Oct. 5, 2022
Yaya Business
In this episode Aja shares the news that she’s going to be a Grandmother, or Yaya! The ladies dive into what it means for family to support young mothers. Call 866-HEY-JILL and leave us a message with your comments on this episode!
For more ways to support mom’s check out this article from Brown Mamas: https://brownmamas.com/support-groups-for-black-moms/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot IM, a production of I Heart Radio. What's Up, Everybody? It is the lady Jill Scott, your girl, Jil's got the woman, Jill Scott, Queen Joel's got all of Jill Scott. Leave me. I don't know what you all we're doing. I'm not even sure what I'm doing right now. I've had a series of tears and laughter and staring off in the space. Baby, it has been. It has been a whoa. I mean when somebody hit you with the he he you know what hit he? Man is something. I'm sitting here with my my beautiful sister friends Lah sat Clair. Oh that's what I'm sorry, Hey y'all, Sorry, my bad, I'm stuck bad. Hey y'all. What she said? So this one if everything? I want to know her whole name. Okay, you're going to know her whole name, and you're gonna know same Claire. Okay, because I say it, You're gonna do mytys it. Honey, who's your great danceler? Send a text message? Listen that we boys, we were quite ready for it. We were ready. We weren't ready to talk about it. I had to read the message. A couple of times, and then I was trying to text back but it wasn't good enough. It just it just wasn't good enough. And I called her. M I'm called her. I'm about to say I ain't even text back. I'm about to say Jill Right. It was like that that meme, you know, so that guy says I still love you and the father goes, what that's what happened. I just burst into tears. She did, I did. I was crying. Hall was crying. I wasn't because it was so much all at once. Yes, Yeah, that was a lot, all at once. Yeah, it was a lot. You're gonna a lot? Would yall like to know what the what the news is? Yeah? Dropping on him as confidently and as sure as you dropped it on us, because she dropped it like listen, I'm just gonna tell you well, ladies and gentlemen, I Ada graydon Danceler, your girl. It's going to be a nana, anana, a grandma. I'm my mom a yeah, y'ah me mother of six, grandmother of one. It's about to be on and do you understand me? But it's not at this point. You cannot play with me. At this point all things have to go through me. At this point, I'm no longer a mother, but a matriarch. Please address me, address my ship properly. Thank you. Listen, listen. If they need to call me my dear, they need to call me my dear. Whatever. The excitement in my soul and in my bosom is that of a person who understands and recognizes the power of legacy. And this child is going to be the first great grandchild on um on my out of the family, and it's the first grandchild on both his mother and father's side, and he is the child of the oldest girl child on in my family, on my with my husband and my side. I mean, this is there's a lot of first with this baby, I feel. I mean, listen, let me just tell you to like the force is strong with this one. I just want you all to know. This is just where I'm at with you. So I'm feeling I'm feeling really really good. I'm feeling good good. But yeah, like, so you know, my oldest daughter is twenty years old. I was twenty when I had my oldest child. I was the same age as my daughter. And I recognize that I don't I mean, I don't know. For some people. I guess for a handful of people out there, they're gonna look at as being a young mother what she is. But for me, I I'm just like mm hmm, my mom just rose so hard. For me. It's like it's saddle up beach, It's time. That's just the way. That's where I'm at. I got my bags, I got my I got my my saddle, my horse, I got all my ship. I'm ready ready. You know, we raw dog around shine already. It was a pretty raw dog around here. So you know, I remember a friend called me and congratulations. By the way, this is a beautiful thing. Yes, friend of mine called me and told me that his daughter was pregnant, and we just cried. We just we just cried. But it wasn't exactly a happy cry. It wasn't a happy cry because there was you know, this, these are the thoughts I'm just much to say it, like, she she's young, they're not together, you know, um, not that that means everything, but you know, she really hadn't had she got a scholarship for school, and now that's kind of she played sports, so that meant that that was out of the window and we just we cried because the there was so much, so much writing I think on her um having this awesome future. And and please don't get me wrong, please anybody that's listening here, don't get me wrong. Um, because people have children and thrive beautifully. Sometimes a child is the exact thing that the person needs in order to flourish, gives them a sense of purpose and the grounding that can absolutely leap over mountains. And that's that's that's no cat at all. How did you how did you? How did you see this? I mean, you know, I want to be like really transparent and without what also respecting my daughter's privacy in the sense that you know, my daughter is not married, you know, so that but I need y'all to understand that that fact is not at at any point like an issue for for me, you know. But I recognized that that's an issue for a lot of people, you know, it isn't for me. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it's like we are, We're a group of human beings, and we're all doing what human beings do. They connect with each other, sometimes they have sex, and sometimes that sex produces a baby. I was having those same types of relations with her father, and we were not married, So at any point during that time period, I could have become a mother and not been married, you know, and not been asked to get married, you know. And so the way I look at it is just kind of like, you know, I don't want to I want to be careful in this moment. Also because I recognized that there are a lot of that being a single mother, for being a mother period is a is a is a huge challenge. But being a single mother is um deeply challenging. And all of the women I've ever discussed this with, whether they had active families or active fathers or whatever, have all expressed that this is a challenge. But I always look at it like this. You know, being a woman is a challenge, being a mother is a challenge. All of these things will have you waken up one day saying why the fuck did I do this? Why am I? I don't even want to be a mother today? And I know that that and I we have to normalize these feelings because as women, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be a thing, to be associated with a thing, in order to get people's respect, in order to give people's love and people's reverence. Here's the bottom line. Every body, and when I say body, I mean the physical body. Every single body is not capable of holding a baby. And if your body does that and a baby becomes a part of your body, that is a sacred act, a beautiful act to which we all have to celebrate, because at the end of the day, life is a celebration. The purpose is not always in just the mother. The purposes in that person who came to be, because that person didn't have to come to be. That person could have just not came. Many of us have had plenty sex in our lives that a baby did not come from. So that wasn't a thing that was a given and so once that comes into play, I just for me, it's not even about politics around if you with somebody or if y'all y'all have married or whatever. Somebody can really be a trash boyfriend or a trash husband and still be a good father. Those things are not Those things don't always go together, and sometimes you can be a trash mother. I mean, listen, life, I don't know if I'm talking in circles or what. Because my heart is my heart. Life is just fucking messy. And it's like, and if we keep on throwing this stuff in women's laps when they have to focus on making a person, then all they're gonna doubly gonna do is continue to stress people out. I really don't care about whether or not she's married. I don't care about whether your kid is married. I don't care about none of that, ship, none of that. I want healthy human beings around me. So that means that I want my child to be a healthy, happy person. I want her child to be a healthy, happy person. I want the child's father to be a healthy and happy person. And everything that I can do to facilitate that health and that happiness amongst those three people, I will do. And I will do that because I know that I, in my life, am invested in the health and happiness of these people because they're responsible for the continuation of my bloodline. So I'm not worried about what the world has to say, or what society has to say or whatever. All of that stuff is trash to me. What is gold to me is what are your needs? How can we meet them? How can we produce and help to build a family that is strong, that is spiritually strong, that is self aware, who knows who they are, who is grateful, who is proud. That is what I'm concerned about. This is the that's this is the building that I'm trying to build, or that I would like to assist in building. She's very lucky, you know. You know that very exceptionally blessed, because family can definitely turn on you when they think that you're going in the direction that they don't