ABOLITION
EVERYDAY SH!T: THE PILOT ISSUE
Content Notice: pregnancy and reproduction, motherhood, parenting, family separation, family policing system, disability
frenchy (she/they), zara (z/zara), and Han (they/them), three queer and trans disabled parents, caregivers, and organizers with the Philly Childcare Collective reflect on their experiences of collectively raising kids, navigating conflict, and endlessly making their way back toward repair.
Abolition at home means we allow our whole selves to be present, while taking full responsibility for our whole human messiness. It means “I see all of you and all of you is welcome,” and “you are responsible for your part.”
BEFORE THE VILLAGE
frenchy: I had my daughter when I was 17 years old. She was born prematurely weighing in at a whopping 4 lbs. 3 oz. I remember various social workers and nurses coming up to me and telling me that it will all be okay and that it takes a village to raise a child. Now that I’ve given birth, I am officially emancipated from my maternal grandparents who adopted me when I was orphaned at nine years old after my mother lost her battle with substance abuse. I also remember people telling my grandparents that it takes a village to do something so noble and brave like they are. I don’t remember many people taking time out of their days to come support them. They were 65 with so many of their own health issues now raising four children under the age of 11 with the youngest being barely 5 years old. But I do remember that they had each other.
I always held out hope that I would have my own “príncipe azul,” someone who would stand by me and weather the storm no matter how hard things got. I was very quickly disillusioned after my daughter came out of the NICU. Her father had a job at the local Rite Aid making $7.25 an hour where he would take night shifts on purpose so that he wouldn’t have to help. My family was no better after the shine of having a new baby wore off. Nobody was around.
Nobody warned me that the nuclear family was just going to be me pulling together all of the pieces doing all of the care while her father will receive all of the praise and glory for being brave and working and posting a selfie on Facebook of him doing his first and only feeding of the day. I remember feeling in my gut that none of this was right.
Being a mother shouldn’t feel isolating, but it just seemed like everywhere I looked I saw other women were living just like this and they seemed so happy. I just remember always feeling like there was just something so deeply wrong with me for not feeling that way. Nothing changed until I had the courage to leave and understand that what we have been living was a form of white supremacy.
zara: I remember the first village I tried to create, with the friends I had at the time. I was working days at a nonprofit and nights at a restaurant, and if I’d paid for a sitter at night I’d have lost more money than I made. I used all my community organizing skills to make sure my baby had access to care: I used a spreadsheet to coordinate schedules; I prepared the supplies, instead of clipboards and petitions, it was pumped breast milk labeled in bottles; I sent text reminders to make sure people remembered their shifts. And just like in community organizing, I learned quickly that I’d get burned out if I was always delegating tasks instead of ever being able to rotate the responsibility of bottom lining.
Friends who spent around 4 hours caregiving would tell me how exhausted they were the next day. I’d thank them profusely, texting with one hand, cradling a baby in the other.
I’d been in the foster system as a teen, and after experiencing abuse both in my family of origin and in a foster home, I ran away. As a teen sex worker, I’d been hired by too many married men to have a lot of confidence in marriage as an institution. So when I had a baby, I set out to build a life with my baby and my friends, only to find that wasn’t really the life most of my friends had in mind for themselves.
When the pandemic hit, and so much of the world shut down, more people learned they couldn’t stake their futures in institutions, that we needed to rely on each other if we were going to survive. I didn’t know how I’d survive while homeschooling as a single parent. I had sex worker community who made sure my rent was paid, even if I was limited in how much work I could do beyond my home. Folks hired me to teach a virtual workshop here and there. I remember once teaching a workshop in another part of the world at 6am in my time zone. My then 7 year old daughter woke up to find I was no longer next to her in the full sized bed we shared; she groggily walked to find me, still half asleep, climbed into my lap, and cocooned herself there to fall back asleep in my arms while I kept teaching.
“My community of organizers kept me alive.”
