Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot, a production of My Heart Rates.
Speaker 1: Hello every body, what's up? This is Jay Dot, Ilda
Speaker 1: podcast is Jill Scott, This is Asia are great in
Speaker 1: the Dancer? This is like, Yeah, I hate saying my
Speaker 1: whole line. Let st Clair whole line nine nine. What's
Speaker 1: up everybody? Today? We are talking about our mothers. We're
Speaker 1: talking about humanizing our mothers. What does that mean? That
Speaker 1: means the moment when you realize that your mom, you're
Speaker 1: the sainted halo wearing handle everything, do everything, can be
Speaker 1: all things. Mother is a person, a human being, just
Speaker 1: like yourself. I feel like we should do a disclaimer
Speaker 1: to our mother's even yours age. I know she's not
Speaker 1: with us, but she's listening, right, she will make herself
Speaker 1: known her mistrust and belief. So should have fall off
Speaker 1: this table at two point two seconds. But don't tell
Speaker 1: my business in this here got their podcast? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that there is a whole book, There is a
Speaker 1: whole play about my sweet Mama. There is. But I
Speaker 1: have to wait. You have to wait. I don't have
Speaker 1: to wait till till no problems with Joyce. I don't
Speaker 1: want no problems with either. My mother is six one people.
Speaker 1: My mother has been six one my whole life, and
Speaker 1: she's fast. So, so what's your disclaimer, Jail as we
Speaker 1: go into this conversation, because you know this is your daughter.
Speaker 1: I love you so much. I don't want to smoke.
Speaker 1: I don't want to trouble with you. Uh. We're just
Speaker 1: talking about the moments that you realize that your mother
Speaker 1: is a human being. I'm gonna talk about her mother,
Speaker 1: my grandmother. Okay, I'm gonna start there. Let's start there. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start there. This might be a lot for people,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is what it is. So my
Speaker 1: grandmother is uh. At the time she was she was
Speaker 1: slowly fading. And oh do you see that? All right? Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want no smoke. What you need my mom?
Speaker 1: I don't blue, I don't okay. I told you hold
Speaker 1: my purse off this table, you know, to hit the floor.
Speaker 1: That's like my money for the next few months. Attention.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Jill, just you know, walk with caution. I
Speaker 1: am okay, here we go. So my grandmother has uh.
Speaker 1: I've gone to her to find out how she was doing.
Speaker 1: She knew she was going to pass, and I asked
Speaker 1: her what she's scared and she said for what. She said,
Speaker 1: I'm good with my God and I'm tired. I'm tired,
Speaker 1: and I'm ready to stop this, so don't you worry.
Speaker 1: That's where her head and heart was. But before she left,
Speaker 1: my mother said she went to her and was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I have a very real question to ask you now.
Speaker 1: Mind you, the two of them, they spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time together, and she says, Mom, did you did
Speaker 1: you ever have an orgasm? And my mom says she
Speaker 1: smiled real hard and looked off into yonder and said
Speaker 1: my grandfather's name. Yeah. Yeah. That moment, my mother said,
Speaker 1: at that time, she said, I realized that my mother.
Speaker 1: I knew she had a life, she said, but she
Speaker 1: was she was actually having a life with someone. You know,
Speaker 1: that she shared her time with someone that she laughed with,
Speaker 1: Like she knew those things, but it was like some
Speaker 1: distant thing. You know, your mom is hugged up with somebody.
Speaker 1: You're like, you know, you kind of pass it off.
Speaker 1: You don't really take the time to enjoy the fact
Speaker 1: that someone is loving and kind and generous and sweet
Speaker 1: to your mom. And that's what I think of, Like
Speaker 1: what like far as humanizing my grandmother for my mother,
Speaker 1: humanizing my mother for me. Boy, wait, I gotta, I
Speaker 1: got a told on on this all. Take a break
Speaker 1: for a second. Yeah, I gotta. I got a place
Speaker 1: where it needs be now. I don't want no trouble.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I don't want no trouble. If you
Speaker 1: have to forgive me today, I have a country in
Speaker 1: my mouth. I've been Oh, I've been doing dialect coaching
Speaker 1: for the last is his nickname. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for kids, I'm sorry. Deal you were explaining
Speaker 1: your I'm doing dialect coaching, so I'm slipping in and
Speaker 1: out occasionally. Just shut up. You're so nasty. I love
Speaker 1: you for that. Learned from listening you. Yeah, biology did that,
Speaker 1: helf and genealogy, don't there we go, Natsha. I mean
Speaker 1: my grandmother was a very I don't want to say complicated,
Speaker 1: but like a complex individual. You know, she had like
Speaker 1: a very interesting childhood. He was from Wild Virginia. She
Speaker 1: had become a part of family that had two sets
Speaker 1: of children, being raised in the same household for two sets,
Speaker 1: meeting her mother and children from her father and someone else.
Speaker 1: So marriage and relationships and stuff like that. Really in
Speaker 1: many ways probably represented a bit of an escape. She
Speaker 1: also grew up in a household where lots of very
Speaker 1: quote unquote fair skinned people were. She was very vibrant,
Speaker 1: she was a young mother. She knew what it was
Speaker 1: to be a mother alone with no one at a
Speaker 1: time when that wasn't really happening as much, and she
Speaker 1: was very much had just so much energy and she
Speaker 1: was like so full and so as a kid, my
Speaker 1: experience with her as a kid was just like my
Speaker 1: Nana is so fun because she always had this really youthful,
Speaker 1: vibrant energy because I just feel like she always wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of be a kid because she didn't really
Speaker 1: get that chance to like kid kids. So she kid kids,
Speaker 1: kidded with us, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 1: just always kind of loved that about her. But the
Speaker 1: thing that humanized her for me was the things I
Speaker 1: disliked about her. I did not like the way that
Speaker 1: she treated my mom. They had a very complicated relationship
Speaker 1: and that I'm still unpacking to this day, And so
Speaker 1: my Nanna and I were humanized her for me was
Speaker 1: just trying to come to terms with whether or not
Speaker 1: I could really rock with her. And because I was
Speaker 1: so protective of my own mother, and I remember that
Speaker 1: my mom. One time, my grandmother said something to my
Speaker 1: mom and I stepped in there and I tried to
Speaker 1: defend my mother, and my mom went off for me.
Speaker 1: My mother wasn't a big hitter, but I could tell
Speaker 1: she was like, she's about hit me, and She's like,
Speaker 1: don't you ever in your life speak to my mother
Speaker 1: like that? And I was like, okay. There were lots
Speaker 1: of different moments with my grandmother like that. I witnessed
Speaker 1: my grandmother grieve a child that preceded her in death.
Speaker 1: That was another thing that really humanized her for me,
Speaker 1: watching her go from being a woman who literally had
Speaker 1: it all together for me, house immaculate, always in tune
Speaker 1: with the moment, always present, You're always present. When I
Speaker 1: saw her grieve and grief hard, I couldn't speak, couldn't talk,
Speaker 1: wailing like the sound of like a band, she wailing,
Speaker 1: you know, the type of ancestral wailing. So those were
Speaker 1: moments for me where I looked at her and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, this is a whole person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is definitely a whole person. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love that we all have different moments. I was listening
Speaker 1: to your moments of like humanizing, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: about my grandmom. And it's funny because I thought about
Speaker 1: Jills moments and I was like, well, as far as
Speaker 1: my grandmam, I always knew she was somewhat sexual because
Speaker 1: she had been married twice. She had five children, and
Speaker 1: she had three different fathers to build those five children, right,
Speaker 1: so I always knew that my grandmother. She was a
Speaker 1: very fly grandmother. She was one of those people that
Speaker 1: you hear and you go, oh, that's your mom. No,
Speaker 1: that's my grandma, want a whole bunch of jerysh fly whatever.
Speaker 1: But she was also a very flat but very like
Speaker 1: strict in her home. You didn't say, are you get
Speaker 1: plucked in the head. She was very about getting the switch.
Speaker 1: She was very about beating you. And you know, for
Speaker 1: a long time I didn't like my grandmother because my
Speaker 1: parents had divorced when I was six and I ended
Speaker 1: up leaving my mother and my grandmother and she was
Speaker 1: still just as strict, and it was worse because I
Speaker 1: lived where, which is strange because you know, turn around
Speaker 1: now she became my best friend like twenty years later.