want. They come around eventually, but it can be very hard for a pregnant woman. You know. I think you know, if anybody is like for pregnant women like YO, take it easy, baby, a little more gentle. You might have your thoughts. I'm pretty sure you know there there are dark thoughts at times for some other people, not you age a grade and Dancler, but for other people, you know, and they take it out on the young woman. I've seen that actually, and I've seen that in my family as well. Um. You know, someone dear to me um got pregnant before she left high school and the turn was just it was just really uncomfortable and and very harsh, you know. Um, The words were ugly and a that definitely can make for a not so healthy pregnancy, and this year is the goal. You know, we're talking about making sure that she's happy and and you know, filled with joy as much as possible. You know, Luckily this body is so young. I was like, damn, man, wow, my body is strong. Strong. You can I say something real quick? Please? Even I think in this conversation imperiod, you gotta be careful with speaking about what do they call it at you young pregnant young pregnancies or are women who get pregnant at a young age versus the celebration that Asia is experiencing. I mean, it's interesting because when we talked about it and you kind of we talked about it with my mom and these different different generations of people, and I think that it has to be said that Asia's way of thought is I always thought it's evolutionary, it's revolutionary. It's beautiful, even in the way where you told us, you know, how you got the news and which you were surrounded by with when you got the news, Like everything about this situation, I feel and based on all these situations, I know when there's been similar you know, like Jill said, we all know situations where it doesn't it doesn't land like this. But that being said, there's been a lot of work that has been put in on agents behalf her family and such to create this environment. So I just think that we need to kind of highlight that in a way and make sure that we know this too is special. I just I want to say special. I don't want to stay different because it should be maybe we should. This is a this is the way we should continue to think more real talk after the break, I want to tell you a story. I talked to my aunt Jackie, and um, y'all hear me talk about my cousin Yoda. This is Yoda's mama. Oh okay, So I talked to I talked to my aunt Jackie, and I'm like, yeah, you know what I'm telling her. I'm like, guess what you know? And she's like, oh, God, bless no, God, bless y'all. D And then she said, she said, you know what's so funny. She said, I love the way you responded to that. She said, you know when I got pregnant with d D she said, I was sixteen. So I was sixteen years old, and she said, and Nana, my nana um called everybody into the living room and said nobody has to say anything negative to her. Nobody is to say a single nasty thing to her. No one. She made it clear, and so my and Jackie went on to graduate from night school. Then she went to um U DC and she finished up her degree at Howard University, and she became the first black woman to be appointed to be Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy under the first Georgia Bush while she was mind you pregnant with her second child. So I just need people to understand that when you invest your energy in a mother, any mother, and I don't care how old that mother is. See, I heard a whole lot of things, and I want to be clear my daughters a grown woman. But one of the things I want to be clear about is that my my thoughts don't change even if she was a team mother. I want everyone to be clear on that my thoughts would not be different. And the reason why that is is because the investment in mothers is the investment in children, period. It is. It's really no difference when you divest from a mother because of shame, you are You're killing You're killing a part of the world. You're you're putting a menace into the world a person who is low, who is who is depressed, who could be violent, who could be who could fall into the depths of of mental illness. These are the things their body could not work properly. You're you're you're doing a great disservice by doing that. You're not punishing them for some behavior that you think is not in line with a social standard, something that you didn't do. So I always you know, there was a thing on the Internet some years ago or social media where it was like, people shouldn't be celebrating and throwing baby showers for team mothers. Why not? Why not? It's interested because some people think it borders on that team mom culture. One of their most successful shows on TV, maybe at least Middle America for those the white girls out there, that this show became popular and more girls wanted to be stars like that and start that they could do that, and so so once again, once again, once again, a capitalist social anomaly is not something that we need to always base on. What is the situation for the larger population. That's number one, and number two, the issue that a lot of people are having a problem with is that is whatever was existing prior to a baby coming. If you feel like a child has not been taught or protected or nurtured in a certain way or given a certain amount of information, or that's the issue, not a baby that's coming. Once a baby is coming, there's a different kind of you know, responsibility to what that actually means. And it doesn't mean to punish the mother. It never means punish the mother. It never means that. It never means it happened never, but it happens, and it happens a lot. So there's a showering of shame, a showering of shame. I mean, honey, I got it, and I was grown and married. Girl. Listen, nobody wanted me to get married. I got married super fast, and when I got pregnant, everybody took a deep breath like they felt bad for me. I had stopped doing music, so it was like, oh, you gave up music and now you're just gonna be a mother, and blah blah blah blah blah. I went through the whole YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, I went through all of that stuff. I experienced that shame on some level. Now that I've been married twenty four years, we're in a position where we could see what's unhealthy and we can change. That's why I called a revolutionary. That's why I was like and and especially revolutionary again because of the work that y'all put in. Like what she told the Asia said, she said, like this baby will be loved, like this baby will be taken care of. This But it's not even from the jump. There was never a moment. I feel like unless Asia, you had it when you were with your support your girlfriends, because I know you had a support system, but when you really like had any doubt, like you said, because you had that foundation. Girl, Once I was able to come from my child, I went to the beach by exactly, I went to the beach. I went to the beach to go get in that ocean and commune with my Lord and say thank you. Like that's all it really was about. At the end of the day, God is amazing in the ways and which my family has been blessed, and so I'm open to all the possibilities. And I know that this doesn't happen for any reason. And I lost my mother four years ago and now I'm having new life come into my life. New life girl, Come on now, y'all been with me since y'all been with talk. We've been having these talks now for months. Y'all have been through this last few months with me. Y'all know what this means to me, that this past June redefining my mother's memory in a time when I lost my mother and redefining that time with my daughter, and then to find out pretty much right after that that I was going to be a grandmother, y'all. I mean to have to be out of the country, in in a space with my sisterhood and my friends and my family, and then find this out in the comfort of my sisterhood. Girl, it was beautiful. It was like meant to It was meant to be the way it was right. And I want to say this because I want to be really, really really careful about this my daughter, and again with full respect to her privacy, but I do feel like I want to mention it. My daughter is still experiencing a myriad of emotions. Mm hmm. There's joy, there is fear, there's regret. There's a whole lot of different things going on in her as a woman, and she has the right to feel the full breadth of her emotions. She has a right to do that, and this is how she will learn and grow into being an amazing mother by allowing herself the room to be a human. And I will do everything that I can to create a space where she can do that, because that is the woman I want her to be, and that is the mother that I want her to be, and I'm praying that she will be. But I know that even I can't control that. Even I can I create, you know, or try to create this perfect environment. What I know is that all I can do is show up as the person that I say I'm showing up as, so that one day when I'm not here, someone can tell the story about how my great grandmother or my grandmother, when my mother or my grandmother was going to have a baby, my my grandmother or my great grandmother says, what do you need or how can I be of service to you? That's that's how I want to show up as a person, and I'm going to and I have and I will continue to. And I know that God will strengthen me. And I know that God was strengthening