Hair Weaves: A Colloquy

I find that often I am the walking talking blogging personification of the American-Negro duality. Some days I’m black power, power to the people, reparations now, love, peace and soul and sometimes I’m like: whatever negroes, slavery is dead. Get over it, master capitalism and keep it movin.


“One ever feels his twoness-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
---W.E.B. DuBois

Jam the Negro

Whats with all the hair weaves? As I struggled this morning, hard brush in hand, struggling to find the right ratio of gel to water to persuade all my hair into my drug store pony tail holder, I wondered what has gotten into women these days? Once reserved for tramps, fly girls, and celebrities—the hair weave game has proliferated American culture like the Ipod. Now you have older women, moms, pre-teens, government workers, corporate types, deaconesses, and everyone else under the sun rushing to get horse or some poor Indian girls hair (depending on yr economic strata) glued to their scalp in an effort to improve their looks. Urban streets look like Herbal Essence commercials.

And you have white people, who for some reason call them hair “extensions” (I guess hair weave sounds way too urban) almost knocking the sistas down to get to the front of the hair weave line. Its insanity. What is behind this obsession with fake hair?

As a black woman, who like most other black women has struggled with esteem issues related to my hair, I cant help feeling disturbed at the amount of women who just chuck what they’re born with in search of Hollywood ideals. Now I wont bore you with the whole European standards of beauty argument as I have grown tired of that spiel. White is right, black get back. OK, you all get it. But i do think it is an abolutely legitimate concern. What are we showing our daughters and other young girls who look at us for guidance about self-esteem and being proud of how God made them when they see us covering our own hair with 6 inches of weave every 2 months?

On top of that, I think there is something else going on here. (wait for it, wait for it…)

There seems to be a national trend in all of our lives to too-easily chuck what we have in search something better. Instead of loving your locks and nursing them and making them the best they can be-- because oh no, that may actually take time and energy-- we just cover it up with a bunch of fake shit and walk out of the salon or cousin’s basement (depending on yr economic strata) feeling better about ourselves. When really what we did is cop out. I see such beautiful girls with beautiful hair rushing to cover it up with something that can be bought and sold by anyone.

What makes you you, is what God gave you. But these days its never enough. We are in an age when nothing is ever enough. Your job isn’t glamorous enough, your marriage isn’t exciting enough, your car isn’t expensive enough, your mortgage isn’t upside-down enough. And now, to add to our obsession with deficiency, if your hair doesn’t cover your tittays, it isn’t long enough, so we buy more. We want to be someone else, look like someone else because that girl we want to look like-- her life looks cool. Our life generally sucks. Too often instead of working hard on something real, we comfort ourselves by buying something to cover the problem up or just replacing what we think falls short. We do it with relationships, friendships, careers, cell phones and now hair. And much like our revolving door lives, we rarely find what we’re looking for, we often get hurt and sometimes the glue damages the scalp. So, I know it is cliché but love thyself people.

So whether its just you feeling bad about yourself and the hair God gave you, or whether you're just looking for beauty in all the wrong places, its unlikely that 5 feet of Yaki weave will really help things.

Jam the American

Ok, I could really care less. If people want to pile of bunch of flammable horse hair on their dome, then what business is it of mine? Im so tired of hearing about this European standard of beauty—get over it. If you want to look more European, more power to you—if not, that’s fine too, you always gonna look black to other black people anyway. Though I consider myself a proud black female, I fall victim to the European standard of beauty sometimes, and guess what, it doesn’t kill me. Yes, I think my clothes look better when I shed some pounds—yes, I get texturizers to make my hair easier to manage--- so fucking sue me. I get cornrows sometimes with extensions, so I wanna be white? Gimme a break. Its not that deep. Whats the difference between putting on a hair weave and putting on fake nails or toe nail polish or fake eyelashes? None of it is real, none of it should be taken too seriously. Its all cosmetic.

All this talk about its greater meaning or cultural implications is a relic of a distant past. These days we can look like whatever we want, we change our looks like we change our tampons--often. We are bold and don’t want to be limited to the options presented to us by our bodies. All this talk about us not liking who we are is some bullshit being presented by the Dr. Frances Cress Welsing crowd who would believe that white supremacists made rice white, snow white and our teeth white, just to fuck with us. The same crew who believes that wearing anything less than an afro and dashiki is a symptom of self-hatred. No, I don’t believe that America created AIDS to kill black people. Am I less black? Can I live? We’re here, we’re black, get over it. Every single little thing isn’t self-hate, its self-expression, so shut it with all the deep, introspective weave talk and allow me to toss my long blonde tresses as I see fit.

