0:01

When the vision itself came to me was

0:04

the culmination of an accumulation

0:06

of learnings over my lifetime. You

0:08

might say,

0:12

at first, I thought, why am I being given

0:15

this vision? Surely there are

0:17

others more worthy of

0:20

being burdened with the gift

0:23

of child honoring as a philosophy.

0:30

I'm Chris Garcia, and this is

0:33

Finding Raffie, a ten part series

0:35

from My Heart Radio and Fatherly in

0:37

partnership with The Rococo Punch about

0:39

the life, philosophy, and the

0:41

work of Raffie, the

0:44

man behind the music. One

0:50

morning in Raphie

0:53

says he woke up from a deep sleep with

0:55

a vision two words suspended

0:58

in mid air, char honoring.

1:03

I knew in that luminous moment that I

1:05

was being given something that would

1:07

be the work of the rest of my life.

1:11

I knew in that moment that it was a

1:14

unique social change revolution that

1:17

connects personal, culture and planet,

1:19

an integrated philosophy for restoring

1:22

communities and restoring the earth. Everything

1:30

in Ralphie's mind seems to come down

1:33

to child honoring. It came up

1:35

over and over again in our conversations.

1:37

Basically, it's his philosophy for saving

1:40

the planet by putting children first. It

1:42

eventually became a book and an online

1:45

course, and Ralphie was selling

1:47

it to me pretty hard and one

1:49

way you can deepen your connection

1:51

with the beautiful words that you might

1:54

read and wonder how might I practice this in

1:56

my own family, as

1:58

you would take the online

2:00

course in child hon ring that my Raffie

2:02

Foundation offers for

2:04

a very reasonable price. On my dad,

2:08

I took the bait. Raphie's

2:10

philosophy covers a lot.

2:13

He asked us to consider so many different

2:15

concepts with children in mind, from

2:17

the way we grow our food to how we

2:19

measure economic progress. He

2:22

paints a picture of a utopian world

2:24

full of farmers, markets, parents volunteering

2:27

with their kids, and pesticide free parks.

2:30

I found it hard to know where I'm supposed to step

2:32

in, both as a person and

2:34

as a parent. See and

2:36

reading it, it made me think a lot

2:38

about privilege, because it's there's so

2:41

much pressure on parents to make sure

2:43

they're doing everything just perfectly,

2:45

reading the right books, having the right

2:48

toys. But at the end of the day, it's about survival

2:50

and love, and not everyone has the means to

2:53

curate the perfect bubble for

2:56

their child. There's no such

2:58

thing as perfect parenting. So

3:01

let's just put that out of our minds.

3:11

All parents, in their

3:14

various situations, sum

3:16

are having a tough time month after month

3:19

making ends meet. You know. Everybody's

3:21

got different pressures, different challenges,

3:24

and also different rewards, you

3:26

know, but we're all doing

3:28

our best. And the point

3:31

of conscious parenting is to

3:33

be conscious of how we

3:35

are parenting, how we were

3:37

parented, what that

3:39

instilled in us that might be passed

3:42

on to our children. So

3:44

it's a call to conscious living.

3:48

Raphae's child honoring vision might sound

3:50

a little esoteric, but I

3:52

have to give the guy credit. He knows

3:55

when and who to ask for help. He

3:57

called up the top thinkers and environmental

3:59

health education, business,

4:02

in psychology, you name it, to

4:04

test his ideas and shape his philosophy.

4:08

I would like to think that before I met Rafiel,

4:10

I was doing child honoring work. This

4:13

is Dr Sharna Olfman, a Canadian

4:15

expat living in Pittsburgh. She co

4:17

wrote Raphael's Child Honoring book and happens

4:20

to be a leading expert in developmental psychology.

