Speaker 1: Bye huh bye bye sleeping out day. She's fan bowling baby,
Speaker 1: okays about to lose it.
Speaker 2: The body's all by you who love me alone? Do
Speaker 2: you ye digon oo baby?
Speaker 3: You guy, you'se a real one. I'm just bying.
Speaker 2: Bray me ba up window lights.
Speaker 3: Put that game on. They do it like baby, Welcome
Speaker 3: back to God. Mom's bad Choices. I'm Erica and I'm Nila,
Speaker 3: and it's Wednesday. It's actually Wenesday. Yeah, we sometimes we
Speaker 3: recording ones, say we're not put on blast a few
Speaker 3: weeks ago. But you know whatever, You guys know the
Speaker 3: deal for moms have time to record every fucking Wednesday. Anyway.
Speaker 3: We have a special guest today. We have the beautiful,
Speaker 3: talented mom, mama, entrepreneur, overall boss woman, Soila Darden. Hey, ladies,
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here today with you boss
Speaker 3: as mama. We're excited to have you. I'm excited that
Speaker 3: you're here. I'm so happy that I know you and
Speaker 3: I know exactly and we like I feel like we
Speaker 3: have so many other connections in our life, but we
Speaker 3: somehow I reached out to you for that panel, but
Speaker 3: we know each other through Nicole Russell, who was also
Speaker 3: on our show. Did we know each other before? Though?
Speaker 3: You no? I think actually you knew Nicole. I saw
Speaker 3: that you knew Nicole, and I was like, wait, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Did she connect us? She didn't. I
Speaker 3: followed you guys. I don't remember why I followed the podcast,
Speaker 3: but I started following you guys, and then I followed.
Speaker 3: Then I reached out to you, and then that was it.
Speaker 3: But then we realized Nicole and like it was.
Speaker 4: And then your friend last week knew Bruna was Yeah.
Speaker 3: Everybody's connected. It's beautiful. I love it. Yeah that well,
Speaker 3: can you let us let our listeners know a little
Speaker 3: bit about who you are? What you do? I know
Speaker 3: you do. You dabble into any thing. I hate the
Speaker 3: question what I do because I feel like I do
Speaker 3: so many things. Well. I am from New York, Sydney.
Speaker 3: I was born in Spain, but I've been living I
Speaker 3: grew up in New York for my whole life, and
Speaker 3: I moved out here to Los Angeles a little over
Speaker 3: three years ago to continue my career in the music
Speaker 3: business as an artist manager and through a series of crazy,
Speaker 3: but I now say fortunate events, because the old Nie
Speaker 3: would have probably said unfortunate but fortunate events. I no
Speaker 3: longer work in the music business. I am the founder
Speaker 3: of a creative agency called word. It stands for we
Speaker 3: Open Real Doors, and we do just that for women
Speaker 3: owned businesses brands that are interested in supporting women. And
Speaker 3: we also, you know, work to create experiences and products
Speaker 3: and content to support women and their business and personal journey.
Speaker 3: So it's like a lot of stuff. I've been recently
Speaker 3: saying that it's kind of like my brain out into
Speaker 3: the world. I think it has a lot to do
Speaker 3: with the way that I was raised. I was raised
Speaker 3: really freely, and that was a positive and a negative
Speaker 3: because like it took me a long time to discover
Speaker 3: how to create routine and like be dedicated to one thing,
Speaker 3: which I still can't do. I think it's a lot
Speaker 3: of us. I think it's most people, but you know, typically,
Speaker 3: especially in America, parents kind of drive their children to
Speaker 3: be to like be good at this one thing and
Speaker 3: like stick to that. And my mom was such a bohemian.
Speaker 3: She's a musician and a very prolific music publisher. Marty
Speaker 3: kuebas Hi, Mom, love you. She had a really intense
Speaker 3: upbringing and like not so great relationship with her mom.
Speaker 3: So when the way that she mothered my brother and
Speaker 3: me was like, here, do your thing and like I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just support whatever you want to do, which is great,
Speaker 3: but it didn't really teach me how to commit. And
Speaker 3: I have a wild imagination, always been a really big dreamer,
Speaker 3: and so when I would find something that I was
Speaker 3: interested in, I would like go full force into it.
Speaker 3: And I just did that over and over and over
Speaker 3: and over and over again. And so now it's really
Speaker 3: cool to have a brand and you know, a business
Speaker 3: where I can really express my creativity in whatever way
Speaker 3: and like kind of be my own master of my universe.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. I had no idea sharing. I didn't know
Speaker 3: you were in Yeah. So my both of my parents
Speaker 3: are musicians. They met actually living in Spain. My mom
Speaker 3: is from San Francisco, and she fell in love with Spain,
Speaker 3: with Spain and Spanish, and so she's she's white, and
Speaker 3: she moved out there and met both my father and
Speaker 3: my father's father and my brother was raised there until
Speaker 3: he was seven, and he's seven years older than me.
Speaker 3: So by the time I was like nine months, we
Speaker 3: had moved back to the US New York. We moved
Speaker 3: first to San Francisco until I was about two, and
Speaker 3: then we moved to New York. Both of my parents
Speaker 3: were jazz musicians, so that was like, you know, where
Speaker 3: you wanted to be, It's mecca. But they got there
Speaker 3: and there was no money to be had, so my
Speaker 3: mom threw herself into finding work, being you know, the
Speaker 3: mom and the level headed person. My father continued to
Speaker 3: be a jazz musician and h know, had his own
Speaker 3: thing going on. But my mom ended up working in music,
Speaker 3: which was really fortunate for her as a musician, and she,
Speaker 3: through a series of events, ended up owning her own
Speaker 3: music publishing company in the in the Latin world, you know,
Speaker 3: working with groups like Aventura, Romeo Santos, a really prolific
Speaker 3: but chata singers, like just doing really dope things. And
Speaker 3: I started working with her when I was around twenty six,
Speaker 3: I would say, or twenty five. I was interning at
Speaker 3: Refinery twenty nine, and like realized that financially that was
Speaker 3: not gonna work, Like even if I got a full
Speaker 3: time job there, they wanted to pay me like nothing,
Speaker 3: and my mom really needed support on the marketing and
Speaker 3: creative side, and like bringing in talent and also just
Speaker 3: like being kind of like a face of the company.
Speaker 3: So I went in and worked with her for seven
Speaker 3: and a half years and my music. And actually the
Speaker 3: way that I met Nicole Russell, who is one of
Speaker 3: our mutual friends we were talking about, is because of
Speaker 3: a Women's History Month campaign that I created for my
Speaker 3: Yimba music. We featured thirty three women just like paving
Speaker 3: their own ways in twenty fourteen, and that's how I
Speaker 3: met Nicole. She she was one of the women and
Speaker 3: we've become, you know, sisters since then. So working with
Speaker 3: your mom, what's that like? Because I work with my mom.
Speaker 3: I always love to ask people that work with their
Speaker 3: parents because it's always I get that face a lot. Well,
Speaker 3: how much time do we? Okay, I don't want to
Speaker 3: do experience? I mean, did you know? It was a
Speaker 3: wonderful experience. And I still, you know, do some things
Speaker 3: for her here and there, like in my realm. She
Speaker 3: lives in New York. So my brother also works at
Speaker 3: the company Mayimba. It's a family company, and working with
Speaker 3: my family was an experience and I used to compared
Speaker 3: to being in the mob because I felt like even
Speaker 3: if I wanted to go. There was no way because
Speaker 3: it's like you want to build capital for your family,
Speaker 3: right and it's an obligation. Yeah, And you know, it
Speaker 3: was a great experience. And my mom is incredible, and
Speaker 3: I just I'm so in awe of her. And really
Speaker 3: she's taught me everything that I know about business and
Speaker 3: how to be honest, and I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 3: But working with my mom was tough because she was
Speaker 3: a single mother. We had already had a very complicated
Speaker 3: relationships in terms of like mom daughter, Like sometimes I
Speaker 3: felt like we were more friends. She was just working
Speaker 3: so hard to make ends meet, you know, motherhood sometimes
Speaker 3: I think was a struggle for her, not in just
Speaker 3: like the emotional, but you know in the logistic day
Speaker 3: to day like finding babysitters and all those things that
Speaker 3: we all understand. And so when you add in working together,
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes I we'd have to have conversations and
Speaker 3: I'd be like, Mom, I'm your daughter, Like I just
Speaker 3: want to be your daughter right now, like plea. It's
Speaker 3: like I you know, I don't want it to be
Speaker 3: a bit. I don't want to be your coworker, you know,
Speaker 3: your your employee, Like I don't want that right now,
Speaker 3: Like I just need mom and daughter talk, and so
Speaker 3: that was really difficult, you know. And then there's obviously
Speaker 3: family dynamics, and you know, I'm kind of like the
Speaker 3: wild child of the family for sure. My brother was
Speaker 3: basically the man of the house, so he's very regimented.
