Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Come tell Grandma all about it



Imagine, if you will, that this is my daughter and her nana. Cute aren't they? A relationship between your child and your parents is one like no other. There is something about grandma/grandpa that is sacred. You feel safe and secure with them and there is nothing that can not be shared with them. Even YOUR BUSINESS. You know, like the fact that your man had his long stick in your pocketbook and you were yelling at him for putting it there. ( yeah I'm talking about sex for you slow pokies). Or how about that you were smoking a magic cigarette and started laughing hysterically afterwards. Maybe this one, you were seen kissing Santa Clause while your daddy was sleeping.

Yep your kid will go to nana and tell her all your business. Why? Because as a child she told them to tell her everything that is happening in your household. At first you may be upset about this and feel the need to chastise them about telling your business outside of the house. You may even tell them that if you keep telling the business then your going to beat their little asses till the next time they go to speak on your shit they will be running from nana/ pop's like a bat out of hell.

But WAIT! What about the message your threat is sending your kid? How about if you tell your kid that when there is a real issue like molestation, rape, or whatever occurs your child will not say a word to you or nobody else for that matter. All because you told them to shut their mouths and keep business to yourself.


Just a little something to think about the next time you get ready to beat ass, because your child told one of your "little secrets".

Prayer for Mother/Daughter relationships.

I come to you today with a heavy heart. Growing up as a child, I had a topsy turby relationship with my mother. At the age of 18, I was throughly convinced that I hated my mother. She was the strictest, meanest woman in the world to me. You could have never told me, that by the time I became a GROWN woman ( I'm 32 ), that I would now consider my mom to be my best friend. There are things now, that I didn't understand then, that have changed my perspective on mothers.

I know now that my mother was the way she was, in an effort to keep me from going through the things she did at my age. Teen pregnancy, mental and physical abuse and low self esteem, just to name a few. In my ignorance I never could have imagined myself going through the things she did. I thought I knew it all. I had it all figured out. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has been there and done that.

So now as I watch my niece go through with her mom, I hurt for her. Her situation is a bit different from mine, but none the less still heart breaking. To see my sister put a man before her child, to choose him over her daughter, to put her daughter out in the street because of him, hurts me. Girls need their mothers, just as much as boys need their fathers. I don't understand how you can put a man that you don't know, over a child that you carried for 9 months, that you raised for 18 years and just be ok with it.

You all get the point right? All of it is wrong and it needs to STOP! So I come to you today asking that you all would stand in agreement with me in prayer for our mothers, our sisters, our nieces, our cousins, our godchildren, our aunts, and our grandmothers.

That God would show us how to connect with each other in loving, healthy and prosperous ways. That we would realize that God gave us to each other as a special gift. A gift that should be cherished and nurtured to the best of our abilities. See this missing guidance,love, and understanding is the reason why we have young women selling themselves to the highest bidder, thinking we are not worth anything more than a night of sex, a purse, a pair of $65 shoes, an outfit, a hair do! Y'all get where I'm coming from. There are so many young ladies, right here in Dayton, Oh where I am from, that are lost. I was one of them and in some ways I am not quite healed myself but I am well on my way. I know I am not the only one that God has helped to heal, that God has blessed to see things differently now and I pray that more of our sisters, daughters, grandmothers, mothers, cousins, godchildren, women in general would be open to change and understanding that we are so much more than something to be misused.

Thank you all in advance for praying with me and I look forward to seeing changes happen in the lives of our young people and their mothers!

Blessings to all.

Permission slips and Respect




Meet Ty Kwan Dough, he is your friend Yung Dumb Hoe's son. At the tender age of 4 he is a real piece of work that needs some fine tuning. You love kids, so when your friend Yung Dumb Hoe asks you to watch his lil bad ass you were all in. Except you had no idea just what you were IN for. Not only do you have Ty Kwan Dough for the weekend, but you have you sister's 2 kids.Your neighbor's 3 kids have also been invited over.

You have already had to talk to Ty Kwan Dough about touching things that don't belong to him, hitting the other children and cussing and he hasn't been at your house but 30 mins. Your mind is already made up that you won't be volunteering your services to his lil bad ass no more but for the rest of the time he is visiting, you are determined to make the most of it.


All the kids are in the gated backyard playing, while you watch them from the window as you prepare some lunch.You do a quick count and 2, 4, 5.....oh shit you are missing a kid ! You slow down a minute and do another quick count but this time you start calling out names. James, De'Shawn, Lil Man, Myesha, Myshelle, Ty Kwaaaaaaaan? Oh shit where the fuck is Ty Kwan Dough? As quickly as possible you run out to the backyard and start looking around while you ask the other kids where is Ty? Lil' man points his finger towards the east side of the yard and when you follow his finger you find Ty Kwan Dough's lil bad ass on the other side of the gate. WTF? Dude is all of 2' 5" how in the hell did he climb a 5' 7" fence?

You start yelling Tyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Get back here as you take off towards the front of the house. Ty thinks its a game of chase and takes off towards the busy street at the end of the block. Faster and Faster you run trying to catch this kid before some asshole who thinks this is Speedway turns the corner and does 65 up your block. Just before the little guy makes it to the corner you snag a piece of his shirt and snatch him up.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Safe you think as Ty Kwan Dough starts yelling put me down bitch, put me down! With his hand raised in your face he says it again and when you don't put him down he slaps you and for a minute you forget he is a kid and prepare to whoop him like a stranger on the street. As you regain your senses, you quickly make your way back up to the house and find a belt to whoop his lil ass with. Discussion, beat down, lunch, and nap all in that order. By the time Yung Dumb Hoe returns for her kid, he is resting and all the other kids are in the living room watching cartoons.

