Somebody get my agent on the phone......because I confess: I didn't sign up for all this shit. Who decided that parenthood would be so...so...so...ALL-CONSUMING??? Can a sista get a break, PLEASE!
My 9 year old is a darling (when he's not workin my last nerve) but when I gave the consent 9 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days ago for the nurses to remove their hands that were holding his tiny 4lb 2 months premature head inside of my 19 year old cervix and let me push his little behind out, I had NO CLUE. No clue what an unbelievable gift he would become to my life.
I was-OFFICIALLY-young, gifted, and black.
Today, as a 29 year old single mom living in DC, I have become FULLY aware of that gift, and its impact on my life. In this blog, I will share with you my life as a young, ambitious, empowered single black mother. I am incredibly stubborn and determined to live life on my own terms, to not accept the defeatist attitude that my life is over because I have a child, and to make my dreams come true.
Now don't get me wrong, there are worse things than being a single parent: There's being a crackhead, there's being a prostitute, there's being Chris Brown in 2009. There's being Beyonce's acting partner, there's being the waitress whose job it is to scrape the gum off the underside of the tables, and of course, there's always being George W. Bush. But, being a single mom--correction: being ME as a single mom is...um...challenging.
Most of you mothers, or any women who have children in their lives, know the delicacy and fragility of children. How to raise them to be respectful, to be upstanding young citizens, with confidence, integrity, intelligence, and common sense when it's all up to you with no father in the home? How to show them enough love but not coddle them, how to how to teach them to stand up for themselves, how to make good choices, how to accept them as they are but still encourage them to be the best version of themselves. So far, no one's written the manual so we're all basically on our own. I mean, yeah, there are parenting books GALORE in Borders, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, corner bookstores, everywhere. But, the truth--and the bottom line-- is that your child is unique and specific, with his own personality that he got from you and his dad, his own opinions, his own little slice of this huge pie we call life....and at the end of the day, if he gets it wrong, YOU GOT IT WRONG. I think that there should be a rule that from now on, when babies pop out, there should be a tiny little tube that pops out RIGHT behind their little asses, a tube containing a link where you can find (preferably on www.amazon.com) print or electronic copies of the unique instruction manual for that specific baby. Hey, I mean, its 2009...we have Black President and a bomb ass brown skinned First Lady...anything is possible, right?
Yes We Can.
Right now, I'm in the beginning stages of launching a makeup career in between working a full time 9:30 -5:30 day job, trying to sort out my love life, help my best friend plan her June wedding in which I am the MOH, and come to terms with living estranged from my family. To aid me in this journey, I have my son Isayah, my best friend Reina, my two good friends Victoria* and Chloe* (gotta change their names just in case they don't want their business on front street), my son's father's mother and grandmother who have adopted me as their own, my two cats Simba and Frisket, my mentor Kim, and my life guru Nicole. My son's father is..ahem..away...right now. We don't discuss him much.
Anyway, I won't rattle on too much. I just wanted to give you all an intro to me and my life with my little one...if you'd like, you can feel free to stop by and say hello to us. I'll be posting pictures, videos, and eventually, audio clips. My goal is to share this with the world, to make new friends both parents and non-parents, and to be a big voice among all the voices of other moms like me...moms who don't want to be defined by parenthood, womanhood, singlehood, shoot...ANY one hood. I'm not just a mom, i'm not just a fly single girl, I'm not just a Black woman, and I'm not just a makeup artist. I'm all those things, with many other gifts that I look forward to discovering henceforth.
Good night, everyone. Remember to make tomorrow a Beautiful Day!
Love.
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