4:23

One of the many reasons I'm excited to talk

4:25

to you um today is

4:27

because you're an expert in all of this

4:30

and I am a sponge that

4:32

wants to soak in all this knowledge with

4:34

you. Well, I want to be

4:36

really clear that the child

4:39

honoring philosophy is Raphael's

4:41

philosophy, but we're part

4:44

of this community. The

4:46

solutions require

4:49

the work and the ideas of people in

4:52

many, many different professions. In

4:54

her book series called Childhood in America,

4:57

Sharna writes about some controversial educational

5:00

reforms that she believed were harming our

5:02

children, and Raffie was all

5:04

about it. What were you trying

5:06

to communicate to the world at that time? There

5:09

were kind of a confluence events that led

5:11

to the creation of that book, So maybe

5:13

it would help to unpack that a little bit. If

5:19

you were in preschool in the nineties, you

5:21

most likely spent your days playing with ghak

5:24

and sitting on a carpet square singing Barney

5:26

songs. It was pretty chill.

5:28

Playtime was the popular curriculum.

5:31

Then flash forwards two thousand and two, Former

5:34

President George W. Bush had just passed

5:36

the highly criticized No Child

5:38

Left Behind Act, and suddenly schools

5:41

became very test driven, meaning

5:43

preschool kids spent more time sitting

5:45

at their desk taking tests than they did

5:47

outside learning how to play.

5:54

As a clinical psychologist, I

5:56

was aware of this very

5:59

big up surge in the number

6:01

of children who are being diagnosed with

6:03

attention deficit disorder and

6:05

who are also being prescribed

6:07

stimulants. So there were like one

6:10

in ten kids being prescribed

6:12

riddle in there are these kind of formal

6:14

preschool settings, and also there was

6:16

this uptick in play

6:18

getting translated to screen time.

6:26

At the time, my son had

6:29

just lost a person

6:31

that was very, very important to him,

6:34

and it was a very very traumatic event

6:36

for my son. So

6:38

I'm looking at all of these different

6:41

trends and I'm thinking about my child,

6:43

and I'm thinking that these preschool

6:46

settings don't feel right for him. This

6:48

was how I felt as a parent, but

6:50

it is also how I felt as a developmental

6:52

psychologist. If you take a bunch

6:54

of kids and you sit them at desks

6:56

when they're meant to be playing creatively,

6:59

and then you know they spend their leisure

7:01

time in front of screens, it's

7:04

going to create some developmental issues.

7:10

I look back and I think about my childhood

7:13

and I was a very energetic

7:15

boy that sat in a desk in

7:18

a Catholic school all day and then watched

7:20

TV at night, and I

7:22

think my teachers and then my parents

7:24

thought that I was just a bad student

7:27

or incapable of learning. I

7:29

ended up going to UC Berkeley,

7:31

one of the best colleges in the

7:33

world, but I stumbled out of the gates

7:35

because I don't think I was meant to sit in

7:38

a chair and then watch

7:41

The Simpsons all night. Afterwards, in

7:44

my own head, I almost saw myself

7:47

as a bad student, even though I

7:49

wasn't, because I just couldn't participate

7:52

in that environment absolutely,

7:55

And then those labels risks sort of becoming

7:58

self fulfilling prophecies. You

8:00

know. The the issue isn't that you can't

8:02

get there from a lesson optimal

8:05

beginning, but why make it so

8:07

hard? Um? Should I be paying

8:09

you for this session? And is this become

8:11

a therapy session? Now? I feel like I feel

8:13

so much. I'm like, you're right, and you

8:15

know it wasn't my fault and if

8:17

only that would have happened, I figured it out, But

8:20

you know I shouldn't. I shouldn't have had to. Um.

