Seeing the Humanity of Our Mothers

The relationships children have with their mothers are so diverse and dynamic. But many of us expect our mothers to be our provider, our teacher, our savior, and our source of comfort. When we are naive, growing children, it's hard to recognize our mothers as whole human beings who have lives beyond those roles. But as we get older and gain more distance and perspective, we realize that our mothers were trying to navigate this challenging world, just like we are. And we can start to give our mothers – flaws and all – a little more grace. Aja, Jill, and Laiya reflect on some of the moments in which they saw their mothers' humanity, and they reckon with the joy, insight, pain, and empathy that those moments awakened. Plus, a conversation on parenting, freedom, and soul work with sociologist Dr. Janice Johnson Dias.

Resources:

"Parent Like It Matters: How to Raise Joyful, Change-making Girls" by Dr. Janice Johnson Dias

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Jay dot, a production of My Heart Rates.
Hello every body, what's up? This is Jay Dot, Ilda
podcast is Jill Scott, This is Asia are great in
the Dancer? This is like, Yeah, I hate saying my
whole line. Let st Clair whole line nine nine. What's

(00:30):
up everybody? Today? We are talking about our mothers. We're
talking about humanizing our mothers. What does that mean? That
means the moment when you realize that your mom, you're
the sainted halo wearing handle everything, do everything, can be

(00:53):
all things. Mother is a person, a human being, just
like yourself. I feel like we should do a disclaimer
to our mother's even yours age. I know she's not
with us, but she's listening, right, she will make herself
known her mistrust and belief. So should have fall off

(01:13):
this table at two point two seconds. But don't tell
my business in this here got their podcast? Yeah, I
know that there is a whole book, There is a
whole play about my sweet Mama. There is. But I
have to wait. You have to wait. I don't have
to wait till till no problems with Joyce. I don't

(01:37):
want no problems with either. My mother is six one people.
My mother has been six one my whole life, and
she's fast. So, so what's your disclaimer, Jail as we
go into this conversation, because you know this is your daughter.
I love you so much. I don't want to smoke.

(01:57):
I don't want to trouble with you. Uh. We're just
talking about the moments that you realize that your mother
is a human being. I'm gonna talk about her mother,
my grandmother. Okay, I'm gonna start there. Let's start there. Yes,
I'm gonna start there. This might be a lot for people,
but you know, this is what it is. So my
grandmother is uh. At the time she was she was

(02:20):
slowly fading. And oh do you see that? All right? Okay,
I don't want no smoke. What you need my mom?
I don't blue, I don't okay. I told you hold
my purse off this table, you know, to hit the floor.
That's like my money for the next few months. Attention.

(02:43):
Go ahead, Jill, just you know, walk with caution. I
am okay, here we go. So my grandmother has uh.
I've gone to her to find out how she was doing.
She knew she was going to pass, and I asked
her what she's scared and she said for what. She said,

(03:03):
I'm good with my God and I'm tired. I'm tired,
and I'm ready to stop this, so don't you worry.
That's where her head and heart was. But before she left,
my mother said she went to her and was like, Mom,
I have a very real question to ask you now.

(03:24):
Mind you, the two of them, they spent a lot
of time together, and she says, Mom, did you did
you ever have an orgasm? And my mom says she
smiled real hard and looked off into yonder and said

(03:46):
my grandfather's name. Yeah. Yeah. That moment, my mother said,
at that time, she said, I realized that my mother.
I knew she had a life, she said, but she
was she was actually having a life with someone. You know,
that she shared her time with someone that she laughed with,

(04:06):
Like she knew those things, but it was like some
distant thing. You know, your mom is hugged up with somebody.
You're like, you know, you kind of pass it off.
You don't really take the time to enjoy the fact
that someone is loving and kind and generous and sweet
to your mom. And that's what I think of, Like
what like far as humanizing my grandmother for my mother,

(04:29):
humanizing my mother for me. Boy, wait, I gotta, I
got a told on on this all. Take a break
for a second. Yeah, I gotta. I got a place
where it needs be now. I don't want no trouble.
I'll tell you, I don't want no trouble. If you
have to forgive me today, I have a country in
my mouth. I've been Oh, I've been doing dialect coaching

(04:53):
for the last is his nickname. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry for kids, I'm sorry. Deal you were explaining
your I'm doing dialect coaching, so I'm slipping in and
out occasionally. Just shut up. You're so nasty. I love
you for that. Learned from listening you. Yeah, biology did that,

(05:22):
helf and genealogy, don't there we go, Natsha. I mean
my grandmother was a very I don't want to say complicated,
but like a complex individual. You know, she had like
a very interesting childhood. He was from Wild Virginia. She

(05:44):
had become a part of family that had two sets
of children, being raised in the same household for two sets,
meeting her mother and children from her father and someone else.
So marriage and relationships and stuff like that. Really in
many ways probably represented a bit of an escape. She
also grew up in a household where lots of very
quote unquote fair skinned people were. She was very vibrant,

(06:06):
she was a young mother. She knew what it was
to be a mother alone with no one at a
time when that wasn't really happening as much, and she
was very much had just so much energy and she
was like so full and so as a kid, my
experience with her as a kid was just like my
Nana is so fun because she always had this really youthful,

(06:27):
vibrant energy because I just feel like she always wanted
to kind of be a kid because she didn't really
get that chance to like kid kids. So she kid kids,
kidded with us, you know what I'm saying. So I
just always kind of loved that about her. But the
thing that humanized her for me was the things I
disliked about her. I did not like the way that
she treated my mom. They had a very complicated relationship

(06:50):
and that I'm still unpacking to this day, And so
my Nanna and I were humanized her for me was
just trying to come to terms with whether or not
I could really rock with her. And because I was
so protective of my own mother, and I remember that

(07:11):
my mom. One time, my grandmother said something to my
mom and I stepped in there and I tried to
defend my mother, and my mom went off for me.
My mother wasn't a big hitter, but I could tell

(07:31):
she was like, she's about hit me, and She's like,
don't you ever in your life speak to my mother
like that? And I was like, okay. There were lots
of different moments with my grandmother like that. I witnessed
my grandmother grieve a child that preceded her in death.

(07:52):
That was another thing that really humanized her for me,
watching her go from being a woman who literally had
it all together for me, house immaculate, always in tune
with the moment, always present, You're always present. When I
saw her grieve and grief hard, I couldn't speak, couldn't talk,

(08:14):
wailing like the sound of like a band, she wailing,
you know, the type of ancestral wailing. So those were
moments for me where I looked at her and I
was like, oh, yeah, this is a whole person. Yeah,
this is this is definitely a whole person. Yeah. I
love that we all have different moments. I was listening
to your moments of like humanizing, and I was thinking
about my grandmom. And it's funny because I thought about

(08:35):
Jills moments and I was like, well, as far as
my grandmam, I always knew she was somewhat sexual because
she had been married twice. She had five children, and
she had three different fathers to build those five children, right,
so I always knew that my grandmother. She was a
very fly grandmother. She was one of those people that
you hear and you go, oh, that's your mom. No,
that's my grandma, want a whole bunch of jerysh fly whatever.