Speaker 1: But yeah, right, I mean, he just appreciated all those moments,
Speaker 1: But the moment that humanized my grandmom for me was
Speaker 1: seeing as strong as she wasn't as strict as she
Speaker 1: wasn't as no nonsense as she was, and not about
Speaker 1: the white man and all this other stuff when it
Speaker 1: came to her own sons and their ways. I just
Speaker 1: didn't appreciate the way she handled She had two sons
Speaker 1: that to me were just I want to be nice
Speaker 1: about this because I liked one, but he was still
Speaker 1: not very um friendly and uh, it's very selfish man.
Speaker 1: One was very selfish and the other one was a
Speaker 1: selfish in a different way right, and the other one
Speaker 1: is awful to this day. But I just remember humanizing
Speaker 1: her when I saw the way she treated them and
Speaker 1: still let them come in the house and do the
Speaker 1: things that they did and say the things that they
Speaker 1: said to my mom and disrespecting that way because my
Speaker 1: grandma was still like, these are her children, and I
Speaker 1: just never understood this. So that was the moment for
Speaker 1: me when she was humanizing my eyes. It's just child,
Speaker 1: because I'm glad you started with grandmother's Because the grandmothers
Speaker 1: tell the story, they set the tone for the whole thing. Right,
Speaker 1: and you know, like how you view your mom, because
Speaker 1: what humanizes your mother is that thinking about her childhood,
Speaker 1: that thinking about what made her into the woman that
Speaker 1: she was. At least that is for me, you know,
Speaker 1: really looking at what my mom had to deal with,
Speaker 1: who she grew up with, what were the rules, what
Speaker 1: was the thinking, what were the experiences? And that really
Speaker 1: kind of started with my nana. Again. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: all the things that were quote unquote and perfect about her,
Speaker 1: they make sense in context. After you get older, you
Speaker 1: get older, you start to think you don't like it,
Speaker 1: but you're like, oh, okay. You think about the circumstances
Speaker 1: of their existence. They think about all of these things
Speaker 1: instead of just who you are in this house at
Speaker 1: this moment, providing and caring for me or my brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters or whatever the case may be. The situations
Speaker 1: and the circumstances of their life have a really big
Speaker 1: factor in who they are and why they are the
Speaker 1: whare they are. Because Jill, when you said to think
Speaker 1: about your grandma, it's so interesting because although I know
Speaker 1: my grandmother was a sexual person, when you said that
Speaker 1: thing about your grand mom and the orgasm in my
Speaker 1: grandmother's later years, I would frequently ask her about sex,
Speaker 1: and I sawear to God, and she had a whole
Speaker 1: silly perspective, like it was my mom and my grandmother
Speaker 1: actually never talked about that ever. So this was a
Speaker 1: big moment for my mother to gear up. She said
Speaker 1: she had been working on the question for days, and
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm not going to have a lot of
Speaker 1: time to ask questions that I really want to know,
Speaker 1: she said. She held her breath for a while, and
Speaker 1: then she just mom, um, can I ask you? You know,
Speaker 1: my grandmother's five nine, my mother six one, and my
Speaker 1: grandmother was very weak at the end, you know, but
Speaker 1: still my mother was afraid to ask her this very
Speaker 1: important question to her. And nonetheless, you know, she was
Speaker 1: so pleasantly surprised to know that her mother had had
Speaker 1: a full existence, you know that she actually was happy
Speaker 1: and enjoying her humanity, but so interested she had to
Speaker 1: wait that late. She was scared to have that conversation
Speaker 1: because my mom, I believed, when I think about my
Speaker 1: mom and Grandmam, I think there was just so many
Speaker 1: secrets between them, things that they both knew but they
Speaker 1: just did not talk about, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And but there was just like a deep, deep abiding love,
Speaker 1: like I mean, just that I didn't understand outside the
Speaker 1: context of she sometimes ain't nice to you, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But it was like they had
Speaker 1: between them these agreements, these contracts and understandings that were
Speaker 1: beyond my understanding. When I was younger, and even when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, I didn't fully understand. How
Speaker 1: about as a mom or I fully I fully understand it.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely tapped into what that was about. My
Speaker 1: Nanna desired a life and never allowed herself to fully
Speaker 1: be swallowed by her circumstances. She fought and resisted many
Speaker 1: times towards the situations that should have boxed her in
Speaker 1: choices that she made in love and choices she made
Speaker 1: in making. My mother and we talked about putting our
Speaker 1: family business out there. But I'm gonna speak on this.
Speaker 1: My mother had written a book which she never completely finished,
Speaker 1: but this story is in the book, and my grandmother
Speaker 1: has since passed, so I'm gonna speak on it and
Speaker 1: made my family forgive me if they have an issue,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm grown, come see me. What I
Speaker 1: will say is that my nana did have an affair,
Speaker 1: and that the identity of my mother's father came into question.
Speaker 1: I don't want to really rest on that. What I
Speaker 1: want to rest on is that there was a lack
Speaker 1: of love in her life, and there was a lack
Speaker 1: of understanding in her life. And she had been pulled
Speaker 1: from childhood into womanhood, into motherhood, and she desired that
Speaker 1: connection and love and she fought to get it. Now
Speaker 1: what she completely altogether in her decisions or they quote
Speaker 1: unquote right, wrong, ethical whatever whatever. Maybe they were, maybe
Speaker 1: they were not, depending on who was having a conversation,
Speaker 1: but this was her way. My grandmother had, you know,
Speaker 1: relationship with a man when I was a young person.
Speaker 1: You know, my grandfather had passed or whatever, but she
Speaker 1: had she had a boyfriend. But it wasn't even just
Speaker 1: a relationships with men, but it was also she worked.
Speaker 1: She worked job, she loved, she exercised, she played with us,
Speaker 1: she gardened, she had hobbies, she loved her kids. She
Speaker 1: enjoyed holidays like she would play games with us, Like
Speaker 1: during Christmas time, my nan wouldn't just buy as gifts.
Speaker 1: She would play like prices right, and what's behind during
Speaker 1: number two? And and all these kinds of things with
Speaker 1: us as kids. So her thirst for life, that's something
Speaker 1: that I understood was behind a lot of her decisions.
Speaker 1: Her relationship with my mother was probably you know, more
Speaker 1: about the fact that my mother and many black folks
Speaker 1: have this issue, and black mothers have this issue. My
Speaker 1: mother had opportunities she did not. My mother could have
Speaker 1: life that she had to fight for. My mother could
Speaker 1: just have my mother, she would glow from the inside.
Speaker 1: I can imagine for a person who had to fight
Speaker 1: for glow and fight for light, that they couldn't always
Speaker 1: be as receptive to that light. I think there's probably
Speaker 1: some resentment there to see someone to to want something
Speaker 1: so bad and then to see it in somebody else
Speaker 1: that you gave birth to and they're just doing it
Speaker 1: so effortlessly, Like as much as you may obviously love
Speaker 1: your child, at the same time, you're like, damn, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just glowing all around here, And I had to
Speaker 1: hustle and work for it and cry over and toil
Speaker 1: and stress out. You man, you know somewhere in there,
Speaker 1: like it's easy to the women in my family, I
Speaker 1: find myself there literal she rose to me like my grandmother.
Speaker 1: She the house quote on fire, and she got some
Speaker 1: of her children out, but there was the baby was
Speaker 1: still in there sleep. He must my uncle must have
Speaker 1: been about maybe seven months she was. She was downstairs
Speaker 1: with the other children, so she got them out, and
Speaker 1: then when she ran back in to get her baby,
Speaker 1: the firefighters held on to her and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't go in there. It's over. You can't go
Speaker 1: in there. I'm sorry. Man. She fought all five men
Speaker 1: and got in that house and came out with no
Speaker 1: eyebrows and no eyelashes, with her son alive. Those are
Speaker 1: the women. And you look at these heroes. You look
Speaker 1: at these strong, powerful women, and you know, particularly mothers
Speaker 1: and grandmothers were talking about right now, and you you
Speaker 1: think you can't live up to that kind of greatness
Speaker 1: or that kind of presence. You know, it's easy to
Speaker 1: get trapped into your light or you're not like your mom.
