Reality has hit

I realize that I’ve been failing to post a blog weekly as of late. I think this has been a combination of being super pregnant, a busy mama, hosting during the holidays and honestly, just not feeling the inspiration as I once had for the time being. I’ve allowed my blogs this year to come from various sources of inspiration and often I start to write them in my head before I get to actually typing them down. However, lately there has been other life priorities that have been on my mind and have kept me from tapping into my normal sources of inspiration. Essentially, I haven’t been as open lately as I’ve been focusing my energy on taking care of essential life tasks first (like prepping for baby’s arrival, getting my son to apts and being more present to my family on the weekends).

That said, this has always been a cathartic space for me and a way to express my creativity so I am committed to keeping up posting at some frequency. I am going to attempt to post biweekly starting in 2019 and see how long I can keep it up (wish me luck please).

Reality has hit. I am going to be the mother of two in just over a month and am busy prepping for both a much needed maternity leave (aka wrapping up a lot at work) and a big move soon. Lots in the mix. Thank you for your understanding and hope the new year has started off with a bang for you all too.

Having your sh*t together

A colleague recently told me she always was in awe of me having my life together. She’s a single woman and thus she mentioned she didn’t know how I made life seem so easy when I have a husband, a toddler and am currently pregnant. It was a kind compliment and I thanked her but it got me thinking about how I view myself. I generally think I do have my life together but I also have a list of what I call “life homework” that’s piling up and I’m not very motivated at the moment to push up my selves and get to work. There is always more to be done I suppose and at this point, I have settled into thinking, sure I’ll get to that in the new year.

Often I think we are our own worst critics when it comes to this notion of having your “sh*t together”. I use to get so mad at myself when I didn’t do stuff on time and missed bills or opportunities because I was late getting stuff completed. But becoming a mother has completely changed my priorities once again, much like becoming a wife except to the extreme. And I need my weekends to unplug completely and re-charge. Plus I usually am running after a busy active toddler most Saturdays and Sundays so I still get physically tired anyway. I suppose you could say I’ve grown to accept that I don’t get to things as quick and I’ve come to understand my growing list of life to do’s will never really end. My husband has encouraged me lately to slow down and rest which I’ve been more than happy to do but sometimes I still get that nagging feeling of at what cost?

My colleague’s comment also made me reflect on how we often compare ourselves to others. I know I did this A LOT during my first year as a mama and it created unnecessary stress and guilt that I realized was my own doing. I decided to let go at being the “perfect” mom or having the “cleanest” house and just work to prioritize what had to be done and enjoy the little moments. I never feel like I’ve done enough but I go to bed most nights pretty sure life will go on anyway.

So this is all to say, we’re all works in progress and no one truly has everything in their life completely worked out and if they do- well I question if they are part robot. I’ve missed posting the last two weeks because life got busy and I didn’t get to it but hey, I’m just doing my best. I try to tell myself what I tell all my friends who tell me they are in similar situations- be kind and gentle to yourself. I know it sounds cheesy but its true. We’re all just doing our best, even if that looks different day to day, and to me, that is what it means to have you sh*t together!

A personal announcement and a statement to America

I am currently pregnant with my second child. My family and I are ecstatic. It is an honor and joy for me personally to be able to bring new life into this world. But at the risk of over simplifying how much happiness and immense delight I feel; the flip side is that this joy comes at the cost of my growing anxiety and stress around my maternity leave situation.  Each day as my in-utero baby grows, I start to feel more dread and anxiousness around what to do once baby is born.

The current federal maternity law in America entitles women to 12 weeks of UNPAID maternity leave. But really that all depends drastically on which organization you work for, how many employees they have and how long you’ve worked there. Also, did I mention it was UNPAID? Some states have put measures in place to help support with giving some income during this time, providing supplementary disability payments during a woman’s maternity leave. And in some states, we are entitled to such pay as it comes out of our paychecks anyway.  So great, except not when the state’s laws stipulate what those weekly/monthly paychecks look like. The gracious state of NYC provides “disabled” postpartum women a whole $167/week during their 6-week disability paid program. So how does one pay their rent and put food on their families table as the breadwinner bringing home approximately $668 a month and who also happen to live in the lovely, expensive city of New York? The answer is you literally cannot. And the new paid family leave act is better but that only kicks in after your disability is up. So, what happens when you cannot financially afford those first six weeks off?