(08:58):
But she was also a very flat but very like
strict in her home. You didn't say, are you get
plucked in the head. She was very about getting the switch.
She was very about beating you. And you know, for
a long time I didn't like my grandmother because my
parents had divorced when I was six and I ended
up leaving my mother and my grandmother and she was
still just as strict, and it was worse because I
lived where, which is strange because you know, turn around

(09:20):
now she became my best friend like twenty years later.
But yeah, right, I mean, he just appreciated all those moments,
But the moment that humanized my grandmom for me was
seeing as strong as she wasn't as strict as she
wasn't as no nonsense as she was, and not about
the white man and all this other stuff when it
came to her own sons and their ways. I just

(09:43):
didn't appreciate the way she handled She had two sons
that to me were just I want to be nice
about this because I liked one, but he was still
not very um friendly and uh, it's very selfish man.
One was very selfish and the other one was a
selfish in a different way right, and the other one
is awful to this day. But I just remember humanizing

(10:04):
her when I saw the way she treated them and
still let them come in the house and do the
things that they did and say the things that they
said to my mom and disrespecting that way because my
grandma was still like, these are her children, and I
just never understood this. So that was the moment for
me when she was humanizing my eyes. It's just child,

(10:26):
because I'm glad you started with grandmother's Because the grandmothers
tell the story, they set the tone for the whole thing. Right,
and you know, like how you view your mom, because
what humanizes your mother is that thinking about her childhood,
that thinking about what made her into the woman that
she was. At least that is for me, you know,
really looking at what my mom had to deal with,

(10:47):
who she grew up with, what were the rules, what
was the thinking, what were the experiences? And that really
kind of started with my nana. Again. It's interesting because
all the things that were quote unquote and perfect about her,
they make sense in context. After you get older, you
get older, you start to think you don't like it,

(11:09):
but you're like, oh, okay. You think about the circumstances
of their existence. They think about all of these things
instead of just who you are in this house at
this moment, providing and caring for me or my brothers
and sisters or whatever the case may be. The situations

(11:29):
and the circumstances of their life have a really big
factor in who they are and why they are the
whare they are. Because Jill, when you said to think
about your grandma, it's so interesting because although I know
my grandmother was a sexual person, when you said that
thing about your grand mom and the orgasm in my
grandmother's later years, I would frequently ask her about sex,
and I sawear to God, and she had a whole

(11:50):
silly perspective, like it was my mom and my grandmother
actually never talked about that ever. So this was a
big moment for my mother to gear up. She said
she had been working on the question for days, and
she's like, I'm not going to have a lot of
time to ask questions that I really want to know,

(12:11):
she said. She held her breath for a while, and
then she just mom, um, can I ask you? You know,
my grandmother's five nine, my mother six one, and my
grandmother was very weak at the end, you know, but
still my mother was afraid to ask her this very
important question to her. And nonetheless, you know, she was

(12:33):
so pleasantly surprised to know that her mother had had
a full existence, you know that she actually was happy
and enjoying her humanity, but so interested she had to
wait that late. She was scared to have that conversation
because my mom, I believed, when I think about my
mom and Grandmam, I think there was just so many

(12:53):
secrets between them, things that they both knew but they
just did not talk about, you know what I mean.
And but there was just like a deep, deep abiding love,
like I mean, just that I didn't understand outside the
context of she sometimes ain't nice to you, you know,
that kind of thing. But it was like they had

(13:13):
between them these agreements, these contracts and understandings that were
beyond my understanding. When I was younger, and even when
I was in my twenties, I didn't fully understand. How
about as a mom or I fully I fully understand it.
I am absolutely tapped into what that was about. My

(13:34):
Nanna desired a life and never allowed herself to fully
be swallowed by her circumstances. She fought and resisted many
times towards the situations that should have boxed her in
choices that she made in love and choices she made
in making. My mother and we talked about putting our

(13:56):
family business out there. But I'm gonna speak on this.
My mother had written a book which she never completely finished,
but this story is in the book, and my grandmother
has since passed, so I'm gonna speak on it and
made my family forgive me if they have an issue,
but you know, I'm grown, come see me. What I
will say is that my nana did have an affair,

(14:17):
and that the identity of my mother's father came into question.
I don't want to really rest on that. What I
want to rest on is that there was a lack
of love in her life, and there was a lack
of understanding in her life. And she had been pulled
from childhood into womanhood, into motherhood, and she desired that

(14:39):
connection and love and she fought to get it. Now
what she completely altogether in her decisions or they quote
unquote right, wrong, ethical whatever whatever. Maybe they were, maybe
they were not, depending on who was having a conversation,
but this was her way. My grandmother had, you know,
relationship with a man when I was a young person.

(15:01):
You know, my grandfather had passed or whatever, but she
had she had a boyfriend. But it wasn't even just
a relationships with men, but it was also she worked.
She worked job, she loved, she exercised, she played with us,
she gardened, she had hobbies, she loved her kids. She
enjoyed holidays like she would play games with us, Like

(15:24):
during Christmas time, my nan wouldn't just buy as gifts.
She would play like prices right, and what's behind during
number two? And and all these kinds of things with
us as kids. So her thirst for life, that's something
that I understood was behind a lot of her decisions.
Her relationship with my mother was probably you know, more

(15:44):
about the fact that my mother and many black folks
have this issue, and black mothers have this issue. My
mother had opportunities she did not. My mother could have
life that she had to fight for. My mother could
just have my mother, she would glow from the inside.
I can imagine for a person who had to fight
for glow and fight for light, that they couldn't always

(16:07):
be as receptive to that light. I think there's probably
some resentment there to see someone to to want something
so bad and then to see it in somebody else
that you gave birth to and they're just doing it
so effortlessly, Like as much as you may obviously love
your child, at the same time, you're like, damn, you know,

(16:30):
you're just glowing all around here, And I had to
hustle and work for it and cry over and toil
and stress out. You man, you know somewhere in there,
like it's easy to the women in my family, I
find myself there literal she rose to me like my grandmother.

