My Brown Baby: On the Joys and Challenges of Raising African American Children
288
My Brown Baby: On the Joys and Challenges of Raising African American Children
288Paperback
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Overview
For over a decade, national parenting expert and bestselling author Denene Millner has published thought-provoking, insightful, and wickedly funny commentary about motherhood on her critically acclaimed website, MyBrownBaby.com. The site, hailed a “must-read” by The New York Times, speaks to the experiences, joys, fears, and triumphs of African American motherhood.
After publishing almost 2,000 posts aimed at lifting the voices of parents of color, Millner has now curated a collection of the website’s most important and insightful essays offering perspectives on issues from birthing while Black to negotiating discipline to preparing children for racism.
Full of essays that readers of all backgrounds will find provocative, My Brown Baby acknowledges that there absolutely are issues that Black parents must deal with that white parents never have to confront if they’re not raising brown children. This book chronicles these differences with open arms, a lot of love, and the deep belief that though we may come from separate places and have different backgrounds, all parents want the same things for our families—and especially for our children.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781534476486 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Denene Millner Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers |
| Publication date: | 05/05/2020 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.70(d) |
| Lexile: | 1240L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1: My Escort into Motherhood
I WAS A YOUNG REPORTER WHEN I MET HER—full of energy, I had a flat stomach, still 120 pounds soaking wet, still eating popcorn and rainbow sherbet for dinner. Despite having awesome health insurance, I’d gone years without seeing a doctor of any kind. When you’re in your 20s, lying on a table with your legs up in the air while a total stranger peers at and feels all over your goodies is never at the top of your list of things to do.
But she insisted I come see her. A woman, she said, needs to keep track of her health—no matter how uncomfortable, no matter how busy, no matter how fearful, no matter what. And so I called her office and made an appointment and not even two weeks later, I was on Dr. Hilda Hutcherson’s table, having my lady parts examined.
I’d submitted to nurse practitioners at local clinics when I was a college student; how else to get low-cost birth control without involving your parents? But Hilda was my first real gynecologist. Work brought her to me and me to her; as a young features writer for the New York Daily News, I was searching for a story to whip up for Mother’s Day, and her book, Having Your Baby: For the Special Needs of Black Mothers-To-Be, from Conception to Newborn Care, just happened to be floating around the newsroom; it just made sense for me to write a piece about the joys and challenges of black mothers. Mind you, I didn’t have any babies of my own—wasn’t even thinking about being a mother anytime soon. But even then, back in 1997, a full two years before I would have a baby of my own, giving a voice to and telling the stories of African American mothers was important to me. Necessary. Witness what Hilda told me when, for a Daily News Mother’s Day story I penned about her back in the mid-1990s, I asked her how she balanced a thriving Upper East Side practice, writing books, and a husband and four kids. Here’s how she answered:
It’s a tradition of mothering that goes back hundreds of years,” Hutcherson offers simply. “I think that black women have always been valiant for their ability to do multiple things at the same time. They mother their children and take care of other people’s children, sometimes breast-feeding your baby and their babies, too... take care of the household, raise children, be a wife, work hard for little recognition and pay, and do it all well on limited means.
I think that was very hard for my mother, her mother and other African American women but somehow they managed. I was always taught that I could, too.
Sure, some could argue that the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. made it so that, today, there’s really no difference between, say, an African American mother with a career and a white counterpart with all the same responsibilities. But that counterpart probably wouldn’t have thought about it for longer than two minutes.
Most African American women will tell you there’s an added struggle with being a black mother—an extra pile of junk in the trunk. There are the stereotypes (all black mothers are single and on welfare), the hardships (pay rates, though better today, are still among the lowest for black women) and the racism (people treat her differently or badly because she’s black).
It is our story. Our truth. Hilda’s too. Still, Hilda soldiered on, and managed well. Since then, she’s become a leading authority on women and sexuality, having written three books geared toward helping us be smarter about and get more pleasure from sex; worked as a sexual health columnist at Essence and Glamour magazines and served as an expert on the Today show and in O, The Oprah Magazine; served as a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology and as the associate dean of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons; and, through it all, ushered four babies through childhood.
