Category: black family

Mama Media Monday

Dr. Mama Esq.Leave a comment

There is a lot going on with cocoa mamas in the news every week, so I’ve decided to set aside Mondays to talk about a few of them. Here’s what’s up this week:

Many Moms Have Kids With Different Dads, U.S. Study Finds

Apparently over a quarter of all women who have two or more children have these children with two or more men. For black women, this rate is 59%. And, according to the article, the trend is across demographics of income, education and marital status – even married women who work and are not poor have more than one father for their children. But what irks me about this title, and the rest of the article, is how mother-centric it is. It does take two people to make a child, does it? I mean, if this is true for women, mustn’t the same be true for men? Why isn’t the title “Many Parents Have Kids With Different Partners”?

Almena Lomax dies at 95; civil rights activist launched Los Angeles Tribune newspaper

I’d never heard of Almean Lomax, and I think that’s a damn shame. This trailblazer was a journalist unlike any other, who is notable not just because she started a black newspaper of incredible importance to black folks in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but because she was unafraid to do what others would not.

“She was a terrific writer…the only one of all the black newspapers at the time who really was fearless about exposing things as they were. She didn’t soft-pedal anything,” said veteran civil rights lawyer Leo Branton Jr.

Not only was she fearless in her writing, she was fearless in her life. After her divorce in 1959, she moved her SIX kids – ages 4 – 16 – from L.A. to the deep South so she could cover the height of the Civil Rights Movement from the ground, much like war reporters do now. According to the article and her children she regretted it later, because of the trauma that such racism left on her kids. But I admire her willingness to get in the trenches, so to speak. Often I wonder about the impact we can make from the outside looking in. While we want to protect OUR children, are we losing something – being selfish even – by not being in physical solidarity with the most oppressed among us? Or is our selfishness justified, as long as we use our outsider status to the utmost in service of those in the war? What does that utmost look like?

What’s Really Behind Black Child-Abuse Stats

A new study debunks the long-held belief that racial bias by those who report abuse is behind the disproportionately high numbers for black children.

I don’t read The Root on a regular basis, and this article* is an example of why. The article is about a report that  supposedly debunks a myth that racial disproportionality in child abuse statistics are largely driven by racism or racial bias. The report is supposed to say that instead black parents are disproportionately more likely to be cited for child abuse because black parents are more likely to be poor.

But the problem with this Root article is that it never tells you how the report debunks the myth. How did the researchers get from “there is no racial bias in how professionals judge was is/is not abuse” to “it’s all about poverty”? The article gives me no reason to believe the report, except that the Root says that the report debunks the myth. Isn’t the point of the news to digest the information for me, so I don’t have to read the report? The Root has this kind of shoddy “reporting” and writing consistently; I really cannot understand why black folk continue to read it or take any stock in what they have to say. I understand that media outlets for black news are few and far between, but we have to be able to do better than this.

Do you all have any news about black mothering or black childrearing to share? Send it to me or post it in the comments!

Have a great week,

LaToya

*I actually have a lot to say about the report itself, but I’m going to save it for another post, later this week.

Reclaiming the Narrative

Dr. Mama Esq.2 Comments

Written by CocoaMamas contributor Rachel Broadwater; a version of this first appeared on Love Isn’t Enough here & here.

After years of black motherhood being equated with abandonment and neglect, it was pure joy to see the Obamas walk across that stage to accept the nomination and then the results of the election.  Those nights – and those ever since – have been an affirmation for those of us who were what they are: A strong, loving, playful, and spirit filled African American family.  The Obamas, of course, are not the first nor will they will be the last, but they are in the here and now, tangible and concrete.   It is important to note the Obamas – including Marion Robinson, First Lady Obama’s mother who has been hailed by both of them as being instrumental in the development of their daughters – deserve every bit of praise.  It is clear that they not only are extremely devoted to their children but also to their own relationship.  If there were to be a soundtrack for the Obama family, it would be Stevie Wonder’s “Knocks Me off My Feet”.