Speaker 3: He's a musician as well, very talented guitar player, and
Speaker 3: so he is regimented. And I never really was. I
Speaker 3: was just like fly And I've just now as I've
Speaker 3: become a mother, realized that I like kind of raised myself.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say that my mom didn't raise
Speaker 3: me at all, but when I came pair or look
Speaker 3: at you know, the relationships and like the things that
Speaker 3: some of my friends had in comparison to me when
Speaker 3: they were growing up, like I I was, I was
Speaker 3: on my own a lot, but I'm grateful for all
Speaker 3: of it. It's made me who I am. Working with
Speaker 3: my mom was awesome. It was just it was a lot.
Speaker 3: I got it. I totally get it. What's your son?
Speaker 3: I'm an Aquarius. February twelfth, Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Nice. So
Speaker 3: we ran into each other last week at this case
Speaker 3: with event and our foot locker case with event. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we were watching Clueless and I saw zoil and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god. And then towards the end
Speaker 3: of the event, Jamila was with me and we started
Speaker 3: talking and we were talking about, you know, what's going
Speaker 3: on in the world with you know, politics and all
Speaker 3: this abortion talk. And I was telling Jamila after we
Speaker 3: were talking, because it was like towards the end of
Speaker 3: the event, there weren't a lot of people around, but
Speaker 3: we were all discussed. We were discussed abortion, and we
Speaker 3: were talking about our abortions, and I told you Meal,
Speaker 3: I was like, it's so weird, Like I felt really
Speaker 3: uncomfortable hearing you guys discuss it openly in public. I
Speaker 3: was like, I felt and I had to ask myself why.
Speaker 3: And I think because as a society we've been so
Speaker 3: shamed by abortion and talking about that, and now that
Speaker 3: I'm a mother, it feels like shameful, even more shameful
Speaker 3: to talk about. But then I was like, we're but
Speaker 3: then now with everything that's happening, like these new Instagram
Speaker 3: accounts opening up and really like like shout your abortion, yeah,
Speaker 3: coming into place and talking about and really just normalizing it,
Speaker 3: something has like switched in my head in just like
Speaker 3: two weeks. But I was talking to me, I was like,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's so weird that I felt not weird,
Speaker 3: but I know that most people would feel uncomfortable. And
Speaker 3: I was almost like looking around, like it can bring us.
Speaker 3: We're talking about our abortions right now, should we like
Speaker 3: go in a corner and talk about it? And I'm
Speaker 3: like about it, and I thought like, Okay, this needs
Speaker 3: to be a topic because why do I feel this way?
Speaker 3: Why do I feel this way? Why do most women
Speaker 3: feel this way?
Speaker 4: Because I thought about it too, and I thought in
Speaker 4: the moments like, oh, well, like people can hear us,
Speaker 4: and I was like, fuck it, like this we need
Speaker 4: to talk about this shit. I don't care if I'm
Speaker 4: I don't care. This is something that's that's important right now.
Speaker 3: You know, no, it is. But I couldn't help but
Speaker 3: really check how I was feeling. And I was like,
Speaker 3: do I feel comfortable at this? We've all lived in
Speaker 3: the shadows of abortion, right, Like almost every woman I
Speaker 3: know has had one, and the women that I know
Speaker 3: that haven't had one think it's because they're barren. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what? Either like I could just never get pregnant,
Speaker 3: was me, Yeah, I thought I couldn't get pregnant. Yeah,
Speaker 3: to get pregnant. And so I think when it comes
Speaker 3: to normalizing it, we just have to continue to talk
Speaker 3: about it. And I think one of the one of
Speaker 3: the really interesting things that are coming out of this
Speaker 3: whole talking about abortion is how we're talking about men
Speaker 3: in relation to abortion, because when a woman has an abortion,
Speaker 3: it's not just the woman that has it. The man
Speaker 3: is always not He's never been closing, he's never part
Speaker 3: of the c and sometimes men aren't aware right that
Speaker 3: that is a circumstance. But for me, for instance, I've
Speaker 3: had to have two and it's with with my husband,
Speaker 3: who is my husband now. He was my boyfriend at
Speaker 3: the time, and like it was difficult for both of us,
Speaker 3: you know, I think a different kind of difficulty, but
Speaker 3: he was there too, And I think that one of
Speaker 3: the ways that we will destigmatize it is to have
Speaker 3: men support us in that conversation and not just say,
Speaker 3: you know, pro choice women can do whatever they want
Speaker 3: with their bodies, because yeah, that's a fucking given and
Speaker 3: we're gonna that's what we want. But we need to
Speaker 3: hear the stories from the men who have suffered from
Speaker 3: abortion as well.
Speaker 4: What do you mean in the sense that they wanted
Speaker 4: the baby and they weren't allowed to carry it out,
Speaker 4: or in the sense.
Speaker 3: Of all of it, all of it, all the time,
Speaker 3: all of it, like the guys that had to accompany
Speaker 3: their girlfriends and the guy you know, just all of
Speaker 3: that stuff. Because this is not just a conversation about
Speaker 3: you know, because the way that like the right or
Speaker 3: the pro life people phrase it is that they essentially
Speaker 3: they say that it's about religion, but what they really
Speaker 3: what they really want to say, is that it's about irresponsibility, right,
Speaker 3: and that like the woman is so irresponsible for like
Speaker 3: getting pregnant when she didn't want to get pregnant, Like
Speaker 3: you shouldn't kill a baby because of it. It shouldn't
Speaker 3: be a form of birth control. Just fucking ridiculous, because
Speaker 3: no woman.
Speaker 4: Let's be realistic, Like, no woman's just fucking and saying,
Speaker 4: fuck it, just go to the clinic next week.
Speaker 3: There's nothing fun about having an abortion, No, it is
Speaker 3: not one fun part.
Speaker 4: Like so traumatizing, literally traumatizing as fuck. And the man
Speaker 4: literally comes and then and then we deal with it,
Speaker 4: and then we have to deal with it, and it's cold,
Speaker 4: and it's lonely and it's miserable.
Speaker 3: And I just think that we just when it really
Speaker 3: comes down to it, it's about censorship, and there shouldn't
Speaker 3: be in There shouldn't have to be censorship about it. Like,
Speaker 3: if you want to talk about your abortion, you should
Speaker 3: be able to. If you don't, you should be able
Speaker 3: to keep it secret as well. But you know, why
Speaker 3: are we telling people what to do with their bodies?
Speaker 3: I have no fucking clue. It's like it's mind boggling
Speaker 3: to me to a point where like I can't even
Speaker 3: get into conversations about it because it's very upsetting. It's
Speaker 3: so strange to me that this is a conversation happening
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen when we still have, you know, a
Speaker 3: really high percentage of poverty, our education system is broken,
Speaker 3: we have psychotic people in the White House, we're bombing
Speaker 3: on trees, you know, we're killing the planet. Yet for
Speaker 3: some reason, we're regulating what a woman does and the
Speaker 3: privacy of her own time with her own body. So
Speaker 3: it's oppression. It's another form of oppression, and it really
Speaker 3: gets me upset when I think about it. So the
Speaker 3: best thing I do is donate money. I'm donating a
Speaker 3: proceeds of my shirts that I sell on my website
Speaker 3: to you know, Neural pro Choice and the Yellow Yellow
Speaker 3: I mean the Yellow Hammer Fund. And that's like what
Speaker 3: I can do because I have a lot of shit
Speaker 3: going on in my life that I need to take
Speaker 3: control of. So, like the deeper I get into a
Speaker 3: topic like this, it just breaks my heart, you know,
Speaker 3: So I do what I can. And I just like
Speaker 3: I pray for humanity, honestly, I pray for us all.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what I would have like when
Speaker 3: I had my abortion, Like if I couldn't have gotten it,
Speaker 3: where would you be? Who knows? I don't know what
Speaker 3: to what end I would have gone went to make
Speaker 3: it not happen, right, make this pregnancy not happen. Babies
Speaker 3: end up in the garbage too. Yeah, no, I know
Speaker 3: because the person I was pregnant by didn't even live
Speaker 3: in this country. It was fun time. We were definitely
Speaker 3: not trying to get pregnant at all. Obviously, I thought
Speaker 3: I was being safe pull out method, you know, and
Speaker 3: I was young. I was broke, like, like what was
Speaker 3: I going to be doing with a baby with a
Speaker 3: guy who doesn't even live here, like who like didn't
Speaker 3: want the baby either, Like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 3: Like that was planned? Parenthood wasn't an option for me,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what I was going to what
Speaker 3: I would have done. And it was the worst experience
Speaker 3: I've ever gone through. It was lonely, it was, I mean,
Speaker 3: thank god I had I have amazing friends that like
Speaker 3: came over. I took the pill, and they like came
Speaker 3: out twenty four came over. I took the pill, and
Speaker 3: you know the women that came from my friends that
Speaker 3: came over, they had all had abortions too, so like
Speaker 3: you know, they were telling me, like this is what
Speaker 3: it's going to feel, like, don't worry, We're here for you.