I wish people would talk more about raising kids right and prospering in this society instead of worrying about what people are wearing on their heads or doing to their bodies. Then maybe we can make some real progress. Hair weaves---who cares, don’t we have more important business to take care of?

Negro, Please.

RUFKM?! ( R U Fucking Kidding Me?!)

When keeping it real goes wrong. Talk amongst yourselves. Im too busy hollerin and throwing up both my hands.

Are You Waiting for a Check?

As I lay in bed last night, tightly clinging to my guns and religion, I thought to myself, why does it seem everyone is waiting on a check?

Now I don’t mean to generalize by using the term everyone, but it sounds much better than “a whole lot of people.” As a public interest lawyer and as a general member of an urban society, I have met an inordinate number of people who are “waiting on a check.” Now, Im not talking about the annual experience that is tax refund time, but I mean really waiting on random checks for their personal sustenance. Let me break it down…

Child Support

What’s up with women using child support as their sole source of income? If that money was intended to support YOU, it would be called alimony/spousal support. You shouldn’t be paying rent, utilities and making up for the fact that you aren’t working with a child support check. I have seen countless times on Judge Judy where the judge asks women what is their source if income and they say child support--I know this isn’t exactly a scientific study but lets call it anecdotal evidence. I mean WTF? Child support is there to supplement your income and replicate the monetary benefits of a two-income household. Its for your child, not you. Its to help support the child, not a revenue stream.

Disability

OK, don’t get me started on all the fake ass disability going on out here. Before you start with your angry comments, I will say that this category of course, does not relate to all the really disabled people out there. Im talking about the fake ass I-got-into-a-car-accident-in-1987 people on the bank roll. I have met sooooo many people on fake ass disability recently. I mean should you really be on disability if you are able to have sex, have children and get into fights in front of your building? Im just saying… People just seem to have no shame in working the system anymore. Whereas in our parents generation no one wanted the stigma of being on the government rolls, but folks today are just looking for a roll to be on. If you can get up and take care of three kids, two of which you’ve had since you were “disabled,” then you can take your ass to work. And its not only women, I met this dude on disability that, by the looks of his body, could have been a personal trainer at the Golds Gym. But he has “back pain” that prevented him from working (although he played flag football on the weekends and made two babies). We are all about getting a check for nothing. I guess its good non-work if you can get it. But after a while, don’t you start to feel like a loser?

SSI

OK, now this one really makes me mad—and before you get on me trust, im talking from personal experience. You will not believe the number of parents living off of their kid’s social security checks. Now there are two instances when parents get SS checks for kids. When the child is disabled and when one parent has died. I have seen so many instances where the parents have actually FAKED symptoms of their child so that the child could be considered for special education and so they could get disability money. It is unreal. I had a parent once try to get me to co-sign that her child had a learning disability even though he got a B+ in geometry. She thought he should be in special ed because he did so poorly in english and history. I suggested that maybe he had reading difficulties and just needed extra tutoring. No, she told me, that could't be it, she thinks he's mentally disturbed. That heifer just wanted a check. Don’t they realize that they are dooming their children forever for a measly $600 a month? What in the hell is going on out here?

Next up: the parent that decides to stop working and live off their kids social security checks because of the death of a parent just enrage me. Instead of working and saving that money for expenses relating to the child, or God forbid, college, they use it as their personal income. SICK. Money for your kids is money for your kids. Its not the lottery. Jeez louise.

SETTLEMENT
Oh, the elusive settlement check. Everyone raise their hand if they know someone who is waiting for a settlement? Is it the same settlement or what? Everyone has been in some shady ass personal injury or car accident where they have called one of those lawyers on TV and have been told that the bruise on their thigh could be worth tens of thousands. So 35 chiropractor visits and a 40% contingency fee later, they are waiting for that check that will make all their dreams come true. They don’t have to work because they are waiting on their settlement. They borrow money from you with the promise of paying it back when they get their settlement. Does the settlement ever come?