They are the flip side to the many single black women – grandmothers, aunties, sisters, and every other in between – who are indeed mothering under siege.  These examples seem to be the only dots on the spectrum.  For those of us who seem to embody the Obama model it can be a lonely, isolating and conflicting experience.

I am a 34 year old mixed race woman – Puerto Rican father and African American / Cherokee mother – who identifies herself culturally as an African American- who mothers 2 amazing little girls: my daughter, 8, and my niece, 9.  I have been married to an awesome guy for 10 years and on our second wedding anniversary our daughter was born.  I work in pharmacy, a profession where there are more women than men.   Because of this, I would find myself in conversations with the pharmacist- sometimes white but frequently themselves or their families hailing from the Middle East or South East Asia – about parenting.  There was almost always a look of surprise and wonderment when I would talk about the regular every day struggles of mothering.  I could almost see the thought bubble: “Oh my God she is just like me!”  Usually at some point in time they would admit to being pleasantly surprised at how devoted I and my husband were to our girls.  I was different, you know, unlike “those other” parents.  Meaning “regular” black people.  I would insist that every mother regardless of race, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, socioeconomic or marital status wants the best for her child whether they have the resources or not, and I was not, in fact, an anomaly.

But I admit that I do feel invisible. There are very few mediums where black mothering is normalized.  Normalized brings to mind for many a two parent, heterosexual, often Christian family.  That is not what I am talking about.  I mean I want to see black and brown mothers in advertisements for safety systems, breastfeeding campaigns, and educational enrichment pitches.  I want to see sensitive portrayals of black and brown women as being nurturing, caring, responsible, patient and concerned about their children.  I would no longer have to endure a picture of a black child automatically followed by these or any combination of words: challenge, crisis, chaos, dangers, death, neglect, and dysfunctional.

To black and white people I did right.  I got married then had children.  “You are a good mother” they nod approvingly.  It’s like because I married when I married that I automatically get 500 points on the SAT’s of parenting.  Why should that be?  There is so much discussion concerning the ills of out of wedlock mothering in spiritual, economic, and emotional terms.  Single mothers have their actions shredded apart.  People feel it is justified by pointing to the high incarceration rates, poverty, violence etc. but is it any more right for a married woman to have a baby to save a relationship? Is it right for a married couple to bring a child into a household where the father is emotionally distant or even cruel because of their own unresolved demons?  There might be a temptation to point out that society “pays” for out of wedlock children but don’t we “pay” when children are conceived under the matrimonial fairy tales that don’t work out.  But there are a whole lot of ways to pay for a baby.

There seems to be a concerted lack of nuance in the discourse in both white and black spaces. If white spaces don’t acknowledge my presence black spaces insist only on the respectable.  In a way I can’t say that I blame them.  Slavery did not allow for slaves to be recognized as humans much less families.  Even if an enlightened slave master allowed for slaves to be married, it was never legally binding.  At any time these two people, who chose each other despite the pure hell of slavery, could be separated and sold along with any of their children or told to mate with another salve who had their own family or did not and simply had no desire to breed.  When freedom was won the majority of slaves legalized their marriages.  They may not have had much but they had each other.  Literally.

So against that backdrop it is no wonder when pastors look out into the pews of their church and see the couple sitting next to each other, an arm draped across their partners back, maybe with a child or two on either side, maybe in between, they are not necessarily seeing patriarchy and submission.  What they see is a stone in the eye of the naysayers who use charts, polls, and studies to prove that these people sitting in church on a Sunday morning don’t exist.  There is no doubt that something pulls at you when you see a couple married for 40 plus years helping each other put their coats on.  It is pride, love, joy, hope, an abundance of every bit of positive energy in the world.  It is also tempting to stay rooted in that energy.  It is so warm and wonderful.  It makes me believe that I too will be in that number.  To believe that this is the right way, the only way, the best way.  But I can’t and I won’t.

