October 16, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Blair Linne grew up moving from place to place, never staying long enough to unpack completely. Her mother loved her deeply, but without a father, stability was something they could never hold on to. By the time Blair reached adulthood, she had lived in twenty-five homes. What she found along the way was not just struggle, but faith, community, and a new understanding of family. Her story gives voice to the quiet ache of growing up without a father and the strength it takes to build something lasting from the pieces left behind.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. Blair Lynne's personal story of
growing up without a father at home reflects the experiences
of millions of Americans. Blair beautifully told her story in
(00:31):
her book, Finding My Father, and she's here to share
it with us. Here's Blair lynn.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The section on my birth certificate reserved for my father's
name is blank. After my mother found out she was
pregnant with me, she actually decided that she wasn't going
to keep me, and so she went to the doctor,
the local doctor, and they said she was too far
along in that small town to have an abortion. In
(01:02):
order to do it, she would have to go to
a larger city like Chicago or Detroit, and at that time,
she didn't really have the resources to be able to
do that. And as she was sorting it through, she
found herself actually going and talking to a Baptist pastor,
someone who she didn't know, who the family didn't know,
(01:22):
to try to get some advice on it. And the
pastor tried to convince her not to go through with it,
and so she then decided, well, I'm going to give
her up for adoption. I'll have her, but I'm going
to give her up. And so when she had me,
she actually went to the hospital alone because my grandmother, Mama,
(01:45):
her mother wasn't happy that her daughter had had or
was going to have two children out of wedlock, and
so she went to the hospital had me. And right
when she had me, she told me that all I
did was I stared at her, like I just looked
(02:05):
at her. It's like I couldn't take my eyes off
of her. And she's told me this story many times
how that resonated with her. And then the doctor came
in and talked to her. The doctor looked at her
and said, you don't look like the type of woman
(02:27):
who would give your child away, and those things. I
think the pastor's words him the doctor, and maybe my
gaze at her caused her to make the decision that
she was going to keep me. My mother was twenty
one years old when she had me, and at that time,
(02:50):
she had my sister at seventeen, so she was a
single mother with two daughters. When I was three years old,
she decided to move up us from our small town
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Los Angeles, California, and she
had the desire to raise two movie stars. Actually, we
(03:11):
had taken a Greyhound bus.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We had a one way ticket.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Right before my mother left, she had only had two
hundred dollars in her pocket, but her brother gave her
one hundred dollars just before we boarded the bus. We
got on that bus headed to Los Angeles. My mother
had never been there. We didn't know anyone there. We
didn't have any thing set up for us when we
(03:37):
would arrive, but we went there and basically found ourselves
in a shelter in Pasadena, California. We stayed there for
a couple of weeks, and then my mother took us
to Hollywood, where she got us a hotel for two days.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And you know, money was starting to run out at this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Point, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do.
So I remember us walking down I think it was
Sunset Boulevard, and we were trying to figure out what
our next step would be. And I remember my mother
telling us I was three, my sister was seven, and
she said pray.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
She went over to.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
A grocery store to get some orange juice, and she
met a security guard and she told him the situation,
and she wasn't sure exactly what to do.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, he allowed us to stay in his home.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He opened up his home to us for a few months,
and really, I would say within that year and a
half of first being in Los Angeles, we stayed in
about five different homes.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
We moved around a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
From that first move to living in that security guard's
home until I was old enough to get my own apartment.
We moved twenty five times, and so I was experiencing
what many fatherless children experience, which is poverty.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
We suffered a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There were times where my mother missed meals in order
to allow my sister and I to eat. My sister
and I we depended so much, of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Course, on my mother.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She was all we had, and my mother sacrificed immensely
for us. She wanted us to have the best. So
what she did was when she didn't have much, she
still invested in us. So she at a young age,
researched acting classes, researched how to take headshots on camera, classes,
(05:36):
how to get an agent, and at nine years old,
I was able to secure an agent.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
My sister and I both were able to and so that.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Dream that she had for us, we began to walk
in that, going to auditions on the bus or at
times in our beat up car, you know. And I
remember her taking us to charm school. At thirteen years old,
I was able to work on my very first commercial,
which was a Pizza Hut commercial. So as we were
(06:08):
growing up, I mean, there were of course many struggles
being in a single parent home. My mom was who
I looked to for everything right. She defined for me
who I am, She defined for me who God was.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
She was the one who kept me alive.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So I remember when we would be on the playground
or we would be at school at recess, there was
always always silence when someone would bring up a yo,
mama joke.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And you've been listening to Blair Lynn's story of her mother,
her single mom doing her best as all single moms do,
to raise her children. And as Blair said, we moved
twenty five times, experiencing what many fatherless families experience, and
that's poverty. But my goodness, the love of mom, the
love of God, and that dream and that hope that
(07:02):
the mother instilled in these kids. We're going to hear
more of this remarkable story and voice. Blair Lynn's story
continues here on our American Stories. Lee Hbib here, and
(07:30):
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon. If you
want to help inspire countless others to love America like
we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring
and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country,
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
(07:51):
Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Any amount helps Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give,
and we continue with our American Stories and with Blair
(08:12):
Lynn's story. We last heard Blair describe how her mother,
like most of her peers, was her everything. This is
why there was a silence when anyone told a yo
mama joke. Let's pick up from here here again is
Blair lynb.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So someone would say, your mama's this, you know, I
mean they were fighting words, Yo mama. You would talk
about someone's mom and I don't remember people talking about
your daddy.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Jokes like that wasn't a thing but your mama.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That definitely was something that would cause someone to get
into a fight. As they would say to put on
the vasoline, take the earrings off, and be ready to tussle.
