Snacks, Podcasting, and Play Aunties (featuring Carol Sutton Lewis)

It’s a crossover episode! Join me in the HER living room as fellow Seneca Women Podcast Network podcast host, Carol Sutton Lewis, invites us into the family room of her podcast Ground Control Parenting. Carol and I discuss the importance of snacks, what inspired us to become podcasters, and how my mom inspired me to be the artist I am today.

 

For more info about Carol Sutton Lewis’ podcast check out: https://www.groundcontrolparenting.com/. 

To get transcripts, links, and details from each episode, check out the show notes. To continue your support of the podcast and my work, become a member of my Patreon community where you can get access to archived episodes, bonus episodes, and behind the scenes content. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter, for podcast clips, poetry quotes and random quips. For information on how to book me to speak or perform at an event, visit amenabrown.com. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hey, everybody, welcome to a new episode of Her with
Amina Brown. And let me tell you, hey, this is
actually a crossover episode. So I'm going to introduce to
you a fellow podcaster who is here with me. So
those of you that are listening on her feed, you
are listening to an episode of Ground Control Parenting as well.

(01:02):
So we're we're gonna be here having a wonderful experience.
I want to welcome fellow Seneca Women Podcast Network podcaster,
host of Ground Control Parenting, a podcast about the joy
and the job of raising black children, Carol Sutton Louis.
I thank you so much. As you know, I've been

(01:23):
waiting to do this for a while. I'm really excited
to be here and I'm excited about this crossover. This
is very cool. So I'm really I'm really excited about
us doing this. So let me ask you. This was
not in my list of questions, but I'm going to
ask you so that our listeners can have the setting.
I'm always telling my listeners that we are we're in
a living room. When you imagine your listeners your community

(01:46):
around Ground Control Parenting, what's the space in the home
where you imagine you are with them? That is such
a good question. I would say it's probably the space
where I am now, which is we call at our
family room or our sitting room. It's where my family
gathers and when friends come, they gather. It's not quite

(02:07):
the living room. It's the formality of a living room.
It's like where we all sprawl and play games and
watch TV. So I am so dedicated to the concept
of having conversations. For me, it's a lot of parenting conversations,
but conversations in areas where you can feel relaxed and
and be yourself. And so this is a room that
I think that happens in. I like that question. I'm

(02:29):
gonna have to think about that when I'm talking to people,
right right. I love that. I love I love that
that informal living room. Many of us, especially those of
us who are black and grew up in our black families,
we remember the family members that had the formal living
room where you were not allowed to cross that threshold.
We're not We're talking about the living room you could
take your shoes off and hang out. So I love that.

(02:53):
Welcome to all of the ground control, parenting listeners and
community who are here and welcome to my her with
I mean brown listeners as well. I'm excited for us
to talk a little bit today. Carol, same here, and
I just have to say to follow up. In the
living room, I'm true confession. We had that formal living
room were literally there was plastic on the couch until
the company came. I mean I had a friend that

(03:14):
used to joke that they had like a like a
velvet rope. Yes, that's it, because you could not just
go into that living room. You were only special occasions
and and and god forbid anybody see it with a
plastic on. You know, when company comes, you ripped that
plastic off. And then my dad and my stepmother had
a living room like that, and we were only allowed

(03:35):
to go in it for family pictures. That was the
place where we took family pictures. That was our one
time when we got to sit down actually on the
couch itself. Otherwise I was only in there to clean
it up. And I was like, why am I in
here cleaning up a room? I can't even sit in here. Okay,
when this comes out, I'm gonna put up on Instagram
a picture of my family sitting in the living room

(03:57):
with a family picture, because that's exactly actually what we did.
For sure. I gotta find mine too, Carol. I'm gonna
work on mine too well. Part of part of how
Carol and I met is that we are both podcasters
under the Seneca Women Podcast Network, and it was just
wonderful to get a chance to talk with you and
hear a bit more about your podcast journey leading up

(04:18):
to being on the network, because we both had podcast
journeys prior to coming onto the network and now um
experiencing how we sort of change a little of maybe
the format and things of what we're doing, but not
who we're talking to and not why we started our
podcast in the first place. But before I get to that,
you have told us that you would imagine you are

(04:40):
in your family room with your listeners. I want to
know what is the snack if the people were there
in your home. Is there a snack that you would offer?
Is there a favorite dish that when people come to
just hang out, that's a dish they know they're going
to have at your house. So I will answer that

(05:03):
I love to have people over. I love to be
a hostess. I don't get to do it as much
as I like I love the presentation. Not the biggest
cook in the world, but I love the presentation. So
snack presentation is high on my list. You know, put
it all on the plates, and there's usually a hybrid
because I tend to eat um fairly specifically, like healthfully,

(05:23):
if you will. I mean, I'm not a big potato
chip fan. I'm not a big Derrito's fan, however, because
a good hostess has to have stuff for everybody. So
I will have my almonds and my guac because guaca
is really helping, guacamole and chips. I'll have some cheese
and crackers, even if I'm not doing dairy those days.
Some days I do, some days I don't. And if

(05:44):
I'm not whatever, I will have the cheese and crackers,
I'll have the guacamole, and then I'll have some kind
of chip, some kind of interesting chip, you know, sort
of um, some flavorful chip, and let people sort of
have at whatever they want. You know. I like giving
an array of sna x. I like I like making
people feel like there's a bounty. You know, there's there's

(06:05):
like a lot of it's good opportunity to to snack
if you want it. So there are a lot of them.
Whatever they are, I like a bounty of snacks. I'm
really glad you brought that word here for us, because
I'm gonna have a bounty of something. It is snacks
that I wanted to have a bounty of. I appreciate
what you said about an interesting like a like a

(06:26):
unique cracker or a unique chip. I you know, because
when when you come across a little rosemary olive oil cracker,
you're like, and this is not just a saltine. You know,
I'm supposed to layer my Colby cheese on top of this.
Like I just I appreciate the choices there, Carol. This
is this is good work today. Okay, talk to me

(06:47):
about your podcast. I love an origin story, Carol, because
I think it's helpful when people are listening. Sometimes we
don't know that ideas are germinating with us, you know,
we don't realize it, and so I think it's always
good for people to know the origin story because they
might realize, oh, I have an idea in me. So