Speaker 3: I just remember taking the pill and just waiting, you know,
Speaker 3: waiting for like something something to happen, and then when
Speaker 3: it did, it was the most painful thing I've ever
Speaker 3: experienced willingly, and besides childbirths. I was gonna say, but
Speaker 3: even that, I mean I had an epidural, Like there
Speaker 3: was numbing when that I've seen you got a baby
Speaker 3: right right, Like this was just like totally heartbreaking and
Speaker 3: and I just can't imagine like what I would have done.
Speaker 3: First of all, if I would have had a baby,
Speaker 3: like what, wow, what would I have been doing? And secondly,
Speaker 3: if I didn't, if I didn't have access to you know,
Speaker 3: this healthcare, because abortion is healthcare. Let's be real, it
Speaker 3: is that's like, I don't know what I would have done.
Speaker 3: And I think about all the girls even but before
Speaker 3: abortion was you know, even possible, like what they were
Speaker 3: doing and how they were doing it, and all the
Speaker 3: people that died, you know, having abortions, having back alley abortions.
Speaker 3: It's just like I can't and yeah, it's like feels
Speaker 3: a candmaids still. Well, it's a form of oppression because,
Speaker 3: like you said, what would you have done with your
Speaker 3: life had you not been able to have the abortion?
Speaker 3: So that's what we're seeing a lot of right now,
Speaker 3: is a lot of stories of women. Actually Quinn I
Speaker 3: forgot her last name, but she's one of the co
Speaker 3: founders of Looms. She just came out with her story
Speaker 3: of you know, what would have happened to her? What
Speaker 3: happened to her because she was able to have an abortion.
Speaker 3: And so I think that there's a bunch of there's
Speaker 3: a few different parts to why they want to ban abortion.
Speaker 3: But I do think that the root of it is
Speaker 3: oppression because when you give, when you take away a
Speaker 3: woman's choice, you take away her freedom. And so you
Speaker 3: have sixteen year old girls or eighteen year old girls,
Speaker 3: or a thirty year old woman who isn't ready to
Speaker 3: get pregnant, isn't ready to have a baby because they're
Speaker 3: not where they need to be, you know. Like and
Speaker 3: both of my abortions, I got pregnant twice on contraceptives.
Speaker 4: I got pregnant once on contraceptives. I mean with the condom,
Speaker 4: Yeah I was.
Speaker 3: I was on birth control. Yeah, you know, it's ninety
Speaker 3: eight point nine percent effective, and that little percentage can happen,
Speaker 3: and we were not in the position to have a baby.
Speaker 3: My whole life would have been like different, different and
Speaker 3: not destroyed. Because you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people who had children at
Speaker 3: very young ages, and one of them in particular, who
Speaker 3: is like an energy healer, she told me that she
Speaker 3: didn't want to have the baby. She was very, very
Speaker 3: very young. She did not want to have the baby,
Speaker 3: but there was something inside of her that told her
Speaker 3: that she had to. And when we look at her life,
Speaker 3: her life would not be what it is today if
Speaker 3: it weren't for that, and that was her choice to
Speaker 3: do that. She also had the choice to not do
Speaker 3: it if she didn't want to. And like I just
Speaker 3: in honest, is so mind boggling to me why we
Speaker 3: would do this to women. This is a direct war
Speaker 3: on us. Like they they want to they just want
Speaker 3: to keep a I mean, we're rising up right now,
Speaker 3: I know, So that's a really hard That's why. That's
Speaker 3: why I know. I did like a little research about
Speaker 3: this because I was just like, I need to know
Speaker 3: more facts about even before, like what was happening before,
Speaker 3: And it was shocking, like the statistics but before Row
Speaker 3: versus Way, it was coming out versus now, like one
Speaker 3: in six women result they resulted in death when they
Speaker 3: had one and six abortions led to death. Prior to
Speaker 3: Roe versus Way, that is so many women.
Speaker 4: There was a million unwanted pregnancies a year and the
Speaker 4: United States a million, and like thirty percent of those
Speaker 4: women were doing like self inflicted abortions would range first
Speaker 4: of all, range from like douching and sticking, like toxic
Speaker 4: things like bleach and potatic like weird things. China, there
Speaker 4: was nothing like obviously everyone knows like the coat hanger.
Speaker 4: Then it was even to the extent women were like
Speaker 4: because it was back alley asking, like cab drivers, door
Speaker 4: people getting blindfolded to hotel rooms so you could not
Speaker 4: see the person giving you the administering this fake ass abortion.
Speaker 4: Kairo practors were giving abortions people like could have no
Speaker 4: prostitutes basically no literally anybody, anybody, and like literally women
Speaker 4: are dying, bleeding out to death because they're humiliate like
Speaker 4: even after things have gone wrong, not going to the droptor.
Speaker 3: Because they humiliating.
Speaker 4: They're humiliated because a they're terminating and pregnant, they're humiliated
Speaker 4: and it's legal, right, so like they're scared they're going
Speaker 4: to get in trouble, you know, for doing something to
Speaker 4: their body versus versus the statistics about when when it
Speaker 4: finally passed and we've been having safe abortions for all
Speaker 4: these years, it's like ninety nine point nine percent safe.
Speaker 3: Abortions and we're actually at our lowest rates since Yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw that and they were just yeah, that was
Speaker 3: my biggest question when this came up.
Speaker 4: I was like, all this shit is going on in
Speaker 4: the world, like global warming, like the fucking.
Speaker 3: Prison systems fucked up. There's a lot of shit happening
Speaker 3: to who the fuck what old fuck is back there?
Speaker 3: Like I know what we need to focus on.
Speaker 4: Let's overturn this shit that's been in place for one
Speaker 4: hundred years, not even one hundred years.
Speaker 3: But like even in Alabama, like when they voted in Alabama,
Speaker 3: it was all men, it was one woman. She's seventy
Speaker 3: five years old. She wrote the bill. Hasn't been able
Speaker 3: to she wrote the bill, Judge k she wrote the
Speaker 3: bill a fucking cut and hasn't been able to bear children.
Speaker 3: And I don't know forty years, Like I want to
Speaker 3: know who hurt her, That's what I wanted. Well, no,
Speaker 3: probably to do that to other women and make that
Speaker 3: part of your legacy, like what happened to you? What
Speaker 3: happened to you? And the fact that most of these politicians,
Speaker 3: guaranteed have God, had their mistresses getting abortions, had their
Speaker 3: kids scant abortions that maybe had fun one weekend, like
Speaker 3: they've they've used abortion, but when it was when it
Speaker 3: was when it was personal to them and they needed
Speaker 3: it first of all, Like the statistics of like one
Speaker 3: in four women have had an abortion. First of all,
Speaker 3: there's three of us sitting here right now.
Speaker 4: We've had all three of us have had abortions. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I've had yeah, And I'm just like that statistic.
Speaker 4: It might be it might be higher because, like you said, exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, you have to be telling the truth. You have
Speaker 3: to be telling if you're if you're taking a survey,
Speaker 3: and a lot of women don't tell the truth because
Speaker 3: they're ashamed. Even in the.
Speaker 4: Doctor when you go to the doctor, like particularly planned parenthood,
Speaker 4: and they ask you this to me felt like the
Speaker 4: most like I don't know, like invasive question like how
Speaker 4: many live births have how many how many times they
Speaker 4: been pregnant?
Speaker 3: How many live births have you had?
Speaker 4: And like being being like I've had one life birth,
Speaker 4: I've had X amount of abortions.
Speaker 3: It just always seems so demeaning, Like.
Speaker 4: I always felt like, fun, are you gonna really ask this?
Speaker 4: I know it's on the chart, bitch, I already wrote it.
Speaker 3: Down right, like come on now, but you know.
Speaker 4: Like like again, like men in no capacity experience this
Speaker 4: shame or experience this like the struggle that exists if
Speaker 4: you have an unwanted pregnancy, like in college, Like my
Speaker 4: freshman I had a abortion, like my freshman year in
Speaker 4: high school and my freshman year of college.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you were a baby, could you imagine?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was fifteen, I turned sixteen. I waited really
Speaker 4: long because I didn't want to tell my parents. I
Speaker 4: went to Catholic school, and it was in the handbook.
Speaker 4: This was in the handbook, like, this was not allowed.
Speaker 4: I had my best friend take me because she was
Speaker 4: the only one.
Speaker 3: With the car.
Speaker 4: I lied to my parents, and my school was calling
Speaker 4: my parents that say I wasn't in school yet. So
Speaker 4: by the time I got out of the abortion, they
Speaker 4: they knew what was that. They had to pick me up.
Speaker 4: But that guy like unfortunately bus his heart, Like I
Speaker 4: saw him homeless on the street, like on drugs. He
Speaker 4: had some issues Like that has nothing to do with that.
Speaker 4: But this other guy in college.
Speaker 3: But it does, though. Imagine that is the father of
Speaker 3: your child and he.
Speaker 4: Were because you were a child, right, he had issues
Speaker 4: whatever college comes. I was messing with some older guy,
Speaker 4: some fake ass Muslim in Philly who already had her
Speaker 4: four kids. Four baby mom got pregnant on a fucking
Speaker 4: column and was like, look, you know, he's like, well,
Speaker 4: I don't believe in abortion.
