations, and looking beyond like the Christian ecosystem, I'm realizing, okay, these people are talking about these issues that are considered more relevant. But to me, I can see that it's because they were raised with religion. 

Jeremy: Right. 

C.W.B.: So like, with purity, culture, and sex, you talk about some of the sexual dysfunction that's in society. And so many people grew up with this idea that you have to stay pure, because of God. Even when they've rejected that religion, and that faith, and those ideas, it still impacts them! It still impacts their body and the way they move about in the world and the decisions that they make. And so...

Jeremy: Yeah, you can't just decide to offload all that baggage.

C.W.B.: Exactly. So we we have to kind of be more explicit, and make those connections, and really solicit people from especially progressive voices, and like ex-vangelical voices, people who were in it, but are now out, like me. Because I think that those voices will help create a more just society, it will help explain more things and make change and go in the direction that I think we should be go.

Jeremy: Do you consider yourself now to be a spiritual or a faith-filled person in any way? Or how does that look for you in your own mind now? 

C.W.B.: Not very. Yeah, I was talking to my husband about this. We're not like, heavily ritualistic and part of us because we both grew up evangelical, which is not high church, right? There's not a lot of ritual in evangelicalism. And so it's been a little bit hard to pick up any new spiritual rituals. So I do say that I'm not spiritual or religious, but it really is semantics, right? Because I care about love, I care about compassion and kindness and justice. And those things can be considered spiritual as well. I don't think of myself as very spiritual in the way that I think other people would have the meaning for it. Yeah, but some people might think I'm spiritual, I don't know. What about you?

Jeremy: I don't consider myself spiritual or faith filled really at all. And I grew up, from the time I was a young kid, in the Christian Missionary Alliance organization in New York. And so yeah, I grew up with all those same kind of structures. It is interesting that you bring up  the point of evangelicalism not being quite so ritualistic. Because you're right about that. And interestingly, I feel like as I get older, I do latch onto to rituals. But I've always sort of seen myself as a person who rejects ritual.

C.W.B.: Yeah, well, we were raised to be afraid of like icons because it was idolatry. 

Jeremy: Yes, that's right. 

C.W.B.: Yeah. And so I think there was a fear against certain things, but I do think the need for rituals is very human, and it's just human behavior. And if you think about it, again, it's semantics. Like what's considered a ritual? Like waking up every morning is a ritual, right? Brushing your teeth every day is a ritual. So we are creatures of rituals.

Jeremy: Yeah. As I sort of was in the phase in my mid-20s of sort of breaking away from my faith, I guess you would say, I had a friend of mine who was in seminary at the time. But I knew that he thought along a lot of the same lines that I did in terms of breaking the structures and the strictures of religious institutions. And we used to have these conversations, and he was also a jazz musician. And he described it to me one time as ritual being analogous to being a musician, because really all you're doing is training your body through repetitive actions to connect with something on a higher level, or connecting in a different way. 

C.W.B.: I love that!

Jeremy: And that really hit me hard that he had made that that connection that way. And I think about that a lot. And so I do try to allow myself to think of ritual in that way. So that it's not necessarily just connected to memories I have of the dogma and the religious structures.

C.W.B.: Yeah, I know, for so many of us who kind of broke away from that there's a lot of...you have to be wary of your triggers, right? The things that trigger you. But then it's also really healing to find ways of expressing your spirituality outside of those constructs. It's very freeing. And I mean, just listening to jazz is a beautifully spiritual thing, I think! I find a lot of spirituality in storytelling. So good movies, good books, music, anything that tells a good story is profoundly rich for me, for my soul. There's just that feeling of like, feeling whole.

Jeremy: Of being seen.

C.W.B.: Yeah, I think those are those are my spiritual moments these days.

Jeremy: Yeah. And speaking of which, you have a book that just just just came out, right? A kid's book?

C.W.B.: No, I have a book that released 2019—Parenting Forward. And then my new children's book is coming out in the fall—not for a while. 

Jeremy: Oh okay. 

C.W.B.: Yeah, I just revealed the cover.

Jeremy: I see. I was seeing stuff about that. So that's not out yet.

C.W.B.: No, it's it's available for pre order, though. A little pitch for that: It's called You Are Revolutionary. And it's a book about empowering kids for activism. It's actually a little bit of what we're talking about how there should be nothing that's off limits to our kids, including activism. Including them getting to participate in shaping the way that we live our lives in society. I mean, I don't use that language in the book, it's a rhyming book. It's more just really making room for kids of all different personalities and ages. And for them to feel like they are a part of our world, because they are, we just don't treat them like they are. I'm really excited. 