me because I know He already has. Now He the entity that is God has already strengthened me, so you know, I don't give a funk what nobody thinks about that. Now, now back to this name you're about to be called, though, Let's hold up. Let's get into these names. About the hashta let's go. The hashtag is sexy, y'all, y'all. Let's get into it, okay. And now my kids basically called me sexy, y'all, y'all. Now they actually put a sexy on there, which I found. It's lovely for me. Actually, I didn't intend for them to just call me sexy. Y'all, y'all, but at this point, when I get dressed in the morning and I come that day, okay, sexy ya yeah, yes, oh ship, oh ship, Oh your girlfriend's a passed aunt tache, y'all, y'all, solf fast, It's like, I'm definitely y'all. Y'all. Is the name of choice. I like, y'all, y'all. I wanted to be Nana because I wanted to be Nana because I've always loved my my Nana. But I was told your Nana. I wasn't quite ready for Nana, so I'll give that up. I love. Yes, it's y'all, y'all young enough for me. Well, I like, yeah, you like like right, I'm just saying she's like my like my third grandma friend. Let me let me just slowly dip into this. Well, the thing is that my children have so many aunties that then they like, well who are we So that that that turned into a whole conversation. I said, well, are y'all like the grand t tease or y'all grand tees or y'all what is your grunt? And then so my Nina, so my my daughter's like, well, I'm the t T. So y'all can't be te te okay because I'm teeth okay. So then my homegirl said, we're just gonna be the tease. Then the tease, the tease, honey, so all the tea. I didn't want nothing grand in front of it. That's I know. So you could be T T Lie and t J T Lie. I'm like, I wanted a great tea line. No, we're just gonna be T Jill. No, it's the whole thing. Great tea line. I like that great to that. I mean to be a great T jail j T great t J you'd be a great teach. Oh oh you're a great teamer, and I'm a great t J. Great tech. Yeah, great teach. So we're just we're working through it. The thing is that I love I love my village. I love my my villages. My village is tight. Come on, my college is tight. Come on. So I'm you know, I'm hoping to show my daughter and continue to show her this is what it looks like when you invest in in your own village, because then that spreads to the rest of your family as well. So I think it's really important to stress to our young women who are list or if you have young women in your life, and even some women have told us that this this podcast has existed like their their village, their group. But having a really strong group of women people, but definitely a group of women if you identify as a woman, is an absolute, um essential thing to your health and growth. Yo, those uncles are fired too, Oh, uncles are the fire. The good uncles. Uncles are fired. Yes, riding to the store real quick and get a couple of like the smell real nice walked by, you know. Oh yeah that he was a cousin or that's just my cousin. Hey, braby, that's just my cousin. I used to love that. I thought that was so awesome. Yeah, I got good uncles. Uncles are great, they are, But don't don't nobody take care of what women as good as a woman. That's what you'll learned from y'all. I'm saying nothing. It's a thing. But we don't do this to downplay the men. We just talk about what it is to we don't. We don't. It's a way to do it. I'm trying to figure out the great language because I am learning that life. So I'm like, I appreciate the way you do it, learning that live. I'm learning that live. Wow, it's happening. It's not something that you know already done. It's happening. I'm learning live. Lessons always coming. I'm so grateful that your daughter has this level of support around her. M h. It's just you know, I don't I don't want to. I just have to talk about all of it for me, and it's it's that the other portion, you know, having the family members and the friends that that make it seem like your life is over because you're having a child. You know, at at twenty, that's a grown ass woman, ma'am. Now. I mean, yeah, she can't have no liquor, but she don't want nothing right now, no way, you know right, I mean she baby grown, but she grown that. At my twenty first birthday party, I was nursing my son who was five months old. So there's that. That's how you get to be a sexy Yeah. Yeah, that is how you get to be sexy, y'all. Yeah, I mean there's some pluses and minestes to it, you know what. That part my ass, I'm like I would just thinking about the generations. It's just such an interesting generation where we've had such a I feel like population of yet you know, young, but also when you go to the elementary schools, she might be twenty years older than you. Two. I was, yeah, because I've been the youngest mother in kindergarten and I've been the oldest mother in kindergarten. I've had both experiences, you know, And so I get it. Mothering is going to be mothering no matter when it happens. And there will be some pluses to being a mother when you are young, and there will be some downsides, and there will be some pluses to being a mother when you are older, and there will be some downsides, there are blessings either way. The point is that when you approach this, this task, this really monumental task, you can't do it alone. And you can't do it. You just can't. And we've discussed this on this podcast, and can I say, accept this task for some of the other ladies that are listening who choose not to accept this task, but our task with this task is not to accept it. That it's so fine too. But for those who choose to accept this task, oh yeah, and you and you ain't got to accept it, you know, everybody listening, everybody listening, that's fair. You know, as someone who was I guess based on one of the people say, I never felt like a single parent because I had my village. You know, I've definitely incorporated people in our lives to help us out because it was a lot, you know, just touring and not having anybody, you know, necessarily take care of the baby. And and I want to make sure that this is this is someone that loves us, you know, UM loves us. So having having someone in my family being nanny, UM shout out to ms Lolo. She was our nanny for a while. She showed up I prayed for her. She showed up exactly as I prayed for, which was um wonderful, But she left and quickly um uh in a way that I did not want. You know, that made things really challenging. UM. What I'm getting at is that I personally do not suggest anybody having kids, um when you don't have a support system. I just I think it leads to a lot of a lot of things. I definitely I said this before. There were moments when that baby was crying and I hadn't slept in a more than an hour or two and in days, and I had walked into the door and blacked my eye. I'd stuffed my tolle. I don't know how many times. I can't even tell you. And I really wanted to throw that baby out the window, like I really did. I thought about it. I was married, And that's what I'm saying. To do that by yourself not possible right without support period. Yes, Yes, that's one of the things that you have to we have to have that. You've got to find some visits around you. You know that they actually genuinely care for you, and your daughter is blessed to have that in every direction, that she looks every direction she looks. And the fact that Asian you for your story about your grandmother, that's that blew me away like powerful that I don't I'm trying to think, you know, not that I'm saying it was the opposite my direction. But maybe it was more in the middle. I don't know. If it was just that was as beautiful and that was listen, this is like, yes, this is the directive. M h. And again, we're not all gonna get everything right, okay, if there's such a thing as a right okay, all of us will will move through life and the different decisions that are young people make, and we will see ourselves and those decisions, and we will see the things we've witnessed in those decisions, and we'll respond according to our experiences and whatever way that we feel sometimes will process that is I'm out, I'm loving this person by telling them what I think is the truth, right, And so I recognized that that is all a process, and that depend on where you are. You can project all kinds of different things on our young people. In particular, when I say young people, I mean those of us that are almost adults, those of us that are young adults, you know all those things, So we can project a lot of that on our young people and not even know that we're being harmful. We'll be thinking, all, I'm just loving you by telling you, you know, keeping it one undred with you, And I'm saying that I recognize that we're all not going to pass that test. I have not passed that test multiple times, and I've been trying to be as transparent as i can be about my parents and journey on this podcast. There have been times where I've responded in ways I had to reel that ship back. So I'm not expecting everybody to identify with the way I respond or respond that way themselves, or see loving people in the same way that I see loving people. But what I do hope we all do, as it concerns our young people, is that we allow them to not have to earn their value and love, that they can be loved and value simply by existing, and that when they may their decisions, that we enter into conversation