After being ravaged by postpartum depression for most of 2015, my 2016 goal was to retain sanity — by any means necessary. Things had fallen apart soon after I gave birth to my daughter, with the pressures of work and new motherhood driving me to depression and sleep deprivation. To overcome this I was willing to manage a tighter schedule, hire more help, take more time off. But the hardest part of my recovery has been becoming an advocate for my own wants and my needs.

Women are conditioned to shoulder alot and think nothing of it. There are dozens of colloquialisms for women perceived as needy, complaining and dependent; ‘basic’, ‘bitch’, ‘shrew’, ‘nag’. And so we become accustomed to doing too much and saying too little. This Crunk Feminist Collective article entitled How to Not Die: Some Survival Tips for Black Women Who Are Asked to Do Too Much, sums it up perfectly;

“I believe the stress of weighty expectations and doing too much takes its toll on us.  It doesn’t happen all at once.  It happens over weeks and months and years of pushing our own needs and desires down until we can’t feel them anymore.  It happens, subtly, until it makes sense to do too much because that is just the way things are, the way things have always been.  That, too, is a problem.  It is a problem when caretaking (taking care) becomes something we do for other people and not ourselves.  It is up to us to survive and not just survive but thrive in our lives.  To not put work above living.  To not make ourselves our last resort.  To not wait until we are tired to rest.  To not wait until we are sick to make healthy choices.  To not wait until we have pleased everyone else to think about our own needs.  To not postpone our own happy.  To not just tolerate foolishness…

I worry that our foremothers were worked to death.  I worry that they didn’t see death coming because they were too busy taking care of other things.  I worry that they had too much to do and ran out of time.  I worry that they didn’t get to see themselves as celebrated and loved and worthy of celebration and love.  I worry that they worked too much, too hard, and for too little pay.  I worry that people saw them as strongblackwomen and forgot to see them as human.  I worry that our jobs, our families, our friends, and sometimes our supporters expect too much and we expect too little.”

Speaking up on my own behalf — day in and day out to my husband, family and friends — brought on a lot of anxiety. I soon became acutely aware of just how much I silence myself to make others comfortable. Squeezing my eyes tight and gritting my teeth I forced myself to vocalize my needs for rest, for quiet, for space and time.

‘Will everyone hate me? Will they get tired of me? Will they not want to be my friend?‘ These thoughts swirled in my head as I posted yet another Facebook status about how difficult my day had been, or told my parents, yet again, that I needed them to make the trip out to Chicago to help me with the kids.

And yes, I did lose some friends. Some thought I had become too big for my britches. Who was I, they wondered, to selfishly re-order my priorities around the provision of my physical and emotional needs? I was a wife and mother after all, and that was not wifely and motherly behavior. Others were uncomfortable with how candid I’d become about the ups and downs of my life, preferring my upbeat statuses about how well my various ventures were going or how beautiful my young family was.

But the people who mattered most stayed by my side. And I was surprised to find that my honest words unlocked a world of love and support I didn’t know existed.

My mother rallied around me, getting my father in line with the idea that bi-monthly trips to Chicago were a must, at least while their grandchildren were still very young. My husband acknowledged his need to shoulder domestic responsibility in a more meaningful way and approach it with the same fervor he would a 9 to 5. And my friends became meaningful sounding boards and partners in my self-care.

Perhaps my anxiety is rooted in fear that the real me — the sometimes annoying and hot-tempered and exhausting me — is impossible to love. So I stuffed it away, put on a veneer and tried to shoulder everything myself. But 2016 has been my year of understanding that, imperfect as I am, I deserve devoted love and a village to carry me. After all, part of sharing the load is being honest about how burdensome it really is.

Запись The Hardest Part of Recovering from Postpartum Depression Was Learning to Speak Up for My Own Needs впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

I had always been curious about camping. Something about a tent, a fire, and marshmallows sounded like a lot of fun, but when I brought it up, no one in my family wanted to sleep on the ground outside when we had perfectly good beds inside.

With a child’s eye, I began to notice that other black families seemed to share their sentiments. I was too young to understand the history behind some of it.  Much like why “black people don’t know how to swim, ” many black people don’t camp for historical reasons such as segregation and violence. Being isolated in the woods was not exactly a welcoming place for blacks not so long ago, and beyond that, camping takes resources such as transportation, time, and equipment that I know, for my parents’ childhoods, would have been a constraint even if Jim Crow hadn’t kept them at home.