OK, im done. I had to get that off my chest, because in my job, I couldn’t actually tell people about themselves like I wanted to. Of course, ive generalized like I tend to do, but I just speak from the heart. This aint about any color of people because ive seen it from all kinds. Trifling is not a racial category. What happened to actually working for a living? We need to take an example from Unemployment compensation. That shit is finite. When it runs out, it runs out and you know you have to get your ass to work or start selling ass or something. Whenever you have an end point, you have an incentive. When you have income and benefits forever, what is your motivation to do better? Its why we have three generations of women in public housing. I know the only reason I started looking for a job when I was on unemployment was because it was only 30 days before the last check.

We need to be more like the Latinos in the Home Depot parking lots, those eses are waiting for a job, not a check. Que paso papi!!! So, if your income strategy is waiting for checks, do us all a favor and become a productive member of society. There is a big world out there, beyond your mailbox. You can meet new people, learn new skills and show your children what it means to see their parent actually leave the house in the morning and come back in the evening with a check for services rendered. I worked in a community where so many people are raising kids who aint never seen ANYONE working. So how do they ever develop a work ethic or understand the importance of education and a global economy? Kids do what they see, not what you tell them.
If you don’t have one already, get a damn job. The check will be there when you get home…FROM WORK!

I just say what y'all are thinking...

Peace People.

It Takes A Village My Ass

Can I just talk to y’all one villager to another? I know the saying, “it takes village to raise a child” sounds all good and profound in that wise-old-African-man kind of way, but I’m a little confused about its practical application these days. I think there seems to be a bit of confusion as to who are the village children and who are the village elders. For example, I was walking my dog Albert in the neighborhood when I came upon some kids walking down the streets towards me. They were singing “Kevin and Nikki sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G.” Now while that is pretty appalling, as these were 9 and 10 year olds, it isn’t as appalling as the fact that they were willing to say this right in front of an adult.

See, that’s the difference I see between kids today and when I was growing up. Im certainly not going to sit here all holier than thou like I was never a bad ass kid in my life. I played all the freaky games, tripped up other kids, and developed a shocking affinity for profanity around age 8. However, I would NEVER have considered using profanity around adults or doing any of my mischief in their presence. What happened to adult authority? What happened to kids being afraid of adults? The fact that these kids could care less about what they were saying and who heard them was really scary. And I’m sure we all have our similar stories. We’ve all been on the bus or subway with young people who have no qualms about loudly using cusswords or n-words or openly discussing their sexual exploits, both real and imagined. And whether it’s the elderly, women, children—they could care less who hears them.

However, that leads me to the “It Takes A Village” paradox. Don’t think this is just about the kids. A part of the problem, and likely the main part, is that us adults, the village elders, see all this going on and don’t do a damn thing. Just like those kids I heard singing today, I didn’t stop and chastise them and tell them that they should be ashamed of themselves, that they are bringing shame to their family, or that I was going to tell their daddy on them. I just kept walking shaking my head and being disgusted. But ultimately, like the passengers on buses and subways every day, I did nothing.

If it takes a village to raise a child and the village is afraid or indifferent, then aren’t we fooling ourselves? But on the other hand, I cant be too hard on myself and the other village elders because the first time you attempt to correct a village child, their village mama is likely gonna beat your village ass.

I have a friend who was a teacher for a while who would speak of children whose parents never came to parent-teacher conferences, but let little Jamal get into trouble, then they’re the first ones up there ready to defend their child and say why everybody is wrong except little Jamal, when little Jamal probably just needs his ass beat. I remember in elementary school there was this one student’s mom who would come up to the school and beat his ass in front of the other students with her slipper. You can bet he didn’t get in trouble too often.

After seeing that shocking video of the student beating up her teacher in Baltimore as the other students watched and recorded it their cell phones, I am more certain than ever that we are in deep trouble. I wish I knew the answer. Is it because we’ve abandoned corporal punishment? Are we too busy being our children’s friends and not their parents? With so many single parent homes, are parents just too busy to raise these kids right? Is it the lack of fathers in children’s lives? (cause I know I was scared shitless of mine) Or maybe its our eternal catch-all scapegoats, hip-hop and BET? I just don’t get it. What happened to so drastically change the child-adult dynamic in just one generation?

