I hate to see parents treat their Black daughters like the hired help. She is serving everyone while others sit on their ass.
Without realizing it, you’re training your daughter to be a mammy or a maid. She is cooking, cleaning, washing and serving everyone but herself. She is inheriting the typical toil and struggle mule mentality. Yes, she needs to know basic skills, but so do our sons. It’s unfair that the burdens of housework and childcare are put on our daughters because of traditional gender based and racial servitude beliefs.
Look, if you have sons and/or a partner use them. If you need a sitter, cook or cleaner hire one. If you can’t afford one, get a relative or a neighbor. I am not asking you to raise a brat. I am asking you to raise a child that feels entitled to a full and well-rounded life. Give her a chance to learn grace, poise, elegance, her identity and her own brand of femininity. Pamper her. Get her hair and nails done. Take her shopping. Ask her about her hopes, dreams and goals. Listen to her. Tell her how beautiful she is. Organize a tea party. Just do something! My thing was riding a BMX dirt bike with a skirt on and beating boys in races, but I digress. Just let her be her. Let her be a child.
Black women already struggle with our own definition of femininity and society’s views, why contribute to it? If you really want the best for our daughters, let our little girls be princesses so they can blossom and reign as queens.
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Love this post, Bougie…beautifully written! 😉
Thank you
This is an article that I dedicate to my neices
AWESOME!!!
Well Said
I plan on sharing this very soon on Facebook. I grew up in towns that might as well have been all white. When my family went from regular to upper middle class, moving East to my dad’s new job, I was the idiot who thought that there were just a lot of black women adopting white and Asian babies. It absolutely didn’t compute in my own unaided brain that the whole Mammy thing still happened. When people asked who my nanny had been, I seriously thought they were joking and I told them, “My nanny’s name was ‘Mom.'”
I have one friend from high school who had a Jamaican accent until she started going to school with the other white kids because she saw her own mother so infrequently.
I think that if white women did our part about this one, we could meet in the middle of the load of efforts that must be taken at a place where this would be all but resolved in a just manner.
I don’t expect too much of my fellow white women, but I now know which wall to bang my head against, at least. Thank you!
You are so very RIGHT M’Lady! I am so glad to see yourself and others;i.e. Christylen Kariesan of “Beyond Black and White” shouting out to the world of the innate,God-given BEAUTY of Black Women and their above average intelligence! While I appear to be white,well truth be told I’m a Mutt,a Heinz 57,as I’ve been referred to over the years.Now the truth be further told that’s true of most people,especially here in the USA,especially of those who claim whiteness! I applaud you Ladies efforts to wake up and strengthen the dark skin Women.People need to realize that Women are a Sacred gift to humanity from the Creator with the Black Woman being the first.As far as I see things Black Women are Sacred and should be treated in a Sacred way.I will note some thoughts that trouble me about today’s young women.And what I mean is this trend to let themselves be demeaned not only by others but in a way by themselves as well.All these nicknames that are used such as thot,bae,hoes,etc,well to me they are just as repugnant as the “N-word”,and I find it apalling that now young people call each other these names and try to act as those names imply like it’s some flipping badge of honor! I do apologize for running on as I just wanted to compliment You,Your Highness, as to your work,and to wish You continued success and to beg You to as we say in the Marine Corps;”KEEP CHARGING!” I pray for You and the others who are a constructive,positive,and enlightening voice in this very confused society.Wishing You good luck and may the Creator shower M’Lady with peace,good health and many blessings !!!!
Thank you so much for being here and Christelyn is amazing. She is right on.
This brought tears. It reminded me of a childhood lost being a nursemaid to two elderly women while their adult children just sat back and watched. A childhood I still haven’t rectified with. I had to leave and go out into the world to learn my self worth. I’d never do that to my children, boy or especially a girl. I agree, teach them responsibility. But let them be a child. Teach them confidence and pride….don’t let them have to go out in the world to find it. By age 10 I could administer insulin shots, insert catheters, etc. My day was planned around what my grandmother and great-grandmother needed. All the while my mother, aunts and uncles watched. After all, they had their own lives. God forbid I acted as a child or complained….then I was stupid and dumb and lazy. Smh…anyway thank you for writing this.
Bougie, You are on the money with this article. I remember my mother niece came to visit uninvited of course. While she was chatting with my mother. She told my niece, her second cousin to go in the kitchen and bring her a glass of water. No please at all. I saw red immediately and gave this bum a verbal lashing for trying order my niece around. Also remember going to visit my aunt back east and waiting for breakfast while the adult’s took their time(2hour). Then the children were allow to eat. I gave my mother hell over that treatment, and yes I was about nine years old. I refused to eat anything from that woman table(aunt). When we arrived back in California I told my father. He was not happy, and he had a nice conversation with this aunt via telephone. I never went back. To this day I have a extreme distaste for my mother family.