And when it came to day to day caregiving, it wasn’t necessarily the radicals who showed up. I found support in my neighbors: the Filipino family next door who also had kids and braided my daughter’s hair, the older Bangladeshi woman whose kids were grown and who said my daughter was always welcome, the young Black queer person excited to craft with a young queer kid. These folks were not prison abolitionists, they weren’t necessarily in the streets with me, but as my next door neighbors in an apartment complex, they shared more of my lived experiences, my material realities, than many of the folks who read the same books I’d read.
When I moved to West Philadelphia, a sex worker comrade helped me secure housing, and a friend I’d done mutual aid organizing with brought me a blow-up mattress and some groceries. As they had done many times before, my community organizer friends showed up to make sure I had basic resources like food and housing. I also knew I needed relationships with people engaged in the day-to-day caregiving of children, people who were in this with me.
Han: I don’t know how I got so lucky to be partnered with two outstanding humans. I never thought I’d find another life partner, let alone another two co-parents, when I lost my husband at 26. I’ve been solo-poly ever since the end of my first (and only) monogamous dating experience when I was twenty years old, which was long before I knew the term. Even in marriage with my husband, I always knew it worked because we both saw each other as autonomous people who were choosing to do life together for the current stage we faced. Legal marriage was a necessity for that period of life to work, and we both entered knowing that it was a commitment to the wellness of our son more than it was a commitment to each other as partners.
By the time of his passing though, I didn’t believe I would ever meet someone who could see me as fully as he did, or love me as deeply as he had. Even though I was blossoming into my queerness and experiencing queer romance for the first time openly, it didn’t fill my heart the way his love had. At least not until I met zara and Frenchy.
BUILDING A LIFE TOGETHER
We first met through our kids’ school–an environment that shared some of our values and approaches to education, like the basic principle that kids are people and know what they need. The school brought together parents who were trying to do things differently: queer and trans folks, solo parents, people who were questioning the legal system, people who were challenging adultism. It also fell short in a lot of ways, especially when it came to approaches to disability and discipline.
Although to different levels of severity, each of our Black, queer and gender-nonconforming kids ended up being harmed by the structures that were upheld within this setting.
We also found each other.
zara: It was at Back to School Night that I met Hannah, a white nonbinary parent with brightly colored red hair caregiving for a Black 4 year old. They told me about the sudden death of their husband, the complicated legal process in the aftermath while they were grieving, the struggle of parenting alone, and their learning about abolition. We made plans for coffee, and after coffee I invited them to tag along to my next plan: a prison abolitionist reading group on the grass. Within a few weeks, I was hosting sleepovers with their child and getting to know them.
Sometime around then, my daughter was beefing with another kid at school, every day telling me war stories. She’s always trying to tell me what to do. She hit me in the ribs with a bucket. A BUCKET! I’d listen and try to keep my composure, weighing the need to intervene alongside an intention to follow my daughter’s lead about how she wanted to respond. Finally, the beef reached a point where she wanted parental intervention. It was time for me to talk to the mom.
Frenchy had her hair colored red at that time too (and actually, so did I). By the time our paths crossed at school pickup, the dynamic between the two girls had changed dramatically. Instead of having a talk about their conflict, the girls wanted to have a playdate.
Frenchy and I bonded over our experiences as young Black Puerto Rican queer moms constantly having people around us assuming we’re the babysitter and policing our parenting. At a kids’ birthday party, we were sharing about these experiences animatedly, eager to be connecting with someone who gets it. A white mom chimed in, “Well, all moms face judgment.” Frenchy and I shared a look, and I knew we had the same thought: ok girl, all moms matter.
Like me, Frenchy didn’t know how to drive. She was about to call a cab to get home to North Philly when I said, “Wait, Hannah has a car and lives in North Philly. Do you know Hannah?” I introduced the two and asked if Han could give Frenchy a ride. “Y’all are neighbors,” I said, “You should be friends.”