(16:55):
She the house quote on fire, and she got some
of her children out, but there was the baby was
still in there sleep. He must my uncle must have
been about maybe seven months she was. She was downstairs
with the other children, so she got them out, and
then when she ran back in to get her baby,

(17:15):
the firefighters held on to her and they were like, oh,
you can't go in there. It's over. You can't go
in there. I'm sorry. Man. She fought all five men
and got in that house and came out with no
eyebrows and no eyelashes, with her son alive. Those are
the women. And you look at these heroes. You look

(17:36):
at these strong, powerful women, and you know, particularly mothers
and grandmothers were talking about right now, and you you
think you can't live up to that kind of greatness
or that kind of presence. You know, it's easy to
get trapped into your light or you're not like your mom.

(17:56):
So you can rebel, you can actually rebel against her
own greatness because you don't think that you have what
your mother has. It can happen, yes, the and the's
the flip side too, of like, because our mothers and
grandmothers had to have this this upper strength and this

(18:17):
lower strength in this middle strength, there are some things
that fell to the wayside. You now can see clearer
as a grown up yourself. You know what I mean,
especially in the lane of advice and in great relationships,
especially in relationships, because I mean, I think that it's
very it's interesting. I mean, I think for me, I

(18:37):
don't know as you Jill, but I know my mom
is single. I think for you Asian, when your mom passed,
she was single. My mom is single, right, and the
same thing for my my grandmom. So it's interested in
this in this conversation when we were first talking about
and having I thought about like the moment too, when
I had to not go ah with every piece of

(19:00):
advice that was given to me in certain realms where
they may have not excuse me, looking around and see
if she's listening excelled or I want to say excelled
or at least been in a place that I want
to be. Oh, my mother straight up told me better
preach that to a point. Amen, Amen, Like, yeah, what

(19:21):
I'm saying is my mom straight up told me I
got to a point in my marriage. I came to
her and I said, listen, I don't know what to
do by expanse. She said, sweetheart, you've been married louder
than I was. WHOA, Oh right, somebody done a lot
of mom, because a lot of mom. Let me tell
you what to do. I was like, oh ship, okay, um,

(19:43):
because you know I have I have some some friends
where their mothers really are haters when it comes to
love and relationships. They really are like they sabotage their
daughter's thoughts be because they are by themselves and they
don't want to be I don't know if that's what

(20:04):
it is, or they're just thinking or I've been down
this road so I know everything and he ain't nothing.
I can tell by the way he walks like you
don't know that you know he had surgery on his foot,
like you just you jump up like mama, that's the game. Greens.
Give him a shot, man, just give him a shot.

(20:25):
That's an interesting moment in your heart space. I don't
know about job, but that moment where you're like, okay, mom,
listening here. Yeah, I don't want I don't want to
do this like I you know, I have a son,
so it's it's different even with my mentees. I'm like, listen,
I don't know everything. Bowl I'm trying to tell you.
I don't want you to make the mistakes I may,

(20:47):
but maybe I do because they got me here. Everything
is going to get you where you want to be,
whether you realize it or not. And that's game. You
might as well hold on and put that in your pocket.
You're going where you're intended. You are absolutely going. I
will tell y'all the one of the moments that humanized
my mother was the first time she cuts out a boyfriend.

(21:10):
The first time she cuts out a boyfriend, and I
was like, you was more stressed over this than I.
I've never seen you and and I'm gonna have a whole,
honest moment. And I hope she ain't listening that moment
when she called me a fucking pussy because I was
not reacting the way that she thought I should. And

(21:32):
I'm not talking about being twenty on my post thirty.
Where did you feel that? So many places to chill
in my spirit in my chest, like I it was
just a moment of like, damn, okay, Mom, I love you,
I don't like this person. Damn, am I really a pussy?

(21:55):
Because I'm not losing my whole mind and cussing this
negro out as he takes is things out of the house,
Like that was a humanizing moment of like, Okay that
she is she and and me as me, and you
have to decide to number one, and that's what you
want to be. Yeah, that's what you want for you. Yeah,

(22:20):
we'll be back after the break. I've seen a lot
of sisters that that really try to be their mom's
but I think it's mostly because they don't know who
they are. You know, like you're you're really blessed when

(22:44):
you get a chance to know your mama, to to
know her insides. Okay, for instance, my girlfriend right now,
excuse me, she has um dealing with cancer and double
missectomy kept coming back, and she called me yesterday to

(23:06):
tell me that she was feeling so ugly because of scars.
And when I tell you, the woman is absolutely stunning,
Like she's just stunning. She really is, always has been, skinned,
just beautiful woman. She's blessed up to have two little
girls and a husband that is positively there for her.

(23:28):
And I told her, because I don't know what to do,
I have to pray before I speak often, and I said, Okay,
this is what I'm gonna need to do. I'm gonna
need you to write all of this down. I don't
want you to start talking about your scars and what
makes you feel ugly in front of your girls. You
cannot do that. But what you can do is make
a journal and let them know who you are at

(23:49):
this time because they're they're young, and when they turn eighteen,
this is a book that they are allowed to read
because they'll think about all the wonderful times, you know,
when mom made the Halloween costume, and when mom made
the dinner, and when Mom cheered me at the game,
and with mom that they had. They'll have no idea,
you know, if this is the route that you're gonna take,

(24:11):
they'll have no idea what you withstood. This will be
a testimony of strength to your daughters. Do that. Do that.
I can't change anything for you. I wish I could,
and I absolutely respect your strength and that you're thinking.
I don't want to beat myself up in front of
my girls, because that that's something that we passed down

(24:36):
to our our daughters. You know, if you don't care
for yourself too much or like yourself too much, there's
a big chance that your daughter will too. You know,
so that was that was my little suggestion, and I
hope that that helps move her forward. I mean, I
think you're absolutely right. I mean kind of, you know,
like I told you, like my mother had written this book.

(24:58):
I've read it, I know, but I knew a lot
of the stories in it already. Like I do, think
that my mother hadn't told me so much about who
she was as a person is an amazing gift and
it really has changed me. It has. It has its
shaped and molded me in ways that I just I
can't even put my finger on, you know what I mean,
just having some sense of her humanity. That's one thing

(25:20):
I have to say. I've really been very in touch
with is my mom's humanity quite a bit, and it
helped me a lot in grieving her when she was
not here in the physical. My mother had cancer and
you know, she beat that pussy twice. She's doing well,
very grateful for that. She didn't share much of that

(25:40):
with me, I think, because you know, I'm the breadwinner
of my family, so I think she kind of just
wanted me to, you know, stay focused and too um
to just keep moving and motivated, like I was auditioning
for the number one Ladies Detective Agency when we found
out my mother had cancer. And when I got it

(26:02):
after the six auditions, she was like, you go, this
is an incredible opportunity. I want you to go. And
I was like, mom, but but but she said she
got some money, right. I was like, well, yeah, She's like,
well put some on me, you know, make sure I'm
straight and go head and do what you're gonna do.