Speaker 3: Stop answering his phone literally call my brother.
Speaker 4: I don't believe you know I'm Muslim. I' nigga, I'm
Speaker 4: not Muslim. Okay, you're not gonna be number five. And
Speaker 4: at the time I was in Georgia. So we don't
Speaker 4: even realize growing up in California we have had so
Speaker 4: much access because even that time, when I was in
Speaker 4: high school and playing parenthood, I didn't have to tell
Speaker 4: my parents. They don't tell your parents if you don't
Speaker 4: you request, which is one godsend because there's parents that
Speaker 4: would make their kids have.
Speaker 3: Like keep babies, or they'll kick you out or they'll
Speaker 3: kick you out.
Speaker 4: So when I moved to Georgia, that shit is not
Speaker 4: free in Georgia here, you I mean, I went through
Speaker 4: Great Lens to get that free abortion, like stood in
Speaker 4: lines and all these weird offices to get this paper
Speaker 4: or whatever. But in college I remember like having to
Speaker 4: get a credit card, borrowing some money from some friends,
Speaker 4: putting up to six hundred dollars on this probably the
Speaker 4: limit of the credit card was six hundred dollars, and
Speaker 4: like going through Great Lens because this guy was just
Speaker 4: like what click, you know, And I'm like, imagine if
Speaker 4: I would have two kids prior to Luna, you know
Speaker 4: that's crazy. And the and again that guy also the
Speaker 4: Muslim is in jail and I have a friend he
Speaker 4: is and I'm a.
Speaker 3: Friend with a baby by him.
Speaker 4: But it's just like men are not even included in
Speaker 4: this equation, Like how is this even?
Speaker 3: You were there too when it went down all this
Speaker 3: like meme or something safe. If we're gonna out put
Speaker 3: an outlaw abortion, that we need to outlaw you coming
Speaker 3: period because because they're like baby, you're disposing your babies.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the next wave is going to
Speaker 3: be women co parenting babies. They're gonna go to sperm
Speaker 3: to sporm sperm donors and being like, hey, you're my
Speaker 3: best girl, Like I don't even want to fuck with
Speaker 3: a dude. Like let's just I would hear.
Speaker 4: My friends have discussed like everything is in work off
Speaker 4: at the time a certain age which all move in together.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be happy. You're gonna have like a little
Speaker 4: colony house. Well it will exchange time a time. The
Speaker 4: baby saying you know, if you want to date, that's great.
Speaker 3: But really make it arch is any don't even me
Speaker 3: do no, But it's real. It's a real conversation, you know.
Speaker 3: Like and I think back to my two abortions that
Speaker 3: I had with you know, my now husband, and I
Speaker 3: never even really like talk to him about how those
Speaker 3: abortions made him feel. But I'm of sure he was
Speaker 3: afraid as I was. And it's like, these are the
Speaker 3: we need to hear these stories from men because these
Speaker 3: motherfuckers that are making these laws, you know, they need
Speaker 3: some other kind of pushback because they're not gonna listen
Speaker 3: to us. They're not gonna listen to us. Like women,
Speaker 3: we are such a threat to these people right now,
Speaker 3: to these men right now, and unfortunately, we have a
Speaker 3: lot of white ladies who are siding with them. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, y'all need to stop choosing your fucking race
Speaker 3: over your gender. Like even statistically like the abortion rates more,
Speaker 3: it's actually more white women than any other any other demographic.
Speaker 3: And I read that, and they would, you know, the
Speaker 3: media and the way that the stories are being told,
Speaker 3: and you know this narrative that we've created about you know,
Speaker 3: Latinas have too many babies and black women and their
Speaker 3: unfathered children and all this bullshit would have us think
Speaker 3: about ourselves, about our own people, that we're the ones
Speaker 3: out here causing all of this ruckus, when actually it's
Speaker 3: not even about us, right, Like the numbers are not
Speaker 3: about us, and it's like, I don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I really don't. I like to live in positivity. But
Speaker 3: I recently saw Rachel Cargo speak and somebody asked her,
Speaker 3: like about the impending doom that like hangs over our heads,
Speaker 3: and how does she feel about it, you know, as
Speaker 3: somebody that is as you know, she is fighting racism.
Speaker 3: She was like, listen, I just live my life the
Speaker 3: best way that I can. I do my work. She's like,
Speaker 3: but honestly, I am not optimistic.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 3: I feel her about everything or this talk about this
Speaker 3: country and like our issues right right, I mean they're
Speaker 3: not Like she's not optimistic that they are going to
Speaker 3: get better anytime soon, and that well definitely not under
Speaker 3: not with who's in office right now. I mean, but
Speaker 3: it's also on a local level, like this is the
Speaker 3: thing that people are forgetting to to take into account. Alabama,
Speaker 3: those people voted forty actually forty six percent of white
Speaker 3: women in Alabama or I think it's actually higher than
Speaker 3: that voted for a white male pedophile over a black
Speaker 3: man oh to be in office. Yes, and that man
Speaker 3: is who helped pioneer the push of this overturning. And
Speaker 3: so when we're talking about government, we're also talking about
Speaker 3: local government, like what are we doing on the ground floor,
Speaker 3: because yeah, cheetoh and chief can do his things. But like,
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, the United States governs
Speaker 3: as fifty separate sorry fifty like fifty separate. It's fifty
Speaker 3: separate states with fifty different fifty separate laws. Like each
Speaker 3: state is allowed to do what they want, and as
Speaker 3: that's why you are abel to have what we have
Speaker 3: in California. We're able to have what we have in
Speaker 3: New York because we're educated, we are open minded for
Speaker 3: the most part, like we want change and we want
Speaker 3: we don't mind other people doing well. But in some
Speaker 3: of these other states, I feel sad for my sisters
Speaker 3: out there because like that's where they live. They are
Speaker 3: simply being punished based on the fact that they happen
Speaker 3: to live in this state. I literally brought it up.
Speaker 4: You want to ask me why it's my favorite daddy
Speaker 4: about this outrage.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, like why I've ben live in Alabama.
Speaker 3: I'm like, because people live there, you can just get
Speaker 3: up and play. I mean, fucker, you don't have.
Speaker 4: The means because they were born there.
Speaker 3: That's how they know. I don't know it does. So
Speaker 3: everyone's gonna move out like people. I mean, it's just crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean, and it's it's what's even more crazy is
Speaker 3: that the states that have these like higher bands or
Speaker 3: like higher bigger laws against abortion, they have higher rates
Speaker 3: of death with women, very low education rates, very I mean,
Speaker 3: it's obvious they're not that smart. The maternal mertality rate
Speaker 3: is just higher because because people don't want to have
Speaker 3: these babies, you know what I mean. And they're still
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. And was it going to
Speaker 3: take like if Roe versus Way were to get overturned,
Speaker 3: we're going to have to go out of the country
Speaker 3: to get abortions, Like well, they're making it illegal. They're
Speaker 3: saying if they find out that you went somewhere, you
Speaker 3: would be imprisoned. And they're giving doctors life in ninety
Speaker 3: nine years. And it's and also and no exception in
Speaker 3: rape and insects I can't. It's they think that they
Speaker 3: have my my rapist spape, that's God's plan for you.
Speaker 3: I've never even understand that because I'm not like a
Speaker 3: huge God believer, But like if this is your you know,
Speaker 3: your master and your person, you know, your your being,
Speaker 3: your spiritual being, Like why do you think that he
Speaker 3: wants to put you through pain? Ye suffering? That's not God,
Speaker 3: That's not what God does. And so when these people
Speaker 3: hide behind religion, it really it just flabbercasts me. I
Speaker 3: mean front of.
Speaker 4: Our religion and politics have never gone together, Like this
Speaker 4: is not a Christian country, Like this is like it
Speaker 4: I know, but.
Speaker 3: It founded by the Puritans. Girl, I know, but like
Speaker 3: how can you like I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm so over the like the religious bullshit, because let's
Speaker 4: be real, like you're doing this for you have you
Speaker 4: have different reasons?
Speaker 3: Like if you're about God and you're about like the love,
Speaker 3: the so propaganda, it's so so propaganda to control people,
Speaker 3: you know, and keep them fearful of something. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're fearful of God, and this is what I
Speaker 3: tell you, God is going to do to you. And
Speaker 3: if you don't do X, Y and Z, yes, I mean,
Speaker 3: and we could get into real conversations about you know,
Speaker 3: like medieval times and when this stuff like really started
Speaker 3: to home into you know, what we would now call mainstream.
Speaker 3: Back then, I mean, it was just control, mind control.
Speaker 3: And oh, because that's another crazy thing. I read that,
Speaker 3: Like in the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 4: It was legal, it was perfectly legal, It was promoted
Speaker 4: because the contraceptives weren't that effective. And then when there
Speaker 4: was this evangelical spread that sweep over the United States,
Speaker 4: then this whole thing went into like yim.