That all said, though my parents still can’t swim, they made sure that I can, even if the water is still very frightening to them. Sometimes the best parenting decisions for me are the ones that push me out of my comfort zone, so last year we went camping.

It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a little uneasy. Not having a door to lock unnerved me in a way I hadn’t expected. I felt so exposed. Despite any fears I had, the most negative experience we had was simply being colder than we anticipated.

Life’s not always about climate controlled comfort.

I love how camping challenges the everyday conveniences such as a thermostat. While it’s easy to focus on what’s lacking in the woods, what it offers in return is substantial.

Of course the scenery is great. I used my camera more than I had in years. Plus, you can really see stars. I didn’t realize how bad light pollution was until I was in the middle of a desert looking up. It was like a new sky, one I had never seen.

We had the most amazing conversations.

Out of consistent cell range, the conversations were free of technological distractions. Since we traveled with friends, it offered the perfect time to reconnect.

I was especially impressed by the intense science and nature lessons my then three-year-old son had while we visited different landscapes. With each stop, he learned more than he ever could in a classroom. Coming up on a year later, he’s still talking about climbing boulders and hiking in the desert.

I loved watching my child in the wilderness.

His curiosity had never been so strong. Always a child with a question, he was absorbed with all the new sights, sounds, and smells. He loved all the opportunities to climb, touch, run, and jump.

Though we go to zoos and watch nature programs, coming up on a wild elk on a trail is very different than seeing one on display. It stirs a whole different part of the soul. I realized if I want my son to be inspired to study science, the best way to accomplish this is just to take him camping.

I wasn’t surprised when I saw that studies have shown that nature exposure increases observation and creativity, reduces stress levels, and helps children with ADD perform better at school. Similarly other studies show that children who have regular experiences outside show more advanced motor skills including balance, coordination, and agility.

My son wasn’t thinking in these research terms. He was just having fun. He can’t wait to sleep in the tent again.

He’s not the only one. The trip came at a pretty stressful time in our lives, yet being surrounded by all that beauty brought me an unexpected calm. I wasn’t surprised later to read that nature is good for mental health. It’s hard not to see the beauty and wonder in life when you’re standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon or looking up at Redwoods so tall they never seem to end.

Now that I’m a person who camps, I have another shared experience with millions of others.

I love that my kids will grow up relating to that experience. They will feel that part of the world belongs to them too. This will contribute to their success because they won’t be held back by stereotypes of what they do and don’t do just because of their race.

Запись Why I Reclaimed My Relationship with the Outdoors as a Black Woman and Went Camping впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

When you hear the term “crack baby, ” you might picture the movie Losing Isaiah with the screaming baby suffering due to his mother’s drug habit.

He was the classic crack baby: disruptive, troubled, and fictional.

Crack babies aren’t a real thing

Yes, some children were exposed in utero to cocaine, but there is no scientific literature to support the theory of the troubled crack baby.

The story of the crack baby myth is one based in racism, classism, politics, and ratings. It began with a doctor who thought that babies exposed to cocaine were suffering unique, extreme effects that would only increase as the children aged. His report was ratings gold.

Doctors at the time questioned the existence

There were doctors who disagreed with the crack baby label and attempted to dispel the myth. Dr. Clare Coles had noted that many of the signs of a crack baby were normal behaviors for premature babies. Yet her rebuttal didn’t make good news.

“Coles’ findings were ignored, however, because they didn’t fit into cultural stereotypes and failed to feed the media narrative. Reporters railed about an estimated $5 billion annual strain on the government, and everyone got extremely worked up because the concept of the “crack baby” plays into sadly familiar ideas of race and class. Since crack was relatively inexpensive and far more prevalent in poor areas, it was convenient to use this fear to justify classist and racist rhetoric (i.e., “poor, black neighborhoods bring their problems onto themselves and cost the rest of us by doing so”), ” Callie Beusman wrote in the article Good News: 1980s ‘Crack Babies’ Epidemic Was Hugely Overblown.

In an interview to the New York Times, Coles said, “There are certain ideas that people want to believe that really fit in with cultural stereotypes, and it’s hard to get rid of those.”

