Keep Yo Jinx

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot M, a production of My Heart Radio. What's up, everybody? How are you doing? Hopefully you're well When I'm sitting here trying to start down some of this Carl of Flower pizza. And you can hear the way I said it, that's not all that great. You're putting in your effort for the new year to be healthier. I love it. Yeah, I'm trying, you know something different? What's up? Like I said, let me get to o my mouth, so you got me cursing already? Lie here listen you said it. I did. Hi. Hi, everybody, what's up? This is Jill Scott and you're listening to Jay dot IL with my home girls like Saint Clair and Age a great danceller. Hello, Hello, Hello, you buying a lot of have to go aging. I've waited my whole life to be a three Namer Like I never even realized that I was until I started doing this podcast. I was like, wait a minute, I'm a three Namer. I was like a three Namer. I can't change my name to doctor Jill Scott, yes or nil? Life like that? You know, humanities English a bunch of stuff. I ask you, I'll use it. Wherever I can. You have got an honorary thing though, right, Like, I'm gonna use it wherever I can. Yeah, hell yeah, I'm feel that hopefully at some point one of these universities and let me teach something. I'm sure I know something. Well, yes, girl, you know you're about to get a bunch of letters now, Yes, definitely teach something. I would love, John, I'm something. I enjoyed all the stuff I've done as far, it's been real nice, real cool. I could see you definitely doing that. That would be dope. I would take thank you, great damp and class. You know, I gotta tell it's funny. In my mind, I was like, I'll take a few classes from jail. It depends on the subject, but she definitely is an expert on quite a few things. So we just you know, that is that is the part of the life. Man, Like I have been waiting for this my whole life, to be able to share some knowledge and some wisdom from living. But I remember being, uh, you know, in my twenties and thinking that forty was old as ship. Hell yeah, so old like forty yeah. But at the same time, and know I've been waiting for this moment I like this good. Yeah. I remember my mother turning forty, and I remember thinking, you know, my mama looked good for forty, like because they and like, oh well my mom is killing forty, okay, whatever. But I do think that it was that was the moment where a little bit of that realization that Okay, I kind of have lived a little bit of life, but my my Auntie's they don't quite respect that yet. And I used to feel resentful about that. So I think a lot of times what happens is we remember feeling resentful when we were young from older women, and we're like, no, no, no, I'm still the person trying to prove themselves. I'm still the person that's trying to get towards my goals. If I say I'm Auntie, that means I'm that person who's, you know, beyond that moment of learning and and and and and and being the student and the young woman and the full of energy and full of potential. And I just think that's bullshit. You're still that young woman. You just know what you know, and it's time to impart that on the next group of young women so they don't make those same mistakes. Hopefully, hopefully, or have some perspective or at least just once. Yeah, yeah, just just once is good enough if you can, man, don't go back nine times. Listen. So, speaking of making mistakes and going back and doing it over and over again, we're talking about generational curses today. Generational curses that is that stuff that your grandmama did or your grandfather great grandfather did, and your mom does, or your dad does, or auntie does or you know, people who have influence over your existence that they've done and then you do and somehow, some way you end up teaching your children to do the same. That's generational, you know. So we're talking about at today. That's something that's real prevalent in the black community. Holding on the stuff like grandma got diabetes, Mama got diabetes. You know, kids might have early diabetes. You know, it's it's a it's a real thing. What are some generational curses that you think of. I've noticed in my family that people don't live till they're very old. I'm thinking back on my parents who are both gone and they never reached seventy mm hmmm. I think back on my grandmother. Now, my mother's mother lived to be almost nine, but she did spend about a decade with dementia. And then also I think about my father's mother, who passed when I was eight or nine years old. So if I think about that, my dad was just in his thirties, so that means my grandmother wasn't very old when she passed his mother, So I'm there. I thought about that a lot recently, like about who I have got to take care of myself because longevity does not see to be a thing that I have on my side now maybe, and I don't take away the possibility that there are some environmental things that might add to that, whether it be poverty, whether it be trauma, or some of the reasons why the folks in my family have not had this extended life. But it makes me more aware of just like, Okay, I'm forty two, I take care of my body. So that's been a motivated for me coming out and especially in this particular a year after watching obviously going through it, a year of folks dealing with, you know, the possibility of how strong their bodies are to take on something like a virus. Was it all health related or just untimely? Gonna say both you know, I think I think there were some mental and emotional aspects of it that fuel the physical aspects. You know, my mother was a chronic asthmatic, and so obviously she grew up in a time here with people smoke cigarettes a lot, They were around people who smoke cigarettes a lot. Everybody did that, so she, you know, already had like a predisposed thing going on. But I also believe that I feel that her life, that her trying to handle different emotional traumas throughout her life that had not been dealt with, added to the physical So I just think those things work together. So for me, I'm really trying to pay attention to my mental health and my physical health because I just realized how those things can give you a one to punch, and particularly as a black person period, male or female or otherwise, that we are just predisposed to have these kinds of issues just from the gate. Then you started adding on your personal life and things like that. So anyway, with my family, I just want to take you to the fact that yes, this is this is serious. Health seems like it's a really big deal. Like I mean, obviously I don't mean to say like it seems like it is a really big deal, particularly our say in impoverished communities, in black communities, like even if you've got some money, like our thing. The women in my family, I'm the shortest. I'm I'm five six and a little bit of change, but everybody is is five ten and up pretty much my mother, you know, six one, Like all the women in our and our family are really large women like amazons. That's what I don't always say. I always thought that was dope because when the ship go down, don't you know, don't let the girls fakest swing honey and and pick up things honey, like they're not a not a joke, but it's the I won't say being fat, but I'll say having fat. I don't like that. I with somebody said, oh I'm fat, Like, no, you have fat, You're not fat, You're a person with fat. Like I'm not trying to be so politically, but that just irks me, Like that just irts me insensitively, like to say somebody is cancer, No, you have cancer and you aren't