(26:25):
And I was like, okay, as my my girlfriend Alex said,
she's put some money on it. Put some money on it,
whatever that thing is. So yeah, that first time, you know,
she was able to do surpass it and she has sense.
But we actually haven't had much conversation about that because
sometimes I think our moms are so strong that you know,

(26:47):
they don't tell, they don't say the heartaches and the
troubles and stripes or or you know, they don't share that.
And for you aged to have a mom to be
so open and my my mother's way more open than
my grandmother was. But for you to know your mother, um,
that that breathes life into your humanity. That that is

(27:09):
I think I'll gonna shout out your mom because I
think you're an incredible woman. I am proud to know you. Yeah, man,
that's what I tell my mom. I'm like, Mom, you know,
I'm only take a relationship invice from Asia because you
know it's about goals. But it really is Asia. It's
just really, it really is. And it's just you know,

(27:35):
this is the part where I deflect. My mom always
kind of always believed in love. She really did. And
you talked about heroes, and for me, like she was
my hero because I knew how many things could have
ruined that for her, Like I know all of the
things that happened to her that that could have destroyed
her belief in love and the fact that she continued

(27:57):
to And then it's so funny because like the things
that people go through, they can they can become like
their superpower, you know what I mean. And so it's
interesting that as mothers, that mothers can go down multiple paths.
You know, it's hard to say which path your mom
will go down. She's a human. And it's interesting at

(28:20):
my mother's service, my son, all these people got up
and I told you that the the way that the
day that we put my mother to rest was an
absolute amazing day. I know that sounds crazy, but that
day was actually one of the most beautiful days of
my life. The day we laid my mother to rest,

(28:40):
we all wore white, and I didn't even understand the
significance of that until later, but we all were white,
and everyone who came and the amount of people who
spoke to this part of her. So people will have
tons of stories about a person, but the fact that
this same kind of theme came back up many times.
Who she was in her belief and love, her ability

(29:02):
to love, and that that was her power. And my
son said, you know, I want to be like Grandma,
like I want to be like that. And I said
to him, I think that's beautiful, son, but I want
you to be that way. But I also want you
to understand the pain Grandmam had to experience in her
life in order for her to have that perspective. It

(29:26):
has been a gift to know her as a woman.
And I do think that that is something that's a
gift you can give your children and the young women
in your life, because you don't want to send them
out in the world with this false kind of sense
of what it is to be a woman and and
tied into those ridiculous, and it illusion about what womanhood

(29:47):
is and what that looks like, and for us as
black women, we're just so inundated. Was so much fuckory
about what that is. That I'm grateful to have had that,
but again I didn't know always that that's what that was.
When I was a kid, I used to think of
my mom as a pushover. I was very aggressive in
my late teens and ear I mean, in my early twenties,

(30:09):
even after I got married, because you're a yeah, and
I had to pimp out like that that pimps are
hurt people. You understand what I'm saying. Uh, A pimp
is not a person who you know, should be admired.
I was like that because I was trying not to
be a fool for love, because I was thinking, you know,
very much like you know, I don't. I didn't want

(30:29):
to be like my mom at that time in my life,
you know what I mean, because I didn't understand that
what she had was some fabulous ship. Okay, So my
mom stopped working when I was fourteen. She came home
one day and she just was like, I don't wanna
do that no more. And I thought we were doing really,
really well, I mean I was. I thought we were

(30:50):
doing great. As a matter of fact, you know, there
was food in the house that I had some clothes,
not a lot, but I had some, and you know,
I thought we were doing well. And my mother, you know,
just really did not go back to work. Odds and
ends here and there, she would take up something immensely creative.
And she one day she jumped up and went to

(31:12):
the docks at four o'clock in the morning, came back
with more fruit than anybody could ever eat. And I
was like, what is going on my grandmother and not
just looking at each other, like what's happening? And if
she had spent her last And she decided that she
was going to make smoothies. That she had gotten these books. No,
I mean, I'm talking North Philly. I'm talking eighties smoothies.

(31:36):
So she decided she was gonna make smoothies and she
was going to sell them for ten dollars in North Philly.
And I was crazy, Okay, So the first day or so,
you know, she started handing them out, handing them out
to people. I'm telling you, within three days time I

(31:57):
was headed out for school six am. My bus came
in six ten, and I like to meander a little bit.
I could hardly get down my steps. There was a
line around the block. I said, what's going on. Oh,
I'm coming to get some of your um, your mom's smoothies.
I had one in the morning and I didn't have
to eat again all day long. I said, what, Yeah,

(32:20):
this is how I'm gonna lose my weight. Oh this
is Oh, your mom's smoothies made me feel like what
she put in there. Everybody's talking about my mother's smoothies.
All of a sudden, she has a business. She did
that until she was finished with it, and then all
of a sudden, no more smoothies. And we've been back
from it was like feast or famine, and we went

(32:42):
back to families and having a sense being a kid
and seeing someone with that kind of freedom in their mind,
it's fantastic. And she decided to make pants once. All
of a sudden, the whole neighborhood is walking around in
my mother's pants. It was like that with the address sign,
it was like that she found a piece of furniture.

(33:03):
She brought this thing home and bought a sander, and
she taught me how to stay in polyera thing, and
she she got this thing and it was something somebody
had painted white and it was it was a dresser.
It looked crappy. She got all the paint off of it.
It was beautiful wood underneath sanded it. She sold that
thing for I think four hundred dollars. You know, this

(33:24):
is this is who my mother is. But the sporadic
nature of it all is why I have five, six, seven,
eight nine jobs because the end between the lean times
were lean, okay, like lean, like how are you gonna

(33:46):
get to school? What? What are you gonna eat today? Like?
You know? So this is why. And I love to
be creative. I love to do things that give me joy,
but I also don't want to go through the lean
times if I can manage it, because part of me
psychologically fears it, which is why there is Costco and

(34:11):
I are really great friends because I over compensate because
I remember that, and I remember the trades, you know,
the baskets where people would drop off food and stuff.
It's so fascinating because I just it's so many different
moms with so many different stories. I'm like, now you
made me think of my mom and how she did
the flip side where she decided to skip her dreams

(34:33):
and just dedicate her life to United Airlines for forty
five years because she wanted to keep her daughter in
private school. And she although I have the best daddy
in the damn world, he wasn't always the most financially
stable daddy in the whole damn world. So she wanted
to make sure that I had to clothes, and I
had a home, and I lived in these certain places
and so here she is now retired, like I'm taking

(34:56):
real estate classes. I want to sell homes because I've
always had a pass and for homes and decorating things
like that. I'm just like, wow, like, if only you
would have had a moment and not for nothing, I
thank her for those years because if that, I wouldn't
have seen the world. If not for those and I
wouldn't have met I would have met Jill Scott and
montro Switzerland if not for that, you know what I'm saying.

