Busboys and Poets Books Presents PARENT LIKE IT MATTERS
Date and Time
May 24, 2022 6:00 pm
Location
Columbia
6251 Mango Tree Rd, Columbia, Maryland, 21044
May 24, 2022 6:00 pm
Columbia
Parenting is enormous work; it can be as overwhelming as it is fulfilling. Within the pages of PARENT LIKE IT MATTERS—a game changer in the parenting category—parents will find the invaluable tools they need to raise resilient, optimistic girls who dream big and determine for themselves what their world will look like. Renowned sociologist Janice Johnson Dias, Ph.D. has devoted her life to nurturing and training girls to become changemakers. Informed by personal experience, mixed with expert insights and anecdotes from decades-long work with girls, this book is a manifesto on how we can raise not just happy and healthy girls, but also a generation of young women capable of transforming our world. Unlike other parenting experts, Dr. Johnson Dias does not urge parents to focus solely on their children. Instead, she tasks them with a personal challenge: to find their own joy. Just as she brings her own jubilant passion to parenting, mentoring, and teaching, she inspires caregivers to do the same. The book offers information and strategies for making discussions of racism and sexism as a daily practice, identifying heroes and mentors, educating yourselves together, and uncovering your girl’s passions and what issues drive her the most. In these extraordinary times, her work has never been more urgent, as parents and caregivers find themselves asking: How do we teach girls to change the world? Dr. Johnson Dias shows us how, beginning with the idea that we must teach girls to lift as they climb—and to pull others along with them. She knows that self-realized girls are created through intentional parenting. Dr. Johnson Dias is accompanied by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad as she comes to the Busboys stage to tell us about how she asks parents to make deliberate choices from babyhood through adolescence that will give their girls the resources and foundation to take hold of their own futures and to create sustainable social change.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, with an introduction from a member of our Busboys and Poets team, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Signed copies of PARENT LIKE IT MATTERS will be available after the event. Copies may be purchased through Eventbrite. These copies will be shipped to you a few days after the event. Full dinner service is available throughout the show. Please note that this event will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books. Proof of RSVP may be requested on arrival if capacity is reached.
Dr. Janice Johnson Dias holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University with a specialization in urban and political sociology. Her research focuses on impoverished mothers and children, and her work on welfare-to-work organizations has appeared in the top-ranking policy periodical, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Janice has also published in well-respected sociological and psychological journals such as Gender and Society and the American Journal of Community Psychology. In addition to her academic work, Janice specializes in building coalitions dedicated to sustainable social change. Her studies on black girls’ mental, sexual, and physical health issues earned her a special Congressional honor. Now a tenured associate professor of sociology at John Jay, Janice is also president of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation, a New Jersey-based training institution with a focus on public health and social action that she co-founded in 2011. Janice currently lives in West Orange, New Jersey, with her husband, Scott Dias, a geographer, and their daughter Marley—a student-activist, Marley’s accolades include being the youngest person on the Forbes 30 under 30 list at age 13 and receiving the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award.
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad serves as Chief of Membership, Policy and Equity at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Dedrick comes from Prosperity Now where he was Senior Fellow and Founder of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative. Before Prosperity Now, Dedrick worked for the NAACP, where he was the Senior Director of the Economic Department and Executive Director of the Financial Freedom Center. Dedrick has also worked for Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the Institute for Policy Studies. Dedrick serves as chair of the Board for Beyond Savvy, an organization focused on financial empowerment for the justice impacted. He also sits on a variety of advisory boards, including Advancing Black Strategies Initiative, National League of Cities Racial Wealth Divide Initiative, Financial Health Network’s PULSE and Better Markets.