The crack mother was the worst welfare fear

In her book Living Color: Race and Television in the United States, Sarah Torres, a professor of information and media studies, explains the racism behind the media storm: “As a composite “she-devil, ” the crack mother takes the image of the welfare mother, so prominent in the demonology of Reaganism, and fuses it with the sexually aggressive Jezebel. […] A particularly menacing image of fertility, the crack mother personifies an out-of-control black sexuality.”

Torres references quotes from leaders at the time such as Rep. George Miller of the Select Committee on Children who said, “We’re going to have these children, who are the most expensive babies ever born in America, are going to overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come in contact with through the rest of their lives.”

Similarly, a Florida juvenile court judge William Gladstone said, “These kids have enormous, physical problems, mental problems. They will go into a system that is woefully inadequate, woefully underfunded. They’ll grow up to be tomorrow’s delinquents.”

These children weren’t seen as medically frail victims, instead they were presented as a future criminals.

What the research really says about crack babies

The fears about these children were unfounded as current research shows that “[a]lmost every prenatal complication originally thought to be due directly to [prenatal cocaine exposure] was found to result from confounding factors such as poor maternal nutrition, use of other drugs, depression, and lack of prenatal care.”

The studies are not condoning cocaine use. Instead, they found that the actual health impacts are limited, and the children outgrow them.

Poverty and the “crack baby” label hurt the children more

Some researchers think that the low expectations of being a “crack baby” did the most damage. As Michael Lewis, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, explained to the New York Times:
“in a doctor’s office or a classroom, ‘you cannot tell’ which children were exposed to cocaine before birth.

That report goes on to say that poverty related factors were much more damaging on children’s intellectual and emotional development. Researchers have also found that being labeled as a crack baby negatively impacted the children as they were stigmatized with every physical or behavioral problem being too quickly associated to the lost cause of being a crack baby.

The problem was discussed in an NPR interview with Dr. Hallam Hurt, neonatologist and professor of pediatrics:

Host Michel Martin: Do you worry, though, that a whole generation of kids [..] was written off essentially because people believed that they weren’t capable of very much? I wonder if you ever think that maybe more kids could’ve achieved at a higher level, if people had not been so quick to believe that they couldn’t do anything.

Dr. Hallam Hurt: I absolutely believe that. And I think that one of the most deleterious things is when a child might have been identified as quote, that pejorative term, crack kid, in school. And often they were written off.

These children were most definitely victims though the culprits turned out to be more complicated than drug abuse.

Had you heard this updated information? Are you surprised?

Запись New Studies Show the “Crack Baby” Was a Media Myth Designed to Frighten Whites and Criminalize Black Children впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

www.encouragegrowingfamilies.com

I wish I could paint this fairytale picture that where I am now in my life is what I’ve always wanted, but that’s the furthest from the truth.

With a Bachelor of Science in International Business, I thought I was going places. It didn’t matter that I didn’t land my dream job fresh out of college. I was willing to work my way up.

My dream was to travel the world.

Whether it was running my own business or working for some major corporation, I did not care as long as I could utilize my degree and travel.

Working for a travel agency was as close to my dream as I would get. At the time I was content because my traveling expenses were discounted or free. However, that lifestyle left no time for a husband or children.

My dreams became just dreams.

Fast forward a few years, I met my husband then one baby after another. Whatever dreams I thought I had were all just that, dreams. Instead of no time for a husband or babies, it was the opposite, no time for pursuing my dreams of traveling and progressing up the corporate ladder.

My mother would always say, a woman always sacrifices her dreams and goals once she has children. This was hard to accept and process internally. I started to question then what was my purpose. And with having to pay off my school loans, I asked why I allowed myself to waste four years of school if I’m not utilizing the degree I earned?

I just could not comprehend this transition in my life.

No matter how much I tried to do things my way, having children changed my life dramatically. It changed the way I thought, the way I dressed, and how I spent my time. This was not just me sacrificing dreams and goals. This was me sacrificing SELF for my husband and children.

After our fourth child, it came a point where I had to make a decision.

I didn’t want the most important people in my life to be neglected or suffer all because I wanted to be a success.

As my family grew, my faith grew. And as my faith grew, my views of what it meant to sacrifice self for children changed.

But how has all the sacrificing of SELF become a blessing?

It was either stop having children or stop pursuing my goals. Even after our fourth, I still had a desire for more children. I learned that children are an inheritance, not simply a byproduct of a couple’s intimacy.

Children teach you things that nothing else in the world can teach you.