There have been instances in my city where parents have come to the school and gotten into fist fights WITH STUDENTS. The lunatics are running the asylum.

I just saw a Dr. Phil episode about out-of-control kids and he was talking about this technique of negotiating with children to get them to do what you want. I was like, “negotiating”????!!!!! What happened to, “because I said so”?

I admire you parents that are doing your job because it cannot be easy. These kids have influences and access that we didn’t dream of 20 years ago. Keep up the good work. But by the looks of most kids these days, a lot of parents have dropped the proverbial ball. To you I say: Raise your damn kids!

So village, what is we gon do? Its like Lord of the Flies out here. The kids are running the show and we are scared to death of them. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the answer is (which is nothing new). But what I do know is, for better or worse, I'm steering clear of these little fuckers before I end up getting my ass kicked on Youtube.

Peace Villagers.

We Have Enough Clubs.

Ok, I’ll get straight to it. I am so sick of living in a big city, in an urban community and not having anything to patronize that’s black-owned but a damn club. I live in Washington DC, home of the richest and most educated black population in the country and I look around and find that we don’t own jack shit here, except a bunch of depreciating McMansions in the suburbs. And when an African-American wants to start a business on a large scale, more often than not its some damn club or a faux-bourgeois restaurant. I mean, WTF?

Once in a while I may want to go have dinner somewhere cool, go out for drinks, go to a lounge, take a dance class, do yoga or go do some kareaoke somewhere---so why cant I find anyplace cool that’s black-owned ? I really wish more of our brothers and sisters who want to go into “entertainment establishments” business would take a look around and actually evaluate the needs of the community. What do we not have? Then do that! I’m not mad at the clubs, but can we at least act like there are some of us who want to do something else? Who is catering to that? Because I’m not gonna lie, the hottest spots in my city are all owned and operated by white folks. They can take an abandoned liquor store that has been run down for 10 years that we've all walked by every day, and the turn it into a cute little bar with character and charm.

And its so sad that even on those rare occasions when there is a cool black spot, or a cool regular black event—why I gotta pay $20 just to walk in the door???? Why is there, in Chocolate City and most urban areas, a surcharge to be around black people? The spot can be free every other night of the week, but on Black night, you gonna pay! Why do promoters feel like just because they’re playing hip hop/R & B, we should be required to pay more than if they were playing rock and alternative?

I feel so victimized by Black entertainment venues. I actually get jealous of white people in that regard. They can go to, generally, any bar/lounge and walk in and listen to music or drink or do karaoke or play darts or pool or whatever the fuck they do, and have a blast for free. Their spots are creative, interesting, warm, no dress codes, and most importantly no sour-faced chic at the door with a little silver cash box. We’re more worried about VIP rooms and making people take off their hats than we are with providing cool entertainment venues for our communities.

For example, we have a place in DC called Ozio’s, where the only nights they charge are on Black nights. Hello??????? And we pay it. (well, not me) We still continue to go! When will we get it??? If I want to be around black folk, im always gonna pay a grip, the drinks are gonna be high as giraffe snatch, they’ll be some dumb ass dress code, and in 2 months it will be taken over by thugs thereby creating the need to find a new spot and the cycle begins again.

I’ve never understood why it is more expensive on Black night than it is on International Night? And hell, on White night its free! And you know why? Because it can be! Our dumb asses stand in a line and pay it each and every time.

Let me give another example in my beloved city. We have a little entertainment district called the U street corridor, that was a center of Black culture in the city up until the King riots. However in the forty years since the riots, the buildings lay vacant and the strip fell into disrepair with a few little business and a couple of clubs thriving but generally a bunch of eye sores. So now, Mr. Charlie has come in and revitalized the area into a thriving area for nightlife with music, bars etc… They even created two restaurants, one dedicated to Langston Hughes and one dedicated to Marvin Gaye. And black folks got the nerve to be talking smack about gentrification. (I'll save my thoughts on gentrification for another day)

So let me get this straight, we let it sit there for 40 years and nobody seemed too mad about that, we weren’t building businesses and nobody seemed too care about that. But let some white people come in and fix it up and all of a sudden we are angry. Talking about the white folks are taking over! Let’s see… crack houses/skid row versus thriving nightlife…hmmmmmm. Lawdy bee. Meanwhile, the one black spot left in that area, Jin, makes you wait outside in a dumb line with asshole doormen, when all the while it’s like 7 people inside. And whats worse, people actually wait.