Jeremy: I'm looking forward to that, truly. 

C.W.B.: Thank you.

Jeremy: This past year, of course, has been interesting, like me as a cis straight white male—I feel like I've spent a lot of my life, kind of embarrassingly, not paying attention to a lot of things that I need to pay attention to. And I have done a lot of deconstructing of myself over my life. But I feel like my responsibility to lean into that is never ending. And this past year, of course, has been no exception to that. And so I've been thinking particularly this past year about how to bring my kids along on that journey. And not only try to show them when I'm doing that in myself, but find ways to include them in a really real way. So it sounds like your book is going to be a good read for me and them.

C.W.B.: Oh, good, I hope that you can use that as a tool to have these conversations with them and to really empower them to their agency in these different issues. And I also feel like you know, I think in the past, we think of parenting as like "raising happy and healthy children," which is what it's about. But I think we're starting to realize that parenting is really also about building a flourishing society, and that we have this obligation and responsibility as citizens to raise children who are conscious of race, conscious of justice, so that they treat people well in public. And so that makes parenting a very political act. I hope when I say things like that it doesn't stress parents out even more. But that it's an exciting thing. 

Jeremy: Absolutely. That's what I was just going to say. It's invigorating to think of it that way. Because if you are a person who is at all interested in seeing positive change in society, there are things that we can do as adults out in the world, in the political spheres and whatever. But the most real place for those fundamental changes to happen is with our kids.

C.W.B.: That's right. That's right. 

Jeremy: If we can bring them up with exposure and with healthy perspectives on all these things, then we're breaking those generational patterns that we feel we have baggage from and...you know, who knows what kind of baggage we're going to send down to our kids that we don't even realize, but if we're aware, and we're trying to make those changes, there, that's the fundamental place, I think.

C.W.B.: Yeah, that's exactly it. And I just want to comment on you saying, "Who knows what kind of baggage we're putting on our kids." And I feel like people often say that. Like, they'll say, "oh, our kids are just gonna go to therapy for different things. We're just messing our kids in our own unique way." And, and I just always push back on this idea, because I feel like, I don't know, that feels a little pessimistic to me, you know, like, as if we can't actually do better than the last generation. That we're always just perpetuating a cycle of different kinds of dysfunction. And I just don't think that's...I don't believe in that, because I think that would really defeat my mission of progressive parenting. I do think that we can do better, I do think we can give our kids less baggage than we were given. So yeah, I'm very hopeful in that way,

Jeremy: Thank you for saying that! Because I absolutely am guilty of thinking that way. So thank you for saying that. I appreciate that.

C.W.B.: Yeah, it's not inevitable that our kids are going to need therapy in the way we do or, I mean,  they can go to therapy. Therapy is a wonderful way to invest in our well being, there doesn't have to be that you have some dysfunction. But they don't have to have a different kind of baggage than we do. We can help them be resourceful enough to be a healthy person. And that's that's the goal, right?

Jeremy: Yeah, yeah...I feel like our conversation just ended itself.

C.W.B.: Yeah. Thank you so much for chatting with me. 

Jeremy: Yeah, same. 

C.W.B.: This is the best part about podcasting, right? You get to meet new and interesting people and have these wonderful conversations. So thank you for chatting with me.

Jeremy: Thank you. Thank you as well. Let's stay in touch and I'm looking forward to continuing to listen to your podcast, and... 

C.W.B.: You too. 

Jeremy: And I'm looking forward to that book in the fall.

C.W.B.: Thank you.

Jeremy: All right. Talk to you soon.

C.W.B.: Bye.

Thanks so much to Cindy Wang Brandt for joining me for this wonderful conversation. If you'd like to find out more about Cindy and her work, you can do it by visiting CindyWangBrandt.com or googling "Parenting Forward", which is also the name of her podcast and her 2019 book. On her site you'll also find a link to the Facebook group, "Raising Children Unfundamentalist" which has been a wonderful community and resource for me as a parent and an ex-vangelical person. And thanks to all of you for listening to "The Talk". You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetalkthepodcast, And if you'd like to support us, you can do so by visiting buymeacoffee.com/coffeetalks. For more information on the podcast, transcripts, and episode notes. You can visit thetalkthepodcast.com. Dana Gertz designed all of our original artwork, and special thanks to my wife Jenny and to our kids, for encouraging me to constantly parent forward. Goodbye.