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Normalizing Nurturing: A Letter from This Issue’s Guest Editor, Pam Leo

By Pam Leo On Aug 20, 2025

Normalizing Nurturing: A Letter From This Issue’s Guest Editor, Pam Leo

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“It is my hope that this Normalizing Nurturing Issue of Kindred will give you, not only hope for another way forward, but models and the tools for manifesting a culture where caring about each other, and the planet that sustains us, is the natural outcome of meeting the species’ specific needs of all.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to our Normalizing Nurturing issue of Kindred. When Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s editor, invited me to be the guest editor for this issue, in celebration of 20 years of Connection Parenting, I immediately thought of the people I am blessed to know in the world, who are doing amazing work toward normalizing nurturing in a variety fields.

I asked friends and colleagues I’ve known for decades, and some more recent colleagues. I also asked my daughter, Leah, who is both my friend and colleague. My vision was to marry the theory of the Evolved Nest to the nurturing practices needed for our culture to evolve toward a nested culture. The Evolved Nest is the award-winning research by Darcia Narvaez, Kindred World’s president, that has sanctioned ancient wisdom’s human nurturing practices through modern science.

This post is a part of *Kindred’s* Summer 2025 issue. For over two decades, *Kindred* has served as a vital, emergent praxis platform to translate, amplify, and integrate the work of researchers, clinicians, Indigenous wisdom keepers, and parents into a New Story of the Human Family. *Kindred* contributes uniquely to the visibility and legitimacy of conscious parenting through the science of our Evolved Nest, while providing a counter-culture strategies for normalizing nurturing. Enjoy this special issue with guest editor, Pam Leo, and our guides to our New Story. *Subscribe to Kindred.*

“…both a return to something ancestral and a path forward to something urgently needed: a culture where survival is not the ceiling, but the floor…..” – Leah Deragon

I am thrilled that they all accepted my invitation and have graciously shared with us the practical wisdom they have gained from devoting their lives to the work they have been doing in the world by, as Stephanie Mines would say, following their own “Original Brilliance”. It is my hope that this Normalizing Nurturing Issue of Kindred will give you, not only hope for another way forward, but models and the tools for manifesting a culture where caring about each other, and the planet that sustains us, is the natural outcome of meeting the species’ specific needs of all.

This Normalizing Nurturing Issue is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of Connection Parenting. Listen to the interview with Pam Leo and discover the origins of the seminal book that affirmed our heart wisdom!

It is also my hope that you will combine the practical wisdom shared here with your own and bring that synthesis to the world in your professions and in your families. I can think of no finer tribute to the work Darcia Narvaez and Lisa Reagan have done to bring Kindred’s nonprofit vision to fruition than for all of us to (like our dandelion kin and Kindred mascot) seed the world with the vital intention of reclaiming our humanity by normalizing nurturing.

Love,

Pam Leo

Kindred’s Summer 2025 Guest Editor

Connection Parenting and Please Read To Me, Author

Book Fairy Pantry Project, Founder

Kindred World, Board Member