Anyhoo… i digress.

Do you know how much money someone would make if they just created a spot? Not a mega-club where you economically rape all yr customers, but just a neighborhood spot that isnt obsessed with luxury. Because I aint luxurious 90% of the time. I want a place where I can throw on some Uggs and a t-shirt with profanity on the front, put some Jill on the juke box, and go meet that guy I met on Match.com. I don’t want to yell over the music, I don’t want to pay for the privilege of spending my money at your bar, and I sho don’t care about your tired ass VIP.

We need more vision from our entrepreneurs. If you build it, and its quality, they will come. For all those they may go into this industry, please realize that people are getting married and having kids later so that gives them several more years to go out recreationally and they have a lot of disposable income to do so. But the 30 something’s don’t want to go to your club, I don’t care if you do call it Grown & Sexy Night, we all know it’s the same bullshit. So create something that we can go to that actually serves the community, that will have the same name in 5 years, that fills a void. That’s how you make money—seeing a niche and filling it. Much like our music and movies, we just keep doing the same thing over and over. Sure, the young folks will always go to clubs and that’s cool, but what about those of us who have no idea who Flo-Rida is?

Come on guys, you young, talented next generation of entrepreneurs—PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!! Enough with the club. Believe it or not, Black folks like to do other things too. Start a piano bar, a lounge, a coffee shop, a rock climbing facility, a sportsplex, anything but another tired ass club. I know you cant tell from listening to the radio, but there are other social interests in the African-American community.

Lets try to do a better job at assessing the needs of our communities. Lets bring our soul and creativity and vibrance to our entrepreneurial spirit as well. Perhaps we just may not need another “urban” clothing store with shirts hung on hangers in the window and the “s” replaced with a “z” in the sign. But we may need a laundromat or a bike repair shop or a comedy club or a picture framing place or a pharmacy or a 24 hour gym or one of those places where u paint on the pottery.

Our social outlets should be as diverse as we are. They should expose us to new things and provide the comfort of old things. They should foster community and laughter. They should broaden our minds or allow us to stop using them for a while. Is that too much too ask? Onward!

So, as usual that’s my two cents and its generally worth about as much as you're paying for it. Meanwhile I gotta hurry up and run…its only free before 8p.

Peace people.

My Failure

We’ve all had our share of failures in life. Lord knows I’ve had mine. The porno letter-writing business, my Tax class in law school, the cashless ATM scheme, dating that married guy. But there’s one particular failure that I can’t seem to get out of my mind. This is a failure of a different kind. I failed my cousin.

I have a cousin. He’s bright, handsome, and sweet but unfortunately he is on his way to becoming depressingly average.

Let me explain. My cousin grew up in a working class suburb. He was surrounded by a family who loved him, he was an average student, he was part of a local band and an all-around good kid. He got into college on a band scholarship and I could not have been prouder. His mom, dad and grandmother never went to college so it was a great achievement for him to be attending a local university on scholarship.

Growing up in an area where very few black men go on to pursue higher education, I was thrilled that he seemed to be on the right path to better himself and most importantly act as an example to his two younger brothers.

But, as you probably guessed by the title of this post, things didn’t quite go as planned. In the summer before his junior year, I got the news from my mom that my cousin wasn’t going back to college. I immediately called him to ask what the deal was. He told me that he had lost his band scholarship (his story changed several times as to exactly why this happened) and he could no longer afford to attend the school. He was going to work for the next semester and save money and go back to school in the spring or the following year. Well, we all know what that means, most folks who leave college never go back and I was determined that he get his college degree. SO, I offered to pay his tuition. I didn’t care what I had to do—whether it was taking out loans or selling ass on 12th Street, I was making sure that boy graduated from college.

See, I am blessed to have come from a family where education was stressed, C’s were not acceptable and college was not optional. So I tried to convince him of the importance of him staying in school and getting his college degree. And even with my offer to pay his entire tuition… he refused. He wanted to work, and by working he could save for school and also get a car. After trying and trying to persuade him, it became clear that the desire for a car was far stronger than his desire to get his college degree.