Poor mothers do not automatically equate poor mothering.  The No Wedding, No Womb and Marry Your Baby Daddy/Mama movements although conceived with good intentions have left so many important threads blowing in the wind and it seems like few are interested in catching, examining and then tying them together.  Lack of comprehensive, fact based sexual education, the denial of mental health services (both in idea that it is needed and actual services), the lack of safe spaces or even language for men and boys to discuss their own feelings that are not steeped in patriarchy and the sustained unwillingness to deal with the effects of physical, mental, sexual and emotional abuse and how that affects interpersonal relationships all impact both parents and children alike.

The first step to correct this is the insistence that black women take back their own maternal narrative.  Take it back from whoever is mishandling it, whether the person is wearing a three-piece suit, a black dress with pearls, pastoral robes or jeans and t shirt.  This is your story.  You and your child’s.  There will be laughter and tears.  There will be slammed doors and cuddles on the couch.  There will be fear and certainty.  There will be clarity and bewilderment.  These things will happen at different times or maybe all at once.  Doesn’t matter really.  When you tell your story I will sit down and make myself comfortable, ready to listen to you.

Jumping That Broom

Dr. Mama Esq.7 Comments

Yesterday was National Black Marriage Day, a day that celebrates and promotes marriage within the Black community.

According to many opinion article writers, a forthcoming book by one of my professors, a “movement” championed (and also derided) by many in the black blogging community, and a recent report on the state of Black children, the issue of marriage among Black people is cited as the #1 reason – and also #1 solution – for why Black people are in the situation in which we find ourselves today. The breakdown of the “family unit,” as many call it, is hurting black children. From what I can see, most of these reports/opinions/etc. take the approach of the Moynihan report and cite that the issue is black single mothers raising children without black fathers. Something about the lack of a father in the home – and hence the breakdown of the family unit – has caused such damage that only the revival of marriage can fix.

I think this is… how can I say in the most polite way…misguided.

My issue with this whole propaganda machine is this: marriage and the multitude of support needed for black children to succeed and thrive are two totally different things. While they need not be mutually exclusive, one can exist without the other.

I am black, and I am married with black children. So I am not anti-marriage. I love my husband, and plan to be with him until death do us part. For real. I think that children can benefit from having both of their parents in their lives as much as possible, given that both of those people are available and willing to do the job. But it doesn’t necessarily work that the converse is true: that children must suffer if they don’t have both parents – a man and a woman – in their lives as much as possible. There is just very little evidence for this.

Research is showing that children who grow up in same sex coupled households do just as well as children who grow up in opposite sex households. Census data shows that children raised in same sex households do as well in school as children raised in opposite sex households. Children of lesbian co-parents do as well, and perhaps even better than children of heterosexual married couples. There is little evidence that children need both a man and a woman in the household to succeed.

That many call the fact that over 70% of black children are born “out-of-wedlock” a crisis is a crisis. The statistic is that black women are choosing to have children with men to whom they are not married. The crisis, to those who call it that, is that some moral value has been violated – obviously these women had sex before marriage. I suppose a second value violation, although it’s hardly moral, was the failure to use birth control. But are these two facts really of crisis proportions? What is the real problem?

I was pregnant with Big A before we got married. I was also college educated, had my own place to live, with my own job, and was about to go to graduate school. I had had sex before marriage, and failed to properly use birth control. An issue that I was pregnant? Of course. A crisis? No.

People often point at the 1950s and 1960s as the hey-day for marriage in the black community. Blacks supposedly had the highest rates of marriage among any racial group in the country. Since that time, however, the rate of marriage has been on the decline, not just for Blacks, but for everyone. But to me, it’s not just a coincidence that the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement and the decline of marriage occurred around the same time (and don’t forget about the womens movement.)

Just like many things were fractured in age of integration, so was the black community. I think that what is a crisis is not the decline of marriage, but the decline of community. Marriage is not supported only by those two people who stand at the altar and profess their love; family and friends are invited to serve as witnesses and to pledge their support to that union. In the 1950s and 1960s, new marriages began in the comfort of a community where people loved that couple, counseled that couple, saw that couple in church every Sunday. They likely lived around the corner from their Mamas and Daddies, sisters and brothers. When they had their first child, the grandmother came and stayed for weeks helping out; the entire family brought over food. Black women married and worked and raised their children, but also helped raise other people’s children too. Children were supported by more of the village concept, where my mama know your mama and if your mama sees me doing something wrong, your mama will punish me just like my mama would. Before integration, children saw businesses run by their own people, people whose name they knew and who knew their name. School teachers lived on the block, and knew every child’s family because they also went to church together. So children were not only supported by the institution of marriage, they were supported by a strong community that knew each other and did for each other.