And I wonder if a big part of that is
because so many of us in my community, being raised
in south central Los Angeles, so many of us us
were raised by our moms. There were some dads around,
(09:05):
but for many of my friends, it was the mom
who was holding down the fort, who was taking care
of their children without the presence of that father there
in their life. And what I realized was I was
living out what many single parent children live out. Many
children who live in a single parent home are suffering.
(09:26):
As I said, with poverty, I also suffered with identity.
I suffered because I struggled to appreciate authority. I struggle
with anger as I was coming up. My father had
been in my life before we moved to Los Angeles.
I would say for snippets here and there. I do
(09:46):
remember he would bring me bags of candy bags with
Bazuka gum and lemon heads and candy cigarettes, mars bars.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I remember I would be in heaven.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
He loved candy, and that was kind of his love
language toward me. But once we moved to Los Angeles,
our relationship really looked like a series of phone calls
here and there.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
They were sporadic.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It might be, you know that we would talk a
couple of times a year, and it would be a
few minutes each call, and so there really wasn't that
relationship between us, you know. So just around the corner
from me, there was a street gang, the Black Pea Stones,
which was a blood gang, and I remember these young
(10:32):
men beaming with pride because of their gang affiliation. But
I didn't see that same smiles, you know, that didn't
see the same joy when they were told they were
going to be a father. So I remember there were
times where many friends of mine were, yeah, just like me,
being raised if not even by their their mother or
(10:52):
by their grandmother, because they didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Have their father. The father was missing from their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So when I was thirteen, my mother actually set us down,
my sister and I and told us that she was pregnant.
And when she told me, I mean, of course we
were in shock because for one, my mom at that time,
I didn't know that she was dating anyone and so
it was a shock to my sister and I, but
(11:18):
my mother's belly began to expand and she soon found
out that she was actually going to have a boy.
And I was so excited for her because actually, as
harsh as it may seem, I remember her sharing with
me she wanted me to be a boy. And so
when she expressed that, I knew that that was what
she always wanted. So I was beaming with pride. I
(11:39):
would be a big sister. And so my mother had
my brother, and when she had him, I was there.
I remember going to the hospital and it was crazy
because when we went into the hospital, you go to
registration and they only allow you to have one guest. Well,
(12:01):
here's my mother. She's a single mother, she has two children,
and so they told her you can only have one guest.
She says, well, I have two children. So if you
can't accept my two children, then I'm leaving.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Now. I don't know where my mother was gonna go.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
She's abilled to give birth, but she stood up, you know,
for her children, and said this is what I have,
you know, And so they said, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
They basically changed the rule.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You can come, and so we came into the hospital.
I went in and I watched my mother get a
sea section at thirteen. I remember it very vividly, and
I remember holding my brother in my hands for the
first time, just excited to have him in our family.
And oftentimes in the morning, I would wake up, I
(12:46):
would be the first one, you know, to hear his cry.
I would run in to go and feed him and
change his diaper, and he just wanted to be the
best big sister I could be. And this particular morning,
I'd done that just as usual. I then proceeded to
go ahead and get ready for school, and it was,
you know, just like any other day.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And when I was coming back from recess, I.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Got a call to go to the attendance office and said, okay,
so got on the phone, and as I was on
the phone, I was told that my brother had died.
