i am, regardless of my opinion, feeling, or desire, a woman. i have a womb. and this comes up in conversation sometimes, with people from every angle. guys wanna know if i have any children. my friends and some relatives (i do not call them family) want to know when i'll settle down and have a baby. i used to resent this line of questioning for several reasons. today, in an attempt to honor the insight i gained during my 3 day consecration, i will expose the reasoning, espouse its validity or absurdity and tell you about why this is relevant to being snookered. follow me.
in the african american community, women often do not feel a sense of joy at the coming of a girl child. i think this topic is a bit more relevant since one of my best friends had a baby girl yesterday, and a few days earlier another bff's sister had a baby girl. so we've been welcoming new women to the world this week. but in some circles, little girls are not welcome. they are undesired because the girl can often symbolize or signify insecurities that the mother has about herself or her idea of the female archetype. little girls represent the beginning of a new life that can give life to a nation, and that causes problems in homes where there is an alpha female, which is every house. in my house, as an alpha female in training, i experienced the things that i'm about to now discuss, and this is not an attempt to spew feminist theory, this is an opportunity to bring light to a very dismal situation.
The curse of being a little black girl
the initial point i want to make about having little girls is that we talk to ourselves with such disdain and disgust that when we see another wombman, young or old, we cannot help but to be critical, vindictive, or malicious. think i'm wrong? ever seen a woman with a lot of self confidence walk into a room? ever see the looks on the faces of the other women in the room who do not possess the same level of confidence? if that woman walks in, head up, back straight, aura on bright, smiling and willing to be sociable she attracts attention from people because she's sending off vibrations that let the room know she is in the building. we will break her ass down won't we? come up with whatever little nit picky thing we can to somehow tarnish her image, if only in our own minds, so we feel better. and don't catch your man lookin at her... then it's a real problem. but why? because you don't feel good about you? he's with you? get your weight up! (or down, be real)
think now about how we talk to our girl children. critical, mean, insulting. it's almost as if we've forgotten being a little girl and having those things said to us. we've forgotten what they felt like, the stinging, painful words that are the product of a pathology of pain going back to slave row where the brown woman was raped to make cafe au lait babies who had different hair and were then treated better. that lesson burned deep into the generational psyches of black people in america like the need for swine and greens. but here we go. calling them lil nappy headed gals. lil sluts. fast ass split tails. calling them heifers. my gramma used to call me heifer, slut, bitch, whatever. one day, my piano teacher was over (and she swore i was trying to do him, i was 10 or 11 and still had no idea how sex even happened) and i called someone on television a slut. he asked me if i knew what it meant, i said, "no, but that's what my gramma calls me" i wish i could have taken a picture of his face. i remember that vividly. he looked confused. which let me know that what was going on was wrong. this is where it begins. when you, as a wombman, insult, demean and place negative energy on the head of a child, male or female, you are causing a shift in that child's psyche that you cannot repair. as the facilitator of birthdays, you cannot allow yourself the room to speak to a child like you would speak to a grown woman. if you don't want your daughter to be a whore, then don't be a whore. and don't call her a whore if you feel she has those tendencies. talk to her about it. let her know how you feel about it. talk TO her, not AT her and most importantly not ABOUT her. teach.
teach your child to be a lady. to be a strong woman. and that's the problem. we've lost the paradigm of the strong black woman to her ignorant cousin, the strong black surviving female. the daily grind of trying to feed, clothe, house, educate, endoctrinate and maintain a life has cast a shadow on motherhood for many women. i could go into how the black man and blah blah blah. read the willie lynch letter and we'll talk. my gramma was retired. she had time to be at home in my business all the time. to my detriment. she didn't teach me about being a woman per se. certain aspects of my wombmanhood are so foreign to me at 29, i'd rather just skip them. like dating, being open to a relationship, the concept of marriage or motherhood. i will tell anyone i don't want children, or to be married but that wasn't always true. we'll go into that later. but we must teach our girls to respect themselves, each other and their womb. it's sacred. it's special.