(35:17):
But it's just mom's stories and just a different route
of sacrifice that they make and and and to my
mom is funny because I was like, Dawn, I was
feeling bad because I'm like I told the story of
how she cuts out the boyfriends. But I understand all
that because my mom has one child, she has one daughter.
She is the biggest warrior for me. I will go

(35:38):
through beast with friends and she continues them on even
though we had You know what I'm saying like that is,
Mom said, you can't cut off my ride or die.
You can't cut it off once you turn that fast
set on. She said, Wait a minute, Ain't that the
one was it was that five, six, seventeen years ago?
Didn't she say? She showed she was me as a mother.

(36:01):
I won't lie. That's me as a mother. That's what's up.
I called people raggedy who who? That who that? That's
that raggedy girl. That's that raggedy mean boy matter. He
can't come with my threshold. I love it though, But
you know, if I didn't have that kind of relationship

(36:22):
with my mom where it helped me with my own
kids really for real, for real in a lot of ways,
because my mother's acceptance of me helped me when I
had to really kind of dig deep for my own daughter.
And um, I was really kind of messy as a teenager,
you know, just really all over the place. You know
what I'm saying, and like I was really a smart

(36:44):
I was like the kid that the teachers couldn't stand
because it's like, you know, she's smart, but she like
it's checked out, you know what I mean. Like, so
they would call my mom and we're like, can we
just get her to focus for like four months in
the game. So but this kid I got. I'm serious, man.
I grieved my mother hard because I needed to find

(37:06):
out where she got the ability to accept me the
way that she did, because when I needed it, I
needed it for my own kid. And it was like
it was so stressful for me because I was like
this the moment when I need to leg in her
lap and ask her, Yo, what do I do with
this girl? How do I love her? You know what

(37:29):
I'm saying. But I had mentioned this to you guys
before that. Again, my mom always used to think that
she was too soft. That was like my whole thing
was she's great love, but too good, like you don't
have enough boundaries, sis, When it was my mother's ability
to radically love eventually helped me save my relationship with

(37:49):
my own daughter because I knew I was able to
remember the type of compassion that she had for me,
and it was like this kid, you sis, this is
how you're gonna heal for real, for real, like this
is this is where you're healing. It gonna go to
the bone marrow. It was like, you're going to have

(38:10):
to have a radical compassion in this situation. You have
to love in a way that seems like, should not
be disciplined in this kid. Shouldn't not be mad, should
not be upset? Nasis, No, you should not. No, you
should not. That's how my mother really changed my life

(38:30):
because when I realized that, yeah, that that that that
that ship right there, and the turn that the women
in this generation took, these boomer black women, that how
they took a very different approach to mother. And oh yes,
I gotta get my mom and our mom's credit on
that one, because yes they did, yes, and very difference.

(38:53):
They spoke to us more, they spoke to us. Yeah, yeah,
we could speak back. Yes, still not as much as
these kids today, but more. Yeah. Wait, I don't know
what you mean. I feel like they started the normalizing
free black children, the idea of raising free black children,

(39:15):
black children in their minds, not just their bodies, and
parents who could be your friend. But still disciplinarians. The
concept of being a friend in a disciplinarian too, I
think started with our parents. I totally agree with that.
I don't think there was anything like that prior to
their generation. I am very, very grateful for the many
nights my mother and I shared drinking man of Chevits,

(39:37):
listening to Milly Jackson, Honey. Yes, the first time I
ever got high, I was with my mom. Yes, I'm
grateful for those moments. Now she's retired. Yes, and Grandma.
I gotta sneak my mom with a little cookie, a
little piece of candy or something. I feel, mom, but

(39:59):
still thank God, so I can dip into her stash.
We tried to cook Thanksgiving dinner that night. Talk about
a high asked mess, the two of us trying to
cook this food. I'm just gonna put this out here.
I tried to wash the turkey. Don't ever try to
wash the turkey after get in hot with your mama. Here,

(40:21):
you tried to wash the turk? How to do wash it? Asia?
I left that thing in the saint because I couldn't
pick it up because it was wrong and it was
big and it was happy. It was slippery, and I
was like it's dead. My mom like, yeah, that's dad, girl,
watch that dad turkey and seizing it up. I have

(40:44):
to get up. She and she literally said this. I
ain't getting out because you're a lightweight Asian. Damn, my
mama said, not getting your Mama said you're a lightweight.
That's what she said. Yeah, she put me, she she
put me to bed to seek my mother. I didn't
do that. She's not interested in that. She saw something
terrible one time and believes that all all things will

(41:07):
make you pull your skin off. Girl. Had we had
to high roaches from my grandmother. She was at a
party and saw somebody use acid and the lady ran
into the ocean and started pulling her skin off. And
my mother was like, drunks, all drugs, everything that's that
started trying to this day like I say this because

(41:31):
of my mother. I say this if any time somebody
tells you that I died of an overdose, no, that
somebody killed me. I'm not the one, because I'm not
the one. I'm not the one. I'm not the one.
I'm not you said skin off? Oh no, that probably

(41:56):
be me just by proxy. Like I'm not interested. Don't
you worry about it. Okay, fear not. Let me ask you,
just as moms, do y'all think that, like your kids
are kids? I feel like a kind of answer this question,
but do you think that they're getting the most humanized
version of you? Like pure? For sure, I think they are,

(42:19):
But they almost didn't even though I had the background
that I did, because the patriarchy is strong, you know
what I mean, And so it's hard as a woman
to fight that. A lot of times you you still
do find yourself hiding your humanity from people because you
think you're supposed to be strong and you're supposed to
handle everything, and that's what I need. So I would

(42:39):
be lying if I said I didn't buy into some
of those things, even with my own children, even though
I had this positive experience with my mother. The world
is very intense, so you tend to buy into those
things even though you have something to counteract it, which
is why I'm always saying, as a black person and parent,
you have to kind of consistently be pushing back at

(43:00):
the ship, you know what I mean. And so yeah,
I went through that. I went through that, and I
also went through the realization and the self actualization that
I said Okay, Nah, these kids need to know you're
a human being. You need to set boundaries, you need
to take care of yourself. And I'm lucky enough to
have come up during the time where words like self
care are part of our national vocabulary and our common vocabulary.