And all I remember just screaming no. That was all
that I could get out, was just screaming no through
(13:33):
the attendance office. And you know it, it was interesting
because I didn't realize, even though I was living it out,
that fatherlessness actually increases the infant mortality rate. So not
having a father in the home, you're twice as likely
(13:53):
to have a child die at specifically an infant die
in your home. And you know, we were three children
without our three fathers, and you know, we were just
trying to grapple with this great tragedy, another tragedy that
we had experienced. And at thirteen, So I blame myself.
(14:14):
My sister blamed herself, my mother blamed herself for our
own reasons.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
But for me, I blame.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Myself because I was the last one to actually lay
him down on the bed and he died from SIDS.
It was it was interesting to realize now looking back,
that I was actually living out a statistic I didn't
know even existed at the time. So, being raised in
a single parent home, I would often you know, look
(14:40):
at my mom and you know, she was looked at
as kind of the strong black woman, you know, the
one who can handle it all. And I remember on
Father's Day I would often write her a thank you card.
I would you know, sign it out to her and
you know, try to express my appreciation from my young self.
And that kind of is how our society tells us
(15:03):
we should engage our mothers, right who are single mothers,
that they can handle it all that you know, they
are to take on or can take on, this father role.
The reality is, my mother is my mother, right she
She's not to be my father. She can't take the
(15:23):
place of my father, nor can he take her place.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Right. Mothers do what mothers do.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Sometimes they'll take on the role of the father. But
the reality is I needed my father in my life.
And as wonderful as my mother was, and all the
sacrifices that she made, and you know, everything that she
did to keep my sister and I alive, she can
never replace my dad. I still long for him, I
(15:52):
still needed him in my life to give only what
he could. I, of course, at at a young age,
didn't fully understand the implications of not having a dad
in the home.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
It really wasn't until I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Some guys started to express interest in me, and so
I started to question my identity. I wondered who am
I and what do I look for in a guy?
So I remember I wanted to have a conversation with
my dad. I wanted to express to him how his
absence had impacted me.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But I was so afraid that if I did that,
I might lose the.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Interaction that we did have that small interaction in those
phone calls, but at eighteen, I had a conversation with him.
I really faced my fears and I just told him,
you know, I'm suffering, I'm hurt by you. I'm you know,
really struggling with you not being in my life, and
(16:51):
I'm trying to sort through who I am. But I've
been so afraid to share that with you. And what
he did in that conversation was he shared with me
his own fears.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you've been listening to Blair Lynn tell her story.
We've told quite a number of stories of the consequence
of fatherlessness on boys, and we've told quite a number
of stories on what it does to girls. And my goodness,
you're hearing it straight from Blair Lynn's mouth. I was
living out what many children of followers kids suffer, not
(17:22):
just poverty, but identity, she said, and authority. This cuts
across all racial lines. My wife did not have a father,
and my goodness, it had grave consequences for her. He
had played no part in her life. The reality is
I needed a father in my life. And by the way,
she loved her mom, and her mom was a hero
and did everything she could, but nothing can replace the
(17:44):
love of a father. Nothing. The story of Blair Lynn
continues here on our American Stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories. We last heard how Blair shared with
her father when she was eighteen, how much pain his
absence caused in her life, and by the way, the
courage she had to summon to have that conversation with
her dad is. What she didn't want to do is
risk the little small relationship they had, but she wanted more,
(18:29):
and she took a bet on her and him. Surprisingly,
that bet paid off. He opened up to her. Let's
return to Blair.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I remember him walking me through how he didn't have
his father in his life when he was coming up.
He was really repeating that same cycle and he didn't
know what to do. I saw my dad's humanity in
that moment, and so it really changed how I engaged
with him, and he started to seek to be more
(19:00):
present in my life after that point. One thing that
actually has been helpful for me. I remember visiting the
Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, d C.
I visited it three times, and honestly, I can't wait
to go back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Because it's just there's so much history.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It's such a rich resource for African Americans but also
for Americans. While I was there, there is actually this
ring by a reverend from South Carolina, Reverend Glenny, and
they have the actual ring and they have his journal
where he documented over four hundred marriages. Now this was
(19:41):
a time where marriage was illegal because he was documenting
this and actually holding these weddings during slavery and so,
you know, slaves were not legally allowed to marry, but
yet many of them exchanged vows in a Christian ceremony.