Speaker 3: Because it gave women agency over their bodies. They didn't
Speaker 3: have to become a mother and just be a mom,
Speaker 3: right because also back then, if you were a mom,
Speaker 3: that was it. You were not working. There was no
Speaker 3: way to do both. You couldn't work and be a mom.
Speaker 3: So like, and I think still to this day, obviously
Speaker 3: things are changing and women are more empowered and finding
Speaker 3: balance and understand that they can do both, but there's
Speaker 3: still a huge group of women that don't feel that way.
Speaker 3: And by taking away these these rights, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of them will just be moms. They won't ever
Speaker 3: pursue their they won't they don't think that that's an option.
Speaker 3: And they don't have the means to, like, they don't
Speaker 3: have a floor, I can't they can't get a nanny.
Speaker 3: They can't get a nanny for the few hours and
Speaker 3: you can go do what the fuck you need to know,
Speaker 3: you know, like those things, those options don't exist for them.
Speaker 3: This is this is the abortion bands. It's just oppression.
Speaker 3: It's impression of women. It's a war on women. And
Speaker 3: that's why I'm so scared. It's a It's a war
Speaker 3: on women, for sure. It is. Because the thing is
Speaker 3: is that they don't care what happens to us after
Speaker 3: the babies are born. They don't care what happens to
Speaker 3: our babies after they're born. Ye, they're gonna go a
Speaker 3: lot of some of these babies are gonna go into adoptions.
Speaker 3: It's like, if you're really about people, Like, if you're
Speaker 3: really about helping people, why aren't you trying to fix
Speaker 3: our education system? Why don't you want to fix our environment?
Speaker 3: Because if we don't have a planet, who gives a
Speaker 3: fuck if you can have an abortion or not. You know,
Speaker 3: So it's like it just doesn't add up. And the
Speaker 3: only thing I can think of is that this is
Speaker 3: a war on women. I agree, And that's why, you know,
Speaker 3: I really have become the type of person that I probably,
Speaker 3: like a few years ago, would have hated. But I
Speaker 3: try to live in like pure joy and gratitude and
Speaker 3: peace for like what I do have, what I can accomplish,
Speaker 3: the beautiful, the beauty that is in my life, because
Speaker 3: you know, Toronto Burke said it best, Your existence is resistance.
Speaker 3: Like just existing in my life and living and doing
Speaker 3: the things that I love and being with the people
Speaker 3: that I love and creating with people that inspire me
Speaker 3: and having access to that and being able to access
Speaker 3: to the higher part of my brain and vibrate on
Speaker 3: a higher frequency is the only thing that's going to
Speaker 3: keep me sane, because if if I allow myself to
Speaker 3: be consumed in the things that I can't control, I'll die,
Speaker 3: you know. So I'm like, I've just become this like
Speaker 3: huge advocate for finding the joy in your life in
Speaker 3: whichever way that comes to you. You know, whether it's
Speaker 3: like buying fresh flowers or if it's like fucking reading
Speaker 3: or like talking shit, whatever it is that like makes
Speaker 3: you feel like you are at peace, Like, do that
Speaker 3: because there are forces out there that want to destroy
Speaker 3: us and so just living in your joy and living
Speaker 3: in your purpose. That is a fight in itself. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: It really is more than ever now because there's so
Speaker 3: many distractions and there's so many things to make you
Speaker 3: feel less than constantly, and you don't have to because
Speaker 3: everything that you like, everything that we need is inside
Speaker 3: of us. It just takes a really long time. It
Speaker 3: takes a lot of different experiences and people and deep, deep,
Speaker 3: deep diving to understand how to access that power. And like,
Speaker 3: I'm not somebody. I'm not going to say that I've
Speaker 3: accessed it fully because that's not true. But I'm getting
Speaker 3: there and it feels good, and I feel like the
Speaker 3: more I can access my power, the more I can
Speaker 3: help other people that are powerless.
Speaker 4: And you align when you're in power of yourself, when
Speaker 4: you're in this space, you align with people you're supposed to,
Speaker 4: you know, like when you're living in your like in
Speaker 4: your truth and your purpose and you're and you're happy,
Speaker 4: then suddenly everything the universe, you know, conspires in your favor.
Speaker 4: And I think we don't realize, like this is a
Speaker 4: grand time to be a woman, to be a woman
Speaker 4: of color, but like the community that we build by
Speaker 4: by having the conversation in a fucking foot locker party
Speaker 4: saying I've had X amount of abortions and creating this
Speaker 4: conversation and being honest about it, and you know, just
Speaker 4: having that conversation is like shifting er because thought process
Speaker 4: on how you know.
Speaker 3: And maybe the woman in the corner who heard is.
Speaker 4: That didn't even know us is shifting and feeling and
Speaker 4: or the guy, you know, the man and he's like, damn,
Speaker 4: this is this is important and just this podcast that
Speaker 4: maybe you know, whoever many people are, you know, just
Speaker 4: this stories, like our stories, our experiences as women are valid.
Speaker 4: We've been put to be shamed for so long for
Speaker 4: things that are normal things, for everything, for everything.
Speaker 3: You work too hard, you're you're you're a housewife, like
Speaker 3: you know, Oh she's too fit, she's too fait, I
Speaker 3: don't want kids. Yeah. It's like everything that we do
Speaker 3: is is like the opposite of what we should. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're too sexual, Like that's sexual enough, So like what
Speaker 3: do you want from us? Yeah? And so I think,
Speaker 3: you know, and this is the thing that got these
Speaker 3: people that are now you know, feeling emboldened in their power.
Speaker 3: That's what got them there in the first place. And
Speaker 3: that's one thing that they did, right, They all talked
Speaker 3: about it, they were loud about it, and it turned
Speaker 3: the other racist person to the right to feel like,
Speaker 3: oh we're out here. Yeah, I'm a join on your
Speaker 3: on your carriage. So for us, the people that are
Speaker 3: trying to to live in our truth and want peace
Speaker 3: and want love and want visibility and all these things,
Speaker 3: the best thing that we can do is be loud
Speaker 3: in that and take up space in that so that
Speaker 3: we can bring, you know, more of our sisters, more
Speaker 3: of our brothers that like feel the same way that
Speaker 3: we do, and we can build this energy field, you know,
Speaker 3: and that will vibrate out to those other states where
Speaker 3: this shitty, these horrible things are happening because those people
Speaker 3: like they've they've been asleep because they've had no choice, right,
Speaker 3: you know, that's the environment that they were bred in.
Speaker 3: And so but from struggle and pain comes beauty, you know,
Speaker 3: and you have to find how to get that. So
Speaker 3: and now we have the Internet, so they can see,
Speaker 3: you know, girls who maybe felt powerless can see can
Speaker 3: relate to somebody in California, can relate to somebody in Tolsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: and be like, oh, if she can do it, I
Speaker 3: can do it too. You know. Beyonce even said it
Speaker 3: in Homecoming. She's like, I just want people to see
Speaker 3: what I've done because if my country asks can do it,
Speaker 3: they can too. And so that's why I truly believe
Speaker 3: like living fully in your joy is like one of
Speaker 3: the most powerful things that we can do. And I
Speaker 3: was program I'm a New Yorker, you know, I was
Speaker 3: programmed to be like bit please, like cynical as fuck,
Speaker 3: you know, like yeah, like like you know, New York
Speaker 3: We're like we thrive off of how much we can
Speaker 3: beat ourselves up, like how much did you get done today?
Speaker 3: And now I you know, I just I can't live
Speaker 3: like that. I want to live in peace and enjoy,
Speaker 3: and I want to radiate that so that other people
Speaker 3: can be attracted to my field. And there's gonna be
Speaker 3: some people that are gonna be like the old of
Speaker 3: me and be like, ah, she's so annoying with her
Speaker 3: positive let me tell you, the day will come where
Speaker 3: they will have to face those truths you know about
Speaker 3: them and look deep into why they're like that, because
Speaker 3: it happened to me, you know, I had to understand
Speaker 3: why I was so negative and why I always looked
Speaker 3: for like the shitty things in life. We're programmed to
Speaker 3: do so and annoyed by other people's happiness. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: because you don't you feel like you don't have any
Speaker 3: which is bullshit, you know. I was, well, you think
Speaker 3: it's you think they're not being genuine, Like no one's
Speaker 3: that fucking happy kind the fucked it you know, and
Speaker 3: sometimes they're not being genuine in it, are you know?
Speaker 3: Jada Pinkett. I saw her at the Red Table talk
Speaker 3: and she was talking about gratitude, which is something that
Speaker 3: I've been I was telling you Miila earlier today, like
Speaker 3: I do a gratitude journal every single morning. Well I
Speaker 3: try to, you know, I list three things that I'm
Speaker 3: grateful for after I meditate, and it's changed my life.
Speaker 3: And she said it. She was like, even in this
Speaker 3: home and you know they're the Smiths, like they have
Speaker 3: an abundance of anything that they need. She was like,
Speaker 3: there are moments where we feel empty and there's a void.
