The beautiful, hard work of co-parenting | Joel Leon

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2020

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Co-parenting" isn't a buzzword -- it's a way of showing up for your family openly, consistently and lovingly, says storyteller and father Joel Leon. In this moving talk, he challenges all parents to play an equal, active role in their children's daily lives, even in a world that often places the weight of sacrifice on mothers alone. Leon encourages nuanced conversations about parenting and reminds us that being a parent isn't a responsibility -- it's an opportunity.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features performer, author, and storyteller Joelle Leon, recorded live at TED Women 2019.
0:10.7	My name is Joelle, and I'm a co-parent.
0:16.1	So growing up, I never heard the term co-parent.
0:19.1	I heard a lot of other things, though.
0:20.7	For starters, absente other things, though.
0:25.6	For starters, absentee father, sperm donor.
0:27.8	That's a good one.
0:32.3	Deadbeat Dad, and my personal favorite, baby daddy.
0:36.1	Baby Daddy, for those not in the know,
0:37.8	refers to an individual
0:41.0	who helps to conceive a child but does little else.
0:46.5	Baby daddy is also someone who's not married by law to the mother of said child.
0:52.4	Growing up, I thought co-parent was reserved primarily for white families
0:54.6	that starred in Netflix primetime dramas.
1:03.0	It still kind of does. But it wasn't used to explain the role of a parent, right? Either you had kids or you didn't. And no one in my social circles or at our dinner table was having
1:09.5	complex conversations about the role
1:11.5	fathers played in that conversation, right? A more balanced, open, loving approach to parenting
1:17.7	was not something we were discussing within our social circles. A majority of the time,
1:23.0	the fathers I knew of growing up were barely present or just completely non-existent.
1:29.5	Coparent wasn't a term I heard or saw where I grew up and where I came from.
1:35.0	I come from the hood.
1:37.4	That hood would be Creston Avenue 188th in the Bronx.
	...

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