8:22

Can you tell me about the first time

8:24

you met Raffie? So you

8:27

know, Raffie heard about my work

8:30

and Ralphie was kind enough to fly

8:32

out to Pittsburgh and

8:34

he uh met me at

8:36

my home. At the time, Sharna's

8:39

kids were six and nine years old, prime

8:41

Raffie years. So when we finished

8:43

our meeting, Raffie grabbed

8:46

a banana from my kitchen,

8:49

put it to his ear and his mouth

8:51

like he was holding a banana phone

8:54

from just like the cover

8:56

art on his famous Banana

8:58

Phone album, and he

9:00

greeted the kids and he talked to them

9:03

through the banana. It was just a

9:05

really wonderful a first meeting,

9:07

and my kids just were

9:10

enthralled. Ring ring ring,

9:12

ring, ring ring ring. Banana

9:14

phone Ying

9:16

Yang Yin Yang Yin Yang ying yan

9:19

fool. It's a

9:21

real live mama and Papa phone,

9:24

a brother and sister and a doga phone,

9:26

a grandpa phone, and a Granma

9:29

phone to oh yeah,

9:32

my cell learn Ralph

9:42

he saw something in Sharna's work that

9:44

he'd been trying to articulate for the last several

9:47

years. How we treat our

9:49

children is the key to building

9:51

a sustainable world. A few months

9:53

after their first meeting, Ralfie flies

9:56

Sharna, her husband Dan, and their

9:58

two young children out to his home on a

10:00

small island off the coast of Vancouver, and

10:02

I like to say we were living

10:04

the child honoring life. You know, it

10:06

really was a beautiful, idyllic

10:09

two weeks. Main

10:15

Island is this beautiful island off

10:18

the coast of British Columbia,

10:20

surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. We

10:24

timed the visit to coincide

10:26

with this amazing nature

10:29

camp that was taking place that my kids were able

10:31

to participate in. And

10:33

it was such a magical

10:36

camp, wooded, beautiful,

10:38

and the kids spent all day every

10:40

day in nature, tramping

10:43

around the woods, splashing

10:45

around in the ocean, collecting shells,

10:48

and putting on little plays, et

10:51

cetera. Evenings,

10:54

he would often join us for dinner and

10:57

we would spend hours talking

10:59

about how how to make the world a

11:01

better place for children. I

11:04

think that Ralphie took me more

11:07

deeply into my awareness

11:10

of you know, issues like global

11:12

warming and soil health,

11:14

etcetera. Yeah, it was absolutely

11:17

a pivotal experience for

11:19

me, and

11:21

it was just a wonderful way

11:23

to kind of launch the work

11:26

that we did together over the course

11:28

of the next couple of years

11:30

bringing the book to fruition.

11:35

What would you say is was the vision or

11:37

the goal for this book. So

11:41

the Child Honoring Philosophy is both

11:43

profound and elegant, I

11:45

would say, in its simplicity.

11:48

But I would say that probably

11:50

the first impulse for

11:53

Rafie in creating The Child

11:55

Honoring Philosophy was

11:58

his concern about the health the

12:00

physical planet. You

12:02

know, his concern about

12:05

global warming, his concern

12:07

about water, air, soil.

12:10

You know, at the core, we're literally

12:12

killing our children's home, We're killing

12:14

their planet. And if we want to turn

12:16

this ship around and we want to

12:18

create a healthy planet and a healthy

12:20

world, not in which children can

12:23

survive, but in which they can fully thrive

12:25

and fully self actualize, then

12:28

all of us need to lead

12:30

with the question is

12:32

what I'm doing, what I'm saying, how

12:35

I'm acting in the best

12:37

interests of the young child. So

12:40

I would like to say that the child Honoring

12:42

Philosophy could also be thought of as a value.

12:46

When we lead with that value,

12:49

then we create a world that is

12:52

fit for children. When we

12:54

don't, we end up with the dying

12:56

planet and kids who are eating

12:58

junk food and getting sick and

13:01

not thriving and feeling like they

13:03

can't find a place for themselves in the

13:05

world. It's putting

13:07

kids first and their well being,

13:10

and by doing that, everything

13:12

will fall in place exactly.