Han: We quickly became friends, having near-weekly play dates with the kids, bonding over past heartbreak and childhood traumas, exploring and expanding our ideas of gender and how we each related to it, and just talking about our kids - how to support them, love them and trust them more. We each have an only child, the oldest then being 8 while the youngest was only 4 at the time, with the middle child slap-dab in the middle at 6.
zara: I’m the Libra. I’m usually the person in the group who brings or creates a tool to reflect on how we show up in the relationship. I taught the group about making mad maps, calling on us to notice and communicate about our experiences of disability and trauma so we can better care for our own needs and ask for care from each other. I ask for us to talk about our conflicts and our needs in circle.
Frenchy is the Leo. She’s usually the one who cooks for all of us. She sets up the ring light for our photo shoots and gets all the best shots. She brings an element of playfulness to the group, filling us in on a lesbian cult classic from the 90s we might have missed out on or the latest TikTok trend among the gen Z gays.
Hannah is the Pisces. They are the handyman who assembles all the furniture and the crafter who has crocheted hooded sweaters for almost all of us. When we get together, Han prepares the baked goods and brings supplies for a crafting activity, like making ornaments or collectively creating a painting. Han is the one with a car, so they’re often the one to pick us up and drive us home.
The kids and their vibrant personalities bring so much to our squad, too.
The oldest, an Aquarius, wants to do her thing without anyone getting in her way. She’s the most independent, making her own lunch and usually walking herself to school, but she loves to have siblings, on a part time basis. She’ll plan out our fall activities and put them on the calendar, making sure we’re hitting the pumpkin patch and getting the latest seasonal drink from Dunkin, as nature intended.
The youngest, the Virgo, will update the calendar and mark each day that has passed. In his introverted moments, he’ll create elaborate domino formations, and when he’s feeling extroverted, he’ll be the life of the party. If you told him you’ll do something in five minutes, he’ll keep you accountable to that timeline, and make sure you get plenty of reminders too.
The middle child, a Gemini, is the mysterious artist. She’ll wander off, because there’s a mural on the ground just outside the bounds of where she’s allowed to go and she has to see it. She’ll create a new way to tie her shoes that no one else can quite understand. Her imagination knows no limits, and as adults we have to strike a balance between allowing her freedom and drawing the lines needed to keep her safe.
Han, zara, and frenchy: Collective care started with the occasional sleepover, just a night of relief from caregiving. It was our collective trip to Puerto Rico, where four out of six of us had ancestral roots, that really solidified us as a trio, leading us to consider what it might look like to build a life together. It was our first experience with co-living and co-caregiving all together and was a learning experience with so many highs, but so many challenges. We went to the beach, we swam in the ocean, we ate pollo guisado and mofongo con pernil, we pulled tarot cards, and sometimes each of us needed to just get out of that apartment because it was loud and sticky and covered in cracker crumbs.
This first experience in deepening our collective relationships urgently brought up the need to create some type of conflict process we could hold together. We held our first restorative circle in the fall of 2023. We brought snacks and fidgets. We pulled tarot cards. Hannah crocheted a voodoo doll of someone’s husband for us to poke. We talked about what went well on our trip, and what we want to happen differently on future trips together.
This was the start of building an intentional caregiving community together that centers around the care of our disabled, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, and confident Black children. These kids have taught us so much about how to care for someone, in the way they need, and how to care for ourselves too.
frenchy: This past summer, I had to flee my home due to domestic violence. zara and Hannah literally saved our lives. Hannah helped me pack trash bags in the middle of the day and shove them all in their car while Baby Girl was at school and z opened their home to us. This was a time that put so much strain on all of our relationships with each other and truly put me on the path to understanding the way parts of myself that romantic relationships/nuclear family.
zara was packing up their 10-year-old for summer camp just one day after spending five hours with her in the emergency room the day before with a shard of glass in her foot. This was also a tough anniversary day for z. I left to visit Hannah and catch up on a Regency drama. zara texted me and asked if we could pick up travel sized bottles and a flashlight for them. I said no. It was selfish and careless of me. I was focused on my own desires and pleasures I couldn’t see that z was asking for more than *just* bottles z was asking to be supported.