with them being led by that fact. And that's that's really all I'm I'm asking of all of us, But all that I'm asking really of myself. And I talked to my son about this earlier today, and I just was like, Son, just leave with your humanity and everything that you do. Lead with that, because if you see yourself as a human, if you respect your own value, if you know that by simply showing up and being that you are valued, then you will do that to other people. But you gotta believe it about yourself. So honestly, when I see people be miserable to young people always, I know exactly what I'm looking at. Poor baby, you don't even have no grace for your own self. Why why would I expect you to have some grace for me and mine? Right? And my heart hurts for people like that because they didn't have their foundation either. They didn't Tom didn't get them to grace or raise them somebody give them an yeah. And so it's more of a thing that I'm sad about than I feel some type of way about. I feel like that's just sad. But we can we can stop it. We can decide to no longer participate. You hear that. You hear that, everybody. We don't have to do the things that we're done. We don't have to be that way mm hmm. We don't have to fall fall the puritanical if that's the word ideas. You know, we don't have to to to fit into confines in that way. And if we're leading in love, leading in love and moving in love, there is really no way to fall. You're literally flying. And it's gonna be some challenges, you know. You know, I'm definitely going to be some challenges. We all, we all have experienced those things. But when you have a support this them, I encourage you again to please go out into the world. For all of you who are just like I don't want to go outside, you know, I get it. I don't want to go outside all the time either, But you never know, you know, speak to people you know, you never know, be specific about who you want and what kind of person you want in your life. They show up, they really do, especially a little DC's little sisters out there. They're developing their own little sister circles and whatnot. I see you. We're gonna take a quick break and then it will be right back. I wanna um read something, and I do that. Of course, you can't shop. I want to read something that I wrote that I post every Mother's Day, and I feel like I want to read it here, but I've been posting that every Mother's Day for about two years and I still give the ms from people about this. I want to share here. It's an essay that I wrote call on Mothering UM. Mothering is a master class and self awareness. On the difficult days, it is isolating and grow self loathing like mold under a leaky sink. And on the good days, you feel like you're in alignment with an order of things, like the sound of chirping birds returning for spring or the taste of perfectly riping fruit. It's these good days that motivate you and haunt you, the days that create fantasy for those who desire to mother, and that seem a delusion for those who do not. Mostly it is a road you will travel alone. It's probably better that way. What does it profit you to know anyone more than you know yourself? Mothering will show you exactly who you are. It isn't the only pathway there, but it is a guaranteed one. And when you're not in your own head, it's other mothers who will pull you out of isolation enough to validate your feelings, debunk your exaggerated critique of yourself, and remind you you are, in fact lonely not alone. Sounds like a fucking blast, don't it. I mean it is, mostly though it's not. I think that's okay. Why do we have to sell this narrative that the good outweighs the challenges Even if it doesn't. Mothering is still unnecessary, beautiful, ugly, profound duty. Love is the surrender to that which keeps all matters in order. Love cares nothing about your perception of time, strength, or patience. It does what is necessary for contentment, and it sucks along the way this until you discover that you are worthy of it too. I think it can't happen until the first part does. It's like leaves falling and ship getting cold and frigid because it's necessary to make way for flowers. I think the discovery that you essentially need to love yourself with the same vigor you loved your kid comes later to shield you from another difficult truth. Your child is not indebted to you. Loving you will be as thankless and challenging for them as it was for you to love them. They will also forge ahead in the world to create their own story, and you will have to have a good relationship with the person they leave behind. Having a made helps, it's not a shield. They have their own journey to walk their own boundaries, to impose their own love to budget and audit. I'm glad that my mothering is my own insanity to possess. It is my great experiment and self study and selflessness, my personal dissertation, my own failure and triumph to contemplate, my reminder of my humanity. Order. That's it. What is the order? Order? In that order? Just meaning? Like in the very beginning, how I spoke about how when you're really in a good day, you feel like you're in alignment with the order of things. Yeah, but I feel like my journey as a motherhood is in alignment with the order of things. And the order of things is a lot of things, good, early, awesome, whatever, But it's in order. It's my order, and my child will discover her own order and her own insanity to possess. I pray everybody finds their own insanity to possess their own order, their own alignment. Who when you think about it like that, what I feel? I just feel a warmth, like the overwhelming warmth. I'm trying not to cry God darn it, I'm exciting for you. I'm really excited for you. I'm excited for your daughter, but I'm really excited for you. Yeah, this whole, this whole, Yeah, y'all business. This is something you've never been. You've never been this before. This is this is brand new, never deciding a new, come a bored. Yeah, you're too young to know what that is. Where it's infecting a lot of boa. Soon you'll be digging another. This is business road love I know center in a new road man. Road Man are made a reboot. It's not at it's coming in the fall. It's like it's like it's called the love boat. Yeah m hm, and it continues. I shall who see and continue. Y'all better get these preferences. They got it. They got it. They if they're listening to us, they got it. Yeah, they listen. I love to call this, y'all, y'all. I love you called this y'all. Y'all business. Come on this, y'all. Come on, y'all, y'all be business. Yeah yeah, so baby gonna say yeah. Yeah. First probably all I want to do. I just want to roll around in the grass and play hard and go seek and laugh and and just be asked a million questions ends and have somebody climb up in my lab and just lay on my chest and just find some comfort and no my smell and talk about things I cook or things that I don't cook, because who knows what type of y'all, y'all, I'm gonna be m but I think I'm just excited to get to know my little person. I'm excited to get to know them. I want. I don't want mom. You know, I love my blue baby. That was a sweet thing. She's a good thing. She's funny. She's hard on me sometimes and I appreciate it, appreciate it so much. Child. She was hard, Oh Margaret may As, she was hard child, But thank you guy for it. Thank you. Yeah, and you were awesome. You're awesome granddaughter, Like yeah I am now I was I did, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love My name was Turned, Yeah, it was, she was Turned. She was such a bright, vibrant, fun, amazing little person. She just I miss her, but yeah, that was that was That was my one, right there, that was my one. Here I go again. I was like, I'm just age. You get the opportunity to be what your mother was. For your children. Yeah, you get that chip. This is it, this is this is so exciting and not to get deep though, but wait, Jill, she gets to be what her mother is to her children at some point in life when the when the life continues in another form, I swear to God, the captain of the ship that commands the way we I do my every day is my grandmother. So that's why I'm like, And I know your mother is commanding this whole ship, so I'm like in both on both levels. She old, that's so dull, it's so dope. When I think about this year, She's been preparing me this whole time. That part she knew it was coming. No. Oh, I just want to say thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ilda podcast. This life will continue to blossom and bloom in ways that you just don't expect. Not always, but when they do, please please pay attention to the fragrance of the flower. Please pay attention to the colors. Life is the good friends, Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. By yea, how do you eat an elephant? One? By? It time, Hey listeners, It's Amber, the producer of Jada Ile Here. I love how real our show is and other ladies get to share their special moments with all of you. Fun fact a yeah yeah is the Greek word for grandmother. I also want to share with you an article about supporting the new moms in your life from Brown Mama's. They have an incredible list of organizations around the country that have groups for everything from breastfeeding to mother's support to wine and brunch clubs. Because mama's deserve all that Mama's grandma's yeah yeah's aunties, all of the people who are supporting birthing