While Hilda’s fancy titles, Oprah connections, and sexual empowerment talks are impressive, none of them can compare to why I love her. It was she, after all, who, along with my husband, was present on one of the most important days of my life—she whose hands guided my first baby into the land of the living.
The crazy part is that she wasn’t even supposed to be in my delivery room. Hilda was on vacation when her colleague, worried that my baby would be too big to push through my teeny birth canal, called me in to the hospital to be induced. Of course, it was a tad heartbreaking that Hilda wouldn’t be in the delivery room with me, but I’d met all except one of the partners in her practice, and all of them were awesome so I wasn’t too worried... until the one doctor who’d never met me showed up to my labor room to introduce herself. She was disconnected; I was unimpressed. But when my water broke and those contractions kicked in, I didn’t give a damn who was wearing the catcher’s mitt—I just wanted the baby O.U.T.
Still, when the nurse announced I’d dilated enough to push, like a fairytale princess riding in on the prettiest white stallion, Hilda waltzed into my labor and delivery room. You can’t tell me there wasn’t a soft white light shining down on her head as she made her way over to the bed, the most beautiful, relaxed smile on her face.
It was just after 2 a.m.
And with the assistance of a nurse whose name I didn’t think to get, Hilda used her calm, soothing voice and her steady hands and her mighty powers to coax my Mari, my firstborn, the love of my life, out of my womb and, within 20 minutes of pushing, into my arms.
She may not recognize, remember, or think that what she did for me that night was all that special; goodness only knows how many babies Hilda Hutcherson delivered in her years as a well-respected, top ob-gyn in one of the busiest cities in the world. But I will never, ever forget Hilda—the kindness she showed me, the kindness she showed my body, the kindness she demanded I give myself by taking care of my health. And for sure, I’ll never forget that she left her vacation and drove three hours in the middle of the night to help me receive the most precious Mother’s Day gift this mom could ever receive: flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood—my beautiful baby girl.
Hilda stopped delivering babies shortly after Mari was born. I am so very grateful that she squeezed one more in before she changed her focus and took herself out of the delivery room.
For my baby’s prenatal care, for my baby’s safe passage into this world, Hilda, I simply say, God bless you.
—MAY 2011
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Birthing While Black: The Journey to Motherhood
Chapter 1 My Escort into Motherhood 6
Chapter 2 Birthing While Black 10
Chapter 3 Birthing Babies in Jim Crow South 14
Chapter 4 Going It Alone 16
Chapter 5 My Super Weird Pregnancy Craving 18
Chapter 6 The Baby Who Never Was 19
Chapter 7 Adoption and "The Blood": Embracing the True Meaning of Love, Family, and the Ties That Bind 22
New Motherhood
Chapter 8 Nipples and Ninny 26
Chapter 9 Cry It Out: The Method That Kills Baby Brain Cells 29
Chapter 10 Photos of Celebrity Post-Baby Bodies Suck for Making Us Feel Craptastic about Our Baby Weight 32
Chapter 11 Remembering the Newborn-In-Public Jitters 36
Chapter 12 Advice for Dealing with Baby No. 2, from a Mom Who's Been There 39
Chapter 13 Black & Proud: Tending to the Self-Esteem of Black Children 42
Chapter 14 For Black Children Who Color Outside the Lines 45
Chapter 15 The Attack against Black Girl Beauty 50
Chapter 16 The Sun Will Surely Make You Black 55
Chapter 17 The Part Where My Daughter Starts Hating Her Bootylicious Butt 59
Chapter 18 How I Help My Daughter Embrace Her Beauty 63
Chapter 19 Raising 14-Year-Olds Ain't for Punks 67