Speaker 1: So you can rebel, you can actually rebel against her
Speaker 1: own greatness because you don't think that you have what
Speaker 1: your mother has. It can happen, yes, the and the's
Speaker 1: the flip side too, of like, because our mothers and
Speaker 1: grandmothers had to have this this upper strength and this
Speaker 1: lower strength in this middle strength, there are some things
Speaker 1: that fell to the wayside. You now can see clearer
Speaker 1: as a grown up yourself. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: especially in the lane of advice and in great relationships,
Speaker 1: especially in relationships, because I mean, I think that it's
Speaker 1: very it's interesting. I mean, I think for me, I
Speaker 1: don't know as you Jill, but I know my mom
Speaker 1: is single. I think for you Asian, when your mom passed,
Speaker 1: she was single. My mom is single, right, and the
Speaker 1: same thing for my my grandmom. So it's interested in
Speaker 1: this in this conversation when we were first talking about
Speaker 1: and having I thought about like the moment too, when
Speaker 1: I had to not go ah with every piece of
Speaker 1: advice that was given to me in certain realms where
Speaker 1: they may have not excuse me, looking around and see
Speaker 1: if she's listening excelled or I want to say excelled
Speaker 1: or at least been in a place that I want
Speaker 1: to be. Oh, my mother straight up told me better
Speaker 1: preach that to a point. Amen, Amen, Like, yeah, what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is my mom straight up told me I
Speaker 1: got to a point in my marriage. I came to
Speaker 1: her and I said, listen, I don't know what to
Speaker 1: do by expanse. She said, sweetheart, you've been married louder
Speaker 1: than I was. WHOA, Oh right, somebody done a lot
Speaker 1: of mom, because a lot of mom. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you what to do. I was like, oh ship, okay, um,
Speaker 1: because you know I have I have some some friends
Speaker 1: where their mothers really are haters when it comes to
Speaker 1: love and relationships. They really are like they sabotage their
Speaker 1: daughter's thoughts be because they are by themselves and they
Speaker 1: don't want to be I don't know if that's what
Speaker 1: it is, or they're just thinking or I've been down
Speaker 1: this road so I know everything and he ain't nothing.
Speaker 1: I can tell by the way he walks like you
Speaker 1: don't know that you know he had surgery on his foot,
Speaker 1: like you just you jump up like mama, that's the game. Greens.
Speaker 1: Give him a shot, man, just give him a shot.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting moment in your heart space. I don't
Speaker 1: know about job, but that moment where you're like, okay, mom,
Speaker 1: listening here. Yeah, I don't want I don't want to
Speaker 1: do this like I you know, I have a son,
Speaker 1: so it's it's different even with my mentees. I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: I don't know everything. Bowl I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to make the mistakes I may,
Speaker 1: but maybe I do because they got me here. Everything
Speaker 1: is going to get you where you want to be,
Speaker 1: whether you realize it or not. And that's game. You
Speaker 1: might as well hold on and put that in your pocket.
Speaker 1: You're going where you're intended. You are absolutely going. I
Speaker 1: will tell y'all the one of the moments that humanized
Speaker 1: my mother was the first time she cuts out a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: The first time she cuts out a boyfriend, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you was more stressed over this than I.
Speaker 1: I've never seen you and and I'm gonna have a whole,
Speaker 1: honest moment. And I hope she ain't listening that moment
Speaker 1: when she called me a fucking pussy because I was
Speaker 1: not reacting the way that she thought I should. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about being twenty on my post thirty.
Speaker 1: Where did you feel that? So many places to chill
Speaker 1: in my spirit in my chest, like I it was
Speaker 1: just a moment of like, damn, okay, Mom, I love you,
Speaker 1: I don't like this person. Damn, am I really a pussy?
Speaker 1: Because I'm not losing my whole mind and cussing this
Speaker 1: negro out as he takes is things out of the house,
Speaker 1: Like that was a humanizing moment of like, Okay that
Speaker 1: she is she and and me as me, and you
Speaker 1: have to decide to number one, and that's what you
Speaker 1: want to be. Yeah, that's what you want for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be back after the break. I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of sisters that that really try to be their mom's
Speaker 1: but I think it's mostly because they don't know who
Speaker 1: they are. You know, like you're you're really blessed when
Speaker 1: you get a chance to know your mama, to to
Speaker 1: know her insides. Okay, for instance, my girlfriend right now,
Speaker 1: excuse me, she has um dealing with cancer and double
Speaker 1: missectomy kept coming back, and she called me yesterday to
Speaker 1: tell me that she was feeling so ugly because of scars.
Speaker 1: And when I tell you, the woman is absolutely stunning,
Speaker 1: Like she's just stunning. She really is, always has been, skinned,
Speaker 1: just beautiful woman. She's blessed up to have two little
Speaker 1: girls and a husband that is positively there for her.
Speaker 1: And I told her, because I don't know what to do,
Speaker 1: I have to pray before I speak often, and I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm gonna need to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need you to write all of this down. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to start talking about your scars and what
Speaker 1: makes you feel ugly in front of your girls. You
Speaker 1: cannot do that. But what you can do is make
Speaker 1: a journal and let them know who you are at
Speaker 1: this time because they're they're young, and when they turn eighteen,
Speaker 1: this is a book that they are allowed to read
Speaker 1: because they'll think about all the wonderful times, you know,
Speaker 1: when mom made the Halloween costume, and when mom made
Speaker 1: the dinner, and when Mom cheered me at the game,
Speaker 1: and with mom that they had. They'll have no idea,
Speaker 1: you know, if this is the route that you're gonna take,
Speaker 1: they'll have no idea what you withstood. This will be
Speaker 1: a testimony of strength to your daughters. Do that. Do that.
Speaker 1: I can't change anything for you. I wish I could,
Speaker 1: and I absolutely respect your strength and that you're thinking.
Speaker 1: I don't want to beat myself up in front of
Speaker 1: my girls, because that that's something that we passed down
Speaker 1: to our our daughters. You know, if you don't care
Speaker 1: for yourself too much or like yourself too much, there's
Speaker 1: a big chance that your daughter will too. You know,
Speaker 1: so that was that was my little suggestion, and I
Speaker 1: hope that that helps move her forward. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you're absolutely right. I mean kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: like I told you, like my mother had written this book.
Speaker 1: I've read it, I know, but I knew a lot
Speaker 1: of the stories in it already. Like I do, think
Speaker 1: that my mother hadn't told me so much about who
Speaker 1: she was as a person is an amazing gift and
Speaker 1: it really has changed me. It has. It has its
Speaker 1: shaped and molded me in ways that I just I
Speaker 1: can't even put my finger on, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: just having some sense of her humanity. That's one thing
Speaker 1: I have to say. I've really been very in touch
Speaker 1: with is my mom's humanity quite a bit, and it
Speaker 1: helped me a lot in grieving her when she was
Speaker 1: not here in the physical. My mother had cancer and
Speaker 1: you know, she beat that pussy twice. She's doing well,
Speaker 1: very grateful for that. She didn't share much of that
Speaker 1: with me, I think, because you know, I'm the breadwinner
Speaker 1: of my family, so I think she kind of just
Speaker 1: wanted me to, you know, stay focused and too um
Speaker 1: to just keep moving and motivated, like I was auditioning
Speaker 1: for the number one Ladies Detective Agency when we found
Speaker 1: out my mother had cancer. And when I got it
Speaker 1: after the six auditions, she was like, you go, this
Speaker 1: is an incredible opportunity. I want you to go. And
Speaker 1: I was like, mom, but but but she said she
Speaker 1: got some money, right. I was like, well, yeah, She's like,
Speaker 1: well put some on me, you know, make sure I'm
Speaker 1: straight and go head and do what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, as my my girlfriend Alex said,
Speaker 1: she's put some money on it. Put some money on it,
Speaker 1: whatever that thing is. So yeah, that first time, you know,
Speaker 1: she was able to do surpass it and she has sense.
Speaker 1: But we actually haven't had much conversation about that because
Speaker 1: sometimes I think our moms are so strong that you know,
Speaker 1: they don't tell, they don't say the heartaches and the
Speaker 1: troubles and stripes or or you know, they don't share that.