You start explaining to Yung Dumb Hoe the events of the day and watch her face get twisted when you get to the part about whooping her lil bad ass kid. Her yelling and screaming starts with bitch don't you ever put your hands on my kid again. She points a finger in your face and tells you its all your fault that he got out the yard, you should have never left them outside playing without supervision.You push her finger out your face and give her the business about how bad her kid is and how you had no idea his bad ass would be able to climb over a fence meant to keep them safe while you prepared lunch. Not to worry, he WON'T be coming back over your house you say and grab his things, hand them to her and escort Yung Dumb Hoe and Ty Kwan Dough up on out your crib. Now you know why she can never keep a babysitter.

While the scenario may be fake. It has some truth to it. The saying goes it takes a village to raise a kid, and when I was coming along if your ass was acting up and a neighbor got wind of it, they would beatcha ass and send you home, and when you got home your momma would be waiting on you with a belt, switch, shoe, extension cord, telephone cord, or whatever was available ready to beat you down again.Hell I can remember a time when my neighbors Jermaine and Mario's dad beat them with a iron rod. No shit! Kids getting whoopings from neighbor's was like an unspoken law, universal amongst the neighborhood parents and nobody had any beef with it. The ratio of ass kicking's handed down from neighbors is low in comparison to the ones I got at home. Public outburst of bad behavior could get you killed, brought back to life and killed again in our house. My momma didn't care who's kid it was. If the kid was at our house then the kid got OUR beatdowns. Nobody ever had any problems with that.

In today's society you can't just do that. Well you can but you stand the chance of getting your ass in serious hot water.Today's parents don't want anyone else putting a hand on their kids. They have all subscribed to the theory that an ass whooping from time to time is not necessary and time out is what really works. Ha! In my opinion that method may work for SOME kids but a kid like bad ass Ty Kwan Dough will need to meet Susie Sunshine ( my belt ). Or you have the parent who just doesn't do anything about the child's behavior but ignore it and will be the main one crying when they escort his little ass down to the county jail for doing some shit that he has no business. That's why I tell all parents of kids staying with me, if you don't want your child to get a whooping for acting up don't leave them here with me. I will fuck a kid up, like Burnie Mac likes to say hit em in the throat and watch their teeth click! I usually don't have to do this but every now and again shit happens and I take care of shit. Don't get me wrong I love the kids and I know how to get down on their level for whatever reason necessary.Every child is different and I understand that, but know this as well, I just don't tolerate bad behavior or disrespect. I had to snatch a kid up this weekend during a birthday party, because she just couldn't get it through her little skull that I was the grown up and she was the child. It only took for me to snatch that arm up and get real close to her face and speak through clinched teeth for us to get an understanding. For the rest of the day, she put her neck rolls and snappy come backs in her book bag and found herself something productive to do.

These events got me to thinking about how I will respond to Chardae ( due August 28th ) getting a whooping from someone other than me. I'm sure at first I will be a lil squeamish about it, but truth be told if I send my kid with you, then I know you, trust you and expect for you to up hold the same rules in your house as I do in mine in regards to my child. I also don't expect for Chardae to be a holy terror either. It is my responsibility first and foremost to be sure that she knows how to behave with others, however like most kids, I'm sure she will be testing some folks to see how far she can actually push you. So tell me parents....How do YOU feel about someone else spanking your kid(s) ?

Monday, April 27, 2009

Waste Not....Want Not!

As a child growing up, I can remember my Aunt B. B. in the kitchen cooking, greens, fried corn, smothered chicken, pinto beans, and a few of my other favorites. Piling them up on my plate and telling me to "eat it all". I'll be damned if I didn't try my hardest, to eat that grown woman size portion put on my plate. I mean the food was good, and waste not want not right? Or how about mama cooking and reminding you about all them kids you see over in Africa, that would love to be eating what you're eating. So you best eat everything on your plate and not be wasteful. Who knew that the "waste" she should have been worried about was my own.



A few years ago, as I took on the responsibility of raising a child, certain things in my head began to click. Situations from my childhood came to mind as I heard myself repeat the same things to this child, that had been told to me coming up. Eat all your food, so you can be big and strong. Yeah you'll be BIG alright, eating those grown folks size portions. I began to recall the countless times my mama made me sit at the table, till I fell asleep in my plate, because I still had food on it, and swore I was done eating and she swore I was not. Maybe if the portions on my plate were kid size, I would have ate just that and been done, instead of being punished for leaving food on my plate. It was a difficult task getting the older generation to see where I was coming from, but after many a night of me repeating, that no child would be punished for not finishing a plate, I finally got my point across.



Maybe just maybe the reason why some of us were fat kids, had more to do with not having portion control than the genes that made us. Just maybe if we had not been forced to gorge ourselves on dinner nightly, we would have learned its OK to just eat till full, even if that means there is food left on your plate. Think about that next time you've got lil Johnny at the table, eating 4 times the portion for a kid his age and you wonder why he is busting out of his gym shorts.



Look all I'm saying is, maybe we need to take stock of some of the things we were told as kids that really wasn't necessarily true, or right and try not to pass that mess on to our kids. I'm sure it will help them in the long run. I know mama and daddy did the best they could to raise us up right and I'm not knocking them, I'm just saying, we are all responsible for our children's health and well being and for some of our kids, eating EVERYTHING on their plates is so not healthy....




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