Children taught me my strengths and weaknesses. There is nothing wrong with having dreams, but it is more of a blessing to share those dreams with others and fulfill them together. I’ve discovered the difference between my wants and necessities and what is temporal and what is eternal. All the accomplishments I would have gained on my own pre-family life would have made me happy but not joyful. There is a huge difference.

Sacrificing SELF for my children has taught me that my children are my success story. And I look forward to seeing every chapter of the story as I continue learn, love, teach and grow with them.

Have you made sacrifices to your dreams? What were your dreams before you became a mother? What are they now?

Запись I Sacrificed My Professional Dreams to Become a Mother 7 Times Over впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

Carrie Mae Weems : The Kitchen Table Series, 1990

From seeking advice about teething and feeding,  to getting help with the laundry and babysitting,  family members and friends make up the village most women depend on to help them bring up their child(ren). But, the reality for some of us is that we have made our homes in foreign countries or other locations that make it hard to see our loved ones regularly. Some of us are in this situation because we wanted to raise our children in a different environment than we grew up in,  others moved for academic pursuits; some of us relocated to the place where our partner grew up,  and still, others left home because of our jobs. We all know that it takes a village to raise a child, but when a mother lives far away from her ‘village’, how does she survive without the family and friends that most parents naturally rely on? What does a mother do when she’s living in ‘isolation’ – cut off from her basic support system and caring for her child(ren) in a far away land?

1. Accept Your Reality

It is important that you understand that you won’t benefit from constantly mourning the support system you left behind. When you move away from ‘home’, the first thing you will need to do, is to accept that you are ‘on your own’ and realise that it’s okay. The world will not come to an end! Every village was started with the building of the first family; so, this is your chance to create your own village and build a new community – on your terms and in your own time.

2. Allow Yourself to Make Mistakes

As you create your own family and build a new village, you need to understand that you will make many mistakes. All pioneers do. In the process, you might get burned and you may break a few things – that’s why we call pioneers ‘trail-blazers’ and ‘ground-breakers’. So, once you realise you have failed at something, don’t beat yourself up. Just try again. When you feel like you’re incompetent,  just remind yourself that some lessons are best learned first-hand.

3. Ask For & Accept Help

The truth is, when you’re in a new or unfamiliar environment, it can be difficult to get the simplest of things done. Having a big ego or a fear of rejection will just make a rough journey even rougher. The best thing you can do – for yourself and your child(ren) – is to be willing to ask for help. You’ll come to see that people are more inclined to go out of their way to assist a child,  so even when you feel uncomfortable or don’t want to be a ‘bother’, please ask for help. Just because you’re an ‘outsider’ you just may meet ‘neighbours’ who want to adopt your family – helping you during emergencies, bringing gifts (baby gear, toys and treats),  and helping you figure out complicated procedures. These people who offer to help you out may become the first members of your new village.

4. Seek Out Others

Then there are those times,  when we think that we’re the only ones who are alone or out-of-place. But, more often than not, there is someone else who needs a Mommy friend, just like you. But, you will never meet each other,  if you stay locked away in your homes. You can meet other Mommies online (in location-specific groups/networks) or bump into them at your pediatrician; so,  don’t be afraid to start a friendly chat. Plus, if your child is in school,  goes to daycare or is in a playgroup,  this is a great context to build your Mommy network. You can invite another Mommy to join you for lunch or to share snacks while the kids romp in the playground or yard. You may be amazed at how easily you could arrange for the other families to meet up for a cook out or to relax at a park together. Soon you could have your own Mommy group or circle of friends.

5. Set Up Routines & Systems

But don’t assume that the key to having a well-run home and a happy family is the amount of friends and relatives you have coming around. Like any other organisation or institution in society, your home and family’s needs have to be managed efficiently and effectively. So, you will need to develop some routines and implement some systems to make your days productive and positive. Strategies that are as simple as scheduling bath times,  designating grocery days,  setting alarms,  posting reminders and maintaining ‘to-do’ lists will definitely make your life less stressful. You will have to assess your situation and develop a game plan that works for you and your family. Whether you want to use money envelops to stay within your budget or you want to cook your meals in batches,  a habit of planning, preparing and following through makes sure you don’t get overwhelmed.

