The idea of ‘experts’ can only exist in a culture that approaches topics through a single lens – shaped by the dominant culture and our own assumptions. If we believe there’s only one way to know (gate-kept with inaccessible, expensive advanced degrees), our friends miss out on our  cross-cultural insight and unique perspective.

In cooperative learning and mutual aid, there is no line between teaching, learning, contributing, and accepting. It’s all just sharing knowledge and experiences, the way we share air and water. We’ll work sustainably better if we can acknowledge our lived experience and hard work, but still commit to approaching ideas and exercises with a beginner’s mindset.

Our coming together isn’t a workshop or a class. It’d be silly to suggest that any idea we discuss couldn’t be found elsewhere with a Google search or library card. What we can offer is space to process at our challenges and shared goals from a new perspective. We can create space and time for each other to prioritize, focus, and think deeper about how to raise kids and smash the kyriarchy with consideration and intention.

So we invite each other to revisit old ideas in a new context, integrating what we’ve learned recently with challenge patterns that keep popping up in a space full of smart, funny, compassionate friends who are also parenting luminaries and smashing the kyriarchy.