Speaker 3: And what I've had to teach Willow is we're gonna
Speaker 3: sit down and we're gonna fill that void with gratitude
Speaker 3: because we always have something to be grateful for, Like
Speaker 3: even if it's a fucking roof over your head, clean sheets,
Speaker 3: clean water, that is something, you know, a conversation you
Speaker 3: have with your friend, a flower you saw on the street, Like,
Speaker 3: there are so many things that you can find joy
Speaker 3: in anything. Taste coffee, man, legs. Yeah, you know, no, seriously,
Speaker 3: you can go right, you can go wherever you want.
Speaker 3: Your legs will take you where you want to go.
Speaker 3: And of course there are circumstances where it's desolate and
Speaker 3: life is really hard. But I've been to some of
Speaker 3: the more impoverished communities in the world. You know, my
Speaker 3: mom has done a lot of work in the Dominican Republic,
Speaker 3: and like we've done, we've met, and there's always joy.
Speaker 3: There's always joy. Like people could be living in nothing, Goanada,
Speaker 3: and there's always joy somehow, whether it's through music that
Speaker 3: you could literally make with your hand, or like a
Speaker 3: conversation that you had with your friend, like your grandmother,
Speaker 3: like whatever. And so in this modern day, how are
Speaker 3: we how are we not able to see the clear
Speaker 3: the clarity that is was already within us, right, so
Speaker 3: I just didn't I try to I try to work
Speaker 3: on that. That's like that's like what saved me. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like even hearing it is a
Speaker 3: reminder to myself. I mean I always try to do
Speaker 3: that as well. But even this morning, I woke up
Speaker 3: and I woke up and I haven't been meditating. I
Speaker 3: used to meditate every day. I've been falling off, but
Speaker 3: this morning, I think it's a lot of it is
Speaker 3: because either me and I re wake up at the
Speaker 3: same time. Sometimes I'll try to meditate with her, but
Speaker 3: she's like, looks over and said, are we done? She's like,
Speaker 3: you have me to sit still for how long? Like
Speaker 3: just ten minutes. But I woke up and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know I don't have time to meditate, but I'm
Speaker 3: gonna like sit here and go through a list of
Speaker 3: all the things I'm great for in my head. And
Speaker 3: I did that, and I just I woke up and
Speaker 3: I woke her up, and I just felt immediately like
Speaker 3: might to start my day. I feel amazing, you know,
Speaker 3: And I'm not grateful for material things. I'm grateful for
Speaker 3: the people in my life that I'm able to wake
Speaker 3: that I'm able to share, you know, a conversation with
Speaker 3: you this morning that you know, I have a beautiful,
Speaker 3: healthy child in the other room that I'm gonna wake
Speaker 3: up and get dressed and experience her joy. Because a
Speaker 3: child's joy is so pure, so pure. And you know
Speaker 3: how old is Dakota. He is about to be sixteen months?
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah, just being able to experience that
Speaker 3: daily is such a reminder of like all this other
Speaker 3: shit doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I mean it does
Speaker 3: in ways, Like we're talking about aborshit and our rites,
Speaker 3: and we want our children to be okay, and that's
Speaker 3: what that's really like what I fight for, you know.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, presently, at this moment,
Speaker 3: like what are we grateful for?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of times you lose sight
Speaker 3: of that, and it's really important for your mental health, sustainability,
Speaker 3: even physical health if you remind yourself of those things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're programmed to tune into what's missing, and we have
Speaker 3: to reprogram ourselves to turn into to tune into what
Speaker 3: we actually have. Yeah, it's like everything I'm learning that now.
Speaker 3: It takes time. I mean, shit, I'm thirty one, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be thirty two this year, and I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm just really understanding my happiness and what makes me happy.
Speaker 3: And like you know, when you're a kid, you think,
Speaker 3: oh my god, twenty five or so old, you should
Speaker 3: have it all figured out. That no, And to those
Speaker 3: women that are listening right now, because I know we
Speaker 3: have people that listen from teenage, like at like late
Speaker 3: teens to you know, forty plus, but like for those
Speaker 3: young women that are in their twenties, like, it's okay
Speaker 3: if you don't have it figured out. I didn't, you didn't.
Speaker 3: It doesn't find it, it doesn't define it. I don't really
Speaker 3: have to figure out right now. I told you. I
Speaker 3: just I'm always flying by the seat of my pants.
Speaker 3: I'm thirty four years old. I had to restart a career.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's hard, it's never going to be easy,
Speaker 3: but you have everything that you need to survive in.
Speaker 4: And you know, right, and yeah, and you have to
Speaker 4: go back to the basics. But it's like basic, basic
Speaker 4: things that you should be grateful for because that always
Speaker 4: really is the most important thing. And like at every
Speaker 4: in every stage in our lives, for us all we're
Speaker 4: constantly growing hopefully, and like there's no number, there's no
Speaker 4: age where it's supposed to be perfect or shit's supposed
Speaker 4: to be right, Like even in the conversation of abortion,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times it's it's way easier
Speaker 4: to discuss an abortion when I was in ninth grade
Speaker 4: or an abortion in my freshman year of college. But
Speaker 4: it's not as easy to discuss like you know, I
Speaker 4: was with my husband, you know, and you know, and
Speaker 4: now you have that a baby. It's it's always even
Speaker 4: for me, like having an abortion after having a baby,
Speaker 4: Like these are things that because.
Speaker 3: Of the age or the like the the the.
Speaker 4: Pressures that I feel like I'm supposed to be at
Speaker 4: a certain pace or we're supposed to my shit together.
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to I'm.
Speaker 4: An abortion after thirty that's crazy. I'm an irresponsible, fucking
Speaker 4: weight olt, Like that's your choice right right right, And
Speaker 4: it's like there's just so many things put on us
Speaker 4: that we're like it's literally taken until this point to
Speaker 4: start realizing it and dismantling it.
Speaker 3: Well, people create these age like these like markers in age, right,
Speaker 3: like Okay, by this age, you're supposed to have this
Speaker 3: and by this age, okay, graduate college of twenty three,
Speaker 3: twenty four, then by twenty six, you probably have like
Speaker 3: hopefully you have like a really great job and you're
Speaker 3: working towards your dream job. And then by thirty, you know,
Speaker 3: in a stable relationshiship, you're starting to get someone seriously's
Speaker 3: potentially gonna be your husband. Now you're talking babies around
Speaker 3: twenty eight, hopefully you have them before you know, and
Speaker 3: then yeah, like Lord Jesus ring, I gotta be big,
Speaker 3: he has to be like we have to have place.
Speaker 4: I gotta have a FEMA shit together, like fuck, and
Speaker 4: we don't have all thirty thousand followers plus these it's
Speaker 4: too much.
Speaker 3: And what is that even based on based on the
Speaker 3: system that was built on now you to buy into
Speaker 3: at certain points of your certain by the patriarchy, you know,
Speaker 3: like the all of this stuff was built by the man.
Speaker 3: You know, how does your husband feel about all of
Speaker 3: your you know, your opinions and your does he support
Speaker 3: all He has no choice but to listen. My husband
Speaker 3: has experienced extreme growth. We've been together since we were
Speaker 3: twenty two years old, twelve years celebrating five years of
Speaker 3: marriage in September. Oh, thank you. And you know we
Speaker 3: were raised so differently, I mean just literal black and white,
Speaker 3: like he's white. I'm mixed. I'm black. I'm black and
Speaker 3: Jewish and Latina like all these things. And so our
Speaker 3: experiences in life just are so different. And the things
Speaker 3: that we had to worry about are so different. Whereas
Speaker 3: I had to worry about everything and he had to
Speaker 3: worry about like almost nothing, economics, economically speaking, you know,
Speaker 3: like he had a leg up as opposed to me.
Speaker 3: Who you know, my mom was a musician and bohemian
Speaker 3: and like you know, worked really hard to make ends
Speaker 3: me and thankfully she got out of that. But like,
Speaker 3: we're just so different, and so the things that I
Speaker 3: get riled up about and that matter to me are
Speaker 3: I was built to be that way. My mom marched
Speaker 3: in the civil rights movement, you know, in San Francisco,
Speaker 3: and like she she's like, you know, always been super political.
Speaker 3: So that was just a part of me when we
Speaker 3: got together. You know, my husband was kind of like
Speaker 3: a derelict. I mean, we were both derelics in our
Speaker 3: own way, but like I was always very much like
Speaker 3: I had my goals and over time, I remember there
Speaker 3: was a specific moment, and I think it was when
Speaker 3: all the girls went missing in Nigeria. And I brought
Speaker 3: it up to him and he didn't know what I
Speaker 3: was talking about. Yo, I went buck wise. We were
Speaker 3: in d C. I remember, it's all coming back to me.
Speaker 3: We were in DC. We had just had dinner and
Speaker 3: we were walking and we were talking and he didn't know.