cancer, you know what I mean? And you can people don't even say that. They only do it with fat. Really when you think about it, right, right, that that hurts me, but you know, I have a generation, several generations of women. My mother was long and skinny until she was about sixty, so she was about sixty with me. You know, I noticed, I'm I'm up and them down. I'm up and him down. I'm up and or down. I like to be down, but I'm happy Europe. I wanted to tell you, like, I'm just happier, you know, like when y'all think about health and like our you know, the generations before us. It's funny. I was just out riding my bike yesterday and I got so excited because I live in an area, live in an area where we were not a lot of blacks, but I just saw so many black people out on your bikes. And I said to my boyfriend, I was like, Yo, this is what COVID can do for us, right, But then you know this, COVID can really take us outside, Like COVID can really help us get healthy. COVID, you know what I'm saying, outside of healthy and reading and doing your stuff. But then when you think back to like our moms and our grandma's. Big ups to my mom because I think she's kind of broke a not a curse. But in the sense of being aware of fitness and health, that's something I have a privilege that her mother may not have had, you know what I mean, Like, I don't know. We felt like we didn't have time, were doing so much. It was there's too much going on to think about selves. And now we're like, well, it comes from us being accustomed to the scraps anyway. So when you look at a box of noodles, I know, y'all be like, you know what they called. I don't know them people. I don't want them people coming from me. But what I'm saying is it, what is this sixteen seven hundred milligrams of soldi in person some noodles that if you try and splurt and put some cut up hot dogs in, which is also a salt factory, and then you put some hot sauce on that you know it's which is more salt, and then you might have one or two of those a day like that. That was the cornerstone of the broke Gass diet. Damn. That was lunch with soda and zero water. A lot of college diets too, especially freshman A lot of college diet was can of dried noodles in them packets of death, those death packets. I've seen people put two death packets, death packets, death packets on some noodles, Like I had a little packet and gonna put some chicken in here. Yeah, yeah you're not. But listen, there was What's Up the Time? That was like the first thing to team that ever made for deeth many for a culture mall, and that was an extra Asian that he had like a secret. What he would do was he would put all the death pack on first in the water, no, no water on the noodles. Then the water. He would pour the water on the noodles after all the noodles had been seasoned up, and then he pour and just a little bit of water because he liked to build newly instead. Yeah. Yes, he had like a whole thing that I had like a tuna sandwich to go with it. It was cute person. We live and we learned, and then I don't know, what does the human body need? Let's let's let's do some investigated water, right, Yeah, I mean, obviously the human body needs water, but how much human Hey siri, how much how much salt does the human body need per day? Okay. I found this on the web for how much how much salt does the human body need per day? Okay? The American Heart Association recommends no more than twenty three hundred milligrams a day and moving towards an ideal limit of no more than fift hundred milligrams per day for most adults. Now, the damn noodle packet seventeen under milligrams AsSalt. That's me that you're gonna be hungry later on. Absolutely, I mean trust me when I tell you, y'all hit the nail on the head when it comes to the health aspect. But you know, and not not to you know, cast aside the idea that someone this is just about what we had access to, Like I mean, it's just it's just about what do we have, What do we have? What did we know? What we're we using? And it's just twenty y'all. I just want you to know. For Yeah, I'm sorry, Agent finished on with your wisdom. The death That's why it's the death pack. Now she's gonna eat for the rest of the day, sugar soaked up the sodium because that's I'm on, that's out of black. That's my issue. But My grandmother lived to be ninety one years old, and she ate pork rins till the end. She was with all of it. And yeah, I'm and I'm gonna tell you I was eating. I ate somethings. Oh, I ate them with my whole heart and my shoes off, my whole heart. Yes, I ate chiles, Yes, yes, I ate chiplings until they passed away. My grandmother passed. That meant no chicklings in that area. And my aunt Shirley passed, and that meant no more chicklings in life. I'm so shocked, and I wouldn't need nobody's chickless. I mean, they got chipless, died, and I'm I'm more. Oh my god, it's horrible. But nonetheless, I think this sounds even worse. My grandmother used to put a cat full of bleach in the water when she cleaned the chicklings. You already know it's a miracle. I'm alive. I said, that's why you two so white. It's a miracle. I'm alive. You know. I think it's a miracle. Most of us are alive. I never get my mother told me that as a kid. She was like, oh girl, she was like somelac was new, honey, she was. She said, people used to dilute child. I look condensed milk. Yeah, oh my god, condensed. You know how sweet that is, con I said, mom, oh my gosh. She was like, yeah, she said that was like for if people couldn't, you know, breastfeed, or they chose not had to work or whatever. She said, people used to do that. We'll see. So I think it's a it's a survival thing, which most of our generational stuff is. It's it's kind of shifting out of survival mode and to thrive mode, Like how do we thrive beyond these kinds of things? And I don't doubt that a little bit of all these things we mentioned, it's work together in a nice little cluster for to affect my family and so many others. So I'm really sure that if we went through the layers, that we will be able to find evidence of all these things, you know, the food, the access to food, the health care, the mental health, to YadA, YadA, YadA. Because I just yeah, and now we got some bitch ass systems to answer the question earlier question to about how our parent grandparents live to me that long and eat so eat like that. It's like, I feel like our systems are bitch. Asked, now, well, I don't think that we're eating a lot of food. This is my opinion. Things science science. Things don't taste the way they used to taste. Like I don't understand seedless grapes. I don't understand how that happens. I don't. I don't like to start thinking about these things. I just I'm just coming to this realization that, like my life, bananas used to have seeds. They used to have little black seats. Yes they did. I don't even yes they did. Remember The GMOs thing is deep, the gm O thing is this something that we have in our laps that our parents didn't necessarily have. So we're gonna have to take these you know, yeah, counting to the next level. Yeah yeah, Because now it's funny. I just started I know this about I should be so more educated, but I just started going on the Trader Joe's and saying, you know what, suck them big ass bananas. I'm going for it once that small, because I don't think they've really ppposed to be that big. I don't think the chicken wings are supposed to be that big Where did that chicken come from? Chicken? I remember when they around the hood they started selling these big as chicken wings at the Chinese store. I said, just can't be right. What