At time point in time, my nights are filled now with running through alternative scenarios and thinking about how to create a side hustle during my maternity leave so I can actually take time off to bond with my new infant but also ensure my family can survive. And I am very fortunate, I have an immensely supportive community and network of family and friends who will do their most to help us. But that doesn’t make me less angry or anxious at this point. In fact, it infuriates me that this is the only silver lining for me which allows me to know that thankfully, my family will be okay no matter what. But what about those single moms out there? What about the families who mothers have to sacrifice their personal health as well as potentially their infants to return to work too early in order provide a pay check to support their families? What about low-income families? Who’s out there supporting them? Not America. And while this soap box speech has gone on long enough for you to catch my drift, I haven’t even begun on the inadequacy of paternity leave policies by employers either. My husband got a week off after the birth of our son. Actually just 4 days since he was born on a Monday and my husband called in sick that day. What type of supportive leave is just 4 days for a new father?

So, America, it’s time to FAMILY UP. By that I mean its 2018. It’s time for our country’s federal laws to actually start supporting families, for real, not just doing the bare minimum. Stop placing women who’ve chosen to be mothers into the impossible conundrum of spending time healing and bonding with their new baby(ies) or returning to work to survive. Give parents the support they need when they are the most vulnerable. Advocate for parents, particularly mothers, by giving them choices not stipulations on how to navigate the choppy waters of postpartum. Entice employers to actually SUPPORT their employees who have chosen to become parents. It’s time for our policy makers to be a little more like the strong, fierce, hardworking, dedicated, bad ass parents who are out there hustling, struggling and surviving to do the most for their families. This is unacceptable America. On behalf of families living in across this country, we demand and deserve far better (sound of a microphone being dropped).

P.S. I don’t really care what your politics are. This post is not about taking sides. It’s about supporting families. And I purposely didn’t add in a lot of facts because all the research indicates America comes in last already compared to the majority of the world’s “developed” countries in relation to our crappy maternity leave laws. If you want to read more, do your own homework. Or get pregnant and realize how sh*t the options are out there for you and your family if you live in the United States of America. Either way and fair warning, the results are quite dismal.

 

What color are you?

I remember fondly a fun afternoon my partner and I spent at Point Reyes beach when I was about six months pregnant. We had walked down the beach, away from the fragrant smells of the elephant seals hanging out by the parking lot, and we were enjoying having fun spending some quality time together outdoors. My husband asked me suddenly a fairly serious question- “Kadi, what will you tell our child when they ask you what color they are?” This question didn’t take me completely by surprise as my partner had mentioned to me recently that he didn’t feel like he was “black” because actually his skin color is brown. I responded something like “I’ll tell them they are the color of milk chocolate or caramel, depending on their actual skin tone.” We continued discussing this topic a little more together and our feelings about how inadequate the definitions of “white” and “black” that we/ most of American society easily uses in daily dialogue when discussing race seem.

How do we tell our son what color he is? What will society tell him? These are real questions we are faced with as a couple and parents because we are an interracial couple. At times it feels daunting and I get a little worried. Other times I don’t stress too much and feel like hopefully the answers will come to me naturally when our son begins to ask me about his skin tone. I want to protect him and make sure he learns that he gets to decide and tell others how he defines himself. But that doesn’t necessarily change the fact that most people will view him as a black man or a mixed as he grows up and that these labels come with connotations.

Race is a topic that is part of our daily lives and it’s not something we can avoid. But it’s strange to think about how little we get the opportunity to discuss it because it is such a sensitive subject, with even our close friends or family. My partner and I are still finding common language to use with each other to express our experiences or convey our feelings about race. I hope that at least if we continue to talk about it, in an open and non-judgmental way as a family, our child will start to gain some vocabulary to help him express himself when he gets asked the common but micro-aggressive questions- “what are you?” or “where do you come from?”

Please share your thoughts of experiences about this conundrum of defining your own identify or talking with your partner about the challenges of defining yourself/your family/ your child to others. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Say their names, fight for change my son

July 28th, 2018

Dear my sweet, sleeping boy,

Today I woke up sleeping next to you and had to finally cry. I cried for Nia Wilson, the young 18-year-old woman who was murdered recently at a BART station. We still don’t know the motive, or if there even was one but it’s another instance of unsolicited violence against black people. Some day you might stand at such a station as a young man. Some day you will be big enough to navigate the world on your own. But how will people see you my boy? How will they stereotype you and judge you just because of what you look like? When will all these broken structures in America change?

Since your babeh (dad) and I moved to the US in June of 2014 together, we’ve watch the news tell us or found out through our own searching just how many black people are being killed constantly. It is beyond alarming. On the day of your naming ceremony we honored and took a moment of silence to reflect on the murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling that occurred just days before. And the list goes on. I do not write this to scare you but to share with you. To tell you that you must see with open eyes what is happening. Racism is alive and is often deadly. People are still reacting out of fear which is beyond concerning when it’s the people sworn to protect. We have a mental health crisis in America that is not being addressed. Our justice system is fractured and biased.