I remember Frederick Douglass. He says this in his book
(20:03):
My Bondage and My Freedom. He talks about the effects
that slavery has had upon fatherhood in the family. He says,
and I quote, slavery does away with fathers as it
does away with families. Slavery has no use for either
fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their
existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When they
(20:27):
do exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
But are antagonistic to that system. Quote.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know, so you know what he's saying is, yeah,
that in order for someone to actually be married and
to have family and to have a father. It is
completely antagonistic to the system of slavery. Right. We know
so many families were ripped apart during slavery. As I've
done my research, I've come to realize that employment will
(20:59):
actually increase the likelihood of a man marrying the mother
of his child by eightfold. And then as you continue
to go through history, then you have welfare, right, which
you know was kind of heightened in the seventies and eighties.
The welfare system came in and it was actually helpful
to many families, feeding many hungry children. But one of
(21:22):
the stipulations in order for you to be on welfare
was that you.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Could not have a man in the home, And.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There were these actual raids that happened which enforced that
if a man was found in the home that they
would actually take away that welfare help.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And so it encouraged.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Women to say, I don't want my man to be
in the home, and they would often show up at
random times at night and early morning, you know, to
make sure that that wasn't happening.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So this is an issue that impacts all of us.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
It's not just an African American issue.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Forward to I was twenty two years old.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
At this point i'd begin I mean, I was doing
commercials and television and did a film. But when I
was twenty two, I actually started to see many parts
of my life that I had tried to uphold. I'd
tried to be so moral. I started to see some
of that crumbling. I remember making choices and doing things
(22:25):
that I said I would never do. I saw even
as I was acting, I saw myself compromising in ways
I said I would never compromise. And at that time
I really was challenged with my faith. I had made
a profession of faith when I was nine years old.
I had said that, oh yes, I want to know God.
(22:46):
But I really kind of went on to live a
moral life. But when I was twenty two, a friend
of mine talked to me about God and really began
to challenge the profession I had made. And that was
hard for me, because it's often hard when someone challenges you,
and it kind of put me in a low point
in life. I was seeking and trying to figure out
(23:10):
life and where God was. I remember even going and
meeting with the psychic, trying to figure out, you know,
what is my purpose and who am I? What should
my next steps be well, the psychic kind of ripped
me off from the psychic took my money, took two
hundred dollars of my money, and was nowhere to be found.
(23:30):
So I was just left wandering and lost. And so
it kind of took me on this journey of re
establishing my faith.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
What does it look like? So what I did?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I remember praying, I remember crying out to God because
I felt so hopeless because of all these things that
I said, Oh, I'm so strong, I'll never do these things.
And I found myself falling right into those traps, really
kind of becoming the statistic that you know when you
look at even fatherless children, there are many statistics that
(24:05):
we can fall into.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
And that was what my path was charting me out
to become.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And so what I did was I prayed, I cried
out to God because I felt I deserved what the
Bible says the punishment for my sins.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
I was a sinner.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I didn't want to really agree with it, but the
more that I read the Bible, I realized I've sinned
against a holy God. And if I was to compare
myself to other people, which was what I had often
did Throughout my life I was doing pretty good. But
when I compared myself to the standard of the Bible,
I realized, Uh, I am in need. And so I
(24:46):
cried out in a state of hopelessness. Really, and in
that moment of hopelessness, I was reminded that that's exactly
why Jesus Christ came for sinners like me. And I
cried out, and God answered my prayer. And I recognize
in that moment what it meant to truly be a Christian,
(25:07):
not just in word, but also that there's a transformation
that happens in our life, and that transformed my whole life.
That transformed my whole life. And so I started to
rethink acting should I continue to act?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
If I do, how will it look different than it
has looked before.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What does it look like to actually have convictions and
live those out? As I went on my journey, I
eventually ended up meeting a man who expressed his interest
in me. And so even as I was dating this
guy who was expressing his interest in.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Me, I didn't even know to go to my dad.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know that my dad could be there as a
listening ear, as someone to kind of you know, as
they say dust the gun collection off, right, you know,
to see who's this guy who's interested in my daughter?
I didn't know that. But what I did know because
now that I had a relationship with God, I now
had a new relationship with the church.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Right, so I did have men.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
In my life and women in my life right who
had come in as a family, and so I did
walk with them, and they walked with me through this journey.