13:15

So sometimes we get like blinders

13:17

even when we're working. Oh, it's all about

13:20

the soil health, it's all

13:22

about legislation, it's

13:24

all about education, it's all

13:26

about mental health. Now, it's all about

13:28

all of these things because they all

13:30

are integrated and they're all

13:33

interdependent. And that's the child honoring

13:35

philosophy, understanding that

13:37

it's not just one issue, but

13:39

it's all of the above. I

13:44

mean it it's where, Yeah,

13:47

I'm just taking a moment to absorb

13:50

all this. It's a lot. If

13:57

I sound hesitant, it's not that I disagree

13:59

with the one aspect of this philosophy

14:01

or what it hopes to do, but

14:04

like, how am I supposed to meet a tiny

14:06

humans most basic needs twenty four

14:08

hours a day while also considering

14:10

how my every action impacts the world

14:12

she's inheriting. I

14:15

mean, from my vantage point, it's a lot

14:17

for a new parent to

14:19

take in because you're talking about humongous

14:22

systemic issues. Because I

14:24

have to admit, doctor, I started when

14:27

we knew we were having a child. I

14:29

jumped in. I was I was reading so

14:31

much and then you have a child,

14:33

and you become a zombie for about

14:36

three months, and then you crawl

14:38

out. You you come out of the thaw, and

14:40

then you no longer have time to read

14:43

or understand anything. How do I

14:45

take this in? Where do I step in? Help me out

14:47

here? That's a really really good question.

14:50

Ironically, in the effort to curate

14:52

that perfect bubble, sometimes parents

14:54

are moving their kids away from

14:56

what they need most. We want

14:59

children's create civity to come from within,

15:02

like go on a nature trail. It's

15:05

free, there's nothing better, you

15:07

know. But at the end of the day,

15:10

what your child needs from you is

15:12

your love and your time, and

15:15

everything else is optional. I

15:18

love allowing that space for leniency

15:20

because so many of his philosophies

15:23

are incredible in theory,

15:26

but in practical application

15:28

are they even possible? Right?

15:31

So, I think the idea is they're

15:33

aspirational, but we do

15:36

what is healthiest

15:38

for the family system.

15:46

I don't know if we have a system. It's

15:48

more of a putting out fires than

15:50

saving the world kind of thing. Honestly,

15:52

we're just trying to make it to bedtime. And

15:56

my parents didn't have much of a system either.

15:59

As I've said before, or they both

16:01

had difficult upbringings, lived under

16:03

an oppressive regime, and as

16:05

immigrants moved to an unfamiliar

16:07

country where they didn't speak the language or have

16:09

much support. One

16:11

of the unintended consequences that affected

16:14

how they raised me was anxiety.