Integration changed that. Integration, as it’s played out, has created huge rifts in the black community along class lines as some have moved on up to the big time, getting their piece of the pie while others are holding on to the promises but have been left looking up from the bottom of the well. The same fractures that were created among slave negroes and house negroes have been recreated for the 21st century. And now, someone is feeding to us that marriage is the ticket to our salvation? Naw, son.

What has always been the backbone of the black community is exactly that – community. If black people want to get married – that’s great. More power to them. But our children don’t need marriage; they need community. They need the support of any and all loving adults who can care for them, married parents or not. There was a time, which is still true now in many areas, where grandparents, aunties and uncles, where considered essential parts of black children’s’ lives, in both married and non-married families. But not as much anymore. When I read the reports that bash parents for failure to parent, I wonder from where these survey takers think the current parents learned to parent? And where did their parents learn to parent? There was a time that even if your parent was not doing all that you needed, your best friend’s mother was, and you were learning right along with him. Now, you have to set up playdates. The natural community fluidity and trust is gone. Parenting is often happening in a vacuum. What happened to the community that nurtured and mentored young parents on the way to go?

Our little family, the four of us, live 3000 miles from our biological family. But we’ve created, as many transplant Black families do, our fictive kin right here in the Bay Area that serve as our “family” of aunties and uncles and cousins. In the black community, nuclear families have never had to go it alone. But now, it’s not natural. We have to work to make a family seem real.

With integration, the black community adopted the American mantra of “every man for themselves.” And that has been what has destroyed the black community. The decline of marriage has been a collateral consequence.

So when these groups, movements, days, etc., claim to want to celebrate Black marriage, I have to take a *pause.* Because while I feel that their hearts are in the right place, I think their energy is totally misdirected. Instead of “promoting” marriage, how about community building, i.e. creating spaces where marriages can thrive? In those same spaces, not only will marriage thrive, but also other forms of families and ultimately, supports for children.

Whether a child succeeds should not depend on whether their parents are married or not. By putting our feather in that hat we are walking a very narrow path indeed, and deflecting energy and resources from where they could best used.

the personal is political

Tanji6 Comments

– on the occasion of attending my first Donna Brazile talk and moments before composing tomorrow’s lecture on Sade

In 1988, at the tender age of 9, I campaigned for Jesse Jackson’s Democratic Nomination. My brothers and I, 11 and 7 themselves, went door-to-door in Perth Amboy, New Jersey registering people to vote, and chiefly, amusing the hell out of them. If pre-pubescent little black kids are not enough to convince you to fulfill your civic duty, I don’t know what will.

My son, twenty years later, voted for Barack Obama on nick.com. I must admit that no matter how special I thought it was when Mekhi declared,  “Mom, don’t you think Barack Obama looks like me!”, in the ’08 season, I still have my reservations about our often conservative first gentleman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight, Donna Brazile stated that the reason she does not want to run for political office is like the reason why she doesn’t want to be married, because it requires staying in one place. And she likes to be, “on the go!” Though I traditionally do not believe in qualifying oppressions I can’t help but think if I had to choose between working in the white house or working as a house wife, WHICH I, OF COURSE, DO NOT!!!!, give me the suburban soccer mom, every day of the week.

It is so painfully obvious that I am from this country, not only because I am here, with my black family, simultaneously at war and in line with our nation’s political agenda. So many of us, even those not from this country, participate in this American narrative. My children however like to pretend they are from some other place. My oldest in particular has no clue he is “African-American.” I like to blame this on his educational environments and his penchant for White televisual media. In one of his four public schools there was a banner that read, “this is America; everyone reads!,” and in his most recent they celebrated “diversity,” with the book (and participating feast) “Everybody Cooks Rice.” For the latter he brought in rice pudding which I had to convince him was his great-great-grandmother’s dish.