I did ask my dad to walk me down the aisle,
and he did, which was sweet. But now I have
an opportunity through my marriage. I now have three children
who are nine, seven, and six. I have an opportunity
(26:35):
to now pour into them a legacy that really I
didn't fully have the opportunity to have. And so my
story is that now I want to say that we
actually can break these fatherlessness cycles that are so prevalent
in many children in the United States. I think one
(26:56):
in three children grow up without their dad, like me.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And so my heart is just to express that it
doesn't have to end that way.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And a great job as always by Greg Hangler on
the production and the editing, And a special thanks to
Blair Lynn. Her book is Finding My Father Blair Lives
in Philadelphia with her husband, who is a Christian hip
hop artist named Shylynn Blair. Lynn's story of beauty, A
real beauty. Here on our American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. Blair Lynne's personal story of
growing up without a father at home reflects the experiences
of millions of Americans. Blair beautifully told her story in
(00:31):
her book, Finding My Father, and she's here to share
it with us. Here's Blair lynn.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The section on my birth certificate reserved for my father's
name is blank. After my mother found out she was
pregnant with me, she actually decided that she wasn't going
to keep me, and so she went to the doctor,
the local doctor, and they said she was too far
along in that small town to have an abortion. In
(01:02):
order to do it, she would have to go to
a larger city like Chicago or Detroit, and at that time,
she didn't really have the resources to be able to
do that. And as she was sorting it through, she
found herself actually going and talking to a Baptist pastor,
someone who she didn't know, who the family didn't know,
(01:22):
to try to get some advice on it. And the
pastor tried to convince her not to go through with it,
and so she then decided, well, I'm going to give
her up for adoption. I'll have her, but I'm going
to give her up. And so when she had me,
she actually went to the hospital alone because my grandmother, Mama,
(01:45):
her mother wasn't happy that her daughter had had or
was going to have two children out of wedlock, and
so she went to the hospital had me. And right
when she had me, she told me that all I
did was I stared at her, like I just looked
(02:05):
at her. It's like I couldn't take my eyes off
of her. And she's told me this story many times
how that resonated with her. And then the doctor came
in and talked to her. The doctor looked at her
and said, you don't look like the type of woman
(02:27):
who would give your child away, and those things. I
think the pastor's words him the doctor, and maybe my
gaze at her caused her to make the decision that
she was going to keep me. My mother was twenty
one years old when she had me, and at that time,
(02:50):
she had my sister at seventeen, so she was a
single mother with two daughters. When I was three years old,
she decided to move up us from our small town
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Los Angeles, California, and she
had the desire to raise two movie stars. Actually, we
(03:11):
had taken a Greyhound bus.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
We had a one way ticket.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Right before my mother left, she had only had two
hundred dollars in her pocket, but her brother gave her
one hundred dollars just before we boarded the bus. We
got on that bus headed to Los Angeles. My mother
had never been there. We didn't know anyone there. We
didn't have any thing set up for us when we
(03:37):
would arrive, but we went there and basically found ourselves
in a shelter in Pasadena, California. We stayed there for
a couple of weeks, and then my mother took us
to Hollywood, where she got us a hotel for two days.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And you know, money was starting to run out at this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Point, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do.
So I remember us walking down I think it was
Sunset Boulevard, and we were trying to figure out what
our next step would be. And I remember my mother
telling us I was three, my sister was seven, and
she said pray.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
She went over to.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
A grocery store to get some orange juice, and she
met a security guard and she told him the situation,
and she wasn't sure exactly what to do.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, he allowed us to stay in his home.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He opened up his home to us for a few months,
and really, I would say within that year and a
half of first being in Los Angeles, we stayed in
about five different homes.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
We moved around a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
From that first move to living in that security guard's
home until I was old enough to get my own apartment.
We moved twenty five times, and so I was experiencing
what many fatherless children experience, which is poverty.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
We suffered a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There were times where my mother missed meals in order
to allow my sister and I to eat. My sister
and I we depended so much, of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Course, on my mother.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She was all we had, and my mother sacrificed immensely
for us. She wanted us to have the best. So
what she did was when she didn't have much, she
still invested in us. So she at a young age,
researched acting classes, researched how to take headshots on camera, classes,
(05:36):
how to get an agent, and at nine years old,
I was able to secure an agent.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
My sister and I both were able to and so that.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Dream that she had for us, we began to walk
in that, going to auditions on the bus or at
times in our beat up car, you know. And I
remember her taking us to charm school. At thirteen years old,
I was able to work on my very first commercial,
which was a Pizza Hut commercial. So as we were
(06:08):
growing up, I mean, there were of course many struggles
being in a single parent home. My mom was who
I looked to for everything right. She defined for me
who I am, She defined for me who God was.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
She was the one who kept me alive.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So I remember when we would be on the playground
or we would be at school at recess, there was
always always silence when someone would bring up a yo,
mama joke.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And you've been listening to Blair Lynn's story of her mother,
her single mom doing her best as all single moms do,
to raise her children. And as Blair said, we moved
twenty five times, experiencing what many fatherless families experience, and
that's poverty. But my goodness, the love of mom, the
love of God, and that dream and that hope that
(07:02):
the mother instilled in these kids. We're going to hear
more of this remarkable story and voice. Blair Lynn's story
continues here on our American Stories. Lee Hbib here, and
(07:30):
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon. If you
want to help inspire countless others to love America like
we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring
and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country,
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
(07:51):
Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Any amount helps Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give,
and we continue with our American Stories and with Blair
(08:12):
Lynn's story. We last heard Blair describe how her mother,
like most of her peers, was her everything. This is
why there was a silence when anyone told a yo
mama joke. Let's pick up from here here again is
Blair lynb.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So someone would say, your mama's this, you know, I
mean they were fighting words, Yo mama. You would talk
about someone's mom and I don't remember people talking about
your daddy.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Jokes like that wasn't a thing but your mama.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That definitely was something that would cause someone to get
into a fight. As they would say to put on
the vasoline, take the earrings off, and be ready to tussle.