Speaker 1: And for you aged to have a mom to be
Speaker 1: so open and my my mother's way more open than
Speaker 1: my grandmother was. But for you to know your mother, um,
Speaker 1: that that breathes life into your humanity. That that is
Speaker 1: I think I'll gonna shout out your mom because I
Speaker 1: think you're an incredible woman. I am proud to know you. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that's what I tell my mom. I'm like, Mom, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm only take a relationship invice from Asia because you
Speaker 1: know it's about goals. But it really is Asia. It's
Speaker 1: just really, it really is. And it's just you know,
Speaker 1: this is the part where I deflect. My mom always
Speaker 1: kind of always believed in love. She really did. And
Speaker 1: you talked about heroes, and for me, like she was
Speaker 1: my hero because I knew how many things could have
Speaker 1: ruined that for her, Like I know all of the
Speaker 1: things that happened to her that that could have destroyed
Speaker 1: her belief in love and the fact that she continued
Speaker 1: to And then it's so funny because like the things
Speaker 1: that people go through, they can they can become like
Speaker 1: their superpower, you know what I mean. And so it's
Speaker 1: interesting that as mothers, that mothers can go down multiple paths.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to say which path your mom
Speaker 1: will go down. She's a human. And it's interesting at
Speaker 1: my mother's service, my son, all these people got up
Speaker 1: and I told you that the the way that the
Speaker 1: day that we put my mother to rest was an
Speaker 1: absolute amazing day. I know that sounds crazy, but that
Speaker 1: day was actually one of the most beautiful days of
Speaker 1: my life. The day we laid my mother to rest,
Speaker 1: we all wore white, and I didn't even understand the
Speaker 1: significance of that until later, but we all were white,
Speaker 1: and everyone who came and the amount of people who
Speaker 1: spoke to this part of her. So people will have
Speaker 1: tons of stories about a person, but the fact that
Speaker 1: this same kind of theme came back up many times.
Speaker 1: Who she was in her belief and love, her ability
Speaker 1: to love, and that that was her power. And my
Speaker 1: son said, you know, I want to be like Grandma,
Speaker 1: like I want to be like that. And I said
Speaker 1: to him, I think that's beautiful, son, but I want
Speaker 1: you to be that way. But I also want you
Speaker 1: to understand the pain Grandmam had to experience in her
Speaker 1: life in order for her to have that perspective. It
Speaker 1: has been a gift to know her as a woman.
Speaker 1: And I do think that that is something that's a
Speaker 1: gift you can give your children and the young women
Speaker 1: in your life, because you don't want to send them
Speaker 1: out in the world with this false kind of sense
Speaker 1: of what it is to be a woman and and
Speaker 1: tied into those ridiculous, and it illusion about what womanhood
Speaker 1: is and what that looks like, and for us as
Speaker 1: black women, we're just so inundated. Was so much fuckory
Speaker 1: about what that is. That I'm grateful to have had that,
Speaker 1: but again I didn't know always that that's what that was.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I used to think of
Speaker 1: my mom as a pushover. I was very aggressive in
Speaker 1: my late teens and ear I mean, in my early twenties,
Speaker 1: even after I got married, because you're a yeah, and
Speaker 1: I had to pimp out like that that pimps are
Speaker 1: hurt people. You understand what I'm saying. Uh, A pimp
Speaker 1: is not a person who you know, should be admired.
Speaker 1: I was like that because I was trying not to
Speaker 1: be a fool for love, because I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: very much like you know, I don't. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be like my mom at that time in my life,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because I didn't understand that
Speaker 1: what she had was some fabulous ship. Okay, So my
Speaker 1: mom stopped working when I was fourteen. She came home
Speaker 1: one day and she just was like, I don't wanna
Speaker 1: do that no more. And I thought we were doing really,
Speaker 1: really well, I mean I was. I thought we were
Speaker 1: doing great. As a matter of fact, you know, there
Speaker 1: was food in the house that I had some clothes,
Speaker 1: not a lot, but I had some, and you know,
Speaker 1: I thought we were doing well. And my mother, you know,
Speaker 1: just really did not go back to work. Odds and
Speaker 1: ends here and there, she would take up something immensely creative.
Speaker 1: And she one day she jumped up and went to
Speaker 1: the docks at four o'clock in the morning, came back
Speaker 1: with more fruit than anybody could ever eat. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what is going on my grandmother and not
Speaker 1: just looking at each other, like what's happening? And if
Speaker 1: she had spent her last And she decided that she
Speaker 1: was going to make smoothies. That she had gotten these books. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking North Philly. I'm talking eighties smoothies.
Speaker 1: So she decided she was gonna make smoothies and she
Speaker 1: was going to sell them for ten dollars in North Philly.
Speaker 1: And I was crazy, Okay, So the first day or so,
Speaker 1: you know, she started handing them out, handing them out
Speaker 1: to people. I'm telling you, within three days time I
Speaker 1: was headed out for school six am. My bus came
Speaker 1: in six ten, and I like to meander a little bit.
Speaker 1: I could hardly get down my steps. There was a
Speaker 1: line around the block. I said, what's going on. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm coming to get some of your um, your mom's smoothies.
Speaker 1: I had one in the morning and I didn't have
Speaker 1: to eat again all day long. I said, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how I'm gonna lose my weight. Oh this
Speaker 1: is Oh, your mom's smoothies made me feel like what
Speaker 1: she put in there. Everybody's talking about my mother's smoothies.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, she has a business. She did
Speaker 1: that until she was finished with it, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, no more smoothies. And we've been back
Speaker 1: from it was like feast or famine, and we went
Speaker 1: back to families and having a sense being a kid
Speaker 1: and seeing someone with that kind of freedom in their mind,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. And she decided to make pants once. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the whole neighborhood is walking around in
Speaker 1: my mother's pants. It was like that with the address sign,
Speaker 1: it was like that she found a piece of furniture.
Speaker 1: She brought this thing home and bought a sander, and
Speaker 1: she taught me how to stay in polyera thing, and
Speaker 1: she she got this thing and it was something somebody
Speaker 1: had painted white and it was it was a dresser.
Speaker 1: It looked crappy. She got all the paint off of it.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful wood underneath sanded it. She sold that
Speaker 1: thing for I think four hundred dollars. You know, this
Speaker 1: is this is who my mother is. But the sporadic
Speaker 1: nature of it all is why I have five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight nine jobs because the end between the lean times
Speaker 1: were lean, okay, like lean, like how are you gonna
Speaker 1: get to school? What? What are you gonna eat today? Like?
Speaker 1: You know? So this is why. And I love to
Speaker 1: be creative. I love to do things that give me joy,
Speaker 1: but I also don't want to go through the lean
Speaker 1: times if I can manage it, because part of me
Speaker 1: psychologically fears it, which is why there is Costco and
Speaker 1: I are really great friends because I over compensate because
Speaker 1: I remember that, and I remember the trades, you know,
Speaker 1: the baskets where people would drop off food and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating because I just it's so many different
Speaker 1: moms with so many different stories. I'm like, now you
Speaker 1: made me think of my mom and how she did
Speaker 1: the flip side where she decided to skip her dreams
Speaker 1: and just dedicate her life to United Airlines for forty
Speaker 1: five years because she wanted to keep her daughter in
Speaker 1: private school. And she although I have the best daddy
Speaker 1: in the damn world, he wasn't always the most financially
Speaker 1: stable daddy in the whole damn world. So she wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that I had to clothes, and I
Speaker 1: had a home, and I lived in these certain places
Speaker 1: and so here she is now retired, like I'm taking
Speaker 1: real estate classes. I want to sell homes because I've
Speaker 1: always had a pass and for homes and decorating things
Speaker 1: like that. I'm just like, wow, like, if only you
Speaker 1: would have had a moment and not for nothing, I
Speaker 1: thank her for those years because if that, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have seen the world. If not for those and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have met I would have met Jill Scott and
Speaker 1: montro Switzerland if not for that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But it's just mom's stories and just a different route
Speaker 1: of sacrifice that they make and and and to my
Speaker 1: mom is funny because I was like, Dawn, I was
Speaker 1: feeling bad because I'm like I told the story of
Speaker 1: how she cuts out the boyfriends. But I understand all
Speaker 1: that because my mom has one child, she has one daughter.