Raising Them Up: The Nuts and Bolts of Parenting Black Children
Chapter 20 Baby Ear Piercing: Maybe It's Just a Cultural Thing-or a Mom's Prerogative 72
Chapter 21 Young, Gifted, and Black 75
Chapter 22 The Most Important Advocate 78
Chapter 23 Indulging My Daughters' Passions 82
Chapter 24 Easing Mommy Guilt: 20 Quick Ways to Connect with Your Baby When Time Is Short 86
Chapter 25 School Dress Codes Unfairly Target Black Girls & I'm Tired of It 89
Chapter 26 On Free Range Parenting and Letting Kids Run Amok 93
Chapter 27 Hanging Up The Belt: Finding My Way to the Time-Outs 97
Chapter 28 Hello. My Name Is Denene Millner and I'm a Screamer. 100
Chapter 29 Hitting Kids Is Dead Wrong 102
Beyond The Lights: Loosening Pop Culture's Hold on Black Children
Chapter 30 Damn That Lil Wayne 106
Chapter 31 Don't You Wish Your Daughter Was Hot like Tyra? 109
Chapter 32 We're Too Bougie for BET 112
Chapter 33 Fear of a Black Booty 116
Chapter 34 Confession: I Let My Kids Watch Reality TV 120
Hair Stories: The Joys, Pains, and Politics of Black Children's Kinky Curls
Chapter 35 Kinky, Curly, Lovely Black Girl Hair 126
Chapter 36 Lessons on Touching, Rocking, and Loving Kinks & Curls 130
Chapter 37 Natural Hair Wars 134
Chapter 38 A Teen Struggles to Rock Her Locs Proudly, Courageously 137
Chapter 39 Who Needs White Celebrities to Say Locs Are Beautiful When WE Can? 141
The Souls of Black Folk: Parenting Beyond Stereotypes
Chapter 40 The Tiger Mom Effect 146
Chapter 41 The Duality of African American Life 151
Chapter 42 200 Words on Racism, Black Families, and Our Inalienable Right to Just … Be 154
Chapter 43 Just Say NO to the Stereotyping of African American Parents and Other Moms and Dads of Color 155
Chapter 44 Evil Black Men 160
Chapter 45 The Truth about Black Fathers 164
Chapter 46 The Complexity of Us 167
Chapter 47 Why White Parents Should Teach Their Children about Race 171
They'll Wear the Armor: Black Children and Racism
Chapter 48 Guarding My Babies from the "N" Word 178
Chapter 49 Fighting Words: On the "N" Word & My Children's Response to It 181
Chapter 50 Black Boy Swagger, Black Mom Fear 185
Chapter 51 Racist Seine Mocking Black Child Makes Me Remember Why I Never Hired White Sitters 188
Chapter 52 Black Children and "White People Sports" 192
Chapter 53 Racist College Culture & Black Student Survival at University 195
The Martyrs: On Black Children, Race, and Lives That Mattered
Chapter 54 The George Zimmerman Verdict Is Deeply Inhumane. This Is Why We Need to Keep Fighting 202
Chapter 55 ENOUGH. (Don't Let Aiyana Jones Die in Vain.) 205
Chapter 56 No Safe Place for Black Children 208
Chapter 57 Five Valuable Lessons for What Kids Should Do in Volatile Encounters with Strangers and Cops 212
Chapter 58 Seriously, Can We Stop Calling Cops on Little Black Kids Already? 217
My Brown Baby Matters: The Politics Of Raising Black Children
Chapter 59 Newt Gingrich to Poor Black Mothers and Children: Pick Up a Broom, Lazy Asses 222
Chapter 60 Dear Michele Bachmann: Shut Up about Black Moms and Breastfeeding 224
Chapter 61 Wisconsin Senator Thinks Single Parenthood Is Child Abuse-and Proposes Bill to Make It So 229
Chapter 62 Teen Girls Can Suck It 232
Chapter 63 Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's New (Pregnant) CEO, Isn't Special 234
Chapter 64 The Fake Mommy Wars 236
Mother Love
Chapter 65 I'll Always Love My Mama 242
Chapter 66 The Women Who Helped Raise Me & the BFFs Who Show My Girlpies How to Be 246
Chapter 67 A Love Letter to the Woman Who Gave Me Away 249
Chapter 68 Telling the Truth about Balancing Work & Motherhood 252
Chapter 69 My Biggest Competition Is THIS Woman. Who's Yours? 256
Chapter 70 The Working Mom's Survival Kit: 15 Ways to Make Life More Manageable 258
Chapter 71 That Mommy Smell 263
Chapter 72 How Mommy Got Her Groove Back 266
Chapter 73 There's No Place like Home 268