And I wonder if a big part of that is
because so many of us in my community, being raised
in south central Los Angeles, so many of us us
were raised by our moms. There were some dads around,
(09:05):
but for many of my friends, it was the mom
who was holding down the fort, who was taking care
of their children without the presence of that father there
in their life. And what I realized was I was
living out what many single parent children live out. Many
children who live in a single parent home are suffering.
(09:26):
As I said, with poverty, I also suffered with identity.
I suffered because I struggled to appreciate authority. I struggle
with anger as I was coming up. My father had
been in my life before we moved to Los Angeles.
I would say for snippets here and there. I do
(09:46):
remember he would bring me bags of candy bags with
Bazuka gum and lemon heads and candy cigarettes, mars bars.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I remember I would be in heaven.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
He loved candy, and that was kind of his love
language toward me. But once we moved to Los Angeles,
our relationship really looked like a series of phone calls
here and there.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
They were sporadic.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It might be, you know that we would talk a
couple of times a year, and it would be a
few minutes each call, and so there really wasn't that
relationship between us, you know. So just around the corner
from me, there was a street gang, the Black Pea Stones,
which was a blood gang, and I remember these young
(10:32):
men beaming with pride because of their gang affiliation. But
I didn't see that same smiles, you know, that didn't
see the same joy when they were told they were
going to be a father. So I remember there were
times where many friends of mine were, yeah, just like me,
being raised if not even by their their mother or
(10:52):
by their grandmother, because they didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Have their father. The father was missing from their lives.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So when I was thirteen, my mother actually set us down,
my sister and I and told us that she was pregnant.
And when she told me, I mean, of course we
were in shock because for one, my mom at that time,
I didn't know that she was dating anyone and so
it was a shock to my sister and I, but
(11:18):
my mother's belly began to expand and she soon found
out that she was actually going to have a boy.
And I was so excited for her because actually, as
harsh as it may seem, I remember her sharing with
me she wanted me to be a boy. And so
when she expressed that, I knew that that was what
she always wanted. So I was beaming with pride. I
(11:39):
would be a big sister. And so my mother had
my brother, and when she had him, I was there.
I remember going to the hospital and it was crazy
because when we went into the hospital, you go to
registration and they only allow you to have one guest. Well,
(12:01):
here's my mother. She's a single mother, she has two children,
and so they told her you can only have one guest.
She says, well, I have two children. So if you
can't accept my two children, then I'm leaving.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Now. I don't know where my mother was gonna go.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
She's abilled to give birth, but she stood up, you know,
for her children, and said this is what I have,
you know, And so they said, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
They basically changed the rule.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You can come, and so we came into the hospital.
I went in and I watched my mother get a
sea section at thirteen. I remember it very vividly, and
I remember holding my brother in my hands for the
first time, just excited to have him in our family.
And oftentimes in the morning, I would wake up, I
(12:46):
would be the first one, you know, to hear his cry.
I would run in to go and feed him and
change his diaper, and he just wanted to be the
best big sister I could be. And this particular morning,
I'd done that just as usual. I then proceeded to
go ahead and get ready for school, and it was,
you know, just like any other day.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And when I was coming back from recess, I.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Got a call to go to the attendance office and said, okay,
so got on the phone, and as I was on
the phone, I was told that my brother had died.
And all I remember just screaming no. That was all
that I could get out, was just screaming no through
(13:33):
the attendance office. And you know it, it was interesting
because I didn't realize, even though I was living it out,
that fatherlessness actually increases the infant mortality rate. So not
having a father in the home, you're twice as likely
(13:53):
to have a child die at specifically an infant die
in your home. And you know, we were three children
without our three fathers, and you know, we were just
trying to grapple with this great tragedy, another tragedy that
we had experienced. And at thirteen, So I blame myself.
