Andrea Landry

Here's how to create the kind of change Indigenous families are looking for, beyond the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30.

As a kid, I was jealous of my non-Indigenous peers whose families had the luxury of not being touched by this traumatic history.

I want my daughter to see that an Indigenous way of life isn’t an alternative lifestyle but a priority. It is essential, then, that I return to the parenting principles of my ancestors and consciously integrate Indigenous kinship practices into her childhood.

Before I became a mom, I needed to end the cycle of discord and abuse in my life.

I carried my baby in a tikinagan—an Indigenous parenting practice once restricted and now reclaimed.

There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

I'm raising my daughter on the reservation because I want her to grow up knowing that “rez life” is a beautiful life.

The same systems and professionals that make white people feel safe—medical care, the police, social workers—have been genocidal in practice against my people for generations.

Others might say that nursing a toddler is "extended breastfeeding," but my Indigenous community just calls it what it is: breastfeeding.