people. Hi, if you have comments on something he said in this episode, call eight six six Hey Jill if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast JA dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot IM, a production of I Heart Radio. What's Up, Everybody? It is the lady Jill Scott, your girl, Jil's got the woman, Jill Scott, Queen Joel's got all of Jill Scott. Leave me. I don't know what you all we're doing. I'm not even sure what I'm doing right now. I've had a series of tears and laughter and staring off in the space. Baby, it has been. It has been a whoa. I mean when somebody hit you with the he he you know what hit he? Man is something. I'm sitting here with my my beautiful sister friends Lah sat Clair. Oh that's what I'm sorry, Hey y'all, Sorry, my bad, I'm stuck bad. Hey y'all. What she said? So this one if everything? I want to know her whole name. Okay, you're going to know her whole name, and you're gonna know same Claire. Okay, because I say it, You're gonna do mytys it. Honey, who's your great danceler? Send a text message? Listen that we boys, we were quite ready for it. We were ready. We weren't ready to talk about it. I had to read the message. A couple of times, and then I was trying to text back but it wasn't good enough. It just it just wasn't good enough. And I called her. M I'm called her. I'm about to say I ain't even text back. I'm about to say Jill Right. It was like that that meme, you know, so that guy says I still love you and the father goes, what that's what happened. I just burst into tears. She did, I did. I was crying. Hall was crying. I wasn't because it was so much all at once. Yes, Yeah, that was a lot, all at once. Yeah, it was a lot. You're gonna a lot? Would yall like to know what the what the news is? Yeah? Dropping on him as confidently and as sure as you dropped it on us, because she dropped it like listen, I'm just gonna tell you well, ladies and gentlemen, I Ada graydon Danceler, your girl. It's going to be a nana, anana, a grandma. I'm my mom a yeah, y'ah me mother of six, grandmother of one. It's about to be on and do you understand me? But it's not at this point. You cannot play with me. At this point all things have to go through me. At this point, I'm no longer a mother, but a matriarch. Please address me, address my ship properly. Thank you. Listen, listen. If they need to call me my dear, they need to call me my dear. Whatever. The excitement in my soul and in my bosom is that of a person who understands and recognizes the power of legacy. And this child is going to be the first great grandchild on um on my out of the family, and it's the first grandchild on both his mother and father's side, and he is the child of the oldest girl child on in my family, on my with my husband and my side. I mean, this is there's a lot of first with this baby, I feel. I mean, listen, let me just tell you to like the force is strong with this one. I just want you all to know. This is just where I'm at with you. So I'm feeling I'm feeling really really good. I'm feeling good good. But yeah, like, so you know, my oldest daughter is twenty years old. I was twenty when I had my oldest child. I was the same age as my daughter. And I recognize that I don't I mean, I don't know. For some people. I guess for a handful of people out there, they're gonna look at as being a young mother what she is. But for me, I I'm just like mm hmm, my mom just rose so hard. For me. It's like it's saddle up beach, It's time. That's just the way. That's where I'm at. I got my bags, I got my I got my my saddle, my horse, I got all my ship. I'm ready ready. You know, we raw dog around shine already. It was a pretty raw dog around here. So you know, I remember a friend called me and congratulations. By the way, this is a beautiful thing. Yes, friend of mine called me and told me that his daughter was pregnant, and we just cried. We just we just cried. But it wasn't exactly a happy cry. It wasn't a happy cry because there was you know, this, these are the thoughts I'm just much to say it, like, she she's young, they're not together, you know, um, not that that means everything, but you know, she really hadn't had she got a scholarship for school, and now that's kind of she played sports, so that meant that that was out of the window and we just we cried because the there was so much, so much writing I think on her um having this awesome future. And and please don't get me wrong, please anybody that's listening here, don't get me wrong. Um, because people have children and thrive beautifully. Sometimes a child is the exact thing that the person needs in order to flourish, gives them a sense of purpose and the grounding that can absolutely leap over mountains. And that's that's that's no cat at all. How did you how did you? How did you see this? I mean, you know, I want to be like really transparent and without what also respecting my daughter's privacy in the sense that you know, my daughter is not married, you know, so that but I need y'all to understand that that fact is not at at any point like an issue for for me, you know. But I recognized that that's an issue for a lot of people, you know, it isn't for me. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it's like we are, We're a group of human beings, and we're all doing what human beings do. They connect with each other, sometimes they have sex, and sometimes that sex produces a baby. I was having those same types of relations with her father, and we were not married, So at any point during that time period, I could have become a mother and not been married, you know, and not been asked to get married, you know. And so the way I look at it is just kind of like, you know, I don't want to I want to be careful in this moment. Also because I recognized that there are a lot of that being a single mother, for being a mother period is a is a is a huge challenge. But being a single mother is um deeply challenging. And all of the women I've ever discussed this with, whether they had active families or active fathers or whatever, have all expressed that this is a challenge. But I always look at it like this. You know, being a woman is a challenge, being a mother is a challenge. All of these things will have you waken up one day saying why the fuck did I do this? Why am I? I don't even want to be a mother today? And I know that that and I we have to normalize these feelings because as women, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be a thing, to be associated with a thing, in order to get people's respect, in order to give people's love and people's reverence. Here's the bottom line. Every body, and when I say body, I mean the physical body. Every single body is not capable of holding a baby. And if your body does that and a baby becomes a part of your body, that is a sacred act, a beautiful act to which we all have to celebrate, because at the end of the day, life is a celebration. The purpose is not always in just the mother. The purposes in that person who came to be, because that person didn't have to come to be. That person could have just not came. Many of us have had plenty sex in our lives that a baby did not come from. So that wasn't a thing that was a given and so once that comes into play, I just for me, it's not even about politics around if you with somebody or if y'all y'all have married or whatever. Somebody can really be a trash boyfriend or a trash husband and still be a good father. Those things are not Those things don't always go together, and sometimes you can be a trash mother. I mean, listen, life, I don't know if I'm talking in circles or what. Because my heart is my heart. Life is just fucking messy. And it's like, and if we keep on throwing this stuff in women's laps when they have to focus on making a person, then all they're gonna doubly gonna do is continue to stress people out. I really don't care about whether or not she's married. I don't care about whether your kid is married. I don't care about none of that, ship, none of that. I want healthy human beings around me. So that means that I want my child to be a healthy, happy person. I want her child to be a healthy, happy person. I want the child's father to be a healthy and happy person. And everything that I can do to facilitate that health and that happiness amongst those three people, I will do. And I will do that because I know that I, in my life, am invested in the health and happiness of these people because they're responsible for the continuation of my bloodline. So I'm not worried about what the world has to say, or what society has to say or whatever. All of that stuff is trash to me. What is gold to me is what are your needs? How can we meet them? How can we produce and help to build a family that is strong, that is spiritually strong, that is self aware, who knows who they are, who is grateful, who is proud. That is what I'm concerned about. This is the that's this is the building that I'm trying to build, or that I would like to assist in building. She's very lucky, you know. You know that very exceptionally blessed, because family can definitely turn on you when they think that you're going in the direction that they don't want. They come around eventually, but it can be very hard for a pregnant woman. You know. I think you know, if anybody is like for pregnant women like YO, take it easy, baby, a little more gentle. You might have your