6. Stay In Touch With Your Village

Then if and when you do have a bad day, a quick chat with your mother or a friend from back home may be just what you need to de-stress and feel encouraged that you’re doing a good job. Whenever the feelings of homesickness start to wrap you into a sorry mood, connecting with your loved ones is the perfect way to forget that home is 10, 000 miles away. That’s why it is so good that we have cell phones that allow us to make and receive those heart-warming calls; and video-calling services that allow us to enjoy real-time face-to-face conversations with our loved ones whenever we need to. Since we have these means of staying in touch with family and friends around the world, you’ll have no excuse for anyone missing out on important moments or losing touch because you’re far away. For example, when our daughter became a one-year-old, Skype allowed our family in Jamaica to join in on her birthday party; being able to chat with her and watch her open and play with the gifts they had bought for her. These geographical distances can seem non-existent through the wonderful world of telecommunications so, we should try to keep our loved ones involved in our everyday lives.

7. Keep Track of Your Blessings

I know that even with smartphones and webcams, it’s still very easy to allow homesickness and loneliness to blind us to the things that are going well in our lives. So,  I won’t fail to remind you that the benefits of having an attitude of gratitude are many and invaluable. All you have to do is to take a moment to search each day to identify a few things that you appreciate. The more you practice being grateful,  the fewer moments you’ll find to complain and the more reasons you find to be happy wherever you are. So, whenever you begin to miss all the conveniences you’d grown accustomed to having back home or you start misunderstanding the way things work in your new home, it helps to make a list of all the things that you do like, and to remind yourself of the things you still have to enjoy.

8. Know When To Retreat

One of the most overwhelming challenges that you may face while living far from your people is lack of assistance: no doting grandparents to help with dirty diapers and giving baths, no eager friends lining up to babysit or to do the grocery shopping. The days will be many when you just want to eat a proper meal undisturbed,  when you daydream of using the toilet without a curious toddler hanging around or just take a leisurely soak in the bathtub. That’s why on some days you will need to drop everything and remind yourself that you are human! It may mean you ignore the clutter and leave the dishes piled up. Or that you leave the little one(s) with your partner and head off to a quiet spot. Sometimes, all it takes is a long soak that leaves you smelling like a rose garden or a full-on dance session with your favourite beats turned up loud. Whatever you do, it is very important that you regularly step away from the hectic and demanding world of being a Mommy to off-load, exhale and rejuvenate.

9. Kickstart Your Dreams

The next thing that you will find is that as you regularly make time for renewal, you will begin to get inspiration for living out your own dreams. Do you remember those children’s stories that talk about young adults who leave their friends and family then travel to distant lands to ‘find their fortune’? I think this imagery is symbolic of the freedom we have to explore our interests and potentials when we step outside of our comfort zones. So, this time when you’re in ‘isolation’ is a great time to start testing out your ambitions and working on meeting some personal goals. By taking on a project, a part-time job or even a new hobby that you can put some of your creative energies into,  you begin to feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose (that is separate from your role as home and family manager). Going after your dreams is a great way to define your identity as a woman,  distinct from your role as a mother, as well as a great way to become involved in your new community.

It is no secret that the journey of motherhood has many hurdles and that our daily routine can be even more demanding and strenuous than a 40-hour work week. But, when you are a mommy away from your village, it can get a little more fatiguing than usual. That’s why we need to build up a strong and reliable support system, made up of our loved ones (from a distance) and our new friends in your home away from home. Getting sufficient support is key to our success and sanity as Mommies. So, don’t stay in isolation. You don’t have to do it all on your own. We all need a little help, so don’t be afraid to ASK!

Запись 9 Ways I Survive as a Black Woman Mothering Without a Village впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

Many feel that the packaging furthers the perception that black fathers are not involved in the lives of their children. Well, I cannot say whether this was deliberately racist or not, but in the Baby and Blog Facebook group (if you haven’t joined, you NEED to… it is SO happening over there) member Ashley started a thread on black fathers who babywear, and invited us to share our pictures. It started out as fun, and turned into serious inspiration. Some of the mommies have allowed me to share their photos here on Baby and Blog! And if you want to have your partner’s photo added, simply email it to leila@babyandblog.com with a short description, and I’ll add it to the main post. I’m still getting permission from the Facebook group mommies to share the pics, so check back periodically for more ?

Submitted by: Nicole

Submitted by Marcia; “My husband with our son Sebastian :)”

Submitted by me; “My son is about a week old in this picture. My husband was thirsty to use that carrier, lol!”