Speaker 3: And We're in the nation's capital, and I'm like this, motherfucker.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what do you do with your time? How
Speaker 3: do you not know about this? It's been all over
Speaker 3: the news. And I got so angry with him for
Speaker 3: not caring about humanity and not arming himself with information
Speaker 3: because the man that I'm gonna be with needs to
Speaker 3: be aware. And I really think he took that to heart,
Speaker 3: because not to say that he's like, you know, up
Speaker 3: on everything all the time, but he definitely listens to
Speaker 3: me more and wants to know, you know, what's going on,
Speaker 3: and he's happy to have me as a teacher when
Speaker 3: it comes to, you know, anything in politics or just
Speaker 3: like culture stuff that is not relating to things that
Speaker 3: he likes, which is like actual art, like he's an artist,
Speaker 3: you know, street culture and like baseball music, like those
Speaker 3: are his things. And so we have a lot of
Speaker 3: discussions and I think One of the more recent discussions
Speaker 3: we did have that was kind of like eye opening
Speaker 3: for him was about how we were going to raise
Speaker 3: Dakota and speaking towards sexuality and how men's relationship with women.
Speaker 3: And I told him, you know, it's like right after
Speaker 3: me too was happening. And I told him, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, for for this to change, we need to
Speaker 3: reprogram how we raise our boys. And he didn't really
Speaker 3: understand what I meant by that. He was like, he
Speaker 3: was like, what do you mean? And then I gave
Speaker 3: him an example. I was like, you know, when a
Speaker 3: little boy hits a girl, we say he does it
Speaker 3: because he likes her. That's not it. And I remember
Speaker 3: him looking at me and being like, oh, I'm like yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm like that's so messed up. And so it's those
Speaker 3: conversations that we're having, you know, and sometimes it gets
Speaker 3: really heated, and I feel bad because I expect him
Speaker 3: to know things that he doesn't know. But I'm always
Speaker 3: working on him. I'm always I'm always gonna do it,
Speaker 3: especially when it comes to anything that's race related, you know,
Speaker 3: because he doesn't live my experience and it's annoying to
Speaker 3: have to teach people. But he's my husband. I love him,
Speaker 3: and he's the father of my child, and I want
Speaker 3: to make sure that whatever needs I need to be
Speaker 3: that need of mind that needs to be met, like
Speaker 3: he needs to know that they need to be met.
Speaker 3: And so if I'm not talking about it, like how
Speaker 3: do I expect him? You know, because not everybody lives
Speaker 3: in our experience, and like this is I think a
Speaker 3: conversation that we need to be having in general, like
Speaker 3: proximity is real, but with our friends too that are
Speaker 3: not people that are not women, are men, but just
Speaker 3: in general, the way that we approach these conversations with people. Yes,
Speaker 3: there are some people that don't deserve the fucking time
Speaker 3: and day, but like in terms of race, gender, all
Speaker 3: that stuff, like it's about proximity. If you were not
Speaker 3: brought up in a home that talked about this, it's
Speaker 3: really difficult to reprogram your mind to see other sides
Speaker 3: of things. And so you know, that's just how it
Speaker 3: works with us. We talk a lot, and sometimes I
Speaker 3: just babble and he just sits there. But for the
Speaker 3: most part, he's receptive and he's understanding, and you know,
Speaker 3: it makes me feel very confident for the way that
Speaker 3: we're going to raise our child because I want to
Speaker 3: have a home where these things are talked about, because
Speaker 3: that's why I am the way I am, because my
Speaker 3: mom talked about this kind of stuff with me from
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, and you know those moments
Speaker 3: where were like, oh, Mom, like this is so embarrassing,
Speaker 3: like don't talk about sex. But like it does make
Speaker 3: a difference, and we need to normalize these conversations and
Speaker 3: have them with our spouses, have them with our friends,
Speaker 3: or not be afraid of potential conflict. Also learning how
Speaker 3: to speak in a way that is not off putting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it makes them want to sit down with you,
Speaker 3: sit at the table with you.
Speaker 4: So angry.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I'm That's what I'm starting to because
Speaker 3: it's proximity. Like if they're not used to having these conversations,
Speaker 3: like it can get really scary, it can feel attacky.
Speaker 3: I recently had a situation with my mother in law,
Speaker 3: and you know, it was like we had it. I
Speaker 3: had to break things down for her, and it was
Speaker 3: very difficult for me because I also looked at her
Speaker 3: as like somebody that I assumed would know all of
Speaker 3: these things, and she didn't know any of these things,
Speaker 3: and I was like, how the fuck do you not
Speaker 3: know this? Like a just because when I think of
Speaker 3: like interracial relationships, I've never been in one, but not
Speaker 3: because I like shy away from them. I just first
Speaker 3: of all, white men don't generally hit on me, or
Speaker 3: maybe I don't notice for really, yeah, maybe I don't notice.
Speaker 3: And also there's been that excite I think that's where
Speaker 3: it started, and now it's to the point where now
Speaker 3: I'm just like, well, I like what I like. And
Speaker 3: also I don't want to I don't want to have
Speaker 3: to have that conversation, which is not fair either, like
Speaker 3: I don't want to have I don't want to have
Speaker 3: to explain the races to you. I don't want to
Speaker 3: explain my outrage. I don't want you to get annoyed
Speaker 3: by my outrage and then you get annoyed by you.
Speaker 3: But then I also didn't even think about like, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not even just him, but then he has a
Speaker 3: whole family that i'd have to true but they might
Speaker 3: be uncomfortable. But when you want but but you can't
Speaker 3: help me love and like and if you have a
Speaker 3: partner that wants will if you and wants to know
Speaker 3: who you are, what your experience is, especially now having
Speaker 3: a baby that you know, maybe maybe to the world
Speaker 3: might not look like he's black or yeah. But like
Speaker 3: sometimes people feel like when they have those babies, they
Speaker 3: don't have to have those conversations with them because they're
Speaker 3: gonna have all you're his mom MPAs too, and they
Speaker 3: all know. I don't take this. I don't take this lightly.
Speaker 3: It's very important to me because you guys have been
Speaker 3: together for so long, have you experienced like a lot
Speaker 3: of judgment in your relationship? You know what, No, people
Speaker 3: think we're a beautiful couple and that's awesome. Also, Zach
Speaker 3: is kind of ambiguously like racially ambiguous in his looks.
Speaker 3: Sometimes depending on what he's wearing, he can look very
Speaker 3: white like a Kennedy, but he can but he's you know,
Speaker 3: because I looked at him before, like he's from the
Speaker 3: Lower East Side. He grew up around like his best
Speaker 3: friends are all people of color, like you know he was.
Speaker 3: He's an artist. He's a graphic designer. He grot graffiti
Speaker 3: like it's like not. So he can look Puerto Rican
Speaker 3: sometimes or he can look Latino sometimes. And he's part Sicilian,
Speaker 3: so there's definitely like some other blood in there, but
Speaker 3: for the most part, no, But what I have experienced
Speaker 3: personally with him, I'll give you one example. It's so
Speaker 3: sad that that I feel this way, but at moments
Speaker 3: he validates me depending on where I am, Like I
Speaker 3: feel validated by having him next to me, and that
Speaker 3: is something that like, if you're in a white space,
Speaker 3: that's so crazy.
Speaker 4: I think that's the first woman I know who's with
Speaker 4: like a black woman, who's with a non black man,
Speaker 4: who said.
Speaker 3: That because it isn't and I'm not I and you know,
Speaker 3: you guys know me, like I can work a room,
Speaker 3: like I can be anywhere. But there have been situations
Speaker 3: where I've been like, holy shit, like thank God, you
Speaker 3: know Zach is here. There was one such one, one
Speaker 3: moment in particular, my brother got married in Martha's Vineyard.
Speaker 3: And when you go to Martha's Vineyard there you fly,
Speaker 3: you know, from Boston or we were flying in from
Speaker 3: New York on these tiny planes, and you know, Martha's
Speaker 3: Vineyard is a white town other than Oaks Bluff, which
Speaker 3: is actually the first it's one of the first places
Speaker 3: in the United States where black people were actually allowed
Speaker 3: to own property. Wowow, I didn't even realize, yes, because
Speaker 3: this is like this is a I know you've seen
Speaker 3: The Inkwell. The Inkwell is about Martha's Vineyard. That's what
Speaker 3: the movie The Inkwell is about Martha's Vineyard because so
Speaker 3: that what's now called Oak's Bluff is where all of
Speaker 3: the nannies and like how and like and like Butler's
Speaker 3: and stuff would live. And the people that, you know,
Speaker 3: the white people that lived there, they wanted their staff
Speaker 3: to feel honorable, so they you know, and like I
Speaker 3: think there was also like some kind of policies. Like
Speaker 3: it was just like there's like a really deep history.
Speaker 3: I'm not super familiar with it, but yeah, so there
Speaker 3: are a ton of black people on Martha's Vineyard, but
Speaker 3: there were none on this flight. So I got on
Speaker 3: and Zach I don't remember why he got on after me.