(43:24):
So those are things I've been is trauma what you're
talking about? Exactly? Exactly? Yeah, so yes day, no kids
benefited from from that, but I had to do the
work still. See that's the thing. It doesn't matter who
your mama is or is it. You can't really escape
the work. The work is gonna always you know what

(43:46):
I mean. I think the jet has benefited from me
being the whole around him. He asked me questions like
how did you rest? It was like you got a
lot going on. I could see it in your face.
There's literally nothing that I can hide from that boy.
What he who asked me, Mom? What is that? Look

(44:07):
at me deep in my soul and I'm like, what
He's like that thing? It's bothering you, mom? I could
see it? What is that? And I he freaks me
out when he does it, Like he's a really sweet
and intense human being, and I can't hide even if
I wanted to. He can see me, so in those moments,

(44:30):
you never say I don't. I won't do that, because
that means I have to honor his instinct and whatever
gifts that have been given to my grandmother, you know,
who could tell you somebody's calling before the phone rang
and who it was. Or my mother, who can heal
people with her touch and her words to to me,
whatever it is that I have, I don't want to

(44:53):
negate it for him. He's absolutely right, there's a thing,
and sometimes I don't even know what the thing is.
I've gotta look and see what it is, and then
we talk about it. Whatever it is. I need him.
It's important that he be able to speak his mind
and him share whatever's going on in him. I need
him to know that he's all right because these kids now,

(45:15):
you know a lot of young people are taking their
lives and because of bullying, because of not being able
to keep up in school, or whatever the case may be.
It's happening a lot where I am, and I just
you know, I want to make sure that I'm super
present in his emotional growth and his spiritual growth, you know,

(45:35):
his mental growth. I want to be there for that
so him seeing me stressed out and me taking deep breaths,
or me taking a walk, or him walking with me,
and I'm like, I just don't want to talk right now,
and he's like okay, you know, for him to see it,
to know that that sometimes I'm not all right. Sometimes

(45:56):
I'm really upset. Sometimes I'm mad, you know, just or
having an anxiety attack because these things occurred to a man,
I have my oldest child read me Girl like a book,
right that. Like I said, it's so many, so many
things came to life after my mother passed, but I
would have to say that it was that experience also

(46:18):
that showed me how it was important, even more so
than I had been doing that my children saw my humanity,
that they saw the grieving process and they understood what
that was and how you didn't come out of it
and moved through it, you know what I mean. And
so that was really a great learning tool for us.

(46:39):
Whereas sometimes the trauma of a parent can break everything down,
but if it's used as a learning in a teaching moment,
it can be really really profound for your children to
see you in that way. But even before there's some
sort of calamity in the everyday calamities. I think it
is so profound that you're saying, hey, you know, I

(47:00):
need some room. I'm not and I can't talk to
you right now. And those are those are boundaries that
I learned over time to do because there was always
that little voice, the little little guy that you have
to be and you have to be present, you have
to be there to be present all the time. I

(47:23):
really feel like that that's I'm sorry, um, like you
forgive me now, It's okay. I was just gonna say,
I'm excited for y'all. I mean, I don't know if
if motherhood is in the future for me, whatever, but
for y'all, I'm excited because I see you as humans
and as mothers and developing these human relationships with your kids.
And I know, for one thing that me and my mom,
that's the one thing that we do have. And in

(47:43):
the sense of knowing when something's going on with your
mom without or even saying it, I will say that
in the last years of my grandma. My grandma passed
a couple of years ago at ninety three, and she
was going through Alzheimer's for you know, five years before that.
But I was living in California, FaceTime and my mom
every day making sure things were good. But I knew
looking at her face when it was time for me

(48:04):
to jump on a plane, you know what I mean.
And so I look at y'all and I go, this
is this is gonna be so great for the future,
because it's gonna it's gonna be so great for the
bond and for what's to come as they get older,
as you get older, and not having to even say things,
and then just being there for you. You know. I
want to say two things, my dear. Number one, I

(48:25):
want to tell you, friend, you were absolutely incredible with
your grandmammy. You were You were so present and so loving,
and you had fun and she laughed with you and
she danced and it was great as a woman to
see you that way and to see her that way.

(48:46):
You did a wonderful job. I know, you know, but
I'm I'm just throwing it out there, so you just
amazing to ensure that you know, I enjoyed it you did.
I mean, having time with three generations of your family
of women in one room. And that's why I used
to post it all the time, because I wanted people
to understand you know I was blessing because I know
everybody who goes through Alzheimer's it's not always a joyous thing.

(49:08):
That doesn't always turn you into a joyous person. My
grandmother was not as joyous as she was when she
had Alzheimers. Like, but that time that you spend, that
time that I spent touching her face and like kissing
her and her like holding me in the bed at night.
I just want to always encourage people that that is
like stuff that makes me so close to her now
where I know I talked to her like she here,

(49:28):
like it is nothing. I can feel her on my face,
I feel when she's kissing me. I talked to her
when I get blessings because I know you over here
in his ear, I hear you. You know so I'm sorry,
but I mean thank you. So I'll just say that too.
Please love on your your elders, just love him up
and and sorry, sorry, sorry, don't you dare, don't you
don't have to apologize for anything, age, just don't. And

(49:51):
what you said, Agia is everything. When you share your
humanity with your children, you free them. You've freedom and
that deep kind of unfiltered, unwavering love. That's what we
need as parents, and it's not easy, but it really
is worth the trip. We'll be back after the break.

(50:17):
Coming up next on the show, What's on Your Heart
an occasional segment where we're check in with people we
respect about how they're really feeling. Hot on, y'all, I
think there's somebody calling. That must mean it's time for

(50:41):
what song? Hot Hey, y'all will see. The thing is,
this woman is a scholar and an activist whose life
work is to develop innovative solutions to challenges facing the poor,
particularly Black mothers and their children. That person is Dr
Janice Dats Janis Johnson Dyets, but in my life, she's

(51:04):
the Aga whisperer. So you all get an opportunity to
hang with her on today and also to she's an author,
she's a PhD. She's the mother of Marley Das, who
is the thousand Black Girl books. Young activists don't get
to drop in Asia and the author of Parents Like
It matters how to raise joyful, change making girls. That's

(51:26):
what happens when you guys trust me with the intro.
I leave the important stuff out. That's why y'all gotta
stop giving me these responsibilities. You said it was important
to us, That's all it was import exactly. Well, thank you,
thank you, thank you. I am delighted to be here.
I'm a big fan of the show. I listened to
the show as Asia. No. I have lots of thoughts

(51:46):
on the show. On every episode, I have extra thoughts
on everything. So I am excited to be here. There's
a lot of things on my heart today, but probably
the biggest one is I've been thinking about the power
of so realization, the power of our childhood and the
stuff that we learn as children and how they stay

(52:07):
with us, particularly the things that we love and the
things that we found challenging about our parents. And you know,
like we get to a certain age and we wonder
why we're behaving like our parents and why we take
on their attributes, etcetera. And I just keep thinking about
what kids are exposed to, the values, the ideas, the

(52:31):
practices in their household, and how that just takes a
hold of you at this deep, deep level and doesn't
let you go. And for me, this is important because
you know, I'm interested in children and their development. I'm
also interested in how we create more generations of children

(52:51):
who are going to positively impact the world. And if
you're early socialization says that the notions of justice and
truth and morality are just about you and yours, then
we really don't end up getting people who are really
invested in reorganized or restructuring the world. And so that

(53:12):
early engagement has kind of become obsessive to me about
what we're showing our kids and what we're saying to
them really early on, about what they should value, and
what our own actions, the things that we do, what
messages our children extract from watching us do those things.
So that that's probably the biggest thing on my my

(53:33):
head today because I watched my husband do some stuff
and I was like, I must start learned that real early.
You must have learned that real early. And I watched
myself do stuff, and I know I learned it really early,
and I didn't let it go. Like my whole framework
for the work I do isn't because I have a PhD.