Submitted by Markisha

Submitted by Martina; “On a hike a few months back :)”

Submitted by Ashley

Submitted by Donnica

Submitted by Petunia

Submitted by Kristie; “When our son was younger”

Submitted by Cess; “When our son was about 4 mo”

Submitted by Asia

From the Humans of New York Facebook page

Submitted by Denise; Here’s my husband at a baby wearing class. This is a doll by the way!

Submitted by Shannon; This is my brother. He is not a father yet, but he is babywearing my son, his nephew. He’s a good uncle. (Lives in Chicago too!)

Submitted by Nana; My wonderful son, Brandon wearing my fabulous granddaughter, Kimberley as she surveys her queendom!

Submitted by Alisha; Keiron and a little Zoe

Запись Black Fathers Who Babywear! впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

As an African-American woman with an unusual name (Dara Tafakari), I know all too well that America is unkind to difference. People have always butchered my name mercilessly. When I got pregnant with my daughter, I considered naming her as my first act of motherhood; I could not afford to mess it up.

Black parents in the United States don’t have the luxury of naming their children thoughtlessly. By this, I mean we are not allowed to step outside the lines of normative baby names in the United States and just be whimsical. We are not called creative, but ghetto. If your child is Black with a name that will give people pause, it is no longer just a name; it is a “Black” name, with “Black” bearing a 100% negative connotation.

Worse still, studies have shown that despite diversity initiatives, hiring managers still discriminate against people with “Black” names. Kwame and Quvenzhané may be more qualified than Kevin but Kevin gets a callback more often.

Some Black parents I know approach the conundrum by giving their child as “American” a name as possible. Black children are already discriminated against by virtue of their skin color. Why exacerbate the problem with a name that denies your children an opportunity before they are able to prove themselves? I understand and respect this viewpoint, even if I disagree with it.

I knew long before my baby arrived that she would not have an English name. That, if I named her anything questionably ethnic, people would say her name with an invisible question mark at the end. Did I say this correctly? Why is your name different? Are you even from here?

Despite all these odds, I gave my daughter the name Samira, which isn’t exactly Samantha. Here is why I gave my daughter a Black name, regardless of the stigma:

• I want her to have a name she can be proud of.

For me, this meant deliberately choosing a name that spoke to my prayers for her and a name I found beautiful. I loved the name “Samira” because it is lilting. I will teach her what her name means and encourage her to live up to it.

• I want her understand that her heritage did not begin in America.

Giving my daughter an African name is an act of cultural reclamation. My own mother named me Tafakari (to reflect) at birth and made sure I knew where my name came from. Even though we cannot pinpoint our ancestral origin, we identify Africa as the cultural home for many of our family traditions. If she struggles, as I once did, with the inevitable questions that come from being different, I will tell her: Our ancestors came from Africa. Your name honors them.

• I want her to know she is capable no matter what her name is.

We often tell Black children they must be “twice as good” to get half as far as their White counterparts. It is entirely true that one day, some recruiter may look at the name “Samira” on a resume and assume my daughter is Black. They may even pass her over. But the truth is this: had her name been Samantha or LaShawn, she would still possess the same talents. I want her to believe in her ability to succeed independently of people’s prejudice for or against her name.

• Racism doesn’t play by the rules. Black parents cannot win the respectable name game in America.

Black people are discriminated against primarily because we are Black; our names are just a scapegoat. For example, “Tyrone” has come to stand for a “stereotypical” Black man. But did you know that the name Tyrone is Irish in origin? A name doesn’t have to be “creative” or “ghetto” to be Black; it just has to be Black long enough. And as soon as we make something “Black, ” the cycle of discrimination begins afresh.

• Because we cannot beat racism by placating it, I want my daughter’s name to be a message.

My daughter is and will be her own person; she is not an activist pawn. But the America I want her to live in will have room for people of all ethnicities to exist without Anglicizing their names. Respect for diversity will not come by assuaging the prejudices of others. The more Americans we see walking around with names like Samira, the less surprise we will see on peoples’ face.

We should be able to give our children names that we love without worrying if they will be stigmatized because of it. I don’t know when that day will come. But until it does, I will continue to name my children with hope, with love, and with unabashed pride for our culture.

Dara Mathis is a freelance writer, editor, and poet who lives in Georgia with her husband and daughter.  Her writing interrogates the politics of respectability for women, concepts of femininity, motherhood, and the intersection of race and gender. You can catch her tweeting reckless acts of punctuation on Twitter @dtafakari and at daratmathis.wordpress.com.