Speaker 1: She is the biggest warrior for me. I will go
Speaker 1: through beast with friends and she continues them on even
Speaker 1: though we had You know what I'm saying like that is,
Speaker 1: Mom said, you can't cut off my ride or die.
Speaker 1: You can't cut it off once you turn that fast
Speaker 1: set on. She said, Wait a minute, Ain't that the
Speaker 1: one was it was that five, six, seventeen years ago?
Speaker 1: Didn't she say? She showed she was me as a mother.
Speaker 1: I won't lie. That's me as a mother. That's what's up.
Speaker 1: I called people raggedy who who? That who that? That's
Speaker 1: that raggedy girl. That's that raggedy mean boy matter. He
Speaker 1: can't come with my threshold. I love it though, But
Speaker 1: you know, if I didn't have that kind of relationship
Speaker 1: with my mom where it helped me with my own
Speaker 1: kids really for real, for real in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: because my mother's acceptance of me helped me when I
Speaker 1: had to really kind of dig deep for my own daughter.
Speaker 1: And um, I was really kind of messy as a teenager,
Speaker 1: you know, just really all over the place. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and like I was really a smart
Speaker 1: I was like the kid that the teachers couldn't stand
Speaker 1: because it's like, you know, she's smart, but she like
Speaker 1: it's checked out, you know what I mean. Like, so
Speaker 1: they would call my mom and we're like, can we
Speaker 1: just get her to focus for like four months in
Speaker 1: the game. So but this kid I got. I'm serious, man.
Speaker 1: I grieved my mother hard because I needed to find
Speaker 1: out where she got the ability to accept me the
Speaker 1: way that she did, because when I needed it, I
Speaker 1: needed it for my own kid. And it was like
Speaker 1: it was so stressful for me because I was like
Speaker 1: this the moment when I need to leg in her
Speaker 1: lap and ask her, Yo, what do I do with
Speaker 1: this girl? How do I love her? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But I had mentioned this to you guys
Speaker 1: before that. Again, my mom always used to think that
Speaker 1: she was too soft. That was like my whole thing
Speaker 1: was she's great love, but too good, like you don't
Speaker 1: have enough boundaries, sis, When it was my mother's ability
Speaker 1: to radically love eventually helped me save my relationship with
Speaker 1: my own daughter because I knew I was able to
Speaker 1: remember the type of compassion that she had for me,
Speaker 1: and it was like this kid, you sis, this is
Speaker 1: how you're gonna heal for real, for real, like this
Speaker 1: is this is where you're healing. It gonna go to
Speaker 1: the bone marrow. It was like, you're going to have
Speaker 1: to have a radical compassion in this situation. You have
Speaker 1: to love in a way that seems like, should not
Speaker 1: be disciplined in this kid. Shouldn't not be mad, should
Speaker 1: not be upset? Nasis, No, you should not. No, you
Speaker 1: should not. That's how my mother really changed my life
Speaker 1: because when I realized that, yeah, that that that that
Speaker 1: that ship right there, and the turn that the women
Speaker 1: in this generation took, these boomer black women, that how
Speaker 1: they took a very different approach to mother. And oh yes,
Speaker 1: I gotta get my mom and our mom's credit on
Speaker 1: that one, because yes they did, yes, and very difference.
Speaker 1: They spoke to us more, they spoke to us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we could speak back. Yes, still not as much as
Speaker 1: these kids today, but more. Yeah. Wait, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you mean. I feel like they started the normalizing
Speaker 1: free black children, the idea of raising free black children,
Speaker 1: black children in their minds, not just their bodies, and
Speaker 1: parents who could be your friend. But still disciplinarians. The
Speaker 1: concept of being a friend in a disciplinarian too, I
Speaker 1: think started with our parents. I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was anything like that prior to
Speaker 1: their generation. I am very, very grateful for the many
Speaker 1: nights my mother and I shared drinking man of Chevits,
Speaker 1: listening to Milly Jackson, Honey. Yes, the first time I
Speaker 1: ever got high, I was with my mom. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for those moments. Now she's retired. Yes, and Grandma.
Speaker 1: I gotta sneak my mom with a little cookie, a
Speaker 1: little piece of candy or something. I feel, mom, but
Speaker 1: still thank God, so I can dip into her stash.
Speaker 1: We tried to cook Thanksgiving dinner that night. Talk about
Speaker 1: a high asked mess, the two of us trying to
Speaker 1: cook this food. I'm just gonna put this out here.
Speaker 1: I tried to wash the turkey. Don't ever try to
Speaker 1: wash the turkey after get in hot with your mama. Here,
Speaker 1: you tried to wash the turk? How to do wash it? Asia?
Speaker 1: I left that thing in the saint because I couldn't
Speaker 1: pick it up because it was wrong and it was
Speaker 1: big and it was happy. It was slippery, and I
Speaker 1: was like it's dead. My mom like, yeah, that's dad, girl,
Speaker 1: watch that dad turkey and seizing it up. I have
Speaker 1: to get up. She and she literally said this. I
Speaker 1: ain't getting out because you're a lightweight Asian. Damn, my
Speaker 1: mama said, not getting your Mama said you're a lightweight.
Speaker 1: That's what she said. Yeah, she put me, she she
Speaker 1: put me to bed to seek my mother. I didn't
Speaker 1: do that. She's not interested in that. She saw something
Speaker 1: terrible one time and believes that all all things will
Speaker 1: make you pull your skin off. Girl. Had we had
Speaker 1: to high roaches from my grandmother. She was at a
Speaker 1: party and saw somebody use acid and the lady ran
Speaker 1: into the ocean and started pulling her skin off. And
Speaker 1: my mother was like, drunks, all drugs, everything that's that
Speaker 1: started trying to this day like I say this because
Speaker 1: of my mother. I say this if any time somebody
Speaker 1: tells you that I died of an overdose, no, that
Speaker 1: somebody killed me. I'm not the one, because I'm not
Speaker 1: the one. I'm not the one. I'm not the one.
Speaker 1: I'm not you said skin off? Oh no, that probably
Speaker 1: be me just by proxy. Like I'm not interested. Don't
Speaker 1: you worry about it. Okay, fear not. Let me ask you,
Speaker 1: just as moms, do y'all think that, like your kids
Speaker 1: are kids? I feel like a kind of answer this question,
Speaker 1: but do you think that they're getting the most humanized
Speaker 1: version of you? Like pure? For sure, I think they are,
Speaker 1: But they almost didn't even though I had the background
Speaker 1: that I did, because the patriarchy is strong, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And so it's hard as a woman
Speaker 1: to fight that. A lot of times you you still
Speaker 1: do find yourself hiding your humanity from people because you
Speaker 1: think you're supposed to be strong and you're supposed to
Speaker 1: handle everything, and that's what I need. So I would
Speaker 1: be lying if I said I didn't buy into some
Speaker 1: of those things, even with my own children, even though
Speaker 1: I had this positive experience with my mother. The world
Speaker 1: is very intense, so you tend to buy into those
Speaker 1: things even though you have something to counteract it, which
Speaker 1: is why I'm always saying, as a black person and parent,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of consistently be pushing back at
Speaker 1: the ship, you know what I mean. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I went through that. I went through that, and I
Speaker 1: also went through the realization and the self actualization that
Speaker 1: I said Okay, Nah, these kids need to know you're
Speaker 1: a human being. You need to set boundaries, you need
Speaker 1: to take care of yourself. And I'm lucky enough to
Speaker 1: have come up during the time where words like self
Speaker 1: care are part of our national vocabulary and our common vocabulary.
Speaker 1: So those are things I've been is trauma what you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Exactly? Exactly? Yeah, so yes day, no kids
Speaker 1: benefited from from that, but I had to do the
Speaker 1: work still. See that's the thing. It doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: your mama is or is it. You can't really escape
Speaker 1: the work. The work is gonna always you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I think the jet has benefited from me
Speaker 1: being the whole around him. He asked me questions like
Speaker 1: how did you rest? It was like you got a
Speaker 1: lot going on. I could see it in your face.
Speaker 1: There's literally nothing that I can hide from that boy.