(07:09):
what what was the original moment that made you go
I need to take this to a microphone. Okay, So
I'll give you just a teeny bit I tend to
tell a long story, I will try to tell a
short story. I'll give you a teen about the origin
of ground control parenting the concept, and then I will
fast forward to ground Control Parenting the podcast. So I

(07:30):
am a lawyer by training. I have three children who
are now grown, and much to my surprise, when I
started having children, I was actually more interested in spending
more time with them than I thought. That sounds weird,
but I really enjoyed. I mean, I knew I would
like having them around, but I really enjoyed um spending

(07:50):
time with them and watching how they developed and doing
all I could to support that. And uh, just a
quick aside. I have a girl first, and then two boys.
I grew up with two older brothers, one of whom
I literally grew up with, and the other one was
my half brother whoop was much older. But to make
a very long story short, I loved my my brother,

(08:13):
who was closest in age and me dearly, but I
could see from an early age that he was definitely
dancing to a somewhat different drummer than certainly my parents wanted.
And so I watched the dynamic of a very loving family.
My parents were great and they loved us both dearly,
but they had some trouble understanding my brother. He wanted
to be an artist. I mean, and we're a family

(08:34):
of educators, and my father was a lawyer. I mean,
there was a different headset and for black people, like
families and that era. Sort of it was because he's
older than I. It was tough for my family, my
father in particular, to sort of to make that make
sense for himself. So watching my parents with my brother
and watching there be a little struggle along the way.

(08:56):
Fast forward to when I had children and I had
a boy, I thought, oh, I don't really have a
great role model for boys. I mean, and I'm having
this black boy and now in America, I need to
just really and and I need to really focus on
how to do this a little differently. And you know,
as I said, I'm a lawyer. I went to school
for a long time. What do I do when I
don't know? I do research? So I dove into sort

(09:17):
of boys and and how boys work and and um.
So I started when my first son was born, really
amassing um information and going to parent groups, not with
an anxiety about it, but more like, let me know
what I don't know, and let me think about how
how I should think about this. And over the course
of the years with my kids, I tended to keep

(09:37):
researching and thinking about parenting in ways like, you know,
I don't know the answers, but I know how to
find some answers, and I was in parent groups that
I found really helpful. Over time, as my children grew older,
I had all this information that I had amassed and
wanted to help out other parents because I had, you know,
by good fortune, UM, I had the time and the

(09:58):
energy to do this, and so many of my friends
who were killing themselves at work and we're sort of
unable to focus. I just want to give them like
shortcuts here, you know, read this book or take this
put your kids in this class whatever. That Hence Ground
Control Parenting. The blog was born because I really wanted
to UM. It was a combination of at that point,

(10:19):
really wanting to take a more serious take a step
away from active parenting and do something, I mean work.
I I struggled when my kids were growing with the
fervent desire to spend time with them, but at the
same time the knowledge that I was not using all
of my skill sets I mean, I was I was
supposed to be doing something more and I don't mean
to be a little parenting, but I was supposed to

(10:40):
be doing something in addition to parenting. So I said,
let me create this blog and let me put out
these resources. I did that for a while for several years,
and I said, Okay, now it's time to write a
book because I have written a lot. I've interviewed people
for the blog, and I want to write a book.
And so I put together book proposal with an agent
and we set it out and um, the word came back, Okay,

(11:03):
this sounds good. But who is this woman then? Why
would anybody want to listen to her about parenting? So
I decided I had to take a different approach because
my blog certainly had an audience, but it wasn't a
vast audience, and I had not been as public as
I could be. So I started teaching. I was taught
parenting classes at a local college in their continuing education

(11:24):
and that was great. Two things happened. One, UM, my
mom was a teacher, and I understood the value of
lesson plans. So I was doing extensive lesson planning and
it was fun and I enjoyed it much more than
I thought he would. But it took a lot of
time and effort to do a lesson plan and I'd have, like,
I don't know, twenty five people in the classroom. And
so at the end of one cycle, I thought, I'm

(11:45):
working really hard to reach a relatively small group of people.
And then the pandemic hit, so it was kind of
a one too. I couldn't teach anymore. And um, I thought, well, okay,
I'm sitting around I was in New York City in
my apartment, my husband, just the two of us for
the entirety of the pandemic, and it's like, let me
just try to and and and as importantly, a bunch

(12:06):
of my friends were sitting around their places with a
with a laptop. I said, let me try to put
this out to more people at one time. So a
very long winded short story, but the bottom line was
I wanted to take the information that I had been
able to disperse sort of locally and just see if
it would resonate with a larger audience. I love it.

(12:26):
I love it. I love that, and I'm hoping that
our listeners will be thinking about the things that they
have inside of themselves, these ideas, these like desires we have.
I mean, that's definitely a part of how my podcast
was born. It was actually, in part born out of anger,
which can be very inspiring, you know. It was born

(12:48):
out of anger of feeling like women of color are
not getting the platforms they need, They're not getting the
opportunity to come into spaces and share their stories. And
I was frustrated watching other people not do it. And
that's what sent me there, Like, Okay, well, let me
set this microphone figure out. You know, I would love

(13:11):
to hear your thoughts. Why you believe it's important for
black women and for other women of color to podcast,
to exist in the podcast space. That is a really
good question as well. Um, I will start with my
own personal experience with podcasting. It is it the The

(13:31):
experience has been so much richer and deeper than I
thought it would be. I came to this mic with no, frankly,
not a whole lot of podcast appreciation. I mean, I
sort of listened to some, but I had not. I
was not deep in the world of podcasts, and I
came with a mission to reach people with information I
thought would be helpful. But what this ability, what the

(13:53):
ability to sit in front of a mic and in
exchange ideas and broadcast to the world. The empowerment that
that can create. The it is empowering. It reminds you
you have a voice. Um, and even if five people
listen to you and they're all family members, they'll and
they say to you, I heard what you said, and

(14:14):
I really resonated with me. There's such affirmation in the
ability to speak your truth, speak your thoughts and and
have people connect to it. And so and that that
goes sort of beyond um any particular episode. You know,
we joked about the number of episodes that we do
for this podcast world that we're in, and we're grateful

