daughter of a single mom: tough as shit

i have been following hermana, resist since i was preggers.  she has one of those blogs that i always want her to update more often.  like, every couple of weeks is just too long to wait. and i am not much of a commenter (i am getting better at it).

my younger brother and i were raised by a single working class/middle class mom.  she was and is amazing.  not only are we, her children, still alive, but she raised us to think for ourselves, to be politically conscious, to be artistic, creative and to speak up for ourselves.  the whole time we were growing up she always had her 40 plus hour a week job, plus the commute, plus a series of side projects/businesses.  my favorite was the afrocentric jewelry and accessories.  we spent our weekends looking at patterns, visiting african fabric shops, scouring magazines, sewing on a 1970-something blue singer machine, and learning about what it meant to be proud african-americans.

to this day my mom cheers for my creativity.   as long as i am writing, drawing, or creating something she is determined to support it.  she is the first one to remind me that i should be selling what i create.  that it is good.  hell, to quote jean grae, she is cataloguing my shit like she is afeni shakur.  she will read and edit anything i write.  and we still bond over walking through open-air markets, appraising the goods, and figuring out how *we* could do that.

and dont get me wrong, we bump heads often enough.  we are too much alike.  and i am the eldest daughter of a single mother, i grew up  a little too fast. know a little too much. i wont go into the details.  lets just say the details count.

single motherhood is tough as shit.  i am not a single mother.  i was just raised by one.  and if it wasnt for her i wouldnt have the visions that i have of what i want my daughter to learn from me.  what i admire most about my mother is that she insisted on putting energy behind that enormous amount of intelligence and creativity she has.  that she believed and still believes that her creativity is valuable and ought to be invested in.  but then she learned that from her mother, my grandmother, another incredibly intelligent and creative soul.

aza and the family

aza and the family…

siarah, with the sandy-colored curly hair, my brother’s daughter, is three years old, very smart and cute

malik, my brother’s newborn son, also very cute