Speaker 1: What he who asked me, Mom? What is that? Look
Speaker 1: at me deep in my soul and I'm like, what
Speaker 1: He's like that thing? It's bothering you, mom? I could
Speaker 1: see it? What is that? And I he freaks me
Speaker 1: out when he does it, Like he's a really sweet
Speaker 1: and intense human being, and I can't hide even if
Speaker 1: I wanted to. He can see me, so in those moments,
Speaker 1: you never say I don't. I won't do that, because
Speaker 1: that means I have to honor his instinct and whatever
Speaker 1: gifts that have been given to my grandmother, you know,
Speaker 1: who could tell you somebody's calling before the phone rang
Speaker 1: and who it was. Or my mother, who can heal
Speaker 1: people with her touch and her words to to me,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that I have, I don't want to
Speaker 1: negate it for him. He's absolutely right, there's a thing,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I don't even know what the thing is.
Speaker 1: I've gotta look and see what it is, and then
Speaker 1: we talk about it. Whatever it is. I need him.
Speaker 1: It's important that he be able to speak his mind
Speaker 1: and him share whatever's going on in him. I need
Speaker 1: him to know that he's all right because these kids now,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of young people are taking their
Speaker 1: lives and because of bullying, because of not being able
Speaker 1: to keep up in school, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: It's happening a lot where I am, and I just
Speaker 1: you know, I want to make sure that I'm super
Speaker 1: present in his emotional growth and his spiritual growth, you know,
Speaker 1: his mental growth. I want to be there for that
Speaker 1: so him seeing me stressed out and me taking deep breaths,
Speaker 1: or me taking a walk, or him walking with me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I just don't want to talk right now,
Speaker 1: and he's like okay, you know, for him to see it,
Speaker 1: to know that that sometimes I'm not all right. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm really upset. Sometimes I'm mad, you know, just or
Speaker 1: having an anxiety attack because these things occurred to a man,
Speaker 1: I have my oldest child read me Girl like a book,
Speaker 1: right that. Like I said, it's so many, so many
Speaker 1: things came to life after my mother passed, but I
Speaker 1: would have to say that it was that experience also
Speaker 1: that showed me how it was important, even more so
Speaker 1: than I had been doing that my children saw my humanity,
Speaker 1: that they saw the grieving process and they understood what
Speaker 1: that was and how you didn't come out of it
Speaker 1: and moved through it, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: so that was really a great learning tool for us.
Speaker 1: Whereas sometimes the trauma of a parent can break everything down,
Speaker 1: but if it's used as a learning in a teaching moment,
Speaker 1: it can be really really profound for your children to
Speaker 1: see you in that way. But even before there's some
Speaker 1: sort of calamity in the everyday calamities. I think it
Speaker 1: is so profound that you're saying, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: need some room. I'm not and I can't talk to
Speaker 1: you right now. And those are those are boundaries that
Speaker 1: I learned over time to do because there was always
Speaker 1: that little voice, the little little guy that you have
Speaker 1: to be and you have to be present, you have
Speaker 1: to be there to be present all the time. I
Speaker 1: really feel like that that's I'm sorry, um, like you
Speaker 1: forgive me now, It's okay. I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for y'all. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: if motherhood is in the future for me, whatever, but
Speaker 1: for y'all, I'm excited because I see you as humans
Speaker 1: and as mothers and developing these human relationships with your kids.
Speaker 1: And I know, for one thing that me and my mom,
Speaker 1: that's the one thing that we do have. And in
Speaker 1: the sense of knowing when something's going on with your
Speaker 1: mom without or even saying it, I will say that
Speaker 1: in the last years of my grandma. My grandma passed
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago at ninety three, and she
Speaker 1: was going through Alzheimer's for you know, five years before that.
Speaker 1: But I was living in California, FaceTime and my mom
Speaker 1: every day making sure things were good. But I knew
Speaker 1: looking at her face when it was time for me
Speaker 1: to jump on a plane, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so I look at y'all and I go, this
Speaker 1: is this is gonna be so great for the future,
Speaker 1: because it's gonna it's gonna be so great for the
Speaker 1: bond and for what's to come as they get older,
Speaker 1: as you get older, and not having to even say things,
Speaker 1: and then just being there for you. You know. I
Speaker 1: want to say two things, my dear. Number one, I
Speaker 1: want to tell you, friend, you were absolutely incredible with
Speaker 1: your grandmammy. You were You were so present and so loving,
Speaker 1: and you had fun and she laughed with you and
Speaker 1: she danced and it was great as a woman to
Speaker 1: see you that way and to see her that way.
Speaker 1: You did a wonderful job. I know, you know, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just throwing it out there, so you just
Speaker 1: amazing to ensure that you know, I enjoyed it you did.
Speaker 1: I mean, having time with three generations of your family
Speaker 1: of women in one room. And that's why I used
Speaker 1: to post it all the time, because I wanted people
Speaker 1: to understand you know I was blessing because I know
Speaker 1: everybody who goes through Alzheimer's it's not always a joyous thing.
Speaker 1: That doesn't always turn you into a joyous person. My
Speaker 1: grandmother was not as joyous as she was when she
Speaker 1: had Alzheimers. Like, but that time that you spend, that
Speaker 1: time that I spent touching her face and like kissing
Speaker 1: her and her like holding me in the bed at night.
Speaker 1: I just want to always encourage people that that is
Speaker 1: like stuff that makes me so close to her now
Speaker 1: where I know I talked to her like she here,
Speaker 1: like it is nothing. I can feel her on my face,
Speaker 1: I feel when she's kissing me. I talked to her
Speaker 1: when I get blessings because I know you over here
Speaker 1: in his ear, I hear you. You know so I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I mean thank you. So I'll just say that too.
Speaker 1: Please love on your your elders, just love him up
Speaker 1: and and sorry, sorry, sorry, don't you dare, don't you
Speaker 1: don't have to apologize for anything, age, just don't. And
Speaker 1: what you said, Agia is everything. When you share your
Speaker 1: humanity with your children, you free them. You've freedom and
Speaker 1: that deep kind of unfiltered, unwavering love. That's what we
Speaker 1: need as parents, and it's not easy, but it really
Speaker 1: is worth the trip. We'll be back after the break.
Speaker 1: Coming up next on the show, What's on Your Heart
Speaker 1: an occasional segment where we're check in with people we
Speaker 1: respect about how they're really feeling. Hot on, y'all, I
Speaker 1: think there's somebody calling. That must mean it's time for
Speaker 1: what song? Hot Hey, y'all will see. The thing is,
Speaker 1: this woman is a scholar and an activist whose life
Speaker 1: work is to develop innovative solutions to challenges facing the poor,
Speaker 1: particularly Black mothers and their children. That person is Dr
Speaker 1: Janice Dats Janis Johnson Dyets, but in my life, she's
Speaker 1: the Aga whisperer. So you all get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: hang with her on today and also to she's an author,
Speaker 1: she's a PhD. She's the mother of Marley Das, who
Speaker 1: is the thousand Black Girl books. Young activists don't get
Speaker 1: to drop in Asia and the author of Parents Like
Speaker 1: It matters how to raise joyful, change making girls. That's
Speaker 1: what happens when you guys trust me with the intro.
Speaker 1: I leave the important stuff out. That's why y'all gotta
Speaker 1: stop giving me these responsibilities. You said it was important
Speaker 1: to us, That's all it was import exactly. Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. I am delighted to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the show. I listened to
Speaker 1: the show as Asia. No. I have lots of thoughts
Speaker 1: on the show. On every episode, I have extra thoughts
Speaker 1: on everything. So I am excited to be here. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things on my heart today, but probably
Speaker 1: the biggest one is I've been thinking about the power
Speaker 1: of so realization, the power of our childhood and the
Speaker 1: stuff that we learn as children and how they stay
Speaker 1: with us, particularly the things that we love and the
Speaker 1: things that we found challenging about our parents. And you know,
Speaker 1: like we get to a certain age and we wonder
Speaker 1: why we're behaving like our parents and why we take
Speaker 1: on their attributes, etcetera. And I just keep thinking about
Speaker 1: what kids are exposed to, the values, the ideas, the
Speaker 1: practices in their household, and how that just takes a
Speaker 1: hold of you at this deep, deep level and doesn't
Speaker 1: let you go. And for me, this is important because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm interested in children and their development. I'm
Speaker 1: also interested in how we create more generations of children
Speaker 1: who are going to positively impact the world. And if
Speaker 1: you're early socialization says that the notions of justice and
Speaker 1: truth and morality are just about you and yours, then
Speaker 1: we really don't end up getting people who are really
Speaker 1: invested in reorganized or restructuring the world. And so that
Speaker 1: early engagement has kind of become obsessive to me about
Speaker 1: what we're showing our kids and what we're saying to
Speaker 1: them really early on, about what they should value, and
Speaker 1: what our own actions, the things that we do, what
Speaker 1: messages our children extract from watching us do those things.