(53:53):
It's my grandmother, right, my grandmother. When I was a kid,
my grandmother had this particular practice. There were thirteen of
us living in retreat St. Mary, and she and my
grand aunts and my aunt joys. Please tell these people
where retreats St. Mary Is. So, I was born in
sant Ancis Bay Hospital in Jamaica, and I grew up

(54:14):
in a town of four hundred and thirty three people
in and I lived for the first nine years of
my life ten without electricity, running water, indoor running water,
indoor plumbing, etcetera. And walked, you know, somewhere between three
to five miles each day. So when Dr Janis says

(54:34):
I used to walk barefoot in the snow, well not
the snow, because that's Jamaica. Wait wait when when Dr
Janis tells that story, she's telling the real story. So
in in nineteen eighty we moved to Kingston with indoor
plumbing and electricity, et cetera. But I grew up where
we salted the meat in order to have it for

(54:55):
the next day, where the kitchen outside where my grand
aunt and my cousins we cooked, and we had rabbits
and chickens and the cows. You had to and before
school you wake up and you get a couple and tea,
You walk a couple of miles. You have to go
tend to things. They come back in. You have planted avocado,

(55:15):
piece of hard or bread, and some tea and then
you walk. So thirteen of us and um we were privileged,
which is funny to say. We were supremely because we
owned the land we lived on and we had more
resources than many. So before dinner every night, my grandmother

(55:38):
would have us paired up those of us who were
like five, our six and younger, and then my older brothers.
My brothers are eight and six years older than me.
We had to deliver food two people in the community.
She told us they were our family. We had more
resources in them because we had cattle, we had um land,
so you know, like you grow cocoa, banana planting of

(56:00):
our set stuff. They would make the dinner and we
take it to people, and you had to do that
before you could eat your dinner. So you do that,
you walk a mile or two, you drop off the food,
you come back, and then you can eat dinner. And
when my grandmother died, all these people were at the church.
We went to an Anglican church in retreat, and I

(56:20):
was joking with my mother. I was like, Yo, don't
these people know how to use a condom? Like why
do we have so many in this family? Right? My
mother said to me they're not family. I was like,
so you're telling me, Mr, my whole life give these
people food and I have not related to to them
at all. And she's like, no, it was the tradition

(56:41):
of her mother before her and her mother before her
that if you have surplus, you share, right. And so
I think about the work that I do now that
people attribute to a whole host of things, and I
think about that early, that early training of what it
means to be in community with people and to share

(57:02):
your surplus. And so those are the things that stay
on my mind. What like what what values do we
learn really early and how we end up expressing them?
And I'm just grateful that the value of reciprocity, generosity
and community was one that was so central to my
development that now I can operationalize it by forming foundations,

(57:24):
raising a kid, building stuff. So that's what's on my mind. Yes,
let me ask you this. So a big catchphrase right
now or thing that people are hearing a lot is
I want to raise free black children. And it's kind
of vague for me, to be honest, trying to wrap
my mind around what does a free black child look like?

(57:45):
What do they sound like? How do they walk, how
do they talk? And I just am curious to hear
what does this free black child look like to you? No,
I mean I don't. I don't actually don't think about
free black children very much. I really think about free
black adults. And I just don't think you can have

(58:06):
free Black children without adults being free, because if adults
are in bondage, quite frankly, how can their children be free. Literally,
just sitting here thinking that, I was like, am I free?
Adults need to be in the business of trying to
be free. And one of the ways I think adults,
particularly Black folks, got to think about freedom is the

(58:27):
one they need, an operative definition that you can actually
agree upon. Right, Yes, you know, individual families can have
notions of freedom. For many black communities and black members,
freedom is having enough money, right, So, like there's economic
and clearly you can without economic liberty, like you you

(58:49):
if you can afford to eat and grow and take
care of yourself, then I don't I don't know how
freedom is particularly possible. That's why freedom and economic justice
have to be linked. Um, but you need to kind
of freedom in your soul, right are free from bondage
kind of stuff where when you lay at night, you

(59:12):
feel peaceful, right like, So our work goes around this
principle of my aunt. And in my aunts it says like,
at the end of the nights, your soul feel as
light as a feather, and you have these forty two
principles that you recite in the morning, right and these
principles says, it's a pledge. I affirmed that I will
not lie. I affirmed that I will not engage in

(59:34):
things that harm my community. I affirmed that I will
do these things. So you you make this kind of
promise each day, and at the end of the day,
you then said to say, I did not lie, I
did not harm, I did not do these things. So
in that respect, your spirit is then filled with levity
and it is as a feather. So I think if
individuals make a pledge in the morning to live a

(59:57):
life of freedom. So I think, if you do those
things and then you feel really free to the idea
that's in my head, which is like, then you passed
that on you, You raise your children that way, your
communities that way, and then children grow into that, and
then we can have aspirations for their life beyond this
moment and for them to be free. But I think
freedom should be really at the end of the day,

(01:00:19):
it's like, the investment in their freedom is the investment
in your own freedom. If you're not fully invested and
engaged in that, then you're not doing this future work.
You are not doing this future work. And for us,
for for black mothers, this is not the discussion. Come
on now, This is not the discussion anyone was having

(01:00:42):
with us prior to having any dead on children. No,
this is not nobody's talking. So this book, I say
any thing, which I know is going to be irritating,
but it's very important. Is precisely that light. Yeah, I say,
you cannot have joyful change making girls if you don't
have joyful change making parents, particularly joyful change making mamas,

(01:01:05):
You're not. It's just not gonna happen. It's not like
the do as I say, not as I do, that
ain't gonna work out. It ain't gonna work. So if
you want whatever you want for your children, you should
be it. Come on book so you can model them.
One more time, is that whatever you want for your children,
you need to be it so that they can see

(01:01:26):
the model of what is possible. And that is very
different from the way many of us were raised. And
can I say this one little thing is that whatever
you want to be, also you need to sort out
what you want to be, what you want your children
to be, because whatever it is you have to be you,
you have to be that first. But make sure what
you're trying to be you just sort of that out.