Today, I am feeling particularly angry about not only the post-racial politics of today’s presidential aura, I am also frequently miffed at the government control over our bodies and families. The first time I almost wrote off Barack Obama was following his problematic “Father’s Day” speech in Chicago. Now, with the inability to promote national legislation legalizing gay marriage, the still-inadequate health insurance and the lack of access to safe abortions and contraception, etc., I am wondering where all my Cocoamamas stand. Granted we chose a right to have at least one child. However; I know that does not “safely” box us into right hetero-normative agendas?

 

 

#blackparentquotes

Dr. Mama Esq.1 Comment

I was all set to write something serious tonight, something that would really make us all stop and think. And then something came across my Twitter timeline that had me falling OUT and I just had to share it.

The hashtag was #blackparentquotes.

Sometimes I don’t get Black Twitter hashtags. This one I totally did. I obviously was raised by Black Parents. And I obviously am one. I found myself having heard or having said so many of them, I was simultaneously shocked and amused. Here are mine, that I came up with:

“Get your hands OFF my walls!”

My mother STILL says this. When I was a child, I could NOT understand. I never felt that my hands were dirty. But today – my walls are filthy. Why? CUZ I HAVEN’T TOLD MY KIDS TO KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF THE WALLS! Children have nasty hands. They refuse to use the banister to walk up the steps. As Andrea and I commiserated over Twitter, they act like they can’t stand on their own feet. Why are you leaning?! STAND UP!

[Child says something smart.] “Who you talkin’ to?”

My five-year-old is in this stage now where I say this probably every day. Now, back when I was growing up, this statement was followed by silence, actually waiting for a response. You had betta said, “Nobody,” so the retort would be, “That’s what I thought, cuz I know you wasn’t talkin’ to me like that.” Today, I’ll still say, “Who you talkin’ to?” but I will continue with a talk about being respectful and not talking to me that way. Then I’ll tell him how he should of said what he said. These kids don’t even know…

[Mom on the phone. Child is looking at the mom.] “Why you in my mouth?”

A variant is “Get out of my mouth!” Kids just don’t know how to eavesdrop on phone conversations without actually looking. I learned how to avoid that one quick. I don’t even talk on the phone now. But I do have to shuttle my kids away when I’m trying to have an adult conversation. I get the urge sometimes to say this, but I don’t think they’d get it.

[Mom and child walk into the store.] “Don’t ask for nothin’…”

This was just an ongoing instruction. She didn’t even have to say it.

Child: But [so-and-so’s] mom said they could do it! Mom: “Do I look like [so-and-so’s] mama?”

Nope. You sho’ ’nuff don’t.

“Put some shoes on your feet!”

That was my dad! All the time. I think it was a thing about stepping on something, or catching a cold. But I know it’s the reason  insist on walking barefoot in my house all. the. time. That’s the rebel in me.

“Just wait till we get home.”

I don’t say this. We’ve already had the spanking conversation on this site. Let me just say I have my spoon in the car. No need to wait.

And my favorite (can’t take credit for it though*):

Child: Mommy, can we go to McDonald’s? Mom: You got McDonald’s money?

YES! I say this to my kids ALL THE TIME!! It applies everywhere! “Mommy can we go…” “You got some money?” I try to make it clear to my children at all times that only people who earn money can spend money. They get money sometimes and they have to save some of it and they can spend some of it. But outside of that – naw. It even applies when my son wants to talk about stuff that is “his” – what?? Nope – if you don’t pay any bills in this house, then nothing belongs to you.

What are your favorite #blackparentquotes? Share in the comments!

* i am not a tweet stealer. that ish is not cool.

Cheaters as Relationship Gurus

carolynedgar2 Comments

Popular gossip/entertainment site The YBF made a splash yesterday when it posted a YouTube video from Mary Harvey, Steve Harvey’s ex-wife, in which she talked of Harvey’s infidelity during their marriage, including his affair during their marriage with his current wife, Marjorie. The ex-Mrs. Harvey also posted a salacious letter from one of Steve Harvey’s jump-offs.