Запись Why I Gave My Daughter a Black Name — Despite the Perceived Consequences впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

By Alicia Barnes, liciabobesha.com

When I was pregnant, I felt sorry for my husband. I knew our child was going to be brown, lighter than me but still brown like me. I knew he was going to have thick curls that turned into an afro before he could even hold his own head up. I felt bad because my husband would be the fair face in all of our photos and that it would be hard for him not to have his kids look like him.

Then I gave birth, and had I not given birth at home, and had the baby not look so much like my husband, I may have doubted he was my own:

To my complete surprise, I was the parent who didn’t look like the child, and I was right to worry it would be hard for D because when families don’t match people’s expectations, they can say awful rude things to strangers under the excuse of curiosity.

So the photos from the recently released book, A Beautiful Body Project  have been flooding my facebook wall. The project is a collection of photos focusing on the real bodies of mothers without airbrushing out the stretch marks, sagging skin, wrinkles, fat, or any perceived imperfections. A noble cause that speaks to many women, yet the comments I saw about this photo made my heart sink:

“Adopted?”

“I don’t think any negative was meant by the adopted children comment. I too assumed they were adopted as they look a different race than the mother.”

Let me say this as clearly and directly as I can, birth is not a qualifier for motherhood. A photo essay about mothers should rightfully include adoptive mothers, or mothers as I call them.

Also, shared race is not a qualifier of being a mother to a child. In the photo in question, I saw a mother and her two daughters. When I looked at their faces, I saw the mother’s eyes and nose present in her daughters. Unfortunately, too many people never get that far.  They never look at the faces or into eyes. They never see people. They only see that the skin is different, and suddenly they are vocally in public calling into question someone’s parenthood.

Some of us birth kids who don’t look like us, and it’s hurtful for people to question our status.

It’s upsetting that people’s minds more easily go to adoption than to interracial relationship to explain a photo like that even when there’s physical resemblance.

It’s upsetting that even in 2014, it’s not even in the realm of possibility in some people’s minds that these kids are biologically hers and they automatically assign her the role as adopter while minority moms with fair kids are too often assumed to be the nanny.

I know it’s hurtful from the mom perspective. I can’t imagine it’s nice from the children’s perspective to have strangers seeming to question the validity of their families. I know people are not meaning to be malicious. I’ve had people use it as a conversation opener to tell me about their family members who don’t look like they belong, but the fact is by bringing it up, you’re telling someone you think their family doesn’t belong together, at least visually, and that’s no good.

Because I know most communities are still very segregated and homogenous, I am writing this post to say, what someone’s family looks like is not polite conversation, and while you may just be curious, your curiosity is not an excuse to tell people their families don’t match. It’s not ok to ask people where they got their kids from. It’s not ok to ask people if their kids are adopted if you’re only looking for confirmation of why their skin doesn’t match. There are ways to have kind conversations about race and adoption that aren’t based assumptions that insult people’s families. The key to me is to first realize they are people and they are families and to ground your comments and questions in that knowledge. By doing so, any simple curiosity questions of matching disappear because matching is irrelevant, and you’ll realize what you probably want to say is oh look at that beautiful family.

I am not the only voice in this conversation. Here are other people’s stories to consider:

What Adopting a White Girl Taught One Black Family 

As a black father and adopted white daughter, Mark Riding and Katie O’Dea-Smith are a sight at best surprising, and at worst so perplexing that people feel compelled to respond.[…] And the time when well-intentioned shoppers followed Mark and Katie out of the mall to make sure she wasn’t being kidnapped. Or when would-be heroes come up to Katie in the cereal aisle and ask, “Are you OK?”—even though Terri is standing right there.
“I’ve never felt more self-consciously black than while holding our little white girl’s hand in public.” He used to write off the negative attention as innocent curiosity.

***

10 Things You Should Never Say To The Parent Of A Mixed Race Child

7. “Is he yours?”

This only happens when my husband and I are together. He’s clearly black, I’m clearly white. There is always a pause and a quizzical look when I introduce him or he introduces me. Now, this could be just because of the different family dynamics that exist in our world today – maybe it has nothing to do with the fact that we are different races. But I can’t help but think that it does. I think we look like a family and I’m not quite sure why this confuses people sometimes.