So long story short (I know I know, too late) he ends up working at some dead end random job, he never goes back to college and now has two kids by two different women. He’s not even 24. I feel like somehow I failed him, the family failed him. I know there is nothing we could have physically done, but I cant shake the feeling that our family and community let a vibrant life full of potential slowly descend into mediocrity, and did nothing.

See, for too long we have defined failure by its extreme manifestations: ending up in jail, becoming a drug addict, being a teenage mother. But, in my opinion, when we don’t see a young person all the way through to realizing his or her potential, its just as big a failure. In our community, mediocrity, doing enough to get by, is becoming an epidemic. And that realization hit me really close to home. I wonder what will become of these young people? In a world and an economy where there is little use for the ordinary, what happens to this generation? Where are the dreamers? Who are the innovators? Where are the parents who don’t allow failure, who read to their children, who tell them in the dark of night as they put them to bed: “you can be anything you want to in this world and the possibilities for your life are endless”?

Its like our bar of standards has dropped so low that as long as someone graduates from high school, we say they’re doing fine. As long as they aren’t in the system, we say they’re doing fine. Excellence is scarce. Vision is non-existent. You have a 62 inch flat screen and your kid doesn’t have a computer in the home. We aren’t taking foreign languages, we aren’t going into technology fields.

I want to go back to the mentality of our predecessors and embrace a philosophy of goals and success and striving to be the best and reaching the highest of heights. In this global economy, we cannot afford average. This is no longer a world where you can graduate from high school, join a union and work in a factory for thirty years and still be able to raise a family. By not challenging each other to be the best in whatever we do, we are doing ourselves a disservice and more importantly we are setting our young people up to be members of a self-imposed underclass.

With access to more opportunities than ever, our young people seem perfectly content settling for less. And I cant help but think that its our fault. Have we told them that there’s more, have we shown them what more looks like? Have we reinforced in them every waking moment that they can dream big and achieve their goals through education and hard work?

I don’t know. I just felt so impotent. Me and my smart mouth were no match against “easy”, against “quick” against “right now.” I love my cousin but it hurts my soul whenever I see potential squandered. Especially when someone is handing you an opportunity on a platter. I mean, if you’re not willing to accept and opportunity when someone is GIVING it to you, what happens if you actually one day have to work for it?

I keep looking back at what I could have done, what I could have said to change his path. But how do you convince a young man to finish college when he’s been raised in a world that tells him he should be happy just getting out of high school. My voice was lost among his friends and teachers and media who told him that good enough was enough. Those who told him that passing is passing, even its with a “D.”

Now don't get me wrong, in no way am I saying that if you aren't wildly successful, then you have failed-- the failure is in not even trying.

I love my cousin and it’s the people we love that we should be hardest on. Why do you think Im so hard on black folk? I just want us to get there and it just frustrates me when it seems the only thing standing in our way is ourselves. Sure, my cousin will be fine. But Im so sick of "fine," I want amazing.

Meanwhile, Im gonna figure out a game plan for his little brothers right now. Wish me luck. Maybe there's someone in your life you can start working on. Before its too late.

Peace people.

Child-Free and Fabulous! The C & F Club

What is the world going to do with us? I’m talking about a new demographic of which Im proudly a part. Thirties, single, educated, no children, with a little cash in my pocket. And loving every minute of it! I will admit that sometimes I feel conflicted. We live in a world that says if you’re not tied up in a marriage with a baby on your hip by 35 then you’re clearly just immature and fleeing grown up responsibilities. To that I say: are you fucking kidding me? I am so sick of self-righteous (and probably miserable) parents trying to make me and my ilk feel guilty because we’ve taken a different path. Not settling down with a husband and kids makes me immature? Makes me less of an adult? I have an education, a home, I pay my bills, run a business, got good credit and no STD’s. I think im doing damn fine thank you. Just because I’d rather sit with a cocktail talking about real estate, politics or American Idol with my friends as opposed to being home with my stretch marks, cooking dinner for my pot-bellied husband and helping a kid with multiplication tables, does not make me a villain. It doesn’t make me irresponsible. It makes me a human being.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all about age appropriate behavior. NO, you wont find me in clubs with 20 year olds, I don’t wear daisy dukes, don’t have a tattoo. I don’t have a popular song as a ringtone, I don’t have shiny rims, I don’t have my name in my earrings. I am 100% adult but the question is what does that mean anymore? In an age where generational lines are blurred, where I see 50 year olds in throwbacks and grandmas in the club, parents and kids listening to the same radio stations and everyone wants to be 21, its hard to know what to do and when. But I will say this, my thirties have proven to be the highlight of my life.