(14:14):
My sister blamed herself, my mother blamed herself for our
own reasons.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
But for me, I blame.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Myself because I was the last one to actually lay
him down on the bed and he died from SIDS.
It was it was interesting to realize now looking back,
that I was actually living out a statistic I didn't
know even existed at the time. So, being raised in
a single parent home, I would often you know, look
(14:40):
at my mom and you know, she was looked at
as kind of the strong black woman, you know, the
one who can handle it all. And I remember on
Father's Day I would often write her a thank you card.
I would you know, sign it out to her and
you know, try to express my appreciation from my young self.
And that kind of is how our society tells us
(15:03):
we should engage our mothers, right who are single mothers,
that they can handle it all that you know, they
are to take on or can take on, this father role.
The reality is, my mother is my mother, right she
She's not to be my father. She can't take the
(15:23):
place of my father, nor can he take her place.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Right. Mothers do what mothers do.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Sometimes they'll take on the role of the father. But
the reality is I needed my father in my life.
And as wonderful as my mother was, and all the
sacrifices that she made, and you know, everything that she
did to keep my sister and I alive, she can
never replace my dad. I still long for him, I
(15:52):
still needed him in my life to give only what
he could. I, of course, at at a young age,
didn't fully understand the implications of not having a dad
in the home.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
It really wasn't until I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Some guys started to express interest in me, and so
I started to question my identity. I wondered who am
I and what do I look for in a guy?
So I remember I wanted to have a conversation with
my dad. I wanted to express to him how his
absence had impacted me.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But I was so afraid that if I did that,
I might lose the.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Interaction that we did have that small interaction in those
phone calls, but at eighteen, I had a conversation with him.
I really faced my fears and I just told him,
you know, I'm suffering, I'm hurt by you. I'm you know,
really struggling with you not being in my life, and
(16:51):
I'm trying to sort through who I am. But I've
been so afraid to share that with you. And what
he did in that conversation was he shared with me
his own fears.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you've been listening to Blair Lynn tell her story.
We've told quite a number of stories of the consequence
of fatherlessness on boys, and we've told quite a number
of stories on what it does to girls. And my goodness,
you're hearing it straight from Blair Lynn's mouth. I was
living out what many children of followers kids suffer, not
(17:22):
just poverty, but identity, she said, and authority. This cuts
across all racial lines. My wife did not have a father,
and my goodness, it had grave consequences for her. He
had played no part in her life. The reality is
I needed a father in my life. And by the way,
she loved her mom, and her mom was a hero
and did everything she could, but nothing can replace the
(17:44):
love of a father. Nothing. The story of Blair Lynn
continues here on our American Stories, and we continue with
(18:09):
our American stories. We last heard how Blair shared with
her father when she was eighteen, how much pain his
absence caused in her life, and by the way, the
courage she had to summon to have that conversation with
her dad is. What she didn't want to do is
risk the little small relationship they had, but she wanted more,
(18:29):
and she took a bet on her and him. Surprisingly,
that bet paid off. He opened up to her. Let's
return to Blair.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I remember him walking me through how he didn't have
his father in his life when he was coming up.
He was really repeating that same cycle and he didn't
know what to do. I saw my dad's humanity in
that moment, and so it really changed how I engaged
with him, and he started to seek to be more
(19:00):
present in my life after that point. One thing that
actually has been helpful for me. I remember visiting the
Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, d C.
I visited it three times, and honestly, I can't wait
to go back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Because it's just there's so much history.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
It's such a rich resource for African Americans but also
for Americans. While I was there, there is actually this
ring by a reverend from South Carolina, Reverend Glenny, and
they have the actual ring and they have his journal
where he documented over four hundred marriages. Now this was
(19:41):
a time where marriage was illegal because he was documenting
this and actually holding these weddings during slavery and so,
you know, slaves were not legally allowed to marry, but
yet many of them exchanged vows in a Christian ceremony.
I remember Frederick Douglass. He says this in his book
(20:03):
My Bondage and My Freedom. He talks about the effects
that slavery has had upon fatherhood in the family. He says,
and I quote, slavery does away with fathers as it
does away with families. Slavery has no use for either
fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their
existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When they
(20:27):
do exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
But are antagonistic to that system. Quote.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know, so you know what he's saying is, yeah,
that in order for someone to actually be married and
to have family and to have a father. It is
completely antagonistic to the system of slavery. Right. We know
so many families were ripped apart during slavery. As I've
done my research, I've come to realize that employment will
(20:59):
actually increase the likelihood of a man marrying the mother
of his child by eightfold. And then as you continue
to go through history, then you have welfare, right, which
you know was kind of heightened in the seventies and eighties.