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there and I'm like it was like
Speaker 3: really intense. I really wanted him to get on the
Speaker 3: plane and sit next to me, because whether they were
Speaker 3: or not, I could feel the eyes on me. And
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a mixed kid. I've always been confused
Speaker 3: about where the fuck I fit in, like always, and uh,
Speaker 3: it was just a really intense experience. And there's been
Speaker 3: other moments like where we're walking on the street and
Speaker 3: Zach does this thing where he walks like four, you know,
Speaker 3: six feet ahead of me and drives me insane. I've
Speaker 3: been literally asking him for twelve years to stop. Yeah, taller,
Speaker 3: his legs are longer, and I'm like, I need you
Speaker 3: to be next to me, especially now we have our kid,
Speaker 3: Like if he has a stroller, I'm like, I look
Speaker 3: like the crazy, like black lady behind you, like trying
Speaker 3: to catch up. And you know, maybe that's just my
Speaker 3: own internalized racism that I've had to deal with, you know,
Speaker 3: but like those are real things.
Speaker 4: That ship is real, that internalized racism where it's.
Speaker 3: Like no one else is feeling by you. But sometimes
Speaker 3: it's sometimes it's not just you, you know, but sometimes
Speaker 3: it is, and sometimes it is there. There was a
Speaker 3: time when we were up eight Zach's father, who I
Speaker 3: love so much. They're him and his step They're amazing.
Speaker 3: I me and I love Zach Stanley. They're incredible. But
Speaker 3: they have a house upstate, and so you know, it's
Speaker 3: like a small upstate town, all white people, and we
Speaker 3: were at a diner, eating and everything kept coming except
Speaker 3: for mine. And the whole time I'm sitting there, like
Speaker 3: like water, I'm talking like, like everybody got water except
Speaker 3: for me. Yeah, and I'm like and then it would
Speaker 3: come later, and then like the food, everybody's food would
Speaker 3: come and then mine would come last. And I never
Speaker 3: get my food last. Zach is actually the one who
Speaker 3: always gets his food last. The whole time I was
Speaker 3: sitting there, all I could think about was that they
Speaker 3: were racist, and maybe they weren't. We have literally grown
Speaker 3: in this world where like my second week of college,
Speaker 3: I was making out with a white dudent and somebody
Speaker 3: scream nigger lover out the window. Oh my god, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm from New York. I haven't really experienced that
Speaker 3: at that time. I was eighteen, you know, in University
Speaker 3: of Delaware, like oh, two and a half hours away
Speaker 3: from New York. It's not far. It's tiny, it's right there,
Speaker 3: but far enough for you know, somebody to drive down
Speaker 3: Main Street every Sunday with a Confederate flag, you know,
Speaker 3: waving from their truck, because that would happen. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, we just I just know what's out there,
Speaker 3: and it's really hard. And the thing is is, like
Speaker 3: Kanye said it best, even when I'm in a bend,
Speaker 3: I'm still a nigga in a coop. Like, no matter
Speaker 3: how hard we fucking work, people still assume that you
Speaker 3: are what they want you to be. And that goes
Speaker 3: for everybody. It's not necessarily only a race thing, but
Speaker 3: we definitely experience it more like I've been in the
Speaker 3: park before and everybody thinks I'm Dakota's nanny. Nobody thinks
Speaker 3: I'm his mother, And then you know, some white, well
Speaker 3: meaning white ladies will be like, oh, it's because you
Speaker 3: just you look so young, and I'm like, is that way?
Speaker 3: Oh God, I'm worrying a huge engagement ring, Like really,
Speaker 3: that's what you think? You just didn't like scan me properly.
Speaker 3: You do you look like a woman. Yeah, I'm a
Speaker 3: grown ass woman, a woman, So you know, it's but
Speaker 3: what's really interesting for me now is that because i'm
Speaker 3: you know, my father is Panamanian and Jamaican and my
Speaker 3: mother is like Eastern European Chew German, Polish, Russian, and
Speaker 3: you know, she did her best to kind of inspire
Speaker 3: me to lean into who I am culturally. But unless
Speaker 3: you're surrounded by it. It's hard. Like I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about my Jamaican family because my grandfather came over
Speaker 3: from a grill to Panama to build a canal. He
Speaker 3: never went back. My grandmother and clothes it a day,
Speaker 3: So I don't even know anything about like my black,
Speaker 3: black Jamaican side. But I have just now, in my
Speaker 3: mid thirties, started to really see myself fully as a
Speaker 3: black woman, not just as a Latina, not as a
Speaker 3: mixed kid or you know, a jew, which is another
Speaker 3: thing I used to hide behind because I felt like
Speaker 3: it validated me to white people. I'm like, nah, I'm black.
Speaker 3: I'm proud, it's great, you know, and I'm I am
Speaker 3: happy that I can be this woman now for my son,
Speaker 3: you know, and hopefully for if I have another kid,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever he or she comes out like like
Speaker 3: I want to be this, this confident in who I am,
Speaker 3: because then they can't break me, right, and I don't
Speaker 3: think they'll be able to break my kids either if
Speaker 3: they see it in me. So well, what an incredible mom? Like,
Speaker 3: how lucky are your kids? You're an incredible woman yours too,
Speaker 3: all of us? I mean, dank you. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm just so happy that you share your knowledge with
Speaker 3: our listeners. And yeah, you're an incredible woman. So I'm happy.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm really happy to You're a great way
Speaker 3: to spend my two I only have two days that
Speaker 3: I get to work outside the house, so this is
Speaker 3: like a perfect way to start it. I thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm so rapful. And it only took thirty five minutes.
Speaker 3: It's not the valley's not that far. Good time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like even now you leave, you'll probably you'll be okay
Speaker 3: to go in a wee hose. Yeah, I'm just so
Speaker 3: happy that you came. Thank you. Can you tell our
Speaker 3: listeners where they can find your podcast? Yes? Please? Well,
Speaker 3: I just started my own podcast. It's called The Women
Speaker 3: I Know, and I think you might have to. You
Speaker 3: might hear these ladies on it. It's very new. We
Speaker 3: only have a few episodes. But you can find that
Speaker 3: on my website, which is word dot Agency, no dot com,
Speaker 3: just word dot Agency. And there's a bunch of stuff
Speaker 3: on there. How do you do that? I know, it's
Speaker 3: like that I bought a dot agency. I didn't have
Speaker 3: dot com. It was taken, so that's what I did. Okay,
Speaker 3: And that's also my company Instagram word Dot Agency, and
Speaker 3: then my personal Instagram account is Zoila z o I
Speaker 3: l A dar N d A r t o N
Speaker 3: and yeah, come find me. I'm always like talking some
Speaker 3: shit and trying to be cute. And also I'm always
Speaker 3: like connecting women and connecting moms. I live for it.
Speaker 4: Really like the resource woman like I like Zazoela asked
Speaker 4: me to come on a panel.
Speaker 3: I was like me, you want people, I'm gonna talk?
Speaker 3: What am I gonna talk about? Like? And now I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. Now I'm in a place now where
Speaker 3: I'm like, let's just everyone. We need all need to talk.
Speaker 3: The more you talk, you really lie that that part
Speaker 3: of me too, And I'm so grateful of that to
Speaker 3: know you and be able to, you know, be embraced
Speaker 3: by you and being included in the things that you're doing,
Speaker 3: meet other women community and I love that. I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it so much, especially because you know me
Speaker 3: and Jimmy la A on this this unexpected journey of
Speaker 3: like I mean, I've always obviously, like I think when
Speaker 3: I was young, like I was always kind of like
Speaker 3: I always felt like I didn't have like a huge
Speaker 3: connection to like women. I always was kind of like
Speaker 3: felt I think growing up, you know, as moms and
Speaker 3: as women, we think they were protecting our girls by saying, oh,
Speaker 3: they don't like you because they're jealous of you. And
Speaker 3: so I was always felt like I was in a competition.
Speaker 3: You're looking at me confused, but no, I'm laughing. I'm
Speaker 3: not looking. And I feel like I'm in a space
Speaker 3: now and it's taking me until my late twenties and
Speaker 3: thirties to really be like, no, this is not a competition.
Speaker 3: We're all in this together. And I feel so glad
Speaker 3: that I'm on this journey of like empowerment and being
Speaker 3: able to empower the women that we that listen to us,
Speaker 3: and honestly, they empower me Mela as well as too.
Speaker 3: It's a it's not a one way street. We create
Speaker 3: out of necessity. Yeah, and so anyway, I'm so grateful
Speaker 3: that I met you along the way same year. I
Speaker 3: love you, ladies, love you, Thank you for having me here. Yes, okay, guys,
Speaker 3: We'll see you guys next week. Make sure to follow
Speaker 3: us at Good Moms Underscore Bad Choices. We have new
Speaker 3: merch on our website www dot Goodmoms, Bad Choices, dot
Speaker 3: Com and.
Speaker 2: I got Window Nighties.
Speaker 3: Should put that game on I'm doing it. I get Baby.
Speaker 2: Nineties Break, I got Window Nighting. I'm some ship. Put
Speaker 2: that game on us.
Speaker 3: Baby nineties rat me.
Speaker 2: I got