***
NOPE! I’M NOT THE NANNY, JUST A BLACK MOM, THANKS

Is that your baby? The question, though not intentionally malicious, implies, of course, that I am more likely the nanny, not the mother. But it cuts deeper than that. It’s actually asking me to claim my child, to prove that I am the true owner. It is an affront to nothing short of our identities.

Some background: I’m black and my husband is white. Our little sweet potato is a clear merger of these genetic facts. On some level, this question is merely a result of a failure of imagination, the inability of others to envision our connection. But it’s also based on twisted assumptions about race, entitlement and socioeconomics.

***

Talking to My Biracial Child About Why People Think She’s Adopted

“And in the grand scheme of things, getting asked all the time if you’re adopted is probably one of the less annoying/irritating things about racism. Sure, people are curious. As a curious person myself, I don’t begrudge people their questions. But I wonder, as the world becomes more and more multicultural if there will come a time when it won’t seem so unusual to see a brown child with a white mom and immediately wonder if the child is adopted.”

***
No, I’m not the nanny: When you don’t look like your kids

“Walking around in Brooklyn, people just assumed I was the nanny, ” she says. “One woman actually suggested I get DNA testing done because perhaps my baby had been switched at the hospital — ‘because they can make mistakes, ‘ is what she said.”

***

I’m Not the Nanny: a site for mothers who are raising multiracial kids that may not look like them:

“As the mom of biracial children, I’ve been mistaken for the nanny, depending on which DC Metro park I visit. I started this site as a way to share the challenges and joys of raising biracial children.”

Have you had any experiences with strangers saying something they shouldn’t?  How did you respond? 

Alicia lives in a small college town that often challenges her resolve to live as simply and as stress-free as possible. When she’s not working, rereading the same children’s books, cooking, or wondering how crunchy she’s become, she’s busy updating her site,  liciabobesha.com. You can follow her on facebook.

Запись What Strangers Shouldn’t Say to My Interracial Family That Doesn’t “Match” впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

It’s been almost two years since I had my baby, and my hair is still recovering.

Sure, I had heard about the postpartum shed, but I never thought about how it’d impact my thin, easy to break, super slow to grow natural hair.

The hormones of pregnancy disrupt the normal shedding cycle of hair. This results in the thick, wonderful pregnancy hair that accompanies that growing belly. Just as the belly is temporary, so is that hair, and usually a few months after birth, as those hormones subside and return to normal, the hair that would have been falling out during the previous year starts dropping.

For me, the shed meant knots and clumps crowding my comb regardless of how much conditioner I used, how careful I was, what products I used, and my very healthy diet. The hair kept falling and falling.

What I didn’t understand about postpartum hair loss is the worst time wasn’t going to be when the hair was falling out. No, the worst time is now, almost two years later when all the hair I should have lost while I was pregnant was long gone AND the rest of my hair on its normal cycle had been shedding for a year.

Because my hair grows so slowly, the new hair I started growing  postpartum is still super short and the replacement hair from the normal shedding last year is practically nonexistent. Together this is especially tragic around my hairline. The worst part is I didn’t even realize it until a family member posted a photo of me from Thanksgiving and all I could see was my scalp. I was horrified (and nope, I’m not showing that photo).

Luckily, this site has shown me that I am not alone cringing at my hair after pregnancy. Part of me wants to do a big chop, but I know that with the patchiness that would be a disaster. So for now I’m trying to be extra gentle and taking better care to swoop hair over my edges as I wait for the recovery that I know is coming. My hair grew before. It will grow again. It’s rebounded from years of relaxer abuse including a clump being left in and burning a bald spot on my scalp. I know this is only temporary, but I hate it.

My hair is not really ruined. It’s just not how I’d like it to be. I miss earlier this year when I was glowing about my hair. I realize all the photos I use there were from this summer and earlier and the styles all hid my trouble zones. Honestly, I’ve been here and worse before.

I keep reminding myself that it’s only hair and that only time will really help, but honestly, the thought of having to go through this with every child makes me dread future pregnancies. However, whenever I start too feel too upset, all I have to do is look at my little man and realize I’d go bald if it meant I got to have him.

It is only hair.

How long did it take your hair to recover from the postpartum shed? Was there anything about your body after pregnancy you hated? How did you deal?

Запись Pregnancy Ruined My Hair in a Major Way впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

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Запись Stunning Photo Series Celebrates Black Mothers Who Breastfeed впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.