thoughts. I'm pretty sure you know there there are dark thoughts at times for some other people, not you age a grade and Dancler, but for other people, you know, and they take it out on the young woman. I've seen that actually, and I've seen that in my family as well. Um. You know, someone dear to me um got pregnant before she left high school and the turn was just it was just really uncomfortable and and very harsh, you know. Um, The words were ugly and a that definitely can make for a not so healthy pregnancy, and this year is the goal. You know, we're talking about making sure that she's happy and and you know, filled with joy as much as possible. You know, Luckily this body is so young. I was like, damn, man, wow, my body is strong. Strong. You can I say something real quick? Please? Even I think in this conversation imperiod, you gotta be careful with speaking about what do they call it at you young pregnant young pregnancies or are women who get pregnant at a young age versus the celebration that Asia is experiencing. I mean, it's interesting because when we talked about it and you kind of we talked about it with my mom and these different different generations of people, and I think that it has to be said that Asia's way of thought is I always thought it's evolutionary, it's revolutionary. It's beautiful, even in the way where you told us, you know, how you got the news and which you were surrounded by with when you got the news, Like everything about this situation, I feel and based on all these situations, I know when there's been similar you know, like Jill said, we all know situations where it doesn't it doesn't land like this. But that being said, there's been a lot of work that has been put in on agents behalf her family and such to create this environment. So I just think that we need to kind of highlight that in a way and make sure that we know this too is special. I just I want to say special. I don't want to stay different because it should be maybe we should. This is a this is the way we should continue to think more real talk after the break, I want to tell you a story. I talked to my aunt Jackie, and um, y'all hear me talk about my cousin Yoda. This is Yoda's mama. Oh okay, So I talked to I talked to my aunt Jackie, and I'm like, yeah, you know what I'm telling her. I'm like, guess what you know? And she's like, oh, God, bless no, God, bless y'all. D And then she said, she said, you know what's so funny. She said, I love the way you responded to that. She said, you know when I got pregnant with d D she said, I was sixteen. So I was sixteen years old, and she said, and Nana, my nana um called everybody into the living room and said nobody has to say anything negative to her. Nobody is to say a single nasty thing to her. No one. She made it clear, and so my and Jackie went on to graduate from night school. Then she went to um U DC and she finished up her degree at Howard University, and she became the first black woman to be appointed to be Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy under the first Georgia Bush while she was mind you pregnant with her second child. So I just need people to understand that when you invest your energy in a mother, any mother, and I don't care how old that mother is. See, I heard a whole lot of things, and I want to be clear my daughters a grown woman. But one of the things I want to be clear about is that my my thoughts don't change even if she was a team mother. I want everyone to be clear on that my thoughts would not be different. And the reason why that is is because the investment in mothers is the investment in children, period. It is. It's really no difference when you divest from a mother because of shame, you are You're killing You're killing a part of the world. You're you're putting a menace into the world a person who is low, who is who is depressed, who could be violent, who could be who could fall into the depths of of mental illness. These are the things their body could not work properly. You're you're you're doing a great disservice by doing that. You're not punishing them for some behavior that you think is not in line with a social standard, something that you didn't do. So I always you know, there was a thing on the Internet some years ago or social media where it was like, people shouldn't be celebrating and throwing baby showers for team mothers. Why not? Why not? It's interested because some people think it borders on that team mom culture. One of their most successful shows on TV, maybe at least Middle America for those the white girls out there, that this show became popular and more girls wanted to be stars like that and start that they could do that, and so so once again, once again, once again, a capitalist social anomaly is not something that we need to always base on. What is the situation for the larger population. That's number one, and number two, the issue that a lot of people are having a problem with is that is whatever was existing prior to a baby coming. If you feel like a child has not been taught or protected or nurtured in a certain way or given a certain amount of information, or that's the issue, not a baby that's coming. Once a baby is coming, there's a different kind of you know, responsibility to what that actually means. And it doesn't mean to punish the mother. It never means punish the mother. It never means that. It never means it happened never, but it happens, and it happens a lot. So there's a showering of shame, a showering of shame. I mean, honey, I got it, and I was grown and married. Girl. Listen, nobody wanted me to get married. I got married super fast, and when I got pregnant, everybody took a deep breath like they felt bad for me. I had stopped doing music, so it was like, oh, you gave up music and now you're just gonna be a mother, and blah blah blah blah blah. I went through the whole YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, I went through all of that stuff. I experienced that shame on some level. Now that I've been married twenty four years, we're in a position where we could see what's unhealthy and we can change. That's why I called a revolutionary. That's why I was like and and especially revolutionary again because of the work that y'all put in. Like what she told the Asia said, she said, like this baby will be loved, like this baby will be taken care of. This But it's not even from the jump. There was never a moment. I feel like unless Asia, you had it when you were with your support your girlfriends, because I know you had a support system, but when you really like had any doubt, like you said, because you had that foundation. Girl, Once I was able to come from my child, I went to the beach by exactly, I went to the beach. I went to the beach to go get in that ocean and commune with my Lord and say thank you. Like that's all it really was about. At the end of the day, God is amazing in the ways and which my family has been blessed, and so I'm open to all the possibilities. And I know that this doesn't happen for any reason. And I lost my mother four years ago and now I'm having new life come into my life. New life girl, Come on now, y'all been with me since y'all been with talk. We've been having these talks now for months. Y'all have been through this last few months with me. Y'all know what this means to me, that this past June redefining my mother's memory in a time when I lost my mother and redefining that time with my daughter, and then to find out pretty much right after that that I was going to be a grandmother, y'all. I mean to have to be out of the country, in in a space with my sisterhood and my friends and my family, and then find this out in the comfort of my sisterhood. Girl, it was beautiful. It was like meant to It was meant to be the way it was right. And I want to say this because I want to be really, really really careful about this my daughter, and again with full respect to her privacy, but I do feel like I want to mention it. My daughter is still experiencing a myriad of emotions. Mm hmm. There's joy, there is fear, there's regret. There's a whole lot of different things going on in her as a woman, and she has the right to feel the full breadth of her emotions. She has a right to do that, and this is how she will learn and grow into being an amazing mother by allowing herself the room to be a human. And I will do everything that I can to create a space where she can do that, because that is the woman I want her to be, and that is the mother that I want her to be, and I'm praying that she will be. But I know that even I can't control that. Even I can I create, you know, or try to create this perfect environment. What I know is that all I can do is show up as the person that I say I'm showing up as, so that one day when I'm not here, someone can tell the story about how my great grandmother or my grandmother, when my mother or my grandmother was going to have a baby, my my grandmother or my great grandmother says, what do you need or how can I be of service to you? That's that's how I want to show up as a person, and I'm going to and I have and I will continue to. And I know that God will strengthen me. And I know that God was strengthening me because I know He already has. Now He the entity that is God has already strengthened me, so you know, I don't give a funk what nobody thinks about that. Now, now back to this name you're about to be called, though, Let's