chickens and how many wings? Did? What? Any how could that be? I'm not eating man, I'm skirt. Where they get the food from the corner store, at the carry out or whether it depend on where you're from, or the bodega where they get it from anywhere, and it's all I'm just yeah. But also to the bodega in the corner store one of the first places in the hood to start accepting E D T for hot food. So again we're talking about access and what people got and what they can get. They're still having food deserts to this day. Like cousin talks about this all the time. She grew up and see Pleasant Maryland. Kevin Durance from there. He does a lot of work there. Point is that she's like when her mom lives, they shut down the only grocery store, turned it into like a hair supply. What they're doing now, they're doing those alternated hair supplies all over in Black neighbor especi in Maryland. They're huge you're like many mall sides. Yeah, no, no groceries. What they're gonna what they're gonna get it from? And then the cost of food, right, brilliant. I mean this is a capitalistic society. I hate to have to remind people all the time. This place we got not this place is not intended to care for your health and well being. It is intended to make money on all kinds of Sometimes they don't don't want our money though, Jill, that's the thing is our death. I don't know, it's it's interesting, like it's gonna fight p G County. I know, I men just before the largest black middle class in the country. Child ain't got no hope, booms, ain't got no trader. They they got money, but they ain't got access. They got a giant maybe every fix ten miles, you know, but which no deepness, the deepness of how this thing is like a tunnel, it just keeps going further and further more conversation after the break, Okay, so okay, so and so how how do we what do we do that? So here we are we are definitely anti age, whether we decide to acknowledge it or not. I think it's the Banning Together portion of the show. Like I there were desperate I will say desperate, but there were definitely some serious lean times in my adolescence. And the women, my mother and a few other people in the neighborhood, they would take the hike, get up early in the morning, go to the docks and get all the fresh fruits and vegetables in bulk, divving it up amongst themselves, you know, so everybody had some definitely standing life in their government cheese. Definitely get the milk, but we took baths in the milk. We didn't need that um milk baths as children. I would I would I would get that today, if you know, if I could get the powdered milk, because my skin was soft. My very very dear friend who has started a foundation called Bridge Builder Program, Inc. And what he does is he gives food to people, you know, on a normal basis. And he said he noticed that when the when the government was giving out stuff, he would go to place to place to see what they were doing, and it was all the same stuff everywhere. It wasn't like they were giving out greeps or carrots or you know, apples. It was all the same package dried stuff for everybody, you know, which is which is alarming? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a rationing kind of mentality, but it's like you don't deserve. It's elevating what we feel people deserve and they humanity of folks. It's like every person deserves to thrive, not to just survive. So that's that's the idea is kind of moving away from that thinking, and that thinking can poison us even within our communities too, because even within our communities we decide who's worthy. I think we also need to try stuff. Yeah, I think. I think a generational curse is also. I know plenty of people that only eat chicken tenders and French fries in in hogies and cheese steaks like that is the food group that is all. They ether're not interested in trying anything else. I think that it's important to try stuff. It's it's a cacophony of food and deliciousness out here in the world, and it's worth giving it a shot. My mother used to take me to bookbinders. I don't know if I told you all this story. I'll tell you. My mother used to take me to bookbinders and she would order a bowl of snapper soup. So oh, this is I'm not saying it was like an all the time thing. It was just something that she would do occasionally at different places. She knew she could afford a bowl of soup at one of the best restaurants in the city of Philadelphia, so we would go there. We will get dressed, go to the art museum, then go to the bookbinders and share a bowl of snapper soup. She didn't tell me until after I had licked the spoon three times and that was turtle, and I was like, when did you just give me? And it was turtle. And then we tried the horseradish, and you know, that was thrilling and made sweatpop out of my forehead. But that I really appreciated, you know, even though it wasn't a lot of money, that kind of effort to make sure that I had a wide palette, you know, to try different things. I think it's really important to get outside of your chicken tenders and your French fries and your hoobies and cheese steaks or whatever it is, you know in your neighborhood, to just make an attempt to do something a little different. Widen the palette and widen your children's palette as well. Ki, we sometimes, you know, not the most expensive thing in the market, Like what is a coume quoet, Let's try it? You know what is what is this? Just keeping keeping this the spirit of a quest? Yeah, just that idea. But you and your mom did. It's kind of dope. And I know everybody can't do it as frequently, or it wasn't frequent, but even if it isn't frequent, even if but still the idea and I think my parents would do the same is getting dressed up, eating something different and getting a little culture. Whether it was a free museum, but it was a play or something like that is just it does something, yes, and just continuing to expand the palette, just expanding the palate, mental palate, spiritual palette, emotional palette, all of that. Okay, generational curses. You mentioned something earlier like yeah about dating kep me talking about man and we're gonna do that. Really, we're gonna the generational curses. So and thinking about generational curses, I was trying to think myself because my duke, my dad is the youngest of nine eighty one years old, so I'm not really well burst on the generations on that side of my family. And then with my mom, it's a it's a little different. So my mom is young as a five. My grandmother passed a couple of years ago at ninety something years old, so I'm and I live with my grandmother for most of my life with my mother. So that being said, the one generational curse that I thought of, Mommy don't listen to the show though, is I would like to leave this planet with someone. I feel like a lot of women in my family, my my aunts, my mom, and I still I'm gonna kick up my mother, gonna we're gonna find something. It's not over here. But my grandmom, I just I that is just something that I would not like to continue in that way. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know why a partnership thing is so super hard. Yeah, that's so hard. It's so much conversation around why black women have this experience and multiple generations, so many theories, so many judgments and misplaced judgments, so much advice that's shitty about how to change it. So much. It's so much that they didn't deal with it. It's like, it's a lot, it's a lie, it's at The one thing I will say is this, in terms of breaking that generational curse, there's a truth that I have spoken about multiple times on this show, which I'm always praying that black men don't get mad at me about it because I love them so dearly, But being partnered to black men is an extensive amount of emotional labor and in order to do it, and I really think it exists no matter how evolved the man is. I think we live in a racist country, we live in a racist world. We live in a place where white supremacy is on a constant attack. And so the thing is that being made to someone who has so much access to that attack, that's you know, being constantly bombardi with it. It's just a lot. And if we're gonna break that curse, we have to address the fact that that's real, and then address what we have to do to support black women or any women who have really made it with black men, but particularly black women, because then we have to deal with our own experiences also. But we gotta address that. That's that's got to be addressed. Well. This is also the generational curse. I feel like, of uhum, every woman because most of the women and our families didn't have partners, and so it's just years of just watching them do everything and have everything on their back without any assistance. And here we go feminists, feminism and womanism and the differences there. I think that the black woman's feminism or her her feminist experience or her woman's experience, or you know, the fact that they had to create something for themselves in the first place, is that their feminist experience is just really particular. It has some very specific things that are just that that are just unique to Black women and how we experience our lives as like, uh, you know, understating our worth and our dignity and our self determination, all of those things just affect us in a very specific way. And if we're not talking about that specifically, then we're not going to be able to really give ourselves the tools to be good mates and to want good mates for ourselves. That's just also to a corner bite of the thing for me, because this this is this is my my new mission, is to spend time with couples that enjoy each other, that that that like and and enjoy each other. You're maybe you're saying, I don't know anybody didn't then actively search for somebody, and you know, much pressure on Asia because well when I tell you that, I mean, I got a lot of married friends and and they do like each other. But I will say, and I know pressure, Asia, but the about the amount of like and and even when y'all y'all got y'all just y'all fight or whatever, the friendship is like no other. So it's like I look at my other married friends and I go, but y'alling body else would not understand Asia and fatigue going back and forth. They wouldn't understand because we argue. Yeah, but what I'm saying is that y'all bigger like homies. Yeah. What I'm not about to do exam. We talked. We do talk very very and most of the couples that I know that are really happy with each other talk really really plain with two with and to each other. And that's that's that's something that I've learned that that I'm trying to to, you know, make it, dude, you know, some kind of sweet so you don't get so angry. But sometimes it ain't sweet. Sometimes it is and I have to say it. I said it and enough. Yes, that's again, if we're breaking this this curse. The curse has seeds and in distrust. So it's re establishing trust. Those couples that you say talk to each other like that, that's because there's a trust level. The trust is I know that no matter how you say a thing, that you're not seeking to hurt me, right, so I can hear it whichever way you did this ship because I know, at the end of the day you're saying this to me would have loved and so or out of just honestly trying to keep everything honest and real. So that that trust, that right there has to be re established between black men and black women and continue. I had that moment in an argument last week. I'm so interested that you said that because I was being broke down as but why do you say, why do you why do you do this this way? Not necessarily what you're saying, but why do you do this this way? I'm just quiet, I'm listening. I'm listening. I'm listening, and I'm just analyzing. I want to jump out and say nothing because I'm learning, I'm evolving. I'm not the same person. You know what I'm saying. I'm listening, and I just burst it out with like, this is the way I love like, and I love hard and excuse me if I make some you know, but stakes on the way, but I need you to understand that I this is me loving like. And I just felt like in that moment, those conversations about you know, the way we love essential and keeping up keeping up those conversations and the conversations with with our moms and finding out and our grandparents were really went on, like what is the root of these relationships was? You know, I'm talking to my mom about my aunts, and she's like, you know, your your one aunt who furnished most of the children and our family. She had five kids and they had five six were right here. You know, she got married when she was fourteen years old. Your grandmother made her marry this person, and so no she after that man who left her, she really wasn't having nothing any other men in her life, right, you mean, basically even did to finish her education. But I didn't know this as a little girl growing up. I was just like, damn, there was a lot of kids around here. I know, that's not what I want to be like babies and babies and no man. And but that is a curse that you broke. Sure, but I'm also conscient that I now have understand why that happened, Like we gotta understand our family members and just the way that things have happened, the real stories, because we only know surface stories about ship and I'm like, no, there's more. Yeah, there's always really the humanity replacing a humanity on our people, on our families, And said, oh, that that's not just a story, that's not just family teeth. That was somebody's heart, that was somebody's fear. And I wonder some times maybe we know too much. Sometimes it's too much information. Sometimes knowing something can just crack what you thought and and change your trajectory because it just blew your mind. I'll tell you this, this blew my mind. I didn't know my mother, my two uncles and two other aunts. Grandmother had five children. I had no idea that my my most beloved uncle, David, was the son of another man. He had died in the war. And I was like, what, Like, I thought, you know, my grandmother and grandfather, you know, we're always together. So they went on with their lives, and they obviously got married and had four children besides David. Recently, I found out that my grandfather, biological grandfather, had a whole wife somewhere else. While yes, I said, I'm collecting the purse. What the what? And then she met my grandfather, the not my biological grandfather, but the grandfather that I grew up with, that loved her beautifully. Like if that's the stuff that I'm talking about, in order to to do something different, you have to see something different. If all the relationships are cantankerous and and I'm leaving, You're leaving. Everything is a war and a battle. You have to search out other kinds of people. You can't just you gotta get out of the pond that you're in by any means necessary, because you're you're gonna trap yourself into the same kinds of existence. There is a balance I think between my opinion. No, no, no, no, I agree with you. Actually I think that I just think that it's gonna be a have to be a balance between normalizing trauma and accepting that life is going to have a lot of different