Although I have experienced great tragedy in the death of my father, his death made me realize that life was too short to march to the beat of anyone’s drum but your own. I refuse to let a bunch of soccer moms and dance recital dads tell me that if I don’t have kids then its somehow an unconscious attempt not to grow up. That my self-indulgence is a crime. In fact, I think the serious weighing of the gravity of having children and what that will ultimately do to my life, is one of the most mature decisions I have ever made. I think the world would be a better place if more people had kids as a choice rather than a default. Seriously, if you ask most people why they had kids, what is their answer? “Well I wasn’t getting any younger,” “well I had a good job and a husband so I figured this was the next step,” “well, I didn’t want to get an abortion…” —when do you ever hear someone say “I had gotten to the point where I looked at my life and thought it would be greatly enhanced by the creation of another life”, “that I had gotten to the point where I had an overwhelming desire to raise and mold another human being.”

Now I definitely look forward to marriage, and a great husband who is a partner. I love quality male companionship. But kids…not so much. I may just get long-term care insurance and call it a day. But who knows, maybe one day the urge will kick in…. But it sure aint today. And I want people that are in similar situations to know that’s OK. Besides, most people that look down their noses at you because you don’t have kids would probably sell theirs to the gypsies if given half the chance.

I find that in my thirties I finally have a modicum of common sense, my health, some disposable income and, most importantly, the wisdom to know that I will probably never have another period in my life like this so I better make the most of it. This is a period where I have the energy of my youth, a semi-hot body, some cash in my pocketbook and the world ahead of me. To me this seems like the best of both worlds. You’re not in your dumb twenties, yet you can still rock a two piece. Plus, have you seen how men respond to women without kids? You tell them you have no children and their eyes light up like they hit the lottery. Sorry that I don’t want to give this up just yet. Not having children is a choice, not a dysfunction.

And I’m not alone. I have so many friends that are in my same position. We’ve all grown up on Sex In the City and realize that there are many roads out there to one’s own individual happiness. Perhaps yours is having a brood of kids and spending your Saturday doing arts and crafts. I happen to know that I don’t want to wake up on Saturday or Sunday morning to play SHIT. And that’s OK too. We can co-exist peacefully. But whatever you do, don’t pass judgment on those of us who feel like we have more living to do before we commit to another life. We’re not immature or Peter Pans, or avoiding adult responsibility. The folks I know who have chosen not to have kids are some of the most responsible, successful folks I know. The most amazing females I know took this time in their lives explore their potential and their opportunities rather than have children. That should be applauded not marginalized. We are re-defining adult responsibility. Adult responsibility is no longer just a nuclear family with 2.5 kids. It can also be taking care of business, contributing to the world and living every moment to the fullest without limitations. You may make cookies with the little ones in the evening, I may do karaoke or hot yoga or play soccer, see a play or do happy hour or just sit on my ass, drink wine and do nothing at all. And thats cool.

So like Obama says, lets bridge the gap and come together, the parents and the childless. Im sure there’s a lot we can learn from each other. You can teach me to be more patient and I can teach you how to let your hair down a bit. We’re all just out here trying to make it the best we can. Don’t look down on my path and I won’t look down on yours. As we become a more diverse society, we have to accept that everyone’s journey isn’t the same. So please, stay up out of my uterus and I wont talk about your C-section scars. I know society (and the Lifetime channel) makes it really hard to believe, but there are some of us women who are just fine not having children. We want to sleep-in, travel on a whim, hang with friends and eat out 4 times a week. So let us be! And in return we won’t give you dirty looks when your kid disrupts the restaurant or causes a ruckus on the damn plane.

So for all my sistas who are out there, living their lives and aint THINKING about having any kids no time soon, this is for you. You are now offically a member of the Child-Free and Fabulous Club. Welcome!

Whew—had to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

Signed,
A grown ass woman.

Peace people.