(14:35):
to be able to do it. But it's a lot
of talking and and but just when I feel that
I will hear from someone that they listen to one
and one that frankly was a while ago and that
I sort of wasn't top of my mind, and they'll
remember something about it, or more importantly, they'll feel some
way or have some experience with it that wasn't what

(14:55):
I intended. And that's actually really glorious. And I want
to I want to turn this to you though, because
you mentioned sort of your podcast being born out of anger,
but your work when you're not podcasting is work that
I truly admire. You're doing it and the vocation generally
the work of spoken word and the work of poetry.
So you would have the opportunity before you came to

(15:17):
this mike to sort of stand before people and speak
your feelings. What prompted you to add on taking it
to the airwaves? Man? I you know, and I guess
I also want to give like a shout out and
arrest in peace to Barbara Walters because as a child

(15:37):
I studied Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey as interviewers. I
always loved the idea of interviewing people. I just thought
that was the most fantastic thing you could do. So
really that's sort of how the podcast was born. I
didn't I was coming into it as a stage person,

(15:57):
but I was really not thinking as much about that
at as I was, Oh, this will be me getting
to like sit down and interview other women of color,
where women of color get to be the experts we are,
We get to be the ones who are sharing the
knowledge that we have. We get to be in a
role where we are not minimized in any way. That

(16:19):
was sort of the space I wanted to make, and
then the rest of the time I was talking and
all the things. So it's been interesting, Harold. Now, in
this iteration of her with Amina Brown, I do some
solo episodes, and probably my listeners who listens to those
solos episodes, they are experiencing a bit more of what
I'm like on a stage, Because on a stage, it
is like if spoken word and a one woman show

(16:43):
and stand up comedy came together in a storm in
a tornado. That's what's happening when I'm on stage. So
people now in this iteration of the podcast are getting
to hear a little bit of the ignorant things I
say on stage. So how different is it for you
to prep to walk on the stage and it is

(17:04):
to prepare to sit down at a mic. I mean,
let's on in the instances where you're not interviewing someone. Obviously,
if you're talking to someone, you've you know what you're
gonna ask. But when you're doing solo, is it a
different prep Is it a different experience? There's no clapping. Okay,
that's the thing I was gonna say. I actually think
the prep is the same, Carol, but the feed not

(17:27):
having the feedback is very strange. Like talking to the camera,
I mean talk listen to me, well yeah, sometimes talking
to the camera, but talking to the mic, like and
not having the gasp that you might hear in the audience,
or hearing someone like they laughed louder than they meant
to they didn't realize it was going to hit them.

(17:47):
That funny, all those things that happened to you on
stage that let you know like, oh that's working. People
identify with that. It is very strange podcasting and not
having that and acast episode going out and sometimes you
hear nothing. People listen to it, they don't really say anything.
Sometimes I get like a random d M. Hey um,

(18:08):
this week's podcast reminded me of something I experienced growing up,
and I'm like, yeah, somebody's out there. Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
I I appreciate that because from what I understand I am.
I am not a stage performer. I mean I will

(18:30):
stand up and talk to people, but I imagine that
the feedback, the energy of the crowd, I mean, you
instantly know if something is landing correctly or in particularly comedy,
if it, if it hints, if it doesn't hit. Yeah,
it's a different but but it's probably good exercise for
you to be able to do them both. Yeah, I
think so, I'm curious to see how it will be now,

(18:52):
like returning to stage. I mean, I've had a few
events since things have kind of opened up in the pandemic,
but I haven't had that full show feeling where I
just went and did a show for an hour. So
I'm kind of curious to see now, having spent most
of the pandemic talking to a microphone and no one
was there except my husband was also my producer, so

(19:15):
he might be there. That's it though, you know, like
to now see how how is that going to affect
what I'm doing when I get on stage. I hope
it means some things are sharper that way as a storyteller.
So I have to follow it up with a question
I'm dying to ask. So a little bit of background.
I went to Music and Art High School which is

(19:36):
now uh Performing Arts, the Fame School. It wasn't when
I was there, but you know, filled with people who
were very talented. I was a musician, but not very talented,
so I never I mean, I would perform when I
had to. But clear to me in high school was
that there were people that were really good and eager
to get on stage, and then then there were the
rest of us. So what I always want to know

(19:56):
in terms of someone who performs, are you the as
I always think of sort of stage right? And you
know what if you get stuff, particularly when you're playing
an instrument, What what happens? Walk me through your walking out?
Are you energized? Are you do you go into some
zone where you know what you're going to say next
and what happens? God forbid if you like, forget a line?

(20:18):
I forget all the time. All the time. I do
get in a bit of like a focused zone, I
would say before I go on stage. And I'm always
nervous every time. It doesn't matter how small or how
large the crowd. I am nervous every time. I have
a rule where I typically don't eat, like two hours
or less before an event. I have not thrown up

(20:42):
on stage in over twenty years of performing professionally, and
I intend to keep my stat so I do not eat.
So that way we don't there's nothing there. If we
feel nervous, we don't have to worry about those mistakes.
And you know, when I was starting, there wasn't YouTube.
There was is it Instagram where people would be like,

(21:02):
poet throws up on stage and now your viral for that.
You know, that wasn't a thing. People might be like,
somebody threw up at this show I was at in
random town. A hundred people were you know, only those
hundred people know you threw up instead of a thousand
people or a million people knowing that about you. And
then they don't have to see it over and over
like boomerang, like on repeat like that memes come out. Yeah, no,

(21:26):
I get that's it. I don't want that for myself,
So I I typically do get really nervous. I get
really quiet. I don't like for there to be like
a lot of like noise and and just things that
would make me feel anxiety. I always think a lot
about my great grandmother and my grandmother. I think a

(21:47):
lot about the women in my bloodline and how I
am able to do what I'm doing because of them
in a lot of ways, in a lot of layers
of ways, I'm able to do what I do because
of them. I think about this circumstances under which they
continue to keep their voice, and that I owe it
to them to be who I am boldly and confidently

(22:11):
when I get on stage. And there's something about that
kind of thought, like if I if you're watching me
on the side of stage and I close my eyes,
I'm typically thinking about that and then they say your name,
and it's like, once I get up there and get
to the mic, I I feel I use living room
all the time because I feel like I'm in a
living room with those people. That's how it feels to me.