twists and turns, and that you know, no relationship is perfect and that in relationship being beyond just you know, the romantic or the married or the partners, but then also within like you know, siblings, relationships with parents, all of those different things, like the way that we express love, how we learn how to love, those things are gonna look really different depending on a person's experience. So it's not just kind of muscling through and ignoring it or anything. But it's also, like you said, not as you delve deep into those stories, just coming to accept that, yeah, you can see person who's exceptionally loved, but also that's capable of these other things, or that they had to live through these other things and humanizing our family and humanizing ourselves and so saying, okay, this is like a growth thing. And someone had to judge my father as a twenty one year old man and that was the only judgment they had of him for the rest of his life. It would be a sad, sad situation. That is never fair. It's not fair. And so all the ways that we kind of taking the information about who we are and what we come from, we do have to make sure to find that balance to where we're not saying, oh well, it's normal to kind of suffer, but also that it's normal to have challenges and that people are not just monolithic, and that you know, not even your own family, there's just gonna be something in there. Because Jill, are you saying that now that you have this information, that you're you're disappointed or is it just give you like a broader picture of who they were as individuals. I initially I was disappointed. M M, I did. I had no idea, no clue. Is that but if it's funny because I feel like we put grandparents on this kind of grandparental pedestal all the yeah, but you know what, and I guess nobody told me because it wasn't my business. I love that man and he loved me. That was a good old uncle. I enjoyed him. And he died early in life. My grandfather died at least twenty years before my grandmother did. That is a thing in our family, you know, where the men don't live long. That is like scary, but it's a very real thing. We have these amazons of women and then the men don't last. One generational curse that I have avoided thus far. And I don't know, you know, I just saw something and it's and it frightened me. I saw people in my family least staying together in unhappy marriages, not even unhappy. Unhappy is lightweight, you know, miserable just because they promised, just cause just because, or because it's you know, it's easier, or whatever the case may be. I don't know, but I know that I don't want to do that. I know that I don't want to be somewhere, you know, pretending that everything is okay when I just can't stand this. To see you, you know, I didn't have that, and I really feel like I have and I'm I'm like, okay, I know I know what is a short now, honey? You like, maybe I don't. I just short. I haven't picked what I needed, And at this age, I'm learning to figure out what it is that I needn't right versus what I want. And I know that I don't want to be I don't to sit around explaining my soul to somebody all the time, ma'am. So that means they gotta get to know my soul. They gotta get to know it. I really get to know it, and that means time. That that means time. Yes, I enjoy you. You enjoy me. We're great together and look at us growing and blossoming. That's awesome. But we also need time because life is going to throw some curveballs and we need to see how we handle them. It can we do together? You go away into a cave, you know, and and and deal with it all. Like my zul probably hate me for this, I doubt it, but it used to really bother me that whenever Lave was sick, he would never let me take care of Hey, I'm cool, I got it, I'm cool. I'm like, let me just get you the soup and too, because sure you know that you're all right. Let me pluff pluff up your pills something, you know, because you're my friend. And is how I showed my love because you don't feel good. But he was very I know, just the way. I'm alright, I'm a man, I'm okay. Well nothing mine. The minute that mine get a toeache, it's like and he get sick. That off this. So that's that's another thing too. He rarely gets ill. I find that when he does, he asks like the whole child daring. I think it's ship but it's so sweet. I mean, yes, if you need me that is nice. I think I said, look here, I'm not coming back up these steps more than two times. I think we need to be needed. I do. I think we need to be needed. And I'm sure if you go down to step like sex friends second, come back up here, he gonna be sleep. I just gotta, I gotta. I can't, I can't let it go. But that's but I mean, the thing to me, the unhappy marriage piece is that especially the thing with being in a toxic margor like I hear hear this a lot, that that people are over this idea that like, I don't covet this title so much that I'm willing to sacrifice my whole spiritual self, my entire well being just to say that I'm married to somebody, and you know, and that is something that I feel like people have done. It's that I've done that. The whole thing is, I gotta get married, I gotta be someone's wife, I gotta be somebody's husband, because they men do it too. Men get married to say I'm the head of a house, I'm a I'm a man, I'm some somebody's husband. And it's like the the whole thing around that has become income in question a major lack, and I was trying to fill the lack, and I made a series of of stupid mistakes based on that. Yeah, I mean, well, I don't think we all married and get married. Yeah, I think we all get married for reasons that are not tied into healthy decisions. Because I honestly feel this, and I will admit myself for myself. First, that I was young, I had thoughts about what marriage work that weren't correct, and I had trauma that I was choosing from my trauma. Oh, this is what my dad was like. Let me pick a dude who's nothing like that. Let me pick a man who is specifically catered to what I want. No, that I mean, I can't admit that. That's just real. That's what we do. So first of all, stop stigmatizing people for picking from a bad place. It happens. And and stop stigmatizing people for struggling through their marriages, because that happens too. So I'm saying, oh, I'm single because I ain't trying to settle. Well, just because a person is in a bad patch don't mean they settled all right. It means they're they're trying to figure their ship out. And I think also too that it's not worth it to stay married just to say you're married to someone. And we have to then take away some of this way that we've romanticized marriage and how we put marriage up on this pedestal as this thing that's beyond reproach. As long as you can say you did it ridiculous, we'll be right back. Can I just say to the people listening as the none never been married, never even been as person on this situation. Asia has got me to rethinking and remixing marriage so much in my head that like I'm literally sitting here ordering myself like so like it is it because all your life that dad was what you know, the American dream? Or is it because in my mind when my mother and father got together, I got one of those rare situations where my mother and father was like, I love you, we need to do this and then let's make a baby because it needs to be more than just you. That's what sucked me. Now, mind you, they got divorced six six years after I was born, but it maybe still some drama here about I believe that what they thought they were setting up, it's still possible. And I don't know, maybe because they