We didn’t talk for a week after this, barely making eye contact passing each other in the house. On day three of us not talking, I asked zara if they were upset with me. Up until that day, I thought that maybe the anniversary that just passed was overwhelming for z and that they were grieving. I was unaware of how deeply I hurt z. zara opened up so much for me and I just didn’t show up for z.
We allowed each other space for the rest of the week. We started our sit down the way that we start all of them, with a tarot reading and a poem this one is from Tenderness: an honoring of my black queer joy, and rage by Annika Hansteen-Izora:
“What would it mean if tenderness could hold a simultaneous existence of joy and rage? How to tenderly feel rage? How to feel rage or anger compassionately? What exactly does that look like?”
We created our own relationship anarchy smorgasbord on paper plates then on canva together. We cried, we held each other and drank beer. Ultimately accountability and repair is the greatest form of love and I’m so grateful to be doing life with Han & z here’s to fucking up repairing and apologizing forever. *clink*
WHERE WE ARE NOW
Throughout each crisis, and each institutional protection stripped away, we are reminded again and again that no one is going to save us. We keep each other safe.
Collective care has not been perfect. Our relational skills are put to the test - and often fail. There’s been a lot of hurt done by each of us, trauma patterns that consistently emerge and feel impossible to change. There have been weeks where we don’t want to speak to each other and times when we each admit to wanting to run away and not look back. Building and maintaining an interdependent community is hard. It requires continual self evaluation, continual communication, continual care. It requires accountability, and often trust is broken when that is not shown. Being an abolitionist is not just about tearing down prison walls; it’s about acknowledging each person's autonomy and responsibility to the collective. Abolition at home means we allow our whole selves to be present, while taking full responsibility for our whole human messiness. It means “I see all of you and all of you is welcome,” and “you are responsible for your part.”
This can be hard when you’re in the midst of trauma. When every outside force is beating you over the head, it feels impossible to look inward and notice the ways you are beating yourself up and those around you. But that’s where abolition starts - in yourself, in your head and heart. Claiming our own agency, as both healer and harmer, is what allows us to stay in relationship with others.
For us, this looks like starting relationship therapy. We recognize that as three traumatized solo-parents who are co-raising liberated and free children, we need more support and care. Getting help does not mean we are failing. If anything, it shows how deeply invested we are in each other’s liberation and wellbeing.
Knowing we are interdependent means recognizing our interdependence within the broader web of our lives - three hot mad moms can’t change the world alone. But we can work to live in our values. Abolition starts with us.
Hannah Ege (Han, they/them) is a white trans non-binary, disabled and deaf parent and educator, who originates from Connecticut and has been living in Philly since 2021. With a Bachelors in Early Childhood and Special Education, Han works as an instructional assistant with students, while organizing with Philly Childcare Collective to support liberation movements to be accessible and intergenerational. Han is a fiber artist, creating and selling their crochet and knitted designs through their artist page, Handmade By Hobbit Hannah. Han enjoys reading and writing, making baked goods, crafting and collaging and cleaning for folks within their community.
zara raven is a mad Caribbean genderqueer mama, organizer, educator, and practitioner of transformative justice, working to build community safety and wellness without prisons, policing, or punishment. z has been organizing at the intersection of state violence and interpersonal violence for over 10 years with organizations and campaigns like Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS), DecrimNow DC, DecrimNY, Project NIA, and #8toAbolition. zara is currently a coordinator of the Philly Childcare Collective that works to make our movements accessible and intergenerational, and co-director of the Safer Movements Collective, a healing justice organization working to support organizers and people committed to liberation in accessing wellness, political education and relational skill building. zara loves roller skating, dance cardio, reading Black feminist theory, and making zines.
Frenchy (she/they) is a Caribbean queer mad mama born and raised in North Philadelphia Kensington, where they advocate for student led arts initiatives. In her free time, Frenchy loves photography and pop culture.