little girls turn into little wombmen when their pituitary gland goes off and says to the body "okay, let's go". i know it's more complicated than that, but this is my blog. one day we're happy and pretty and playing and the next we're cramping, and irritable and bloated and bleeding. and we've all been told that this is the curse. it is a curse. for little black girls, this is the time when we go from being the apple of the eye, to the lil fast tailed heffa that lives in my house. it has to happen. we know that because we went through it. what i don't understand is why do we not make this a bigger deal? i remember watching the cosby show, when rudy got her period, and thinking, when i have kids (cause at that time i wanted 5 kids) and my daughter has her period, that's what i'm going to do. make it special. it's a rite of passage. from girlhood into the beginnings of wombanhood. and we act like these children are now supposed to know how to be an adult because their hormones and bodies change... how? my gramma went from being mean to being a complete asshole when i got my period. now mind you, i was 8 when my dad died, and i think the stress and trauma from losing him made my cycle come a bit earlier than it probably should have. it came on approximately a year after he died. and i remember feeling bad and telling her what was going on and she basically told me to go outside and stop lying. now, this is in the middle of the summer and it's hot and nobody was outside but me and i'm kinda scared cause i don't know what in blazes in going on with me and she's telling me to go outside and stop lying. not the fanfare i expected. she put me on hold until she could figure out what to do with me. and it was and has been hell ever since.
we push our daughters into situations and experiences that we don't want them to be in or have because of how we treat them. want a whorish child? call her a whore daily, exhibit whorish behavior and laud it, make her feel bad about who she is in any way. and there it is. i know i know, it's not that simple. but what if it is? what if the reason our daughters are having so much trouble in this world is because we haven't prepared them, haven't loved them, and haven't set the right example for them? you mean as a parent there's more of a responsibility than the physical? the financial? the political? you mean there's more. i guess. i'm not a parent. but as a person who is holding out hope.... yeah.
"I'M NOT HAVING CHILDREN OR GETTING MARRIED" became my mantra in high school. probably because several of my friends both at my school and those i knew in other cities and states were having kids. and some of my female cousins had kids as well. not good. because then i had to undergo the scrutiny of having my underwear checked at all times, having to turn in my calendar every month with my period marked out, and having other things done to me to "check me out" and make sure i wouldn't have to be fixed (refer to the pic above). i decided that since my childhood and life had been so fucked up i wasn't going to risk fucking up someone else's life, and so. no kids for me. and it didn't help that i felt (and still feel to some extent) that i probably won't be able to find anyone who will love me enough to marry me. remember when i told y'all about causing a shift in your child's psyche? in my mind, i'm like 15 years old. sometimes 13. i know i'm 29, and i know i'm adult, but i don't often see myself as an adult because i was never treated like an adult. or a human being. i was treated like an obligation. and that's how i feel in most of my adult relationships. when i actually have been in a relationship, i have always cut it off before it got to serious. i probably could have been married by now, but i decided to put my other pursuits before marriage and motherhood as a defense mechanism. the scrutiny has been so great that if i do decide to get married, it'll probably be a very small ceremony where i'd have to fly the people in you can't just show up to the reception. same with kids. some people won't know i have any until they're like 3. whatever.
HERE COME THE BULLETS!!!!!
- we treat them like we don't want them, even tell them so and then get offended when they get pregnant at 14 and have an abortion. well....
- they go off and have sex and now you're ashamed because she's being labeled in the streets... did you tell her how special her virginity was? did you tell her she needed to love and respect herself and she didn't have to look for that kind of attention?
- we kill more babies than spermicide but we won't talk to our kids about sex? stop acting like it's not happening. TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER!
- we don't stay in positive healthy lasting relationships... nuff said
- we sit by and turn a blind eye to sexual abuse and then are embarrassed when little Tiffany comes home butched out and wants to be called Big T. really?
the truth is, i think i'd be an excellent mother. because i believe down deep in my spirit that my greatest legacy will be my children. the fruit that i bear. my niece, and all little girls whose lives i will have any connection to will be treated, at least by me, like princesses, if for no other reason that it takes a whole village to make a woman.
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