hold up. Let's get into these names. About the hashta let's go. The hashtag is sexy, y'all, y'all. Let's get into it, okay. And now my kids basically called me sexy, y'all, y'all. Now they actually put a sexy on there, which I found. It's lovely for me. Actually, I didn't intend for them to just call me sexy. Y'all, y'all, but at this point, when I get dressed in the morning and I come that day, okay, sexy ya yeah, yes, oh ship, oh ship, Oh your girlfriend's a passed aunt tache, y'all, y'all, solf fast, It's like, I'm definitely y'all. Y'all. Is the name of choice. I like, y'all, y'all. I wanted to be Nana because I wanted to be Nana because I've always loved my my Nana. But I was told your Nana. I wasn't quite ready for Nana, so I'll give that up. I love. Yes, it's y'all, y'all young enough for me. Well, I like, yeah, you like like right, I'm just saying she's like my like my third grandma friend. Let me let me just slowly dip into this. Well, the thing is that my children have so many aunties that then they like, well who are we So that that that turned into a whole conversation. I said, well, are y'all like the grand t tease or y'all grand tees or y'all what is your grunt? And then so my Nina, so my my daughter's like, well, I'm the t T. So y'all can't be te te okay because I'm teeth okay. So then my homegirl said, we're just gonna be the tease. Then the tease, the tease, honey, so all the tea. I didn't want nothing grand in front of it. That's I know. So you could be T T Lie and t J T Lie. I'm like, I wanted a great tea line. No, we're just gonna be T Jill. No, it's the whole thing. Great tea line. I like that great to that. I mean to be a great T jail j T great t J you'd be a great teach. Oh oh you're a great teamer, and I'm a great t J. Great tech. Yeah, great teach. So we're just we're working through it. The thing is that I love I love my village. I love my my villages. My village is tight. Come on, my college is tight. Come on. So I'm you know, I'm hoping to show my daughter and continue to show her this is what it looks like when you invest in in your own village, because then that spreads to the rest of your family as well. So I think it's really important to stress to our young women who are list or if you have young women in your life, and even some women have told us that this this podcast has existed like their their village, their group. But having a really strong group of women people, but definitely a group of women if you identify as a woman, is an absolute, um essential thing to your health and growth. Yo, those uncles are fired too, Oh, uncles are the fire. The good uncles. Uncles are fired. Yes, riding to the store real quick and get a couple of like the smell real nice walked by, you know. Oh yeah that he was a cousin or that's just my cousin. Hey, braby, that's just my cousin. I used to love that. I thought that was so awesome. Yeah, I got good uncles. Uncles are great, they are, But don't don't nobody take care of what women as good as a woman. That's what you'll learned from y'all. I'm saying nothing. It's a thing. But we don't do this to downplay the men. We just talk about what it is to we don't. We don't. It's a way to do it. I'm trying to figure out the great language because I am learning that life. So I'm like, I appreciate the way you do it, learning that live. I'm learning that live. Wow, it's happening. It's not something that you know already done. It's happening. I'm learning live. Lessons always coming. I'm so grateful that your daughter has this level of support around her. M h. It's just you know, I don't I don't want to. I just have to talk about all of it for me, and it's it's that the other portion, you know, having the family members and the friends that that make it seem like your life is over because you're having a child. You know, at at twenty, that's a grown ass woman, ma'am. Now. I mean, yeah, she can't have no liquor, but she don't want nothing right now, no way, you know right, I mean she baby grown, but she grown that. At my twenty first birthday party, I was nursing my son who was five months old. So there's that. That's how you get to be a sexy Yeah. Yeah, that is how you get to be sexy, y'all. Yeah, I mean there's some pluses and minestes to it, you know what. That part my ass, I'm like I would just thinking about the generations. It's just such an interesting generation where we've had such a I feel like population of yet you know, young, but also when you go to the elementary schools, she might be twenty years older than you. Two. I was, yeah, because I've been the youngest mother in kindergarten and I've been the oldest mother in kindergarten. I've had both experiences, you know, And so I get it. Mothering is going to be mothering no matter when it happens. And there will be some pluses to being a mother when you are young, and there will be some downsides, and there will be some pluses to being a mother when you are older, and there will be some downsides, there are blessings either way. The point is that when you approach this, this task, this really monumental task, you can't do it alone. And you can't do it. You just can't. And we've discussed this on this podcast, and can I say, accept this task for some of the other ladies that are listening who choose not to accept this task, but our task with this task is not to accept it. That it's so fine too. But for those who choose to accept this task, oh yeah, and you and you ain't got to accept it, you know, everybody listening, everybody listening, that's fair. You know, as someone who was I guess based on one of the people say, I never felt like a single parent because I had my village. You know, I've definitely incorporated people in our lives to help us out because it was a lot, you know, just touring and not having anybody, you know, necessarily take care of the baby. And and I want to make sure that this is this is someone that loves us, you know, UM loves us. So having having someone in my family being nanny, UM shout out to ms Lolo. She was our nanny for a while. She showed up I prayed for her. She showed up exactly as I prayed for, which was um wonderful, But she left and quickly um uh in a way that I did not want. You know, that made things really challenging. UM. What I'm getting at is that I personally do not suggest anybody having kids, um when you don't have a support system. I just I think it leads to a lot of a lot of things. I definitely I said this before. There were moments when that baby was crying and I hadn't slept in a more than an hour or two and in days, and I had walked into the door and blacked my eye. I'd stuffed my tolle. I don't know how many times. I can't even tell you. And I really wanted to throw that baby out the window, like I really did. I thought about it. I was married, And that's what I'm saying. To do that by yourself not possible right without support period. Yes, Yes, that's one of the things that you have to we have to have that. You've got to find some visits around you. You know that they actually genuinely care for you, and your daughter is blessed to have that in every direction, that she looks every direction she looks. And the fact that Asian you for your story about your grandmother, that's that blew me away like powerful that I don't I'm trying to think, you know, not that I'm saying it was the opposite my direction. But maybe it was more in the middle. I don't know. If it was just that was as beautiful and that was listen, this is like, yes, this is the directive. M h. And again, we're not all gonna get everything right, okay, if there's such a thing as a right okay, all of us will will move through life and the different decisions that are young people make, and we will see ourselves and those decisions, and we will see the things we've witnessed in those decisions, and we'll respond according to our experiences and whatever way that we feel sometimes will process that is I'm out, I'm loving this person by telling them what I think is the truth, right, And so I recognized that that is all a process, and that depend on where you are. You can project all kinds of different things on our young people. In particular, when I say young people, I mean those of us that are almost adults, those of us that are young adults, you know all those things, So we can project a lot of that on our young people and not even know that we're being harmful. We'll be thinking, all, I'm just loving you by telling you, you know, keeping it one undred with you, And I'm saying that I recognize that we're all not going to pass that test. I have not passed that test multiple times, and I've been trying to be as transparent as i can be about my parents and journey on this podcast. There have been times where I've responded in ways I had to reel that ship back. So I'm not expecting everybody to identify with the way I respond or respond that way themselves, or see loving people in the same way that I see loving people. But what I do hope we all do, as it concerns our young people, is that we allow them to not have to earn their value and love, that they can be loved and value simply by existing, and that when they may their decisions, that we enter into conversation with them being led by that fact. And that's that's really all I'm I'm asking of all of us, But all that I'm asking really of myself. And I talked to my son about this earlier today, and I just was like, Son, just