still they still type friends now. But I'm just trying again to everybody listening. I'm just saying that you have Asia and your life now and Jill, and so we are reevaluating these institutions that were planting in our heads since well, I don't think that what your parents have done it and what they planned to do was not successful. It was not nullified because they decided to walk away from the marriage after six years. They came together with intention, They did something out of intention, not only to love one another, but then to make a child, and so the marriage didn't last. We give us a funk. Look at how beautiful you are. Hey, So that doesn't mean forever. Even this is forever. It's not nullified. Okay, you know what I'm saying. Like, No, it's hard to be program. I mean, I'm just saying, y'all know that it's also again because we have to talk a nuance. It's also not okay to say to someone who's been in it for thirty years that their time don't mean nothing either. See, that's not cool either. Oh, just because you've been together a long time don't mean nothing. Oh no, it means a lot. What that means something I definitely have appreciated. Like I said earlier, seeing happy couples, seeing fulfilled individuals start a partnership and continue moving towards that partnership. That's what I'm talking about the rest. My first choice was a good choice. Life showed itself and we ended up party ways after that. I didn't make a good choice because I had something, I had a plan, I had a playing in my mind what I was gonna do, and because I can, I will and it wasn't. It just wasn't a good choice. And I don't regret it. I don't regret anything. I don't. I don't regret that because I've I've learned so much about myself in the process. I'm not somebody that can sit around and be a miserable or unhappy. There's too many blessings. There's too many things to be joyful about. And it's not just the stuff. It literally is the sunshine and in these windows right now, like there's a reason to smile, there is a reason to be My my pillow was comfortable, you know what I mean, Like, like there's so there's stuff I can find reasons I didn't enjoy so much my cauliflower pizza. But you know, I'm not hungry, you know what, I'm just trying to find something else. I was trying to find a good in the darkness. I think another generational curse is oh seeking approval from people who you shouldn't be seeking approval from. Mm hmmm. You know the cousin or the auntie, older mother, father that has never traveled the world, and you're asking and talking to them about if you should go to Italy for the summer. They don't know. That's not who you talk to, baby, not, that's not That's not how you talk to So I'm saying, finding your people like finding your tribe, and yes, find your folks. Find people that can I know that I can call either of you at any time and talk about a police like I want to go to Razil. Tell me I know that you have answers. And if you don't have answers and you know somebody that has answers, no, that's a that's a good circle of people to be around. If you have dreams that are bigger than your blocked or bigger than your neighborhood, you need to find other people who have dreams bigger than their block in their neighborhood period. Yeah, because your your your ideas are gonna get shut down again and again and again. Ain't going on the other side. Why would I go to the other side of the vel. It's the same side, this opposite, the same thing. What you want to go over there for? Translation is I ain't going to North Philly. I mean it's not really all my life. Sorry, hard all of those parts. I have a quick one too, is living up to potential, because like that's the thing too with my parents that always has haunted me a bit. My father was really a great tennis player, and he had like a lot of potential to play professionally, but he couldn't get over a couple of things, the fact that he was just unfortunately just get onto a fault and also struggle with addiction. So some when I said ghetto, it's that mentality of you can't trust anyone, so therefore you always you almost kind of messed your ship up just because you're like you can't really trust anybody, and you know, and you're always trying to hustle No not necessary, And my mom just wasn't encouraged. She just was not encouraged but my mom said to me, which I didn't know until her last five year just now, she was like, you know, being a little girl and being a young girl, I wasn't encouraged to go to college. I wasn't encouraged to I wasn't something that you know much. We love my grandma, but you know, she didn't think of that either. So she was like, I never even thought that I could go to college. Which hearing that at forty some years old, it's also one of the mom's where you're like, yeah, my we knew each other better, Like, wow, I think I know you. I just I don't know. I thought my grandmother was the smartest person I had ever met. She had only go into the sixth grade. She probably is a smart person you've ever met. Ship No, I'm just telling you, Like I mean, I've known some really intelligent folks that I would trust, any trust beyond anybody that have very little quote unquote you know, uh, formal education. But one of the things I've been trying to get across to my kids about formal education is this formal education just open to those possibilities of your thinking and how you think, and you know what I mean, It gives you language. Sometimes language is a thing that free your life. You can think a bunch of stuff and have a lot of really great like analysis about a lot of things. But if you don't have the language, it doesn't matter. You can't explain it. Yeah, you can't explain it. You can't teach other people, can't teach yourself, you can't analyze your own ship. Like my ten year old I told you, it was just funny to me because this kid really has language, and it's so wild to me because it's hard to he's a kid like that, because you're used to just saying boom, this is what it is. But when they can run your ragged let me run your rioting down like this, this is this the d the dune. But that's why education is different now, Like I feel like education is different for your kids versus if my mom would have probably got an education as a boomer, right well, yea, because it would have been late right well, Not just that, but she may not have been a flight attendant her whole life. Maybe she would have made supervisor. Maybe you know that would have may be able to have shown her that they are bigger places to go in the company. I don't know she ever even thought about that. So I'm just it's just interested in now because you told me about just the way that a Kill has kind of explained y'all have talked about college, and I'm like, yeah, I see that now. I don't know if I saw that then, but I think that they made it so that you can see this way that yeah, oh yeah, that'ship to while me out. I've learned so much about that process. It's hard around here because the kids see it. And now Nina, she's like, I don't want to go to college. I'm like, well why, and then she give him all the reasons and I can't argue with any of them. To my girlfriend's nephew said he's not going to college right now because he's making too much money on Taketo. Yeah. Jet hit me with that when he was like, mamma be a YouTube star, and I was like, oh my god. In the meantime, I'm gonna need you to raise up this math grade and go in there with your tutor. That's what I'm gonna need you to do until then, because until then, until then, I'll be wanting the cosby showing these niggas like listen, let