Speaker 1: So that that's probably the biggest thing on my my
Speaker 1: head today because I watched my husband do some stuff
Speaker 1: and I was like, I must start learned that real early.
Speaker 1: You must have learned that real early. And I watched
Speaker 1: myself do stuff, and I know I learned it really early,
Speaker 1: and I didn't let it go. Like my whole framework
Speaker 1: for the work I do isn't because I have a PhD.
Speaker 1: It's my grandmother, right, my grandmother. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: my grandmother had this particular practice. There were thirteen of
Speaker 1: us living in retreat St. Mary, and she and my
Speaker 1: grand aunts and my aunt joys. Please tell these people
Speaker 1: where retreats St. Mary Is. So, I was born in
Speaker 1: sant Ancis Bay Hospital in Jamaica, and I grew up
Speaker 1: in a town of four hundred and thirty three people
Speaker 1: in and I lived for the first nine years of
Speaker 1: my life ten without electricity, running water, indoor running water,
Speaker 1: indoor plumbing, etcetera. And walked, you know, somewhere between three
Speaker 1: to five miles each day. So when Dr Janis says
Speaker 1: I used to walk barefoot in the snow, well not
Speaker 1: the snow, because that's Jamaica. Wait wait when when Dr
Speaker 1: Janis tells that story, she's telling the real story. So
Speaker 1: in in nineteen eighty we moved to Kingston with indoor
Speaker 1: plumbing and electricity, et cetera. But I grew up where
Speaker 1: we salted the meat in order to have it for
Speaker 1: the next day, where the kitchen outside where my grand
Speaker 1: aunt and my cousins we cooked, and we had rabbits
Speaker 1: and chickens and the cows. You had to and before
Speaker 1: school you wake up and you get a couple and tea,
Speaker 1: You walk a couple of miles. You have to go
Speaker 1: tend to things. They come back in. You have planted avocado,
Speaker 1: piece of hard or bread, and some tea and then
Speaker 1: you walk. So thirteen of us and um we were privileged,
Speaker 1: which is funny to say. We were supremely because we
Speaker 1: owned the land we lived on and we had more
Speaker 1: resources than many. So before dinner every night, my grandmother
Speaker 1: would have us paired up those of us who were
Speaker 1: like five, our six and younger, and then my older brothers.
Speaker 1: My brothers are eight and six years older than me.
Speaker 1: We had to deliver food two people in the community.
Speaker 1: She told us they were our family. We had more
Speaker 1: resources in them because we had cattle, we had um land,
Speaker 1: so you know, like you grow cocoa, banana planting of
Speaker 1: our set stuff. They would make the dinner and we
Speaker 1: take it to people, and you had to do that
Speaker 1: before you could eat your dinner. So you do that,
Speaker 1: you walk a mile or two, you drop off the food,
Speaker 1: you come back, and then you can eat dinner. And
Speaker 1: when my grandmother died, all these people were at the church.
Speaker 1: We went to an Anglican church in retreat, and I
Speaker 1: was joking with my mother. I was like, Yo, don't
Speaker 1: these people know how to use a condom? Like why
Speaker 1: do we have so many in this family? Right? My
Speaker 1: mother said to me they're not family. I was like,
Speaker 1: so you're telling me, Mr, my whole life give these
Speaker 1: people food and I have not related to to them
Speaker 1: at all. And she's like, no, it was the tradition
Speaker 1: of her mother before her and her mother before her
Speaker 1: that if you have surplus, you share, right. And so
Speaker 1: I think about the work that I do now that
Speaker 1: people attribute to a whole host of things, and I
Speaker 1: think about that early, that early training of what it
Speaker 1: means to be in community with people and to share
Speaker 1: your surplus. And so those are the things that stay
Speaker 1: on my mind. What like what what values do we
Speaker 1: learn really early and how we end up expressing them?
Speaker 1: And I'm just grateful that the value of reciprocity, generosity
Speaker 1: and community was one that was so central to my
Speaker 1: development that now I can operationalize it by forming foundations,
Speaker 1: raising a kid, building stuff. So that's what's on my mind. Yes,
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. So a big catchphrase right
Speaker 1: now or thing that people are hearing a lot is
Speaker 1: I want to raise free black children. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of vague for me, to be honest, trying to wrap
Speaker 1: my mind around what does a free black child look like?
Speaker 1: What do they sound like? How do they walk, how
Speaker 1: do they talk? And I just am curious to hear
Speaker 1: what does this free black child look like to you? No,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. I don't actually don't think about
Speaker 1: free black children very much. I really think about free
Speaker 1: black adults. And I just don't think you can have
Speaker 1: free Black children without adults being free, because if adults
Speaker 1: are in bondage, quite frankly, how can their children be free. Literally,
Speaker 1: just sitting here thinking that, I was like, am I free?
Speaker 1: Adults need to be in the business of trying to
Speaker 1: be free. And one of the ways I think adults,
Speaker 1: particularly Black folks, got to think about freedom is the
Speaker 1: one they need, an operative definition that you can actually
Speaker 1: agree upon. Right, Yes, you know, individual families can have
Speaker 1: notions of freedom. For many black communities and black members,
Speaker 1: freedom is having enough money, right, So, like there's economic
Speaker 1: and clearly you can without economic liberty, like you you
Speaker 1: if you can afford to eat and grow and take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, then I don't I don't know how
Speaker 1: freedom is particularly possible. That's why freedom and economic justice
Speaker 1: have to be linked. Um, but you need to kind
Speaker 1: of freedom in your soul, right are free from bondage
Speaker 1: kind of stuff where when you lay at night, you
Speaker 1: feel peaceful, right like, So our work goes around this
Speaker 1: principle of my aunt. And in my aunts it says like,
Speaker 1: at the end of the nights, your soul feel as
Speaker 1: light as a feather, and you have these forty two
Speaker 1: principles that you recite in the morning, right and these
Speaker 1: principles says, it's a pledge. I affirmed that I will
Speaker 1: not lie. I affirmed that I will not engage in
Speaker 1: things that harm my community. I affirmed that I will
Speaker 1: do these things. So you you make this kind of
Speaker 1: promise each day, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you then said to say, I did not lie, I
Speaker 1: did not harm, I did not do these things. So
Speaker 1: in that respect, your spirit is then filled with levity
Speaker 1: and it is as a feather. So I think if
Speaker 1: individuals make a pledge in the morning to live a
Speaker 1: life of freedom. So I think, if you do those
Speaker 1: things and then you feel really free to the idea
Speaker 1: that's in my head, which is like, then you passed
Speaker 1: that on you, You raise your children that way, your
Speaker 1: communities that way, and then children grow into that, and
Speaker 1: then we can have aspirations for their life beyond this
Speaker 1: moment and for them to be free. But I think
Speaker 1: freedom should be really at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's like, the investment in their freedom is the investment
Speaker 1: in your own freedom. If you're not fully invested and
Speaker 1: engaged in that, then you're not doing this future work.
Speaker 1: You are not doing this future work. And for us,
Speaker 1: for for black mothers, this is not the discussion. Come
Speaker 1: on now, This is not the discussion anyone was having
Speaker 1: with us prior to having any dead on children. No,
Speaker 1: this is not nobody's talking. So this book, I say
Speaker 1: any thing, which I know is going to be irritating,
Speaker 1: but it's very important. Is precisely that light. Yeah, I say,
Speaker 1: you cannot have joyful change making girls if you don't
Speaker 1: have joyful change making parents, particularly joyful change making mamas,
Speaker 1: You're not. It's just not gonna happen. It's not like
Speaker 1: the do as I say, not as I do, that
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work out. It ain't gonna work. So if
Speaker 1: you want whatever you want for your children, you should
Speaker 1: be it. Come on book so you can model them.