(22:32):
It's like I immediately feel like, what have y'all been doing?
Why are persons like this? If it's Abra, it's like
all like the random thoughts, it's just us having a conversation.
It just instead of it being two people, it's however,
many people are there and I feel totally comfortable as
soon as I get there. Oh man, that's that's great.

(22:53):
I can relate a little bit. Um. Long ago, I
was a litigator, and the only good thing I didn't
stay a litigated for long, but the only thing that
stayed with me that I still use is that before
I walked into the court room, if I had to
make any appearance before a judge. The morning right before
I would get a gurgling in my stomach, I would

(23:14):
really feel I would feel it. I would be I
would feel the physical nerves. And although that was not
particularly comfortable, it reminded me that I need to be
like something's going to happen, and I need to all
my senses need to be sharp. And now when I'm interviewing,
when I'm about to sit down for the for the podcast,
if I don't feel a little bit of that, I'm thinking, Okay,

(23:35):
I better. Something's not right. I need to be sharper
because you want a little bit of physiological reminder that
you know you're about to do something, you need to
be ready for it. So I get it that that
a little bit of nerves. I regularly have a psychiatrist
who visits the podcast A Child, an expert in child stress,
and he talks about how stress is good. It it

(23:59):
motivates you, it it um helps you stay clear focused.
What the bad part about stress is when you get
an overload, so you really want to You're not trying
to remain stress free, just trying to manage your stress.
So I think we're both talking about the instance where
stress management is helpful for sure. For sure. So I
want to actually circle back with a quick parenting kind

(24:21):
of question, because I mentioned that my brother was an artist,
um and, and it was tough for my parents, who
were educators and lawyers, you know, just who had had
a different track in life, to sort of grasp I mean,
they were supportive he went to art school, but they
were kind of waiting for him to do something else.
So you grew up and and at some point you

(24:43):
tell me when, But at some point you knew you
wanted to be an artist. So when did that happen
and how did your family react? That's interesting, that's interesting
to think about. I It's almost like, if I really
think about it, Carol, I don't know if I knew
artist at first. I knew that I wanted to be
a writer, and I do believe writers are artists. I

(25:03):
just don't know if as a child I had made
that connection, you know, like I would have, I would
have thought artists are people who do visual arts or
people who perform. They play music, they sing, they dance
those things. Um And Honestly, I grew up in my
mother's house. It was just a house full of books

(25:24):
all like just she had and still does to this day.
She just had a wonderful library. I just remember as
a child like peering at her books, you know, once
I could read and trying to figure out who is this?
Who is Tony Morrison? You know, who is James Baldwin.
And so I think in a way, because my mom
was such an avid reader, then she had such a

(25:45):
wonderful library. She really encouraged in me this sense of
reading and enjoying a story well told. And then I
read all these books as a child and just thought,
what is the job you do where you put your
words in this? Because I would like to be that.
I would like to find a way to do that.
So I knew very early on it was writer for me.

(26:07):
But I truthfully think that I wanted to be a
novelist when I thought about writer, That's what I thought.
Then I got into Nikki Giovanni. And you know, my
mom was one of those people who wants to go
to a bookstore. Whatever city you're visiting or whatever area
of town, must go in the bookstore. You know, this
is an old school thing to say now, but must

(26:28):
go in a card shop When it was popular for
there to be these like greeting card shops, and of
course inevitably the greeting card shop also had little gift
books and different things, you know, related to words. I mean,
my mom just eats this up, takes her two daughters
in all of these places, which all of that I
think just gave me this sense of the importance of

(26:49):
words and wanting to write. So by the time I
started reading poetry, that was the first thing I probably
started writing on my own, like in my little notebooks
and things. And my mom also was a big proponent
of journaling. She encouraged us as her daughter's to journal
because she would say, that's your one place in this
world where you're unedited. It's not for anyone, no one's

(27:12):
grading it, it's not for class. It's a place for
you to put your thoughts, put your feelings. So I
journaled a lot. But then by the time I got
a notebook where I was like, here's my poetry notebook. Now,
I know that this is not a thing that parents
do today. When I'm about to say my mom did,
But my mom told us that there was no such
thing as privacy in her house, and I know that's
not how the people parent today, But that's what she

(27:35):
said to us back then. It's no privacy in my house.
If I find a notebook, I'm reading it. If I
find a little note you wrote in class, I'm reading
it because I need to know what you're doing, what
you're up to. So she was true to her word.
She read one of my notebooks and she said, this
is actually really beautiful poetry. She was like, why don't

(27:58):
you share the other places? You know? I mean, you know,
as your mother, I would say, She's obviously like, this
is a brilliant person. I have birth you know. Why
why would you not take this to the New York
Times at twelve years old or whatever? And because she
was my mom, I just I was like, you're not

(28:19):
a respectable critic of my work, Like you're not the
voice for me to know is this actually going well?
So I I just didn't believe in it. And she is.
She is truly the reason that I am even performing
to this day, because I just I don't think without
her pushing me that I would have made the connection
that that's a thing I could do. Wow, that is

(28:55):
such a great story, lots of great parenting stuff in
there that I just have to step back and point
out first of all, the library. I mean, parents everywhere
need to understand that the more books you have around,
the more positively you can influence your children tread. I
mean we definitely. I grew up with a lot of books,
and and god knows, my husband is the world's most
avid reader. So this our shelves, I mean, see behind

(29:18):
me our shelves or line with books. So it's lovely
to hear your vantage point of being Aroyndold's books and
them and having that experience how it encourages you to read. Um.
And then secondly, this is such a great story because
you know, more often than not you hear the story.
It's like mine and my brothers where the parents didn't
understand and they were like, that's interesting, but now what
are you going to do? I mean, your mom was like, hey,

