Joshua M.'s Initiative: 10 Parents, One Child

How hard was it to identify problems ? Identifying problems was pretty easy, and I did cheat because I interviewed somebody in the field of TV before doing the exercise. I got ahead of myself in the process, so I didn't quite nail it, but still it was a valuable conversation. (Defining the fields themselves was a little tricky, because they aren't professions or clearly defined areas of focus, I think I'll need some more practice to do that better, but doing it this time was a good learning experience. It's awkward that I ended up with three fields, but I didn't know how to simplify it anymore than that) Was it easy or hard to see them from the perspective of the people they affect? It was pretty easy to see something from their perspective.  I've had a lot of pains that they've suffered. I've kind of been in all three fields in some way. dI'd it get easier with practice ?It got easier as I practiced it, but also get harder to think of more proble...

Field 1: Parenting children 1) Some people have a parent leave, and then are raised by a single parent, who is stressed out. The kid feels pain, being unloved. They're stuck in front of a TV or a smart phone instead of having a parent really be there for them. Or maybe they're forced to act in the role of a parent, maybe there's emotional incest. 1) a surrogate parent moves in, somebody who doesn't want to have kids themselves, but needs a place to stay and wants to help. 2) Or they are raised by an addict, and they only get fed one meal a day. And they learned terrible untrue things about themselves that make it really hard for them to interact with anyone else later in life. They feel pain, rage, maybe numbness. Child of addicts: An uncle or aunt or neighbor checks in on the kid every day, and lets them know that they are always welcome to come over and talk. 3) Basically everyone is forced to go to school, and to ignore their sexual energy, and so they never develop ...

Yes, it was pretty easy to think of a relative experiences, goals and role models. I haven't thought of an individual person I want to share my reflections with yet. I would like to have somebody about the same point in life as me, and somebody male so there's a shared perspective. I'm gonna put a pin in that and circle back to it and see what comes to mind, but meantime I am putting my stuff up on a blog and sharing that with a few trusted people.  I don't really expect that anyone's gonna actually read my blog, but maybe I'm wrong about that. But someone to actually talk about my reflections with in real time, that I don't have quite yet.  Maybe two people in my support community, who have been supporting me in one component of this initiative already, one of them is formal we male bodied and male assigned at birth if not, actually female, so in a sense there is some shared experience there. The point of naming people rather than positions is pretty self e...

  What motivates me to learn this is that I want to create a TV series for the mainstream that presents the idea of 10 parents raising one child as a normal, inviting, and pleasurable, and also to embody this idea in my life in some essential way.   I resonate deeply with the idea of using listening, rather than trying to impress, as the basis for relating what's inspiring within me to what's inspiring within others. It was hearing about that that excited me to try this process myself. And to believe that I might actually be able to achieve the goal that I mentioned in the first paragraph. I've had this as a general desire for a while, but I was just waiting for the right people to come along--and if they didn't come along, I would just let the idea go. It didn't seem right to me to take initiative, or possible to take initiative without the unfortunate side effect of controlling people in some way. I hope to get the right questions to ask people, to have more of a ...