We are Aaliyah.

Sorry ya'll but please do not listen to our girl Jada this time around! I  am not watching this docu series and I damned sure am not doing so with my children! It will be triggering AS FUCK for me and I would rather spend our time together differently. They know my story as a survivor of incest and they are well aware that sexual violence exists. They have been raised to respect others’ humanity. As children of a sexual abuse survivor (who also is a Black woman), they also have experienced me parenting out of fear for their safety. My daughter has bore the brunt of my worry but my sons have also been taught about consent and boundaries from the very beginning. They have hugged me during PTSD induced break downs. They have witnessed the flashbacks. They have seen my tears fall decades after my abuse. They know I am in therapy and see first hand the damage sexual violence causes someone. They tell me which movies with rape scenes to avoid. I don’t/can’t hide my pain. 

We can also teach our children by being vulnerable and honest about our experiences with dating and sex. Like Aaliyah, I also was preyed upon by older guys when I was a teen. Anyone who knows me from Providence knows that I slept with an “older guy” (read: a man!) as a  teenager. My childhood friends will remember when I was 14, a popular local DJ asked me for my number at a skating rink. I was flattered and we had consensual sex. But I was 14. He was 21. When I used to visit him he’d say “If my mother asks, say you’re 18”. Even though I consented to see him, he knew what he was doing as an adult was wrong. He was highly skilled at picking up his next PYT from the DJ booth. It took me years to realize that relationship was inappropriate and illegal. I'm still working on getting the piercing of slut and hoe out of my ears and psyche. I wonder what derogatory names his boys and his community called him. We don't need to turn the TV on. We are Aaliyah. And sadly, we are R Kelly. 

Still, you should not feel pressured to talk to your kids about shit that you are still healing from. Put your oxygen mask on first. I told my kids after years of me healing and processing my shit. Also, if you have not received the support and validation you need as a survivor, then I am not sure processing this disturbing content with your children will be helpful for anyone. If you are still growing in your  understanding or own complicity of rape culture then pace yourself. Read deeply and listen hard with an open mind and heart. If you have harmed someone sexually then your humanity is not intact. Seek help-we need you to evolve. Hear us! See us! Value us! Undo what you have been taught directly or indirectly about dominance, power, violence, sexuality, and masculinity. Shift and grow so that you do not deliver the wrong messages to children and teens or worse--harm them. You want to break the cycle we all have been taught about “fast girls”, “boys being boys” and "trans people who 'tricked you'".

When, how and where do healthy discussions start? They are every day and ongoing. We can start by talking about sex, sexism, and bodily autonomy when children are young. We can respect their choices to not kiss and hug people they don’t want to. We can use the proper names for all body parts. We can create a safe and nonjudgmental environment to talk about intimacy, sex and healthy sexuality. WE CAN LEARN & TEACH CONSENT and DESIRE. We can respect and believe girls and help them grow into their power. We can hold our boys/sons/brothers/fathers/uncles/grandfathers/pastors/priests/coaches/idols accountable and help them to grow into their humanity. 

Fuck R Kelly and the R Kelly apologists but they are not where the work of being humane begins or ends. 

Rest in Power, Aaliyah. I see you. 

Son Shining

On June 3, 2018 I was all smiles as he walked across the stage but the next day I woke up back in my feelings about my sonflower graduating from high school and heading to college. We moved to our community 6 years ago and he began his time here as the middle child entering the 7th grade, the middle of middle school. He was a free spirit back then—mohawk and skate boarder. Marching to the beat of his own drum. He signed up for club soccer and realized quickly that our laid back nature about team sports and life was not valued in the culture of our new over structured and intensified suburban reality. He dropped skate boarding and double downed on soccer. He cut his mohawk he had worn for 7 years. He navigated the sea of other middle schoolers and the ocean of high schoolers over the past 6 years. He also has maintained an honor roll GPA despite the constant life stress and family transitions. In his senior year, he decided that he did not want to play club soccer any more. It was like he woke up and remembered he was enough and he had had enough of the team sports hamster wheel. He decided to play soccer and live life for the joy.      

He began spending time playing basketball, working out and hanging out with friends whom we never met. At times, I did not know how to parent him. He was fiercely independent and private and I, a social worker and self professed super mama, just wanted him to "share his feelings". He chose not to go to homecoming or the prom. I learned new notions of a "normal" high school experience. He applied to college without my help. He was accepted in 7 of the 8 colleges he applied to but only 2 of the 8 accepted him into the Civil Engineering & Architecture programs that he applied to. I stewed as I thought about the structural ways Higher Ed pushes black and brown folks out of STEM, knowing he was a strong student. He decided that he would major in communications not Civil Engineering or Architecture, though as a Lego kid he had spent his childhood building and drawing new worlds. I wanted to advocate and fight the systems that stood in his way but to be honest, I felt powerless. I held my tongue and my heart.

 I also didn’t quite get his sharp pivot since he had already taken 3 courses in Engineering but I was learning that supporting and loving him meant following his lead not understanding him. Still I was haunted by all that I imagined he was navigating. He reminded me often to stop constructing his journey as a victim narrative and to trust him when he said that he was good. He soon announced that he and his 2 best friends, whom I met on graduation day, had decided to go college together and would be room mates. And days after dropping him off at college he announces that he is joining a fraternity that is not one I am familiar with from the black experience. Initially I felt like I had failed to help him appreciate our family’s traditions and valuation of black organizations and institutions. But I forgot that what I also value is bodily autonomy and freedom of expression. I forgot that I raised my child to blaze his own trail and to live beyond the boundaries of what the world, including our family’s world, defined for him. I raised him to chart his own course--and so he is. 

I have loved him deeply as I had hoped to be loved by my parents. Which at times, I admit, may have even been smothering. Parenting is hard. Parenting as a black mother of a black son is harder. Parenting as a survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse further complicates it all. I generally parent out of worry, fear, anxiety and then somewhere down the line, I remember to just breathe and let them blossom. It does not come naturally to me. Letting go, loosening my grip, is healing. Tightening it risks producing intergenerational harm. I am learning and he is teaching. 

I dropped my son off at college 9 days ago. I have felt every emotion I own since I dropped him off but the 3 most prominent are love, awe, and pride. He is a beautiful and brilliant human and I am so grateful the world gets to experience him. Keep shining brightly, sonshine!

                                                                     Love, Mom!