Another Mother: Episode 4 Resources

Another Mother is a podcast on faith and motherhood from My Spring Harvest and Emma Borquaye. Subscribe to hear conversations full of practical wisdom to help you on your journey of raising little ones, the way that God intended - with all the joy!

For each episode of Another Mother, Emma has pulled together some helpful resources that run alongside her conversations. They will help us explore the themes from the podcast more, whilst seeing what has inspired Emma and her guests.

Episode 4 Resources

I have been really enjoying all the conversations I get to have through Another Mother and I hope you have loved listening to them just as much. In the latest episode, I got to speak to author, broadcaster and music manager Loretta Andrews. She is one of the most honest and confident people I know, so I was really keen to hear more about her experience as a single mother and to get her insights on what it means to raise ‘anti-racist’ children, as she’s written a whole how-to guide on it for parents in her book ‘Talking To Children About Race’.

If you listened to the episode, you’re probably reading this now to get some of the children’s book recommendations I promised I’d share with you - these are books that have a non-white protagonist and are not specifically about race. It’s important for children to have access to books that normalise people of all races and cultures enjoying life and learning, not only reading about people who are different from them when it’s attached to an issue such as racism or inclusion.

Some of my favourites that we have on Ezra’s shelf at home are:

The Snowy Day 

The New Small Person

Where Grandad Lives (Couldn’t help but include my own!)

So Much!

And one’s I’ve not read, but heard great things!

My Beautiful Voice

The Magical Yet

Look Up!

Activity from Talking to Your Children About Race

With permission from Loretta, here is one of the family activities from her book Talking To Children About Race:

This activity can be found in Chapter 5: ‘Should our children be colour-blind?’

Why not play this game with your children to aid them in understanding the true meaning of equality. It will also help them to grasp how it may be necessary to provide different things for different people to create true equality of opportunity.

1. Tell the children that you are going to do some role play.
2. Explain that you have all just completed a family task (You can make this task anything you like, from tidying the house to completing a jigsaw puzzle. For extra authenticity you could carry out a task first.)
3. Tell them that there is going to be a reward for their hard work. The reward is to be a packet of sweets or treats, which you give to the children.
4. Ask the children to divide the sweets equally between all of you. They aren’t allowed to eat them yet!
5. Ask them if the distribution is fair: They will probably all agree that it is.
6. Explain that you will give them all one extra thing to think about.
7. Give each player a piece of paper with one of the following descriptions written on it:

• You are diabetic (you must control your sugar intake)
• You have coeliac disease (you can’t eat gluten)
• You are allergic to nuts (you can’t eat nuts)
• You are vegan (you can’t eat animal products)
• You have no allergies, health conditions or intolerances.

No matter how many participants there are, at least one must have this last piece of paper.

8. Take the packet that the sweets came in. Look at the ingredients and work out whether everyone around the table would still be able to eat the sweets. It is likely that some will not.
9. Next, ask the children if the distribution is still fair: If they don’t think that it is, discuss what might make it fair. For example, providing a range of different sweets and treats, and providing a time that suits a diabetic person, who might be able to eat only at certain times.)

You can use this task to explain that equality may not mean simply giving people the same things equally.

I hope you find these resources helpful for you and your family. Thank you for listening to the podcast, and if you’re enjoying it please do help us spread the word by sharing it with others!