me pull out and show you what my monthly bills are. Do you just let me know you know what you wanta do, what you got on it, Because this is just stay the whole thing. What do you have on it? The job you're gonna get ain't gonna cover none of this, you feel me, And that's why I'm just like, look, just fear out what you wanna do, and then we'll figure out the work. But don't try to skip the work. That's my thing, Like the work gonna look different. Just decide what you want to do. If you don't know what you want to do, don't go spend my money. Right, Fine, you don't know what you wanna do, you figure that. Ship out of community college, which is fine and beautiful and and you can at least take some classes to kind of help expand the way you think. But this is like I'm looking into who's teaching, I'm looking into what's going on, because it's like, if they don't have a system set up to really support students, what's the purpose of them being in these schools And they're going into damn debt in the whole, the whole, not for what When they don't have anything there to assist. I don't want you to just pay to go to a class. I'm gonna funk if that class is that Harvard or at CCP, you have that money to be on the computer? Because what does college looking like? Post want? No, we pulled I killed his senior year. He did not go. I know, That's what I'm saying, Like I don't even know having college conversation. I'm like, what does college look like in the future, Like it looks like ship right now. My son's not getting advised to do anything. His advisor has changed three times in the four times that he's been in school and was one of the top HBC using the whole fucking country. And they're expensive as ship, and they got my son about to graduating with no guidance m And I'm like, nah, funk that You're not gonna get another dime on my money until this ship is sort of the funk out and I'm not doing it. And and my son is with me, he's behind me on the whole thing, and we're on the same page. But but let me tell you what. My son singer here and college has looked like he's put out his own album he's learned how to sound engineer. He's learned how to mix his own record, he's mixed other people's records. He set up his own house at his own studio. He's in the middle of writing a second project. Like he puts up his own merchandise. It's just like man and he's teaching. He's teaching and and recruiting for the school he went to. You have to say his name and where our listeners can find him and his music. Well, oh yeah, his name is I Killed a Woud And he has his novel out called Born to Be Loved, and that is the title is named after my mother because she used to have a shirt they used to say for wanting to be loved, and we used to always tell her that she was. And the last photo that she posted on social media was a picture of her and my son out together, and so they that. I think at the end of the day, we got young people who know what's in them. They know they've got something in there. It's just our job to facilitate how we're going to take what's in there and give them a pathway into their passion and purpose. And that to me is that's the goal for me and the confidence and fly because the confidence is tough. That's another thing that generational curses is very big in our family because our men don't seem to live very long. I don't know if it's I don't know if that's actually the case that it's because of it, but I noticed the men in our family are super cottage and I think, and that to me, us is the recipe for poo put girl's not. I cannot. But there's there's the coddling, and then there's also the taking away of their vulnerability also. So it's like it's like it's like we live in these polarized places where either enabling our men or we are so rough and tough on them that there's no room for their vulnerability and their growth and kindness. We as like sweet Nanny and she comes and visit sometimes when we just can't make the schedule works. That's she always has come through. And love her to pieces so kind. But what I tell you, if there's a chore that my child is supposed to do, she will do his chores. And I was like, we're about to break the friendship here, We're about to break friendship. I need you to understand that those are his chores and he has to do them. If he wants his allowance every week, then these things must be done in order for me to get paid. I have to do my job. Don't you have to do your job to get paid. Why are you teaching him that you'll do it for him, that somebody's gonna do it for him. That is unacceptable. Don't do that again. I beg of you, and I'm telling beg of you, and I'm telling you he will. He can't. We can't do that. I've seen. I've had cousins were there, their mom did their homework, their whole life. Can't hardly, you know, put money into a savings account. I don't know how much to check. You know, you didn't add your check together for you put them in their baby Do you know how much your electric feelings every month? You know, like the things that are normal that most people have to deal with. Just I can't. I don't want. That's the good side of it, because he probably is nice. Ship. I had two uncles that at coddle, and they are on two different edges of things, Like the one who they thought who was told a whole like you're gonna be great, you're and you've got those pretty brown eyes. You're so attractive. Blah blah blah blah blah. Turned to a whole asshole, beating up, beating on women and whatever and ever. And there's the other Uncle made he rest in peace, Uncle Ray. But Uncle Ray was all about the business, not really about the loving. You know, women would come and go, but he was all about the business. You came, you couldn't get in his car because he drove a Porsche. You know. We didn't want nobody in that car but him, So he was on that side. But both coddle. I remember watching as a kid and going, why do these men they don't gotta wash the dish like we didn't. We didn't, we didn't cooked all this pool. But these holidays and these niggas just stad up on the couch and fall asleep and they ain't even brought no rushes. How many people got people like that in the I'm gonna say this. We have a thing in our household called community. And it's like I say all the times, everybody has a responsibility to the community. You can't live here if you're not going to put in to the well being of us. All So that means that if I ask you clean something up and you didn't put it there, it doesn't matter. We all have to we all have to make sure that our home, our space looks a certain way, and that we deal with it a certain way because the whole community benefits from these these common areas, the common areas everybody's responsibility. So what if you didn't do it, because I just I can't. I can't deal with that part of it. But you know, I got two boys, and my son, my oldest son, is very independent. But I think also that he experienced the life and watched not only himself, but other young men lose their ability to to need help. Sometimes my oldest son don't ask for help because he still believes that whole energy. Like I'm a boy, I'm i'm twenty one, I'm a man. I'm not supposed to ask my parents for any help. He said that to me. That's so funny you say that. I'm like, what you mean, you ain't gonna, as your parents say the experson, everything you're doing for the other room crazy And I'm like, and my thing is, like I've seen that happen. And you know, he went to an all boys high school, watching young men get penalized for just being young men just if they loud, or they this, or they that. It's like