Not surprisingly, this revelation spawned comments ranging from “I knew he was a low down dirty dog! How dare he try to be some kind of relationship guru!” to “Yawn, old news, old girl needs to move on.”

It is old news, in a way. Steve has admitted his cheating ways. It was already known that his current wife was his side piece. He’s not the first nor the last man to cheat, to marry his side chick, or to say he can tell women how to avoid low down dirty dogs because he was once one himself.

Although Harvey’s relationship books are best-sellers, there are those who resent his emergence as the media’s African-American relationship expert.

Can a person with multiple divorces under his belt seriously be considered a relationship counselor? Or, as Harvey argues, should we listen because of those past failures?

In my opinion, the fact that Harvey is a (reformed) cheater neither qualifies nor disqualifies him as a relationship expert. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship has ideas and opinions about relationships, based on their own experiences. And all of those people are capable of giving both good and bad advice.

I write about being divorced, so I am often asked to write about marriage – particularly, about lessons learned. I managed to partner with and marry the one person on this planet who was incompatible with me in every single way imaginable. Apparently, this is because I am an overachiever.

The biggest lesson I learned about marriage? Don’t marry the wrong person. Or, as I said to a friend shortly after I filed for divorce, “Choose better.”

I can’t tell people how to know he’s Mr. Right, because I’m still trying to figure that out. I have some ideas on how to know you’re dating Mr. Wrong.  But I don’t claim to be the Mr. Wrong expert. One person’s Mr. Wrong is another person’s Mr. Right or Mr. Cool For Right Now.

All I know is this: you are the expert of you. No one can tell you what’s best or worst for you, except you. The only thing another person can do is provide some guidance that might help you make the right choices for yourself.

Which leads me back to Steve Harvey. The fact that he cheated on his wives and has been divorced a bunch of times doesn’t mean much to me. The advice he dispenses should be judged on its own merits.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of his relationship advice, and not because of his own relationship history. I read his book “Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man.” While I do think he makes some good points – such as the importance of establishing standards for how you expect to be treated early in a relationship – I don’t care for his “men are simple” brand of relationship advice.

I don’t think men are simple. I think men are wonderfully complex human beings. Harvey says men need loyalty, support and sex. Don’t women need the same things, too?

For the record, I also think the aphorism, “why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?” is deeply flawed. It assumes sex has no value for women except as currency in trade with men.

Men and women alike should be smarter about and embracing of sex and their own sexuality, which doesn’t translate to strict “wait till the third date” rules. Other people can give you guidelines, but you have to establish your own rules about sex and intimacy.

As for Mary Harvey, the ex-Mrs. Harvey? I feel badly for her. You don’t save letters, emails, and other evidence of your ex-husband’s infidelity this many years after the divorce, if you have truly moved on. She appears to still be in a lot of pain over her husband’s betrayal of their wedding vows.

If telling her story helps her process that pain and helps other women in the process, then her revelations are a good thing. If she’s still coming from a place of bitterness and vengefulness, she will need to heal for her own sake, no matter what she writes or posts on YouTube. Only she knows what her motives are. I wish her well.

Close

Tanji8 Comments

The other day my father-in-law (never-before-used term) and I shared a little secret regarding how private my husband is. We were neither menacing or overly critical at the moment we were just candid as we casually arrived at the same conclusion about my husband’s inability to open up with us. I have to admit, I am frustrated by the reality that I do not have a truly intimate relationship with Jaron, my partner. At the same time that I relish the ability we have to unite around common interests, the ease at which we “flow” around our household, and how we manage both a new co-professional and familial relationship, I wish that there were ways in which we could communicate better, more deeply and more often.

It’s quite crazy to me how with children this bond is generally taken for granted. I do not have to massage, manufacture or labor over my relationship with my children. They are “natural” fits. Or at the very least, a mother and child are socialized (in many cases) into a bond that is predicated upon the former nurturing the latter. In return, we get an unconditional love that is (in many cases) “easy,” and genuinely fulfilling.