Speaker 1: One more time, is that whatever you want for your children,
Speaker 1: you need to be it so that they can see
Speaker 1: the model of what is possible. And that is very
Speaker 1: different from the way many of us were raised. And
Speaker 1: can I say this one little thing is that whatever
Speaker 1: you want to be, also you need to sort out
Speaker 1: what you want to be, what you want your children
Speaker 1: to be, because whatever it is you have to be you,
Speaker 1: you have to be that first. But make sure what
Speaker 1: you're trying to be you just sort of that out.
Speaker 1: It is okay because some of us be trying to
Speaker 1: be some ship. We don't need to be trying to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just gonna put that out there. Okay,
Speaker 1: somebody's sort it out. Take the slow man. Whoa. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you right now that that it feels like you
Speaker 1: just dropped a weight on my head and shoulders. That
Speaker 1: is both terrifying and exciting when somebody offers you freedom,
Speaker 1: when somebody offers you freedom on the platter here it is.
Speaker 1: That's how you get it. Gavin An, your kids gave
Speaker 1: it to that. Yo. I I gotta hold myself. I
Speaker 1: got to hold my monel goodness, it seems to reason
Speaker 1: out that accountability accountability it is. It's your it's your story,
Speaker 1: your children are in it. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: the way that we've done parenting is to say that
Speaker 1: the kids are the star of the story, then the protagonist,
Speaker 1: and you are somehow an extra in the story. Right.
Speaker 1: So we said, I gotta pour everything into my kid.
Speaker 1: I just gotta, I gotta pour it into I'm doing
Speaker 1: it for my kid, and I'm like, you anna have
Speaker 1: to be a leading main character in the story. And
Speaker 1: that I think is hard because then you get to
Speaker 1: like be like the reason I'm working so late, the
Speaker 1: reason I'm doing all of this, the reason I'm not exercise,
Speaker 1: and the reason I'm not sleeping, it's because i have
Speaker 1: to do this for my kids, right, And so you
Speaker 1: get to under prioritize yourself and you get to feel
Speaker 1: pious and great because you did it all for your kids.
Speaker 1: And then those same children don't want any of the
Speaker 1: things that you have done because they barely saw it going.
Speaker 1: They always saw the bed walking out the door, and
Speaker 1: you didn't. You didn't sell the seat you planted. So
Speaker 1: in the book, I have a chapter, the shortest chapter,
Speaker 1: they're devoted to this thing called ACE adverse Childhood Experiences,
Speaker 1: and I say, you need to know your aces, right,
Speaker 1: you need to know where you experience some level of trauma.
Speaker 1: And I give an exercise so each chapter has assignments
Speaker 1: and exercises, so you like them, you can go to them.
Speaker 1: You don't like that one, you can try another one. Right,
Speaker 1: So every single chapter has it, and it teaches you
Speaker 1: how to go through your aces. Know your aces, have
Speaker 1: an understanding of your aces, and once you've attended to them,
Speaker 1: then you're in a position to really find joy for yourself.
Speaker 1: Right And you can't aspire for people. Even your children
Speaker 1: are people, right Like, once they leave you, they they
Speaker 1: own people. You can't aspire for people what you have
Speaker 1: not achieved for yourself. It is one of the things
Speaker 1: I say all the time about teachers, right Like, I
Speaker 1: tell teachers all the time. I was like, you can't
Speaker 1: inspire great messy were great, right Like, once you work
Speaker 1: on your greatness that you can inspire greatness. And right like,
Speaker 1: I need you to invest in your development. And I
Speaker 1: think institutions have to invest in teachers because they're trying
Speaker 1: to educate the next generation. So like, if you don't
Speaker 1: invest in teachers, then you're not gonna get greatness out
Speaker 1: of your children. So I'm like, ma'am, sir, you ain't
Speaker 1: great though, you're not imaginative for interest in So it's
Speaker 1: all right, right, So I think it's the same thing
Speaker 1: for caregivers. Caregivers want their children to be great. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, how are you great? I gotta ask you
Speaker 1: to We're talking about a lot of self work, and
Speaker 1: some people don't necessarily see that this kind of work
Speaker 1: is tied into let's say public life. And I really
Speaker 1: want you to help us in this moment to tie
Speaker 1: what it seems like a very personal investment into what
Speaker 1: that looks like and let's say public health and law,
Speaker 1: politics and all these kinds of things. So how how
Speaker 1: do we go out into the world and present this systemically?
Speaker 1: All right? So I make an argument that joyfulness is
Speaker 1: intricately linked to change making, all right, all right? So right,
Speaker 1: so alright, so work that's sober it is the work
Speaker 1: of gratitude, Like this is the work of gratitude. You're
Speaker 1: groups before, right, Grateful people are reciprocal people given people,
Speaker 1: because when you're grateful, you share, you have an abundance. Right.
Speaker 1: Change making is about reciprocity. It is about caring for
Speaker 1: and being connected to your community. So when you're given,
Speaker 1: you are not given in a way that says but not,
Speaker 1: I gotta help y'all because y'all suck. You're given in
Speaker 1: an abundance framework, and therefore you can think beyond on
Speaker 1: this moment to think about how we can give to
Speaker 1: change structures. So let me walk you through just a
Speaker 1: little bit from a different angle. If you are joyful,
Speaker 1: if you have this internal optimism and gratitude and this
Speaker 1: feeling of reciprocity inside of you, you are also thinking
Speaker 1: about future generations to ensure that they also have it.
Speaker 1: So that is going to allow you to take stock
Speaker 1: of the inequities that are present. So you're gonna take
Speaker 1: stock of racism, sexism, homophobia, agism, able ism, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna say that these things will interrupt people's ability to
Speaker 1: feel gratitude and reciprocal And because you feel this way,
Speaker 1: this goodness, this internal goodness, you're going to want to
Speaker 1: be in relationship with other people who feel that community
Speaker 1: and connectedness. For change to occur, it requires that we
Speaker 1: are even more connected two people. So joyful people are connected,
Speaker 1: people who have gratitudes and notion of reciprocity, who are
Speaker 1: thinking about ways to make the world and themselves better
Speaker 1: for the future. So by their very nature, they're committed
Speaker 1: to change making, which is what we call social activism, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But you cannot do that and have the optimism to
Speaker 1: keep doing it each day, to stand on the hill,
Speaker 1: to register people to vote, to change systems, to feed people,
Speaker 1: to fight racism, to rewrite, to sing songs that says
Speaker 1: that people matter, to love on each other, to hold
Speaker 1: each other's hand, if you don't have that joy, So
Speaker 1: that's that comes out that to anybody else here and
Speaker 1: explosion I did, and Teddy Penderbras I did. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I suggest that you wholeheartedly go back and listen to
Speaker 1: this particular conversation again and again and again and again.
Speaker 1: That's because I certainly will. I certainly will. There are
Speaker 1: times when we get together and we have these conversations
Speaker 1: and we're all just going going back and forth and
Speaker 1: throwing out ideas and thoughts and feelings. This is one
Speaker 1: where I just had to shut the fuck up and listen.
Speaker 1: And that is an art of communication and art of conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us, Thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing your insights. Dr Janice Johnson, Diez God God, Whoamica? Jamkeup?
Speaker 1: How do you eat an elephant? One by side? What's up? Y'all. It'
Speaker 1: Steves again a producer on the show, and I am
Speaker 1: here to bring you the resources as usual, and today
Speaker 1: I'll give another shout out to Dr Janice Johnson Dias
Speaker 1: this book which is fresh off the press. It's called
Speaker 1: Parents Like It Matters how to raise joyful, change making girls.
Speaker 1: And even if you don't have daughters or are not
Speaker 1: a parent, it can be a good tool to have
Speaker 1: in the tool shed if you are invested in self
Speaker 1: development and soul work, as Dr Johnson Dias puts it.
Speaker 1: And of course we can take the time to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that our mothers our whole human beings. All right, y'all.
Speaker 1: Until next time, we want to thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to us today. It has been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Jay dot Ill Yeah, yeah, the laugh of just silly.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents j dot
Speaker 1: Il the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott,
Speaker 1: Layah st Clair and Agent Graden Danceler. It's executive producers
Speaker 1: are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun. It's produced
Speaker 1: by La st Clair and Medves. Jeff Coke. The editing
Speaker 1: and sound design for this episode We're Done by Christina Larenger.
Speaker 1: J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.