It is also important to remember that America has terribly horrific history of harming black and brown people. Our United States was literally built on the backs of slaves stolen from their homelands in Africa. European settlers pillaged a land were native and indigenous groups lived long before white faces ever arrived and have subsequently been killed, horribly mistreated or marginalized since. It was even unlawful to marry between races up until 1967 in this country. America has a long way to go my boy and it needs to reckon with its ugly past. Please remember to say the names of those killed, learn from what’s happening and join the fight for change.

I write to you this letter to share with you today that you are so incredibly loved. Not because of the color of your skin or what you “represent”. You are loved for you in this family and for just being yourself. But please don’t forget that many people will see you differently. They will judge you. They will make dangerous assumptions. And I pray that you will grow older in a world that can continue to change and evolve for the better, and perhaps that even live one day you can live in a country called America were all people, no matter their skin tone, are respected and given the dignity every human deserves.

Love,

Mama

PS. I was of course inspired by the Ta Nehisi Coates book written in the style of a letter to his own son, Between the World and Me. I read this book to you when you were a tiny baby and will do so again someday. I love you pas al ting.

The truths of becoming a parent

I recently began watching a documentary series lately called The Beginning of Life, the series, available on Netflix. It is so well done- I have loved each episode so far and I’ve just finished the second. I particularly appreciate the honesty and different perspectives the second episode highlights about becoming a parent. So many of the interviews that people shared struck a chord and resonate deeply with my own experiences of transitioning into a mother. One woman put it so perfectly, becoming a parent is not all that Hollywood demonstrates it to be. There are some real hardships, challenges, difficulties and tensions that you can never anticipate or prepare for. The topics and thoughts that the real parents interviewed shared are particularly poignant for me to watch now because they talk about things I still struggle with each day as a parent to a toddler, including: learning how to prioritize myself, trying to stop making assumptions, remembering to let my husband father in his own way, seeing my child for who he is, struggling with what society tells you to do, how to deal with the hard thoughts and emotions that come up, etc.

Often, I think people focus on the positive parts of becoming a parent and it is extremely hard to really put all those wonderful, beautiful, powerful feelings into words and do it any real justice. Being a parent is like the best but hardest thing in the world to do- it’s like falling in love and being heartbroken all at once. You gain so much but also you can so easily lose yourself very quickly as well. In the beginning, you are so overwhelmed with strong emotions, your hormonal and your physically at your absolute limit. But when you look at your baby it’s like you’ve found perfection and you feel overwhelmed with joy and love- you radiate with it. I remember crying tears of pure joy (and exhaustion) when I first looked at my son. My husband literally glowed when he held our son in his arms for the first time. Juma is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But he also challenges me, pushes me to question myself and I struggle so much with finding a way to remain true to who I am and prioritize being a parent. The struggle is very, very real.

I highly recommend any one who’s on their journey to becoming a parent or already one to watch this documentary episode. Or even those of you who’ve consciously chosen not to be parent, it’s a fascinating show to explore and just think about your own parents in a different way perhaps. I think it sheds light on some really interesting, inherent truths that we should reflect on and spend time pondering around parenting and the beginnings of life.

Please help to comment on how your experiences around the transition to parenthood and/or any meaningful resources you’ve watched/read about it as well.

My Feminist Manifesto collage

One of my favorite creative expressions is to collage. I’ve loved collaging since I was young and would make them to decorate binders, notebooks and my room. There is something very therapeutic about cutting up images and find new ways to put them all together to create a powerful, new image. I’ve been meaning to create a collage to represent the amazing recent work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. When I read this book (I couldn’t put it down so I read it in one nonstop reading binge one afternoon), I knew immediately that these concepts were something I wanted to find a way to creatively capture and have readily available in my home to refer back too.

Chimamanda is a brilliant writer for so many reasons and her recent feminist books utilize a powerful mechanism to inspire and create change-  simplistic, beautifully crafted expressions that capture the essence and truth about a very important matter that affects us all. I read this book and it blew me away, not because what she was writing were concepts that I hadn’t thought about deeply myself but because she frames them in a letter to her friend about how to raise her daughter to be a feminist. It is entirely comprised of a loving way to ensure that our next generation learns what it means to be a member of society by questioning social norms and not accepting the status quo when it comes to gender norms. I have a son so each of the fifteen suggestions discussed in this book I plan to incorporate into the way I raise him as well.

I wanted to share this collage as a way to express my dedication to Ngozi Adichie’s Feminist Manifesto and as my dedication to this cause as woman, a wife, a parent and a human being.  I encourage you to read this book, reflect on your own beliefs and behaviors and find a way to express your own dedication to your beliefs. Feminists often get a bad rep or stereotyped based on how the movement has evolved over time but I love that there are so many creative ways- like writing, collaging, creating dialogue, reflecting, protesting, etc. that help to demonstrated that being a feminist isn’t a one size fits all movement anymore and that we are pushing the envelope in imaginative new ways.