leave with your humanity and everything that you do. Lead with that, because if you see yourself as a human, if you respect your own value, if you know that by simply showing up and being that you are valued, then you will do that to other people. But you gotta believe it about yourself. So honestly, when I see people be miserable to young people always, I know exactly what I'm looking at. Poor baby, you don't even have no grace for your own self. Why why would I expect you to have some grace for me and mine? Right? And my heart hurts for people like that because they didn't have their foundation either. They didn't Tom didn't get them to grace or raise them somebody give them an yeah. And so it's more of a thing that I'm sad about than I feel some type of way about. I feel like that's just sad. But we can we can stop it. We can decide to no longer participate. You hear that. You hear that, everybody. We don't have to do the things that we're done. We don't have to be that way mm hmm. We don't have to fall fall the puritanical if that's the word ideas. You know, we don't have to to to fit into confines in that way. And if we're leading in love, leading in love and moving in love, there is really no way to fall. You're literally flying. And it's gonna be some challenges, you know. You know, I'm definitely going to be some challenges. We all, we all have experienced those things. But when you have a support this them, I encourage you again to please go out into the world. For all of you who are just like I don't want to go outside, you know, I get it. I don't want to go outside all the time either, But you never know, you know, speak to people you know, you never know, be specific about who you want and what kind of person you want in your life. They show up, they really do, especially a little DC's little sisters out there. They're developing their own little sister circles and whatnot. I see you. We're gonna take a quick break and then it will be right back. I wanna um read something, and I do that. Of course, you can't shop. I want to read something that I wrote that I post every Mother's Day, and I feel like I want to read it here, but I've been posting that every Mother's Day for about two years and I still give the ms from people about this. I want to share here. It's an essay that I wrote call on Mothering UM. Mothering is a master class and self awareness. On the difficult days, it is isolating and grow self loathing like mold under a leaky sink. And on the good days, you feel like you're in alignment with an order of things, like the sound of chirping birds returning for spring or the taste of perfectly riping fruit. It's these good days that motivate you and haunt you, the days that create fantasy for those who desire to mother, and that seem a delusion for those who do not. Mostly it is a road you will travel alone. It's probably better that way. What does it profit you to know anyone more than you know yourself? Mothering will show you exactly who you are. It isn't the only pathway there, but it is a guaranteed one. And when you're not in your own head, it's other mothers who will pull you out of isolation enough to validate your feelings, debunk your exaggerated critique of yourself, and remind you you are, in fact lonely not alone. Sounds like a fucking blast, don't it. I mean it is, mostly though it's not. I think that's okay. Why do we have to sell this narrative that the good outweighs the challenges Even if it doesn't. Mothering is still unnecessary, beautiful, ugly, profound duty. Love is the surrender to that which keeps all matters in order. Love cares nothing about your perception of time, strength, or patience. It does what is necessary for contentment, and it sucks along the way this until you discover that you are worthy of it too. I think it can't happen until the first part does. It's like leaves falling and ship getting cold and frigid because it's necessary to make way for flowers. I think the discovery that you essentially need to love yourself with the same vigor you loved your kid comes later to shield you from another difficult truth. Your child is not indebted to you. Loving you will be as thankless and challenging for them as it was for you to love them. They will also forge ahead in the world to create their own story, and you will have to have a good relationship with the person they leave behind. Having a made helps, it's not a shield. They have their own journey to walk their own boundaries, to impose their own love to budget and audit. I'm glad that my mothering is my own insanity to possess. It is my great experiment and self study and selflessness, my personal dissertation, my own failure and triumph to contemplate, my reminder of my humanity. Order. That's it. What is the order? Order? In that order? Just meaning? Like in the very beginning, how I spoke about how when you're really in a good day, you feel like you're in alignment with the order of things. Yeah, but I feel like my journey as a motherhood is in alignment with the order of things. And the order of things is a lot of things, good, early, awesome, whatever, But it's in order. It's my order, and my child will discover her own order and her own insanity to possess. I pray everybody finds their own insanity to possess their own order, their own alignment. Who when you think about it like that, what I feel? I just feel a warmth, like the overwhelming warmth. I'm trying not to cry God darn it, I'm exciting for you. I'm really excited for you. I'm excited for your daughter, but I'm really excited for you. Yeah, this whole, this whole, Yeah, y'all business. This is something you've never been. You've never been this before. This is this is brand new, never deciding a new, come a bored. Yeah, you're too young to know what that is. Where it's infecting a lot of boa. Soon you'll be digging another. This is business road love I know center in a new road man. Road Man are made a reboot. It's not at it's coming in the fall. It's like it's like it's called the love boat. Yeah m hm, and it continues. I shall who see and continue. Y'all better get these preferences. They got it. They got it. They if they're listening to us, they got it. Yeah, they listen. I love to call this, y'all, y'all. I love you called this y'all. Y'all business. Come on this, y'all. Come on, y'all, y'all be business. Yeah yeah, so baby gonna say yeah. Yeah. First probably all I want to do. I just want to roll around in the grass and play hard and go seek and laugh and and just be asked a million questions ends and have somebody climb up in my lab and just lay on my chest and just find some comfort and no my smell and talk about things I cook or things that I don't cook, because who knows what type of y'all, y'all, I'm gonna be m but I think I'm just excited to get to know my little person. I'm excited to get to know them. I want. I don't want mom. You know, I love my blue baby. That was a sweet thing. She's a good thing. She's funny. She's hard on me sometimes and I appreciate it, appreciate it so much. Child. She was hard, Oh Margaret may As, she was hard child, But thank you guy for it. Thank you. Yeah, and you were awesome. You're awesome granddaughter, Like yeah I am now I was I did, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love My name was Turned, Yeah, it was, she was Turned. She was such a bright, vibrant, fun, amazing little person. She just I miss her, but yeah, that was that was That was my one, right there, that was my one. Here I go again. I was like, I'm just age. You get the opportunity to be what your mother was. For your children. Yeah, you get that chip. This is it, this is this is so exciting and not to get deep though, but wait, Jill, she gets to be what her mother is to her children at some point in life when the when the life continues in another form, I swear to God, the captain of the ship that commands the way we I do my every day is my grandmother. So that's why I'm like, And I know your mother is commanding this whole ship, so I'm like in both on both levels. She old, that's so dull, it's so dope. When I think about this year, She's been preparing me this whole time. That part she knew it was coming. No. Oh, I just want to say thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ilda podcast. This life will continue to blossom and bloom in ways that you just don't expect. Not always, but when they do, please please pay attention to the fragrance of the flower. Please pay attention to the colors. Life is the good friends, Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. By yea, how do you eat an elephant? One? By? It time, Hey listeners, It's Amber, the producer of Jada Ile Here. I love how real our show is and other ladies get to share their special moments with all of you. Fun fact a yeah yeah is the Greek word for grandmother. I also want to share with you an article about supporting the new moms in your life from Brown Mama's. They have an incredible list of organizations around the country that have groups for everything from breastfeeding to mother's support to wine and brunch clubs. Because mama's deserve all that Mama's grandma's yeah yeah's aunties, all of the people who are supporting birthing people. Hi, if you have comments on something he said in this episode, call eight six six Hey Jill if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast JA dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