(29:41):
this is something that you should be doing. That that
is amazing. And and just finally about the no privacy,
it's so funny. UM, I remember that vividly that you know,
and and I tried to institute that with my children
early days when um, Facebook was a thing. When my
kids were growing up, that was the thing. The first
thing was Facebook and my rule was, you can only

(30:04):
have a Facebook um page if I am your friend.
If you friend me, you have to friend me. So
because I just like your mom, I just didn't want
there to be like this whole other world that that
and I guess for me, the difference was maybe they
could have their own little worlds in their books that
they kept in their room, but on Facebook they were
creating this over the world that a bunch of other

(30:25):
people were looking at. But so I can I can
appreciate that feeling. I'm impressed that she found stuff and
read it. God, I mean, I definitely had that desire.
And yes, I know it's not what you're supposed to
do with your children. However, there was a time parents did,
and sometimes it worked out. There are a lot of
times it didn't. This is one case with my mom

(30:46):
that are reading those things totally worked out. Either that
or you became a really good hider of things, right,
I mean, and she and she knows me. It's like
I've never her. I've never I just like, I have
a lot of brain capacity for other things, hiding is
not one of them. I have been telling on myself

(31:07):
since I was like five or six years old. I
just don't like inadvertently just tell on myself. So she
she knew the vibes, she knew what I was going
on there. That's so funny, you know, it's just one
other thing occurs to me. Your mom encouraged you to journal,
which I think is really great. Um. I had the

(31:29):
opposite experience, but it didn't dim my interest. I was
an English major and I loved her. Didn't didn't. Oh yeah,
I didn't have I didn't have writing aspirations per se.
But I you know, it was a pipe dream to
to write a book. I mean, as I said, I
tried once already. And my mother was She too, was

(31:50):
an English major. She was a reading teacher. She was
just all about the books. But she was a very
very private person, very introverted. I had an extrovert a daughter,
but she was a very introverted person. And she used
to say to me, don't ever write anything down that
you wouldn't want to read on the front page of
the New York Times. Yeah, and I knew I that,

(32:13):
I remember that like it was yesterday. I mean, she
was a very private person, and you know that was
evidence of it. She didn't want me to sort of
write something down and have somebody read it that I
didn't want to read it. So, you know, I guess
you could take that to one way would be just
to obey. But for me, it it gave me some
insight that there would be an issue if I wrote

(32:35):
something down that was problematic, but it didn't stop me
from wanting to write or write things down. And and
as I grew older and I kind of understood. You know,
it's funny when you get to a point and you
realize your parents are actually people and that there their
guidance comes from a place, comes from their very specific place,
and you can respect it, but you just realize it's

(32:56):
just it's not sort of all knowing all being a
sort of knowing some but from a very different, very
specific perspective. As I got older and I started to,
I know, journal, but I definitely have lots of notebooks
where I started to write my thoughts. I have to say,
as as freeing as that is in the back of
my mind, I can still I mean, I'm either my

(33:17):
mom is is long gone now unfortunately, but I'm either
writing thinking my you wouldn't like this, right, or and
I'm also thinking, okay, I need to like put this
away somewhere safely so the New York Times doesn't get
it right that part. I mean, I'm not gonna lie
about it. My younger sister, we are almost eleven years apart,
and I have definitely given her some very specific instructions

(33:39):
because I imagine that she may be here after I'm gone.
So I've told her when I go, you get in
the house for those people, and I'm gonna put my
journals in a place and you get you get that
stuff out of my house. I don't want anybody posthumously
putting out some stuff that I didn't mean to be
put out. So that's that's our little direct if we

(34:00):
have as sisters, it's a certain box. Whenever I moved
to a different house, I always take her in the
closet to say, this box right here. When I'm gone,
you come in here first and get it. I want
those people in here. No nope, Okay, But what she's
supposed to do with it, she has to keep it.
She has to hand it down. I mean, she's gotta
it's gotta live. You can't wait. Do it get buried
with you? I mean, what happens to the box you know,

(34:22):
there have been different instructions for different times. There was
a time that I was like, you're gonna burn everything.
Now I'm like, I don't know. Maybe, you know, you know,
if I had children, maybe i'd want them to have it.
But then, you know, I always think about um one
of my favorite films, Bridges of Madison County with Meryl
Street and the kids. After she passed, the kids were

(34:43):
going through all her stuff and realized she had an
affair with this National Geographic photographer, and I'm like, you know,
and now they're freaked out because they're like, oh my gosh,
my mom had a sex life. And I'm like, what
if this lady didn't want you in that, She didn't
want you to be in it. She did that for herself,
you know. So I'm like, I feel like there's still, Carol.

(35:03):
There's maybe there's two boxes, you know. I feel like
there's some boxes and things, and I'm like, here, in
if I had a child, or a niece or a
nephew or a mentee, here's a box that I would
want you to have access to. But there are some things, Carol,
that are not for the people. They're not And I
think the bird instructions will still be true for that box.

(35:25):
So I think that all of our listeners, everyone across
our two podcasts, need to think seriously about having two boxes,
because there is definitely a world where the things that
you muse about, the things that you think are important,
the things that you think could be helpful, need to
be kept. I mean, my both my parents are gone,
and when my my mom passed away, I had all

(35:47):
my her stuff and my father's stuff which she had kept,
and I was randomly like throwing things out until I
realized this was my father's writing, This was you know,
and that was really important to me suddenly to keep
it because I wanted to see his words on a
page I wanted And there's something about just understanding what
people were thinking. So that's really important. There's stuff that
needs to be preserved, and then there's a stuff where

(36:10):
it felt really good to write it down, it was
really important for you to have it to go back to.
But yeah, it needs to be and I mean, they
should definitely be two boxes, because you should definitely have
that second box. It should exist. It just needs to
self destruct. Yeah, that's what I want, Carol, a self destruct.
Certain certain people I don't want reading that. I don't

(36:30):
want anybody to be like, wow, this is salacious. Let's
put a book out. No, no, I don't know how
it works in the afterlife. But don't make me come
back and tell you don't do that. Don't make me
do that. It's what I'm saying. No, yeah, yeah, and one.
I mean I'm sounding old when I say this, but
you know all this cancel culture now, you know sort
of like, oh god forbid. I'm like, I don't know

