Amanda Seales said something poignant the other day, that made me re-think a lot of things. She said, “people act like black girls don’t bend, break, and cry,” and she’s absolutely correct. And it is this thinking that is causing us to stay trapped, and to continuously pass this ideology onto our children. Yeah, I just said that. And if it made you mad, just hang in there with me sis, I’m going to make it make sense.

No one person or group of people treat black women like they don’t bend, break and cry other than ourselves. We are THE BIGGEST perpetrators of our own psychological bondage, and we’re passing it on to our children. With the initiative to be better and to do better that I believe I see on the rise amongst black women; our intentions are good, but our actions are keeping us all stuck.
Granted black woman, you are up against so very much. Men are against us, other women are against us, white women won’t stand with us, the government is infringing on our rights, and no one is standing up for our right to say ‘No.’ Naturally, with all of those things against us, and our history of having to do a lot of, if not all of everything ourselves, naturally, we believe that we must be strong. We watched our mother’s and our grandmother’s handle everything by themselves, struggle by themselves, and persevere by themselves. So when it comes to being better and doing better, now we desire to do more, even if it means we do it by ourselves.
That same desire that makes us ambitious, and gives us a drive for success and to make it, is the same thing that’s wearing us out.
Even though our momma’s have been beasts all of our lives, we’re not made to handle and do everything by ourselves. The one statement I hate to see black women make is, ” I need to be strong for my kids. ” And I totally get why we say it. Because if there’s no father in the picture, or he’s not doing like he’s supposed to, it’s just us. We don’t get to take time off, we don’t get sick days, personal days, or vacation days. Technically, your kids can’t afford not to be able to count on you. And you’re absolutely correct in feeling like it’s not fair that they only have you to count on.
And while I agree with that whole thought process and way of thinking, we are doing ourselves, and our children such a great disservice. While a breakdown for you might be incredibly inconvenient, you deserve the right to feel whatever you feel, regardless of your responsibilities. This strong for my kids mentalities has us sucking things up, stuffing them down, and pushing them under a rug. And while that manages them for the moment, it’s breaking you down for the long run. You HAVE to allow yourself to feel what you’re going through and let it look like whatever it looks like for you. Feeling overwhelmed or pissed off, upset, sad, depressed, anxious, suicidal, trapped, disregarded, unloved and any other feeling or emotion you may be having from whatever you’re going through, does not make you weak.
FEELINGS DON’T MAKE YOU WEAK SIS!!!! Having a meltdown, or crying when you need to does not take anything away from the kind of mother that you are, and the way you’re raising your kids. If you hide in the bathroom and cry, or take your kids to grandma’s house so you can breathe, you HAVE to have an outlet for you. This cycle of sucking it up and muting our emotions never allows us to heal our wounds. You remember when your momma told you to take your bandaid off and let your scrape get some air because it’s not good for it to be covered all the time?! That’s pretty much the same principle when it comes down to our mental and emotional health.
All we are doing is passing this same broken pathology on to our kids. Regardless of what you think or feel, it is a psychological fact that children just want their parents to be happy. Whatever that looks like for you is what’s best for your children. We think that pushing our feelings and struggles out of the way, and away from our kids is best for our kids, but it’s really reinforcing the same belief that feelings and not coping or handling pressure well is a weakness. When we don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings or address them, they manifest themselves in other ways. Sometimes we’re angry and we lash out, sometimes we check out and become disengaged, and sometimes we just get stuck. All of these things affect us and our parenting relationship, and if we really want what’s best for our children, we have to do what’s best for us first.
I know it’s noble and all mother’s like to say that my kids are my life, they’re the air that I breathe, and all of that stuff. That’s a great sentiment, but the truth is this:

Your kids can you keep you alive, but they won’t make you live.

What does that mean? A lot of women, especially young women often say that having children gave them purpose because someone finally needed them. They have a reason to get up every day, and they have to strive for more because the kids depend on them. That could very well be the case because once you have a kid, there are no take backs! It’s on for life!
But beloved, what I want you to know is that being a mother can very well be one of the proudest, most meaningful things you will do with your life, but it’s not ALL that you will do with your life. Being a mother, being a strong black woman is a part of who you are, but it’s not all that you are.
Please don’t check out on you. Don’t forget who you are, and what your passions are and the dreams you dreamt about who you wanted to be. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! Even if you devote your life to taking care of your kids and putting them first, there has to be some you left for you when it’s all said and done.
I know it’s hard. It’s really hard. I know you never dreamt of being here. You never dreamt of having to do it all by yourself. You may have thought you’d have a family, a husband, a partner, or not even have children at all. And even when it doesn’t feel like it, or look like it, you’re going to be okay. You’re going to get through everything that is set before you. If you’ve ever survived anything, if you’ve ever overcome anything – and I know that you have, you can do this. But you can’t do this without you.

The pressure is real. The struggle is real. Having gone through some pretty tough times myself here recently, I gave up the ghost on pretending that things are better than they are, don’t hurt as much as they do, and feeling like I’m less than when I feel like I’m not going to make it. I’m getting through everything I’m going through, and I must honestly say – I have never felt stronger than I do in my weakest moments…Because once I come through this, my wherewithal, my ability to stand and not fold, my ability to face the unknown and to do it by myself, grows. Every day that I honor my feelings and confront my truth, is another day that in my weakness I am made strong.
You too are strong. But you’re also sensitive, delicate, precious, fragile, and so very loved. Strength is who you are. It’s in your ancestry, it’s in the legacy that you are apart of, and the one that you will leave. It is transcribed in your melanin, it rests on your shoulders, and it adjusts your crown.

You are strength. You are strong. And you are human.

Bend. Break. Cry.
You deserve it.