everything is punitive, everything is that there's no space for them to be vulnerable at all. So I do think I agree with y'all in terms of the coddling, because that's not the way that we as black people, as women, that we are supposed to counteract that other thing. No, but that's as we still end up doing it by ourselves because they don't. No, man don't feel like he needs it. They like she cool and then and then get on TV talking about I got me a strong black one and giving me a choice. Listen, strong black women. I don't want to hear that you and I need there until he opens the door for every woman that there is. I'm sorry, we're just gonna be in the car. Then, do do do do do do so while you stand outside and look around, we're just gonna be in the car. Are you trying to tell me I can't get the door open for me? And I'm I'm going in this game? Stop, Jake, what are we I'm sitting right here? Oh sorry? Ron, Thank you, thank you so much, thank you you get all the sweetness, but I'm not moving. Hey, Jil, are you driving the car? And so yeah, gotta get out. Listen, I'm gonna just park this car and I'm await for you to come around here, open this door, around, come around, rich around at the door. My sons are not opening up the doors for me, so I had to step my game up. They're gonna be like that was this mom. I'm like, little, it's too late. I'm not not jail. You got to get out. That is a very very endearing and respectful thing to do, I think if you like handling it alright, I get out my daughters. Daughters, how do you? Jill? Did you hear that she get out of the car and open the door for her mother too? Are you making me look bad? I'm not. Yeah, I'm gonna make my daughters do it too. That's why I told you. I said, I'm gonna get the daughters on it too. And father, yeah, that was a generationals know, there's some things that we can't do. I can't do it, mom, Dad, I can't do some things. But you know, I have to be mindful of how I want yet to treat whoever is in his future. Yeah, you know, and then now I want him to like it. I just want my sons to get some damn therapy. Weren't they bullsh it out and don't hand it to and lay it in some other woman's lap. Please don't do that. Ship, don't embarrass me any streams. Okay, don't get you some help. Go get you some help, son, because whatever's wrong with you, trust them. Believe it was gonna be something. It's breaking generational curses. I really believe it's about let's say you got to write it there. What are the things that that you don't care for that you've seen growing up? What are they put them up? And what do you do about? What do you do? What do you do? It's not up to me. It's not my job. It's your job to figure out. I'm not okay, I'm not gonna stay in unhappy relationships or miserable relationships. I'm not gonna do that, or lonely relationships or emotionally unavailable relationships. I'm not gonna do that to myself. Okay. I'm not gonna stay in a job that pays me well. But I don't feel fulfilled. I don't I want to move. I want to grow, I want to do something different. That's important. You know, to to do these things, and we're the first generation that has the privilege to do it. So should take advantage of take advantage of your privileges because you have some that's a good one, that's a good break. Take advantage of your privileges. Can they Yes? Yes, make a vow to yourself, to yourself that you're gonna do something different, and you're gonna try something different and get out of your way. Maybe that poverty mindset. Maybe you start a secret back account. Don't tell nobody in your family because you have a goal, you have a dream. Maybe you want to see rund In one day. You know, maybe you maybe you want to do something. Don't tell them because there's gonna be a reason. Old. Can I borrow thirty five dollars because I know that I'm gonna pay you back on Tuesday, but I need that thirty five dollars today? Do you know what I mean? Like, all of a sudden, if you tell everybody and I'm saving up and then they're not people they save, then what's gonna happen is they're gonna be coming at you again and again until your savings are depleted and where have you gone nowhere? And where have they gone nowhere? To challenge everybody also to the thing too, Like, yes, it always starts with the individual. And there's so much work in that, enough work in the individual to keep you busy forever, but to consider the arm or the peace of that individual work that spills out into the community as well, Because as we break our own generational curses, it would behoove us to be a part of a collective break in generational curses. And that part isn't is in community is a big part of that. So you've gotta spill what you know out into the streets otherwise it doesn't have the same type of longevity and tail that you wanted to have. And generation the word generation that that indicates long tail that we want. People I know, I might have a goal in mind and then I I'm a break from the goal and and I call their views and like, but like, don't do that, Jill, you said, you said, you know you need those kind of friends that will that won't let you, you know, play yourself. Yeah, yeah, I always stop you from you know, doing the thing that you dream of. You need you need currently just thought about what you said that that's so ill. It's unfortunate, but it's also an opportunity when you say, you know, go to the folks who know for your advice. And oftentimes when it comes to saving, when it comes to relationships, when it comes to making money, a lot of times those resources are not in your family. But that's okay, Yeah, don't in your family, Lester dan I said before, I don't know if people have ever understood it, but I'm saying it again. If you can tell me what to do, then you can tell me what to do. But if you can't tell me what to do, you can't tell me what to do. And there we have that, and there we have that, and thank you so much for listening. You know, we enjoy you. This conversation is to spark conversation and hopefully a revolution in your heart. Mind piece, How do you get an elephant? One by time? Hey, y'all, it's Eaves, a producer on the show, and it's time for another resource. In this episode, the ladies talked about not seeking information and advice from our family and friends on subjects that they are not qualified to speak on. Leah didn't really have people and her family who she could speak with about finances. So she went to do her own research and found the bogol Heads guides useful. There are several books in the series, like The bogle Heads Guide to the Three Fund Portfolio and The bogle Heads Guide to Investing. And if you've noticed any harmful patterns in your lineage, like Jill said, write them down. Even if you're not the one to change them, you can question why they exist, think about your own role in your lineage, and consider what legacy you want to leave behind. I'll drop links in the episode description. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Yes st Clair and Age a Greaden Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn j and Brian Calhoun. It's produced by La st Clair and me Eve Jeff Coke. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Loranger. Yeah yeah, yes, I was a lot so far as I've got the variable down in this my come on, come on, I'm not even want to say you know that was great. The longest silence would be better? Day, all right? Yeah? My, what the funk's throwing with? My mouth. Where happened, It happens from yesterday. They can't do from yesterday. Blessings. J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.