(36:53):
what I know. And you know, you you go out
in this sort of blaze of story to oh she
was so great, you did this and that, and then
they find some stuff you wrote when you were twelve.
Well I wrote when I was twelve, and they're like
X and that's it. Now you're descendens. Can't get no
royalties off at anything. No, no, absolutely not. Okay, there's

(37:18):
a business here, the self destructing journal. Keep that's what
we need. I really I think you for bringing that up.
Carol listeners. We know you're out there. Please let us
know that you have this, because it's like we need
like a safe that you know, you could tell it
or somebody could press a button you give somebody to code.
They take that thing out there somewhere and everything just
incenterates inside. That's what we need, exactly exactly. Okay, good

(37:39):
well you know what imagine in this short space of
time together we have created a business model and this
opportunity at us, Carol, we are solving the worst problems. Okay,
we are. We absolutely are great minds thinking together. It's
a beautiful thing. Okay. I have one more series of
questions for you, because you know my head is always

(38:00):
in the in the parenting mode. But that I want
to talk about. I mean, you mentioned not having kids.
I have not yet. There's a world out there in
in parenting that I having it addressed on my podcast.
This is a great opportunity to start. And that is
my fervent belief in the world that people who helped
raise up kids but didn't give birth to them play

(38:21):
in the role of kids like i've you know, certainly
grandmothers of course, but aunties especially play aunties. I mean,
you know, you're you're chosen family that helps you and
god mothers and friends and people that are just around you,
they there can be such a special relationship. And so

(38:42):
I want to ask you first when you were growing up,
did you have any kind of relationship with say, your
mom's friends or with play aunties, And then if do
you provide that for anybody. One of the things I
really love about now now as a grown woman, looking
back at how my mom raised me, as my mom
had such rich relationships with other women, most of them

(39:05):
being other black women. So there was this moment where
her friends would come over and I was one of
those little kids that love to eat all the little veggies,
all the little broccoli florets and the little baby carrots
and all, you know, the little califlower thing. And so
they would sit there and eat little veggies with me.
But at a certain time at night, I knew I
had to go to bed so that they could stay

(39:26):
up and talk. And as a little girl, I just
remember fervently feeling in my bed, I am one day
going to be grown so that I can stay up
with my girlfriends and do whatever they're doing. I don't
know what they're doing, but I want to do that.
I want to be a part of it. I'm too young,
you know. So there's just so much like reverence I

(39:46):
have for that, because in general, she was modeling for
me how to be in community with other women, and
how important it would be in so many phases of
life to have these women that you could stay up
late talking to them or you know, come by the
house at whatever time and chat with them. So I
think that's a big, a big model there that I

(40:08):
look back on now and feel really grateful. And I
I mean, I remember one of my mom's friends as
the one who taught me how to do my makeup
for the first time, because I was very you know
when you get to that twelve thirteen. For me, that
was like a girl is very fascinated, a girl wants
to know about lipstick, a girl wants to know what
should she do, what should she not do. And her

(40:29):
friend Lisa, she sold beauty control, which I guess maybe
beauty control still exists, but it was kind of like
an Avon Mary Kay kind of model. And so she
did the whole thing. Taught me how to wash my face,
how to moisturize the toner, you know, like she came
over into like what you would go to the makeup
counter in the department store. She like came to our

(40:50):
house and did that for me and got to show
me sort of how to do you know, an an
appropriate look for my age at that point. And that
was so helpful to me because, you know, the women
in my family, we we were coming from like a
church background, like a pinecostal holiness background where women weren't
supposed to wear makeup. So my mom was actually rebellious

(41:10):
to that by wearing the bright lipstick that she wore,
you know. But I didn't grow up seeing my grandma
use mascara and things like that, you know, So that
was wonderful to have another woman, you know around that
could say, oh, I see this is a thing that
you're interested in. Let me show you how to do
this the right way before you get some red lipstick

(41:32):
and just do just do things your face. Let's let's
try to figure out what we're doing, you know. So
that's one like strong memory I can think of. But
my mom had a lot of wonderful women friends in
her life. We had wonderful church community. To my mom
was a single mom raising my sister and I, so
we had a lot of people around us that we're

(41:53):
father figures at points, were mentors at points, were showing
us how to do very things. My youth pastor taught
me how to drive. You know, they were just all
these like you know, my mom tried, she was there
was just a lot of like made up, a lot
of like yelling like that, and she was like, somebody
else I got to do this. This is somebody else's job.

(42:14):
It's not me. I can't be the person. So that
was really wonderful to think up too, to see this
wonderful church community that I grew up in, to surround
my mom as a single mom, that she never felt
um like alone in parenting us, that she knew she
had some other people. And I remember dating boys and
people in the church being like, why are you dating
so and so? And I'm like, well, you've ben being

(42:36):
talking to my mama. Why are you asking me like
I'm in love? Obviously obviously we're fifteen, we're gonna get married.
You're not gonna marry him? No, no, thank you. Yeah.
See those friends, those play on teeth. They can say
stuff that you can't hear from your mother. No, no,
Like I distinctly remember my youth pastor this is this

(42:57):
is telling my age y'all because we didn't have cell
phones obvious sleep but it's very popular when I was
in high school for some parents to get their teenagers
their own phone line where you had your own number
and then there was like the house number, because otherwise
if it was just the house number. My mom was
definitely one of those mombs that would pick up the
phone and be like, hello, I need to use the phone.
This is the mom that would read the things. Yeah

(43:18):
that that's no, and I'd be like wait. I'd be like, Mom, okay,
and then we will wait, and she'd be like, say goodbye.
She wouldn't even give you the opportunity, like she wouldn't
even hang up and let you say goodbye. She'd like,
y'all say goodbye so I can use my phone. So
I felt very excited when she gave me my own
phone line, Carol. It was it was the nineties, so
I had every part of the phone was a different color,

(43:39):
the receiver, the base, the core, they were all bright.
It was very great. And was I talking on that
phone past bedtime when my mom told me that I
should be off the phone. Of course I was, Carol.
Of course I did. And my mom went in there
and grabbed that phone. I just remember her arm winding
winding accord around that phone and putting it somewhere that

