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Celebrating & Centering Black, Indigenous and Brown parenthood since 2015

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The Color of My Skin

by Lynne Connor

April 24, 2021 We’re almost home, on the border of Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn, coming back from a morning trip to Target. The weather is a perfect, sunny spring Saturday, warm enough to wear t-shirts. The cloth masks that I sewed from their favorite baby onesies are on. Because it’s still the Pandemic. Covid vaccines are rolling out and this feels hopeful. Emmy,...

June 24, 2022
Essays Front Page

Mama's Writing, curated by Deesha Philyaw

January 3, 2023

Lori Tharps | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. Are there days when you feel like a...

by Deesha Philyaw
December 1, 2022

Akilah Richards | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. Nurturing a healthy relationship with my children requires...

by Deesha Philyaw
November 3, 2022

Issa Mas | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. What three words describe you as a mother? ...

by Deesha Philyaw
October 5, 2022

Aliya King Neil | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. What are three words your kids would use...

by Deesha Philyaw
September 6, 2022

Susan Ito | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. What surprised you about motherhood? What a lifelong...

by Deesha Philyaw
August 8, 2022

Kelly Jo Ford | Mama’s Writing

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. Who are your writer-mama heroes? My grandmother JoJo...

by Deesha Philyaw

Conversations

Neurodivergent People & Self Directed Learning: Rewiring Generational Curses

by Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Contessa Cooper

Dr. Kimberly Douglass and Contessa Cooper came together to host our first ever video conversation to discuss how self directed learning can help rewire generational curses that we all live and parent under, but particularly for neurodivergent parent and child dynamics. Please enjoy the conversation. Transcripts provided below.  Kimberly Douglass: Hello, I’m Dr. Kimberly Douglass and today I am with my colleague Contessa Cooper and we are bringing you “Neurodivergent People and Self-Directed Learning: Rewiring Generational Curses.” So, neurodivergent people and self-directed learning: rewiring generational curses—that is a mouthful.  I am Dr. Kimberly Douglass, and I am a coach to neurodivergent adults and I work with people one-on-one in group settings and also work with individuals who work with neurodivergent people and helping them be better advocates for what we need as neurodivergent people. You can reach me if you want to talk with me and I encourage you to reach out to me Dr. Kimberly Douglass on TikTok and it’s Douglass with two s’s. You can click the link in my bio and...

February 8, 2022
Conversations Front Page

We are the house: a virtual residency

Taking Notes from Nature

by Kya Mara

Today is my birthday. As I sit by the shores of Lac du Moulin in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec, and consider hiking to Lac Seigneurial, I stare out at hundreds of Canadian geese making a nasal, one-syllable honk almost in unison. Some of the geese are in one place while others swim gracefully. Further on is a devoted couple of swans. They are engrossed in themselves...

March 1, 2023
WATH

Essays

Fashioned to Survive

by Starr Davis

When a Black woman gets her hair done, it is both ritual and risk. It will require you to sit in a salon chair for hours, or under a dryer. It requires you to be temporarily forgotten with a wet head in a sink, in a chair, in the kitchen. The stylist I trust the most should be dangerous. Her hands, like my mother’s. Hands that have held heads at the nape of necks into sinks, tugged at the roots to braids, and placed fiery combs of steel close to scalps to get new growth to lay down. In retrospect, those hands should be the same ones that have cradled guns and knives to lovers’ throats, beaten children, and, so tenderly, put babies to sleep.  The garden on my head had grown out of its textured holiness, and into a coiled mess of my mistakes. So, when my sister recommended I go to some girl’s house for my next style, I did not flinch at the address. I did not turn my nose. I...

July 18, 2022
Current Issue, The Political Body

“How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.”

Alice Walker
June 16, 2022

Given Name, Taken Name

There is a popular (albeit misguided) belief that BIPOC kids adopted into white families live white-approximate lives and grow...

by Joon Ae Haworth-Kaufka
June 16, 2022

Birthmark

Around age 10, I got a bad sunburn on my face. My adoptive mother didn’t really take sunscreen seriously....

by Chixue Yue
May 3, 2022

“This wasn’t a Black woman thing.”: An Excerpt from Adiba Nelson’...

“Everyone had always told me I was going to be such a good mother, and I had always seen...

by Adiba Nelson
February 1, 2022

The Broken Crystal Ball and The Zombie Killer

As a single woman, I walked through city streets, shopped at local stores, and strolled through Target, my eyes...

by Ryane Nicole Granados

poetry

June 28, 2022

Conceiving Basil

You are going through a workbook. Used to these. The finitude of a heavy hand and your mother’s equivalent...

by Andie Sheridan
June 28, 2022

The Naming

I don’t remember what they look like, the boys who surround the row where I sit alone on the...

by Sullivan Summer
June 28, 2022

Three Poems | Heather Hauck

Upon Meeting My Mother In my mind we sit across from each other in a crowded restaurant. The curve...

by Heather Hauck
February 1, 2022

depressions of symptom

If I ever become an acclaimed writer, I’d worry about the interviews because I don’t know many words. I...

by Camille Posey
February 1, 2022

De luto y sin dopamina

When I’m knee deep in laundry and memories, no one bothers with my title: Chief Executive Home Officer. I...

by Li Yun Alvarado
April 21, 2021

Some Mothers II

Some Some mothers Some mothers spend Some mothers spend every Some mothers spend every moment Some mothers spend every...

by Anna Limontas-Salisbury
October 27, 2020

In the Land of Milk and Honey We Are Lactose Intolerant and the Bees Are Dying

I hold these truths to be self evident   that this country is full of shit. It sucks the...

by Janel Cloyd
September 18, 2020

Lullabies for Black Boys

Tanka Lullabies for black boys  we try to make sense of why they kill our children seems black means...

by JP Howard

Columns

How the Fuck Did I Get Here

By Dominique N. Cole

I devoured Donald Goines’ Dope Fiend right after I put the grilled cheese on top of the radiator, a griddle’s sizzle loudly absent. It had been 24 years since...

April 5, 2021
Columns Archive, Justice Involved Mothers

Lost Daughters, Losing Mothers

By Heather Stokes

Pulling my charcoal peacoat tighter around me, I trudge the short distance from the train to Ma’s house. January’s cold nips at my bare fingers. I shove my hands...

March 2, 2021
Columns Archive, Justice Involved Mothers

Breaking Cycles

By Lenée Voss

Content note: depression, suicidality, self-harm, sexual trauma Ever since I was about seven or eight years old, I’ve struggled with being present in my own body. To such an...

October 9, 2019
Columns Archive, Recovering the Self

Unseen and Unheard: The Fight for Autonomy as a Medical Patient

By Lenée Voss

“Let me ask you, Ms. Voss: how do you feel about having children?” After a certain point, I learned the answer to this question didn’t matter. The doctors: a...

May 21, 2019
Columns Archive, Recovering the Self

Celebrating & Centering Black, Indigenous and Brown parenthood since 2015

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