Please share with me the way you express yourself and/or how you acknowledge your beliefs in a creative form.

 

Thanks Brene Brown for saving me!

During the months when I experienced some extreme sleep deprivation (aka May-October 2017), I got to a place where I was crying often. I would cry on the phone talking to my family, or cry thinking about how hard life was. I was moved to tears much more frequently than usual. I have no problem with crying, I think it can be a very healthy, needed release but this level of crying was new for me. And on the flip side, I had every reason to be VERY happy. I was healthy, had a beautiful family, always felt loved and supported and had access to vast quantities to chocolate. But I found myself sad, angry, frustrated, ungrateful and I threw myself a lot of pity parties. When my god mom suggested I read an author she loves- Brene Brown, I decided to give reading a self-help book a try. I am not sure Brene Brown categorizes her books as self-help and that’s okay because they are brilliant and multi-dimensional. But at this point in my life when I was introduced to her, I decided to try reading her books for self-help. I read Daring Greatly first and was blown away. Literally, it resonated so deeply for me that I started talking about it non-stop. I recommended the book to everyone in my life and even bought a copy (I rarely buy books these days). I watched her Ted talk on vulnerability with my partner which helped us to talk through some difficult things we were going through at the time (check it out  here). It helped me to “wake up” literally from this intense period of depression I was experiencing. I will most likely blog again about themes or topics Brene covers in Daring Greatly again so I will just end by saying, thank you for writing this book and helping me (and all your readers) with sharing some beautiful truths you’ve discovered in your research! Thank you for writing a book that became my life raft during a time when I felt like I was sinking in the vast sea of sadness.

I am patiently waiting until the reserved copies of her other books are available through the library to read more and can’t wait!

Here are some of her titles:

1. Braving the Wilderness
2. The Gifts of Imperfection
3. Daring Greatly
4. Rising Strong
5. I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
6. The Power of Vulnerability
7. The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting
8. Men, Women and Worthiness
9. Rising Strong as a Spiritual Practice

Here’s her super cool website as well: https://brenebrown.com

Sleep deprivation

I gave birth to our son in June 2016. For the next year plus, I didn’t really sleep for a full 6+ hours without being interrupted at least once. It was brutal. All honestly, there were many days I could barely function and felt like a human zombie. The hardest part though was that my partner and I struggled to find a way to deal with it because we had different ideas on how to manage with the situation. I wanted to sleep train our kiddo and my husband wasn’t into the crying it out method. I did end up trying the cry it out method few times by spending weekend nights away house sitting but, in the end, our son would just revert back to waking up frequently again. I thought it would just take time so when it seemed like we’d hit a great routine and have a few days of solid good nights, something like teething would pop up and bring us back to square one. The more tired I got, the more drained I felt emotionally, physically and mentally. I got so desperate that I looked into hiring a sleep trainer but was put off by the high costs. I did however enroll to a sleep training website and sometimes just reading the posts help me to think of new things or at least know I am not the only person struggling with this.

To date, our son is still adjusting and learning to sleep through the night. He’s 21 months now and usually gives us at least 6+ hours straight these days. Thanks love bug. There are nights though when I wake up at 3am and cannot sleep and wonder if my sleep life as I knew it before becoming a parent is over. Most likely. But what I can say is at this point, I am starting to learn that sleep is beyond essential. I’ve also learned that compromising and working REALLY hard to get on the same page with your partner is also essential. In a family with two parents, it’s worth compromising to find what works for all. We are not perfect but were learning as we go. In dealing with something as hard and taxing as sleep deprivation, its better when you work as a team to get through it.

Here’s some suggestions I have for those of you suffering from sleep deprivation:

1. This is real struggle. I acknowledge your pain. My best advice is to find something each day that will help you take care of yourself as a parent so you can begin to find a way to keep giving even when you’re at your lowest. Take a bath, go for a run, eat that yummy chocolate bar. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your baby best.
2. Talk to your partner. No not in the middle of the night when you both are grumpy and strung out from lack of sleep. In the day time, when you’ve had time to think and hopefully sleep a little.
3. Look into methods for sleep training. There are many, many philosophies and this is not a one size fits all situation. Each kiddo needs something different and each family needs to find what works best for them.
4. Check out sleeping websites. I never did end up hiring someone professionally but I still read the posts at this site: https://www.babysleepsite.com
5. Ask for help. From your partner, your family, your friends, your care provider or other parents. Call someone to come over so you can take a nap on the roughest days. Take turns with your partner through the week so you guys can both rest. Ask friends what they have tried and for general advice.
6. Lastly, like all things in life, change is inevitable and hopefully this lack of sleep situation is temporary. Babies and kids are also incredibly resilient and most will adjust in the end. If your still struggling months/years later, do seek professional support and help. You need to find a solution that will work for you and your family.