Unlike with my children, I feel like there are times in which my husband and I are not “family,” a word that was lovingly thrown around at my in-laws as a way of making me feel welcome and at home, in a space where of course we only infrequently visit, or else they would not have to remind me that we’re “family.”

All I mean by this is that I have to work much harder to create a sense of intimacy with Jaron than I do with most others.

I am a teacher and I truly believe that there is a solution to every problem. I also subscribe to the good-old-fashion-inner-city-public-school teacher ethos of “rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty” with a problem. What do all the Cocoa Mamas out there do to get “close” to a partner, particularly black male partners who are arguably the most “guarded” men there are?

the in-between ones

Dr. Mama Esq.4 Comments

We’ve been talking a lot about fathers who aren’t in their children’s lives, either because mothers’ have made it extremely difficult, or because they themselves have refused to step up.

I don’t really know any fathers that fit either of those scenarios. Most of the fathers I know are either the “good” ones, the ones that are either married to the mothers AND fully participatory in their child’s life, or if not married, have joint physical custody and/or joint legal custody, see their children several times a week, and are fully financially supportive of their kids. Their children KNOW, beyond a doubt, even if both biological parents are re-married or otherwise committed, who their biological parents are, and they love them.

But I also know many “in-between” fathers. Fathers who have “stories” that don’t quite add up to me, fathers who say they are doing all that they can, but I can’t quite figure out why their relationship with their child is not better than what it is. They see them sometimes, sporadically, inconsistently. Their children love them, when they see them. There’s always some excuse about why they couldn’t get there, or why this court date was missed, or what happened this pay period, or how he gave her extra last time. Or there are those that I can understand why their relationship is what it is, usually due to a father’s actions against a mother that has made a child withdraw, or a father’s actions in general that has made a child say, “what the…!” and back up. Say, “I don’t want to see dad” b/c of dad’s new girlfriend or dad’s new apartment or the sleeping arrangements or how dad leaves me with a babysitter every time I go over there.

And when we, as children, as women, grow up, our relationships with our fathers get murky, at least as I’ve seen. When you become a mother, and look back on your childhood, you see things, actions, events, through new eyes. You see your mother and her relationship with your father, through new eyes. Perhaps not through her eyes, as she is not you, but through a mother’s eyes, through a grown woman’s eyes, through the eyes of a woman who perhaps loved that man and had sex with that man and wanted that man. And you see how perhaps that man was not the man you thought your father was. In some cases, you see how your father was not the father you thought him to be at certain times in your life. And that is unsettling.

So often we talk about the “good” ones and the “bad” ones, but what about the “in-between” ones? The ones that try, maybe hard, maybe not. The ones that are there, kinda. The ones you root for, but let you down. Sometimes.

Of course, this is not just about fathers. Relationships with parents are tricky things. My relationship with my own parents has changed so much even in the last five years – perhaps not from their perspective, but definitely from mine. Things have happened, words have been said, impressions have been made; things that make me question whether any of us can, at the end of the day call ourselves “good” parents. We will probably all do something that leaves an indelible negative mark on our child, maybe not when they are young, but when they grown older; perhaps though they will be more emotionally mature than I and will see their parents as “people” with “flaws” and not as their parents who are supposed to perpetually have some sort of superior wisdom. I’m not bitter; far from it. I’m just trying to understand how we draw the lines.

Thoughts?

Save the Drama for Your Mama

Dr. Mama Esq.7 Comments

I’m starting to believe that I must have budding musicians/artists/actors on my hands. Because if I don’t, I’m a little…worried. See, my children have what some may call a flair for the dramatic. EVERYTHING in my home has a taste of drama.

“What’s drama?” asked my almost-five year old. “When you take something that’s a little deal, and make it into a great big deal,” I replied. And for my children, the time it takes to go from “little” to “big” is no time at all.