(44:04):
I just didn't know where. And I remember going to
my youth pastor and complaining to him. I remember going
to him and saying, this lady, and he he wasn't
married at the time that I can remember. Maybe he
had just maybe he was just about to get married
at this time. He was engaged. He's like, really, she
took your phone. I said, she took my phone away,

(44:25):
rubbed the cord around it, and took it out of
my room. And he was like wow. He was like, man,
so um, who paid for the phone? Like who bought
the phone? And I was like, I mean she bought it,
but it was a gift, and like you can't buy
a gift for someone and then just take it back.
You can't do that. He was like, oh, man, so um,

(44:47):
who paid the bill? Like when the phone bill came,
who paid it? And I was like, I mean she did,
but like she's a mom, she should she should pay it.
So I don't have a job, I'm a child. How
could I do that? He was like, oh, man, and
who pays for like you know, the roof like over
your head and everything, Like who pays for the house

(45:09):
where you live? And I was like well she does.
Because that's so It's like the more he was asking me,
the more I'm like, oh god. And he was like,
you know, I think you might owe your mom an
apology for how you reacted and how you weren't following
the rules because it's really her phone if you think
about it, you know, it's her phone in her house,

(45:31):
in her bedroom. You're sleeping on a bed she bought.
And I was like, why did he use the logic
against me like this? You know, like I really I
went to him, Carol, expecting him to be like, how
dare she take your that's your one way of communication
to the outside world. How dare she what a terrible parent?

(45:54):
Let us tell the elders of the church. We have
a terrible mother in the church. And I'm walking away,
going to apologize to this lady. We're taking my phone.
That conversation was not supposed to go this way. But
that's an example of having someone who's not your parents
that can ask you some questions get you to thinking

(46:16):
about your choices. You know, that's that's just a great example.
Let me ask you this, what kind of a play
ONTI do you think you would be? Would you be
the kind that would say, like you wanted your youth
pastor to say, girl, she did that. Okay, wait, I'll
talk to her because that is not right. Or would

(46:39):
you be the kind that would say okay and can
we just revisit sort of? I mean, would you be
team kid or would you be team mom? You know,
this is fascinating because my sister and I both have
actually talked about this, like as we've gotten older, and
you know, we're sort of at that point where we're like, wait,
we are the age that our aunts and uncles were

(47:01):
when we were children. So that still feels weird because
when we're with our aunts and uncles, we still feel
like the kids and like they're the adults. But when
we actually get by ourselves, we're like, we're actually the
age they were when we remember them as children. And
so we have talked about like who who is the
cussing auntie? You know, we've talked about that because you

(47:22):
need to have at least one of those. You need
to have at least one auntie that's the person that
cusses and is the person who's going to have a
good drink, you know, at the family gathering. And I
I've always wanted to be the auntie that if if
children have questions regarding relationships and sex, that they know

(47:44):
they can come and speak to me, and that I'm
I'm going to speak the truth to them and give
them some rounded wisdom that I wish had been spoken
to me when I was their age, to give them
some things to think about. But especially for those of
us who grew up in church settings, when it comes
to dating and sex, you really aren't getting the information

(48:04):
because people in the community feel like the less they
tell you, the less amount of trouble that you may
get in when the opposite is honestly really true. So
I feel that that probably to some people, has been
my role a little bit, that if you have a question,
I'm the person that you can come and speak to

(48:25):
and I'm going to tell you the truth about that.
That is a really valuable role to play, because, you know,
we all when it comes to talking to our kids
about relationships and and and especially about sex, we all
kind of first dive back into how we were brought
up and if if we appreciated it, if it was

(48:47):
a good way, we do that, but if if it wasn't,
we try to go in another direction, and I will
tell you that. Um, even even with your partner, I
mean my husband, I had different approaches. I was all
about the Okay, we're gonna talk about this because this
needs to be talked about. But you know, with three kids,
they each react to me differently in terms of how

(49:08):
much they want to share. And I you know, my
mom laid down for me, and I fully agree that
I'm not trying to be my kids friends. I'm not
trying to create a relationship where we tell each other
every single thing, because you know, you talked about the
trauma of people finding out you know, and the after
their mom is gone, and the books that you know
she had an affair with with some guy photographer. I don't.

(49:32):
I think kids, no matter how old they are, there's
this image you have of your parents that you kind
of don't want completely shattered. I mean, as you get older,
you acknowledge your person. You know, your your mom, your dad,
their people, they have perspective. You don't agree with them necessarily,
they are the way they are. They're not you, but
you don't want um. So so it's so it's hard. UM.

(49:53):
So I say all that to say that I respect
that my kids they're all grown now, but they're not
like call me up every five minutes to tell me
some new event. But with a But it's really important
that they have somebody else that they can go and
ask questions too, because I want them to talk to
a third I want them to talk to somebody that
I don't want. I you know, our parents are whoever

(50:16):
they are, and I think it's really important to have
another person that's not them, so you just get a
different perspective and and a valuable one. Now, you know,
if you're that real play auntie that you know likes
a good drink and you know is the wild one
custom all the time and all that, you know, you
want to make sure that you know you've got some
balance there. You don't want to send your child off

(50:39):
with some somebody who's telling her about ways that you
don't necessarily agree with. But but I really it's it's
such a it's such an interesting and kind of a
dicey relationship. I mean, I am friendly with some of
my children's really good friends, but I know the line
that I can't cross in terms of asking about my child, right,
you know, I can't write It's like I'm not going

(51:00):
to put them in that spot. I can't. I mean,
I'd love to know, and I'm really close to this person,
but I'm not. I can't do that. It's so weird.
I mean, you you, you spend so much time, you know,
with these children, and then suddenly there's there there have
to be boundaries and distance and you have to respect them.