(01:01:49):
It is okay because some of us be trying to
be some ship. We don't need to be trying to be.
I mean, I'm just gonna put that out there. Okay,
somebody's sort it out. Take the slow man. Whoa. I'm
telling you right now that that it feels like you
just dropped a weight on my head and shoulders. That

(01:02:15):
is both terrifying and exciting when somebody offers you freedom,
when somebody offers you freedom on the platter here it is.
That's how you get it. Gavin An, your kids gave
it to that. Yo. I I gotta hold myself. I

(01:02:37):
got to hold my monel goodness, it seems to reason
out that accountability accountability it is. It's your it's your story,
your children are in it. I mean, I think that
the way that we've done parenting is to say that
the kids are the star of the story, then the protagonist,

(01:03:00):
and you are somehow an extra in the story. Right.
So we said, I gotta pour everything into my kid.
I just gotta, I gotta pour it into I'm doing
it for my kid, and I'm like, you anna have
to be a leading main character in the story. And
that I think is hard because then you get to

(01:03:20):
like be like the reason I'm working so late, the
reason I'm doing all of this, the reason I'm not exercise,
and the reason I'm not sleeping, it's because i have
to do this for my kids, right, And so you
get to under prioritize yourself and you get to feel
pious and great because you did it all for your kids.
And then those same children don't want any of the

(01:03:43):
things that you have done because they barely saw it going.
They always saw the bed walking out the door, and
you didn't. You didn't sell the seat you planted. So
in the book, I have a chapter, the shortest chapter,
they're devoted to this thing called ACE adverse Childhood Experiences,

(01:04:04):
and I say, you need to know your aces, right,
you need to know where you experience some level of trauma.
And I give an exercise so each chapter has assignments
and exercises, so you like them, you can go to them.
You don't like that one, you can try another one. Right,
So every single chapter has it, and it teaches you

(01:04:24):
how to go through your aces. Know your aces, have
an understanding of your aces, and once you've attended to them,
then you're in a position to really find joy for yourself.
Right And you can't aspire for people. Even your children
are people, right Like, once they leave you, they they
own people. You can't aspire for people what you have

(01:04:48):
not achieved for yourself. It is one of the things
I say all the time about teachers, right Like, I
tell teachers all the time. I was like, you can't
inspire great messy were great, right Like, once you work
on your greatness that you can inspire greatness. And right like,
I need you to invest in your development. And I
think institutions have to invest in teachers because they're trying
to educate the next generation. So like, if you don't

(01:05:09):
invest in teachers, then you're not gonna get greatness out
of your children. So I'm like, ma'am, sir, you ain't
great though, you're not imaginative for interest in So it's
all right, right, So I think it's the same thing
for caregivers. Caregivers want their children to be great. But
I'm like, how are you great? I gotta ask you
to We're talking about a lot of self work, and

(01:05:29):
some people don't necessarily see that this kind of work
is tied into let's say public life. And I really
want you to help us in this moment to tie
what it seems like a very personal investment into what
that looks like and let's say public health and law,

(01:05:52):
politics and all these kinds of things. So how how
do we go out into the world and present this systemically?
All right? So I make an argument that joyfulness is
intricately linked to change making, all right, all right? So right,

(01:06:14):
so alright, so work that's sober it is the work
of gratitude, Like this is the work of gratitude. You're
groups before, right, Grateful people are reciprocal people given people,

(01:06:34):
because when you're grateful, you share, you have an abundance. Right.
Change making is about reciprocity. It is about caring for
and being connected to your community. So when you're given,
you are not given in a way that says but not,
I gotta help y'all because y'all suck. You're given in

(01:06:55):
an abundance framework, and therefore you can think beyond on
this moment to think about how we can give to
change structures. So let me walk you through just a
little bit from a different angle. If you are joyful,
if you have this internal optimism and gratitude and this
feeling of reciprocity inside of you, you are also thinking

(01:07:18):
about future generations to ensure that they also have it.
So that is going to allow you to take stock
of the inequities that are present. So you're gonna take
stock of racism, sexism, homophobia, agism, able ism, and you're
gonna say that these things will interrupt people's ability to
feel gratitude and reciprocal And because you feel this way,

(01:07:42):
this goodness, this internal goodness, you're going to want to
be in relationship with other people who feel that community
and connectedness. For change to occur, it requires that we
are even more connected two people. So joyful people are connected,
people who have gratitudes and notion of reciprocity, who are

(01:08:05):
thinking about ways to make the world and themselves better
for the future. So by their very nature, they're committed
to change making, which is what we call social activism, etcetera.
But you cannot do that and have the optimism to
keep doing it each day, to stand on the hill,

(01:08:26):
to register people to vote, to change systems, to feed people,
to fight racism, to rewrite, to sing songs that says
that people matter, to love on each other, to hold
each other's hand, if you don't have that joy, So
that's that comes out that to anybody else here and
explosion I did, and Teddy Penderbras I did. Ladies and gentlemen,

(01:08:50):
I suggest that you wholeheartedly go back and listen to
this particular conversation again and again and again and again.
That's because I certainly will. I certainly will. There are

(01:09:12):
times when we get together and we have these conversations
and we're all just going going back and forth and
throwing out ideas and thoughts and feelings. This is one
where I just had to shut the fuck up and listen.
And that is an art of communication and art of conversation.
Thank you so much for being with us, Thank you

(01:09:34):
for sharing your insights. Dr Janice Johnson, Diez God God, Whoamica? Jamkeup?

(01:09:56):
How do you eat an elephant? One by side? What's up? Y'all. It'
Steves again a producer on the show, and I am
here to bring you the resources as usual, and today
I'll give another shout out to Dr Janice Johnson Dias

(01:10:16):
this book which is fresh off the press. It's called
Parents Like It Matters how to raise joyful, change making girls.
And even if you don't have daughters or are not
a parent, it can be a good tool to have
in the tool shed if you are invested in self
development and soul work, as Dr Johnson Dias puts it.
And of course we can take the time to acknowledge

(01:10:39):
that our mothers our whole human beings. All right, y'all.
Until next time, we want to thank you so much
for listening to us today. It has been a pleasure.
Jay dot Ill Yeah, yeah, the laugh of just silly.

(01:11:03):
Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents j dot
Il the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott,

(01:11:27):
Layah st Clair and Agent Graden Danceler. It's executive producers
are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun. It's produced
by La st Clair and Medves. Jeff Coke. The editing
and sound design for this episode We're Done by Christina Larenger.
J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio.

(01:11:50):
For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the I
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