The welfare system came in and it was actually helpful
to many families, feeding many hungry children. But one of
(21:22):
the stipulations in order for you to be on welfare
was that you.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Could not have a man in the home, And.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There were these actual raids that happened which enforced that
if a man was found in the home that they
would actually take away that welfare help.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And so it encouraged.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Women to say, I don't want my man to be
in the home, and they would often show up at
random times at night and early morning, you know, to
make sure that that wasn't happening.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So this is an issue that impacts all of us.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
It's not just an African American issue.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Forward to I was twenty two years old.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
At this point i'd begin I mean, I was doing
commercials and television and did a film. But when I
was twenty two, I actually started to see many parts
of my life that I had tried to uphold. I'd
tried to be so moral. I started to see some
of that crumbling. I remember making choices and doing things
(22:25):
that I said I would never do. I saw even
as I was acting, I saw myself compromising in ways
I said I would never compromise. And at that time
I really was challenged with my faith. I had made
a profession of faith when I was nine years old.
I had said that, oh yes, I want to know God.
(22:46):
But I really kind of went on to live a
moral life. But when I was twenty two, a friend
of mine talked to me about God and really began
to challenge the profession I had made. And that was
hard for me, because it's often hard when someone challenges you,
and it kind of put me in a low point
in life. I was seeking and trying to figure out
(23:10):
life and where God was. I remember even going and
meeting with the psychic, trying to figure out, you know,
what is my purpose and who am I? What should
my next steps be well, the psychic kind of ripped
me off from the psychic took my money, took two
hundred dollars of my money, and was nowhere to be found.
(23:30):
So I was just left wandering and lost. And so
it kind of took me on this journey of re
establishing my faith.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
What does it look like? So what I did?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I remember praying, I remember crying out to God because
I felt so hopeless because of all these things that
I said, Oh, I'm so strong, I'll never do these things.
And I found myself falling right into those traps, really
kind of becoming the statistic that you know when you
look at even fatherless children, there are many statistics that
(24:05):
we can fall into.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
And that was what my path was charting me out
to become.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And so what I did was I prayed, I cried
out to God because I felt I deserved what the
Bible says the punishment for my sins.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
I was a sinner.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I didn't want to really agree with it, but the
more that I read the Bible, I realized I've sinned
against a holy God. And if I was to compare
myself to other people, which was what I had often
did Throughout my life I was doing pretty good. But
when I compared myself to the standard of the Bible,
I realized, Uh, I am in need. And so I
(24:46):
cried out in a state of hopelessness. Really, and in
that moment of hopelessness, I was reminded that that's exactly
why Jesus Christ came for sinners like me. And I
cried out, and God answered my prayer. And I recognize
in that moment what it meant to truly be a Christian,
(25:07):
not just in word, but also that there's a transformation
that happens in our life, and that transformed my whole life.
That transformed my whole life. And so I started to
rethink acting should I continue to act?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
If I do, how will it look different than it
has looked before.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What does it look like to actually have convictions and
live those out? As I went on my journey, I
eventually ended up meeting a man who expressed his interest
in me. And so even as I was dating this
guy who was expressing his interest in.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Me, I didn't even know to go to my dad.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You know that my dad could be there as a
listening ear, as someone to kind of you know, as
they say dust the gun collection off, right, you know,
to see who's this guy who's interested in my daughter?
I didn't know that. But what I did know because
now that I had a relationship with God, I now
had a new relationship with the church.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Right, so I did have men.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
In my life and women in my life right who
had come in as a family, and so I did
walk with them, and they walked with me through this journey.
I did ask my dad to walk me down the aisle,
and he did, which was sweet. But now I have
an opportunity through my marriage. I now have three children
who are nine, seven, and six. I have an opportunity
(26:35):
to now pour into them a legacy that really I
didn't fully have the opportunity to have. And so my
story is that now I want to say that we
actually can break these fatherlessness cycles that are so prevalent
in many children in the United States. I think one
(26:56):
in three children grow up without their dad, like me.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And so my heart is just to express that it
doesn't have to end that way.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And a great job as always by Greg Hangler on
the production and the editing, And a special thanks to
Blair Lynn. Her book is Finding My Father Blair Lives
in Philadelphia with her husband, who is a Christian hip
hop artist named Shylynn Blair. Lynn's story of beauty, A
real beauty. Here on our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com