(51:20):
So those play aunties come in handy, because girl, you know,
I have called up my girlfriend and like, listen, she's
not gonna talk to me about this, but if there's
some way that you could talk to her, I would
be very grateful. Okay, put it out there. And the
last thing I'll say to Carol is, you know, and
I especially experienced this and my friendships with women. I

(51:42):
think there are all these different phases of life right
that we experience as women. And some of that is
related to maybe where our career goals are, where that
ends up and some of us thought we were going
to work for somebody else and then we end up
becoming entrepreneurs. And some of that's related to our relationship ships.
If we decided to marry someone or be in a
long term partnership, if we thought it was long term,

(52:06):
and that relationship ends or we end up experiencing divorce. However,
our journey is towards parenting, whether we actually become parents
or not, and then those of us who do the
phases of that and the developmental stages and all. And
one of the things that I would say has been
a real joy, and I feel an important thing in

(52:28):
my life is I think it is important for us
to have friends who are in our phase of life,
because we need that sense of feeling understood, you know,
in the particular phase we're in. But I think it's
also helpful when we have friends who may not be
in the same phase of life that we are. Like
I've been an entrepreneur now over ten years of my life.

(52:50):
It's wonderful for me having friends who aren't and talking
to them about their jobs and how they navigate their
work spaces and them hearing from me about this. You know,
I don't have children, and I've walked through the various
journeys of my friends, some whose journey towards parenthood was
easy and when they actually got to parenthood was really hard,

(53:11):
and some whose journey towards parenting was very difficult. And
so for some of my friends, I may be one
of a small number of friends they have that don't
have children, and I'm like, you know what, You're gonna
get a lot of mom talk, so I don't need
to provide that to you. I'm here to remind you
that you were a woman also outside of the fact
that you are a mother to these children that I

(53:33):
know you love very much. And also you'd like to
leave and go to Tuesday morning, or go grab a
cup of coffee by yourself, or use the bathroom without
having anyone's little fingers coming under the door. It's my
job to remind you that you're gorgeous and beautiful. You're
a sexual being, you are not just that. And I
think when we have friendships that give us that sort

(53:53):
of cross section, it gives us some ability to see
each other in our different phases of life and not
assume things about what maybe going super easy or what
may be going really hard. We get a chance to
walk through that with each other, and I've really enjoyed
that about the women that are in community with me.

(54:15):
I just have to quickly add that one of my
dearest friends, who we've been friends for over thirty years now,
jeez um, and she is Um a wonderful woman, a
very successful film and television producer, has had an amazing
life and a great career and continues to have one.
And when we met, she was that was abandoning a

(54:38):
legal career to sort of try her hand at Hollywood.
She was just like pivoting completely, as was I because
I was leaving a job I really loved, I was
getting married, and my husband's work required him to move
to Chicago. I didn't know any of Chicago, so we
were both pivoting in directions that we were excited by
but kind of wary of. Long story short, we've joked

(54:58):
about this Phil the Path thirty years that if you
could mush our lives together, you know, I I did
the kid thing in the you know, the sort of
I'm still married thirties some of you. I mean, we're
definitely I have the domestic thing, and I agonized for
decades on not having that career that I thought I
was going to have. And she has the hell fire

(55:21):
career and you know, is divorced and didn't have kids,
And so we serve that what you just talked about
that role for each other, it is it is both
um the one that the friend that is not going
to burden you with all the whatever it is that
they're talking about you want to hear, because it's not
your life, right, whatever, work, stress, so whatever, it's like,

(55:43):
you want to eat that up. But we're also the
ones to tell each other that, you know, as good
as this looks from the outside, you know it, you
know it's great on one level, here's how it's not great.
And you know, sort of here's the reality of the
situation versus the sort of you know, how how it looks.
You know that the life both of us are our lives.

(56:03):
I mean, it's it's really been amazing to sort of
have this journey with her where you know, she's at
the oscar, she's at the thing. I mean, she's doing it,
and I'm like, oh right, I'm and and I'm thrilled
for her, and I'm excited to hear what's going on,
and and then you know, but I know the three
sixty of it, you know, So that's that's really really valuable.
So I I so applaud your interest in your work

(56:25):
and making community of women because I don't know where
we would be without them. Okay, that's it for real, Carol,
That is it? Yeah, yeah, so can I. I we're
wrapping up here. First, First of all, I want to
thank you so much. I've had so much fun. It's
really great. Yeah, it's been really really great. I've loved

(56:47):
talking with you as I knew I would, but it's
really been amazing. And can I just slide in for
the very end the UM what I do on my podcast,
which is the GCP for Ground Control Parenting Lightning Round,
I will give you in a abbreviated version of the
Lightning can just ask you two questions. First one should
be easy, and that is what is your favorite poem

(57:08):
or saying? I'll give you the both and then you
can answer. The second one is give me your favorite
two children's books. Books do you remember from growing up
or books you've given to friends you know. So poem,
favorite poem, favorite children's books. My favorite poem is Theme
for English b by Langston Hughes, and it has a

(57:29):
line that says, go home and write a page tonight
and let that page come out of you, then it
will be true. That's my favorite one. That, um, my
two favorite children's books. My top one is good Night
Moon Ah, still my favorite. That and my second one

(57:49):
is Mufarrow's Beautiful Daughters. My mom read that to both
my sister and I and it's a it's a wonderful story,
but it's also gorgeous the illustration and it is just beautiful.
So still, I actually still have a copy in my library, Like,
that's one that I needed to have a copy of
for sure. Yeah, those are great, great answers. You probably

(58:12):
got a copy of Goodnight Moon and that is a
very meditative Oh yes, it's a meditative book. I'm a
collector of books around here. I'm I am now like,
it doesn't matter if I read them. I need to
see them in my home. That's where we're at, Carol. Yes,
I agree definitely on the it doesn't matter if I
read them. But anyway, thank you so much, answers. This

(58:36):
was so great. Thank you for joining me. I am
happy to be invited into the family room with you,
and I was glad to bring you here into the
living room where we could eat gorgeous snacks. We could
have rosemary crackers. I'm just yes, I'm here for all
of it. I will make sure we're sharing all the information.

(58:57):
But from my listeners, please make sure that you go
and take a listen to ground Control parenting podcast hosted
by Carol Sutton Lewis. Yes, and for all of my listeners, please,
right after you listen to this go listen to Her
with Amina Brown and you'll be glad you did. Thanks Carol,
I'll see you soon, See you soon. Her with Amina

(59:32):
Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Solbarffiti Productions as
a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Thanks for listening and don't forget
to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.