Challenges In African-American Mother-Daughter Relationships

Summary

In this conversation, we will explore the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship within the African American community, focusing on the themes of strength, generational trauma, and the need for open dialogue. We will reflect on our own experiences of growing up in a prideful family that often ignored the pain of sexual abuse and trauma, emphasizing the importance of breaking the cycle of silence and fostering healing through communication.

Transcript

Welcome to this talk on the mother-daughter relationship in the African-American community.

This is my story and it is a very deep and profound story.

A lot of you may can relate to the story that I am about to tell.

Over the years,

African-American women,

We have always come up with the mantra that we are so strong.

We're supposed to always be strong and this has led to a fallacy that I believe.

You know,

We're always groomed from when we're small,

Young,

Little,

Innocent girls that African-American women are supposed to be strong in when they face adversity from their man,

Their family members,

And even their tribe or their friends.

You know,

So when you're young and when you're coming up,

When challenges arise and happen to you,

You always remember in the back of your mind,

Like,

I'm strong.

You know,

I'm built like a tank.

I'm supposed to be able to wade through these uncertain waters with this unfathomable amount of strength.

Even when you can feel very lonely,

Left out,

And just by yourself sitting on the shores of the beach.

You know,

And a lot of us come from a previous generation of women that were very,

Very,

Very prideful.

I was raised by a very prideful black woman who,

She had to have her nails done,

Her hair done,

Her matching outfit and shoes.

Her children had to appear a certain way in society so that she would get praises.

Like,

Oh,

You know,

Your children are very well kept,

Their hair is combed,

They have nice clothes,

Nice shoes.

But deep down,

No one knew the pain that we went through in order to have those things on,

You know,

In particular the pain and turmoil that I had to endure for my mother.

I was my mother's keeper.

Anything that she wanted,

She got.

And she used me as a tool to get those things,

Especially from the man that she was in a relationship with.

A lot of these situations in the African-American community,

Such as incest,

And rape,

And and other trauma,

And other forms of sexual abuse by,

You know,

Men or even women,

Just goes ignored and swept under the rug.

You know,

In my case,

It was,

Hey,

I'm going to put forth this fake facade for the world to see I'm well kept,

And my children are well kept.

So no one will know the pain that this one,

Which is me,

In particular,

Is going through in order to feed and foster my sense of wanting more and wealth and abundance in this world.

And I am going to do that in any way that I can,

So that I can stay afloat as a single mother,

And ignore the repercussions of that right now,

So that I can be satisfied in this very moment.

So my mother went to her grave with a lot of secrets.

And she also went without delivering an apology to me for the turmoil that she caused in my life when I was a young girl.

You know,

We have a lot of stories of sexual abuse,

But you would never know it.

It goes down the generations in the family members,

The whispers of the family members when you come to the family gatherings,

Or you walk by,

Oh,

She was raped by so and so,

Or,

Oh,

Her stepfather did to her whatever he pleased.

But they are never man enough or woman enough to come up to you and ask you,

Hey,

Are you okay?

What happened to you?

I know what happened to you.

And I'm just checking on you to see if you're okay.

Or better yet,

Why did you not step in for me when I was young,

And you knew that was going on with me?

Pride.

A prideful,

Prideful family.

One that would keep their secrets and the matriarchs of the families would go to their graves holding on to those secrets.

Because they were also sexually abused and hurt when they were young.

So to them,

It was just a way of life.

If I sweep this under the rug,

It will go away.

If my child never mentions the abuse to me,

Then it never happened.

No,

I won't get her counseling services or ask her if she's okay.

It'll eventually go away.

She'll get over it.

I had to get over it.

I had to be strong.

Because at the end of the day,

I was told to be a strong black woman.

Underneath this stereotype is a lot of pain.

There are a lot of African American women in the world who were ignored by family members that knew some form of abuse were going on,

But they just never approached them.

There are so many stories out there of young girls whose experiences were minimized and swept under the rug.

They had a mother that turned a blind eye,

Family members that turned a blind eye.

They often say hurt people hurt people.

And that is true.

It's definitely something that I have accepted as I've grown on this earth.

You can't give someone something that you never had,

Or you never experienced in your life.

In the case of my mother,

She never experienced true,

Genuine love and support from her mother.

You know,

Her mother ran the streets all the time,

As they would say,

After the next man and after the next liquor bottle.

But if you would tell my grandmother that in her days here upon the earth,

She would cry or she would argue down and say,

That's a lie.

People would,

You know,

People are telling a lie about me being drunk,

Or,

You know,

Sleeping with other people's men or being with so many men,

Because I am a strong black woman,

Christian woman.

And nobody is going to throw dirt on my reputation,

Right?

Because at the end of the day,

All that matters,

And that mattered to this generation of black woman was their upright Christian reputation.

You know,

Forget about what their daughters went through.

And what they continue to deal with,

Especially when their mothers and their fathers have transitioned.

And we no longer have these people here in the earth realm to talk to,

To ask the hard questions to,

Like,

Why did you let me endure so much pain?

Or why did you not step in?

Why did you not get me help?

Why did we never talk about this?

Why was it swept under the rug?

What happened to you,

Mom?

The reason why it was so easy for you to turn away from my sexual abuse and turn a blind eye to that.

What happened to you?

You know,

We are missing that dialogue today between the black mother and daughter.

And a lot of times that is lost,

Because we go through so many other pressures,

You know.

Historically,

We have went through slavery.

You know,

We go through so many civil injustices.

We go through so many things with work.

We have to work 10 times as hard as other people to even be noticed.

And to bring home money to put food on the table for our little ones.

So,

Yes,

We are dealing with a lot of things that have gone down through our ancestral lineage.

And until you get the women,

Until the women that want to be a stand for themselves and their family,

The ones that's like,

Hey,

The buck stops here with me.

I am going to be the strong warrior.

I am going to be the one who speaks my truth.

I am going to be the one that stands up for myself and my lineage and stop the oppression.

I am going to be the one that stands up for my lineage and stop the cycle,

The generational curse,

Per se.

So,

Now we are the ones doing that,

Standing up,

Reclaiming our relationships with our children,

Our young daughters.

And a lot of women are finding out in this time that not only that I go through some form of sexual abuse and I was dealing with that,

My mom didn't help me,

But that now their daughters have went through some form of sexual abuse.

And guess what?

We didn't help them either because we were checked out,

Emotionally unavailable,

Trying to heal ourselves,

That we turned a blind eye to our generation of daughters being sexually abused.

So,

The challenge today is to open up the dialogue.

If you know that this has happened to the women in your family and you are blessed to still have those generation of women present in your life still,

Like your grandmother,

Your mother,

Sit down and have those difficult conversations.

Because when you pull off the band-aid,

The wound has to ooze out.

All of the filth,

The toxins need to come up and bubble to the surface in order for that wound to heal.

Don't keep the band-aid on from generation to generation.

Live in your most authentic space that you possibly can.

Show up for yourself.

And by showing up for yourself,

We show up for our daughters.

We show up for the little girls that we were,

Our inner children.

And we show up for all of those girls out there in the world who are going through this and who have survived through this and who will need a strong black woman to hold their hand and help them on their healing journey.

So please,

Have that dialogue,

Even if it's hard.

Even if it's difficult.

You know,

Some of these people need to be held accountable for what they allowed to happen to us,

To their daughter,

To their granddaughter.

They need to be held accountable because some of them will take this to their grave.

It's traditional in our community to sweep it under the rug,

Let it be,

And just fade away from this realm without ever talking about it.

Please share your experiences in the comment section.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.