Hi Reader,

We’re two days out from Thanksgiving—a day that often feels like a pressure cooker of logistics, emotions, expectations, and “Did anyone actually make the turkey gravy?”

And while I was mentally juggling the usual holiday chaos, I kept coming back to something Renee Niemann said in this week’s episode of Roar:

“Parenting is a political act.”

Because our kids aren’t separate from the world we’re living in—they’re shaped by it. And whether we speak up or stay silent, they learn something from both.

Renee—the voice behind Fake Adult Mom and Resist Like a Mother—isn’t just raising kids with awareness. She’s raising them with agency. She’s raising them with moral clarity. And she’s challenging the rest of us to stop pretending that parenting happens in a vacuum.

Because it doesn’t.

And our kids notice everything.

Renee didn't set out to be politically vocal. She didn’t want to be plugged into every crisis. She didn’t want to track every headline. She would have loved to raise her kids in a world where she didn’t have to think about any of this.

But that’s not the world any of us are in.

And then she said something that stopped me cold:

“If I can’t trust someone with my country, why would I trust their judgment with my children?”

It wasn’t spite.
It wasn’t punishment.
It wasn’t about left or right.

It was about judgment.
It was about values.
It was about choosing safety over politeness.

It was a mother recognizing that the people who excuse cruelty, harm, or chaos in the world are not people she wants influencing her kids—even in the small moments of everyday childhood.

That’s when it clicked for her:

silence is also a lesson.

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And in a moment where so many people insist they’re “not political” or “tired of hearing about politics,” that silence becomes even louder. Kids pick up on it. They notice what we address and what we avoid. And Renee refuses to let inaction be the message her children inherit.

Instead, she’s embracing something bigger—a responsibility many mothers feel but rarely name out loud:

✨ If we see something harmful, we have to name it.​
✨ If someone normalizes cruelty or injustice, we have to push back.​
✨ If someone’s judgment is questionable on the big things, we don’t outsource our children to them for the small ones.​
✨ If we know better, we have to model better—because our kids learn from how we live, not how we curate.

Renee isn’t encouraging parents to be loud for the sake of it.

She’s encouraging us to be awake.
To be engaged.
To be brave, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Because our kids are watching.
​And they’re learning how to navigate a chaotic world from the way we respond to it—not from what we post on Instagram.

So as we head into this week—the mess, the beauty, the turbulence—maybe this is the reminder we need:

Motherhood isn’t passive.
It’s cultural.
It’s community-shaping.
And sometimes, it’s an act of resistance.

If you need grounding before the holiday whirlwind hits, this conversation with Renee is the one.
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✨ Listen to the episode here (and maybe forward it to the mother who gets it). Wishing you and your loved ones a happy Thanksgiving!
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XO,
Danielle

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