Take putting on their jackets. Both are adept at this seemingly mundane task. Particularly at holding the sleeve of their shirt in their hand, putting one arm in the jacket sleeve, reaching behind them, and repeating with the other arm. Little deal, right?

Not in my house. As soon as the idea of putting on the jacket has been planted in their heads, the drama begins. “But I don’t know where my jacket IS!” It’s in the same place it always is – either where you left it last, or hanging in the closet. Look for it. “Uhh, ohh, eww, ohh, ohhh, ummm…..I NEED HELP!” Doing what? We do this multiple times a day. Maybe if you weren’t leaned over the couch and actually standing up, the process of getting the jacket on would be easier. And all that moaning and groaning you are doing is wasting energy. *Now in almost perfect unison, but not quite so it’s really just noise* “Mommy, can you zip me up?” Sure. I start with one. Then the other asks the same exact question, standing right next to me. Do they need glasses? Can’t they see that I’m still zipping the other up? “But Mommy, I didn’t want you to zip it ALL THE WAY! Ohhh…..!”

***

The head teacher at the preschool has something new to tell me every week about my almost-five year old, something we need to work on. He sings to himself constantly; he always has a little ditty going. I tell him to be quiet, and he acknowledges he hears me, but the ditty is so unconscious, he’s right back at in in no time flat. He appears to be in his own world, but a world of drama in which other people exist, but as props for him. He wanders aimlessly, bumping into things and people. He touches everyone, leaning his whole body weight into them. “But Mommy…” is his favorite phrase as his head leads his body into my body. A sense of helplessness has overcome him lately.

***

My three year old yells. And yells. And when put in time out for yelling, she yells, “But I won’t do it anymore!” And when she’s not yelling, she’s expressing her undying love for you. Back and forth it goes with this child, who at one moment is crying because she didn’t get to say goodbye to Daddy before he left for work, but at the next moment is yelling about how I shouldn’t tell her to sit and eat her food because she doesn’t like when I say that to her. And after the time out that comes from that, she’s crawling all over me so she can kiss me and say, “Mommy, I love you.”

***

The crazy thing is that a lot of this drama, other people don’t see. I ask their other caregivers if the dramatics are as deep as they are at home, and other people say not quite. It seems the drama is saved for home, for me, and I don’t know what to make of it. Is home where the social experiment of raising children happens, and the only way you know if you are doing right is how they act on the “outside”? Are children supposed to act crazy at home, getting it out of their systems, abusing the ones they know love them most, and putting their best sides forward when out in the street? I certainly hope so, for that’s the only way I will survive this. At least 15 more years? Talk about needing help…

A Family Affair

Tanji2 Comments

For all the talk about husbands and children, and the occasional grandparent or two on CocoaMamas, we don’t very often communicate about our extended family networks. I often brag that in my house growing up there was always an aunt, play cousin or godmom around to chew the fat with. Lately, my network is getting somewhat smaller. I still agree by the general spirit however that, “it takes a village, to raise a child.” Tonight, I was reminded of the constant role that my siblings (two brothers and one sister) play in the shaping and development of my new family’s future. Are CocoaMamas (at large) still resourced and supported by their “old” families?

In my paternal side’s “heyday,” we use to gather for family sing-a-longs; mainly we would sing spirituals, peppered with a Stevie Wonder or Bill Withers balad here and there. My children, regrettably, will never share in those memories. However, my family has continued its artistic impulses, working collaboratively on film and digital music projects. My daughter (1.5 years) proudly joined us tonight for a “business” pow-wow. She moderated the meeting, all loud and boisterous on the other end of my brother’s speaker phone.

I am grateful to have a ton of friends, female friends in particular, that have nutured their relationship with me over the years to the point where I have no doubt that we will always be cool. It is trickier for family sometimes though. You have to come up with common interests and be equally invested in maintaining traditions to keep relationships going. Isn’t it funny how with friends you embrace new experiences; a “girl’s trip” to this exotic location or a new movie? However, with family you tend to only sign yourself up for the “same old, same old.”

What are you doing to keep your relationship with your siblings going, and most importantly, how are you modeling the role of family for your children?