Hi! I’m a mom in my 40s who’s been momming for so long that I transitioned from a Type A mom to a much happier Type B mom! I’ve learned that friendships and my village should be a source of comfort and support—not stress. That’s exactly why I joined Detroit Mom!
Allyship
I am a passionate ally and advocate for education. In that education, you should gain an understanding of privilege and how it affects the world around us. I am an active part of the Free Mom Hugs group. I can attend a few events a year with them and just be a warm person for someone who needs a loving embrace! To advocate for educating people in racism and how to be better, I go to lectures at the library, research on my own, and I am heavily involved with the ERGs through my company.
I am an executive assistant for Cummins Inc. We are a man-centric but woman-led company that is not giving up its DEI programs. I am a team coordinator and do all the behind-the-scenes work that a change-leading team does. Also, I work with the Cummins Black Network to educate, plan social events, and plan community-wide efforts.
Through Cummins, I also work with We The People Detroit. We The People is a non-profit group that ensures that any home that needs clean water is getting clean water. They accomplish this through grants, people donating their time, and the determination of their founders.
I am also an active member of the Women’s Empowerment Network as an event lead. Through that space I host lunch and learns, teaching people about the power of women and girls. I lead the education pillar of Michigan Pride, where I host virtual and in-person events educating people on the LGBTQAI+ community. We have a presence at Metro Detroit Pride every year!
Binging
On the weekends while I am trying not to think about the week ahead, I can be found folding laundry and diving deep into the belly of Bravo. I am an unapologetic Housewives and other reality TV fan. If I have a fully charged iPad that can move from room to room, I could easily binge an entire season in one day.
Me Time
I make myself a priority and the obstacle that I face in doing this is time. I don’t have a lot of time outside of work and kids’ after school activities. But once I schedule something, I stick to it. Showing that mom goes out of the house to do grown-up things shows my girls that we are allowed to still be people after becoming a mom.
My daughters know that I have book clubs, library nights, or just girls nights out. They usually don’t give me any issues when I leave. The girls are also interested in what I did when I got home. This has been their whole life–I was fortunate to never give up these types of activities. They know that when they are moms, they can also be women with goals and interests!
Mom-ism
I am a work-from-home type B, special needs, wanna-be crunchy, wanna-be witchy mom. I was a completely single mom to my oldest daughter for 11 years. Chandlar is 21 and grew up to be an amazing woman and sister to my two younger daughters. Growing up with a single, young mom was challenging for her. Chan had to wake up very early in the morning because I worked the first shift at a hotel for most of her life. I was also a student, which meant I spent some evenings away, so we didn’t get to be together as much as a mother and daughter should.
Chan never gave me any grief about this at the time and it was all she ever knew. I was very proactive in making sure that we would get some time together. We would skip work and school to go on day trips to Cleveland, a weekend in Chicago, or just a Saturday of hanging out and not having to go to a babysitter. Sometimes I could get my tribe together and make sure that she got to do fun stuff like beach days or outings with the moms that weren’t working, so that she didn’t notice that she didn’t have the same life that everyone else had.
Chandlar was a huge challenge in her teenage years and suffered from nearly debilitating depression at age 13. Her teenage years just progressively got worse and worse. She literally put me through hell, but we came out the other side and she is just a woman that I am so proud of. She can teach and lead other teenage girls who are going through the same thing she did.
Momming At All Ages
I had a couple of babies later in life: Stella and Joey at 34 and 36, respectively. Stella is my sunshine and my cloudy day, she is an artist and storyteller and was also diagnosed with ASD at age six. We knew from the time of her 18-month checkup that we were going to have to work extra hard with her. She’s been in different therapies and special needs activities for her entire life, and I love that she gets to have fun with kids of all abilities and make some real friends!
Jo-Joey-Josephine is my crazy child–she is a girl who wants to be a boy but is also okay with being a girl who does “boy” things. She is also the kid who keeps us from sitting down for too long–I get a phone call weekly about her falling or hitting her head while playing. Joey is an already an athlete. Jo can pick up any shape ball and just knows how to excel in that sport. She is also just so funny and so witty and can make any grown-up in the room cry with her roasting personality. She will also be the first to cry if you roast her back, and I love a sensitive queen.
Pooring
I grew up in Inkster to a pretty poor family. Although I have moved to Livonia, I still feel the struggle and appreciate growing up actually poor so that I know how to make the most of what I have! Detroit is the most established but up-and-coming city in the country. You can do everything here–go to the top restaurants, see the top-billed plays and musicals, go to the best sporting events–and all within a five-mile radius of downtown.
We also have the suburbs which are amazing in and of themselves. Ferndale and Royal Oak have the best food and entertainment. There is literally always something to do here! You can eat the best bar burger you’ve ever had (Stables), going downtown and ordering the best quality food you’ve ever had all while not living the inflated price of being a major metropolitan area like Chicago or New York.
Parenting
A defining moment for me as a mom was when I knew that Chandlar was not going to graduate from high school. It was just because she didn’t want to–I pushed her and punished her and rewarded her. There was nothing that I could have done to change the fact that she would not complete high school. I even saw that other moms were able to just get their struggling kids to graduate, and I just failed. This taught me that sometimes you can be a great mom and still have a kid that just doesn’t align to the social rules and mores of our time.
Community and motherhood could never be mutually exclusive; a mother needs a community, and she can’t live without one. We need input, we need a sounding board, and sometimes we just need a house to drop our kids off at so that we can sit in the car in a parking lot and cry. Staring into space for an hour also helps. Humans are not meant to ever be alone and that goes for a lot more than finding a partner. It’s finding a neighborhood, a group to go to, or people to socialize with.
Intentions
My intention with Detroit Mom is to advocate for that mom that is struggling and at a loss. You could be faced with having a kid that won’t stop sneaking out of the house. A kid that isn’t talking/comprehending at two years old. Or you have the kid who was assigned female at birth but wants to be recognized as a boy—navigating a world where that comes with its own set of challenges and risks. Unless I see neglect or abuse, I literally never mom shame or judge anyone’s parenting styles. Like everyone else, I thought I had all the answers before and after I had kids, and I always fail the tests.