16:18

For example, my parents food

16:20

insecurity growing up poor in Cuba

16:22

translated to over feeding me and

16:24

rushing through meal times. I

16:27

still eat like the secret police is going to

16:29

take my plate away. And though

16:31

I've been fortunate enough to not have to

16:33

flee my homeland, I don't

16:35

want to mirror my anxieties about the world

16:38

directly onto Sunny. You

16:57

know, while I have you here. Um I just

17:00

something I think about a lot recently. I'm

17:03

the first American born son of

17:05

Cuban refugees, and

17:08

um so one thing I think about

17:10

a lot is inherited family trauma,

17:12

generational trauma. As people talk about

17:15

these days, how something that happened

17:17

to, say, my great great grandpa,

17:19

affects me today and

17:21

how it may have affected my the

17:24

rest of my family, either physically

17:26

or emotionally or something like that. How

17:28

do I avoid passing that

17:31

trauma down to my daughter,

17:33

to Sunny, I think a common mistake

17:36

is for the pendulum to swing so far

17:38

the other way, like, I'm not going to do it that way

17:40

because that's you know, or

17:42

I'm working from a place of fear, and

17:44

so I'm going to do the diametric opposite,

17:47

which is also not always the best

17:49

way to go about it. So

17:52

first is consciousness,

17:54

so that we can think through our

17:56

choices and how they affect us and what triggers

17:59

us. And knowing

18:02

that your daughter will carry less

18:04

of that trauma and will

18:07

have other opportunities because

18:09

you are doing the work of

18:11

trying to understand. Yeah, I

18:13

don't know if anyone in my family's ever had

18:16

almost the privilege to think about this. You

18:18

know, they've they've just been trying to survive

18:20

and then, um, you know these cycles

18:23

they're vicious and they just almost automatically

18:25

happen unless you take a moment to acknowledge

18:28

it, become aware. Absolutely,

18:30

I would agree with that. And you know, a conversation

18:33

that Raphie and I had on

18:35

more than one occasion was, you know the

18:37

difference between being child centered

18:40

and always putting child at the

18:42

center of everything. You

18:48

want to give your

18:51

children to the best of your ability with

18:53

the means at hand, living in this

18:56

very imperfect world that we live in the

18:58

best opportunity to meet

19:00

their developmental needs. But

19:03

at the same time, you don't want to

19:05

raise a child who feels that they

19:07

are at the center of the universe and only

19:09

their needs matter. So part

19:11

of being a child honoring parent

19:14

is honoring yourself and honoring your

19:16

needs and honoring your

19:18

wellness so that children also

19:21

grow up to understand that they are part of a

19:23

family system.

19:26

Well, dr, this has been so helpful. Um,

19:29

should we just pencil in one of these for next

19:31

week as well? And then uh,

19:33

we could just make this a regular thing because it's

19:37

just been so lovely and h

19:40

yeah, thank you so much for talking to me today.

19:42

You're very very welcome, and I can

19:44

see with great clarity that you

19:46

are a child honoring parent and

19:49

that Sonny is very lucky

19:52

to have you as a father. And

19:54

it's been a pleasure. Um speaking

19:56

with you. Has

20:12

developing the child honoring philosophy

20:15

been healing to you in

20:18

a similar way, like do you feel

20:20

like it allows you to kind of break

20:23

the cycle of past traumas

20:25

or hell part of you? Well,

20:28

I imagine it has been that

20:30

way for me. I think what child

20:33

honoring has also given me is a

20:35

window into the

20:37

truth of how we

20:39

live and how we become our

20:42

true selves. It's

20:44

like when you discover,

20:47

you know, the foundational experience

20:49

of what it feels to be human as

20:51

being in those early years. Well,

20:53

you want to shout it from the rooftops. You want to say,

20:56

Hey, it's not just the university degree. In

20:58

fact, more important, it's

21:00

how we raise these impressionable,

21:03

vulnerable, susceptible people.

21:09

We just want to co create

21:11

a world that doesn't inflict

21:14

so much trauma. Honest children,

21:17

that's what we want. We want to create a

21:19

child honoring world, and

21:22

that is my deepest passion. Next

21:37

time, on Finding Raffie, we

21:39

dive into how one family made sure

21:41

their daughter was always seen and heard for

21:43

who she really was. Their

21:46

parenting journey is Raffie's philosophy

21:48

come to life, radical,

21:50

disruptive, and child rearing like few

21:53

in the West have experienced. This

21:55

is what child honoring really looks

21:57

like. But does

22:00

it work? My

22:05

parents did this crazy thing. They sacrifice

22:07

so much financially, emotionally,

22:11

whatever, They made this amazing thing,

22:13

and oh boy, I better turn out well

22:16

I'm the one. As an example of look

22:18

I turned out like this, so that means it works.

22:27

Finding Raffie is a production of My Heart

22:29

Radio and Fatherly in partnership

22:31

with Rococo Punch. It's produced

22:33

by Catherine Findalosa, Meredith

22:35

Hanig, and James Trout. Production

22:38

assistance from Charlotte Livingston. Alex

22:40

French is our story consultant. Our senior

22:42

producer is Andrea swahe Emily

22:45

Forman is our editor. Fact checking

22:48

by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Raphae's

22:51

music is courtesy of Troubadour Music Special

22:54

thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour. Our

22:57

executive producers are Jessica Albert and

22:59

John parad at Rococo Punch, Ty

23:02

Trimble, Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman

23:04

at Fatherly and Me Chris Garcia

23:06

thank you for listening.