Demanding More For The Future Black History Makers And The Mothers Who Birth Them

As Black History Month comes to a close I've been reflecting on the history of black women as mothers. Thinking about our legacy as the women who tirelessly carried our families and communities. Mothers who didn't listen when the world said we were thoughtless breeders and our children were mere commodities to be bought or sold. In more recent history, black mothers have been publicly shamed as crack mothers, welfare queens and the face of "baby mama drama." Black single motherhood is blamed for all sorts of social ills from crime to drugs to "wilding" teens. And black mothers are often represented in popular culture as neck-rolling domineering household managers who run circles around our men.

Let's face it. The historical misperception of who we are has not been very flattering.

But I'm asking you to stay true to what you know: These stereotypes are very far from the truth. In truth, black women today have redefined black history and created a new conversation about our roles as mothers. For example, when I watched the Brady Bunch and Happy Days and reruns of Leave It To Beaver, the subtle messaging was that being a stay at home mom and catering to your child's every need was a white woman's pleasure. Black women have always worked--as slaves, as cleaners, as teachers, as doctors, as lawyers. Even our TV mamas (Claire Huxtable included) always worked outside the home.

Today more and more black women are stay at home or work at home moms (myself included), we have robust national organizations like Mocha Moms http://mochamoms.org/ to support women who are making motherhood their career (even if just for a few years or so).

We have a First Lady who epitomizes everything modern black motherhood is about, career success, loving partnership and commitment to being the mom-in-chief of your own family command center.

This shift in our motherhood experience may seem subtle, but in the framework of our history, it is groundbreaking. And thrilling. It not only speaks to how far we have come as a people, but how far we have come as black mothers, who went from having no control over our children to taking control of our children, our lives, and our families' financial future. We now have varied and different motherhood experiences yet we still know we are doing important work that goes well beyond our home.

Yet, there is much work to do. We still need to increase our breastfeeding rates, to give our babies the healthiest start in life and improve our own health as mothers. We need to demand answers to why our maternal death rate is double and is some urban cities seven-times that of our white peers, and start questioning the quality of care we receive.

As we celebrate our history as black Americans, we must protect the next generation of black history-makers currently growing in wombs across the nation. And we must demand better care for the mothers who bring them into the world.

Memo to Michelle Obama: Big Food Makers Don't Give a Fructose About Our Kids

I love Michelle Obama. Her strength, professionalism, sass and savvy are enviable. And as a mom, I can only applaud her efforts to reduce the embarrassingly high obesity rates in this country. Earlier this month she spoke at the Grocery Manufacturers Association meeting and asked big food companies like General Mills, Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola to produce more healthful food. What chutzpah! Then she went one step further by asking the food companies to then market the healthy food to children, instead of the red-dye, high sodium, high calories crap they usually market to our children.

Now I can certainly understand that the First Lady has to ask everybody to join in the fight against obesity. It is certainly an all-hands-on-deck type of goal. But if she really thinks big food companies will actually do something , then I'm a little concerned. I'm hoping she figured, "well, the event is in D.C. and I won't have to miss school pick up so what the heck."

The truth is, big food makers are not going to kill their cash cow by actually making healthier food, especially when making the unhealthy stuff is so cheap and rakes in serious money. I mean, hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? That was like asking the healthcare companies to support health care reform with a public option. It was never going to happen. These corporations are big businesses looking for a profitable business model that works. Remember the multi-billion dollar kick in the bottom line it took for the tobacco industry to actually clean up their act? Big business, no matter what public relations spin they try to put on it, only acts in their own self interest. That interest is to keep shareholders happy and CEOs happier with fat paychecks and even fatter bonuses. My child's health is the last thing on the mind.

Thankfully it is the first thing on my mind. That's why it is really my responsibility and that of every other parent to make sure their child has a healthy diet and an active lifestyle. This is particularly true in our community where studies show that almost 36 percent of black children between the ages of six and eleven are overweight, and more than 19 percent are considered obese. Among twelve- to nineteen-year-olds, 40 percent are overweight and nearly 24 percent are obese.

More importantly, we as black mothers have to set a good example by modeling healthy living and healthy eating ourselves. Our own health impacts our children from pregnancy through adulthood.

I appreciate that the First Lady has to make all the appropriate rounds (and like I said, no out of town trip required) but no parent or reasonable adult should ever expect big business (or government, for that matter) to do what we need to do for ourselves and our children. That is, take back our power as parents and as the CNO (chief nutrition officer) in our homes. When your child begs for unhealthy crap, try this novel approach and simply utter, "No!" and actually mean it. Or better say, yes, but only once in a while.

Attention world, here's how to get the food makers on board: Stop buying the unhealthy stuff. When they lose the financial incentive for making unhealthy food options then they will stop. Period. When we educate ourselves as parents so that, as Mrs. Obama noted, we don't fall for gimmicks such as a food maker marketing one healthy aspect (such as adding one gram of fiber) while doubling the calories, then they will be forced to clean up their act. Until then it's just photo opps, PR spin and back to the sodium-laden processed foods with ingredients you can't even pronounce (Someone please ask the good folks at Hooked on Phonics to produce a special edition to help us get through our food labels).

That's fine for them. But we, as moms, have plenty of work to do. Let's get down to our big business.

Michelle Obama's Plan: Mothers Need Apply

Soy milk invaded my childhood at age 6 and not because I particularly preferred it. Rather my mom bought it, packed it in the fridge, and drank it. And because I adored and mimicked my mom, I drank soy milk with enthusiasm.

This past Tuesday, thoughts of soy milk and my mother came to mind as I attended Michelle Obama's White House kick-off of "Let's Move," her multi-year, multi-agency, and era-changing plan to fight childhood obesity in America.

It was my first time inside the White House and as soon as Michelle Obama walked out confident and beautiful, I realized that she could tell America to eat turnips and flax seed every morning and night and a good portion of people would follow suit.

Michelle Obama has that stunning package of qualities that my mother has. Fearless, authoritative, and caring, the mother-of-two and Harvard-trained lawyer can command many children and adults to follow her quest just by suggesting them. And like my mother, Michelle appears to walk on water.

Now, I believe it is that power for women and mothers to be role models that I think will amplify the goals of Obama's movement aimed to reverse the fact that young people, due to obesity-related disorders, might have a shorter life-span than their parents. A focus on women and mothers could turn Obama's national fitness movement into a penetrating cultural, psychological mandate.

Right now, Michelle Obama's plan combines major thrusts: moves to provide front-of-package nutrition labeling on food products and the elimination of food deserts in neighborhoods with no grocery stories; a policy to increase healthy meals in public schools; marketing and tools to spur athleticism in children and wellness decisions in families; and billions towards these goals over the next 10 years. Her vision, fortified by private and public support, is both necessary and impressive.

In addition, child's health foundations will come together to fund the Partnership for a Healthier America, which is a non-partisan convener of sectors and agencies supporting solving childhood obesity in 30 years. And President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to launch the first Task Force for Childhood Obesity to review and create countrywide plans to employ federal resources to improve child nutrition and exercise.

Imploring Americans to read about what they eat, talk health with their circles, and see health as a self-esteem issue, Michelle Obama's plan is simply epic, a practical movement that could change everything.

Yet one thing I noticed about Michelle Obama's informative and passionate literature about the plan is that the words families and parents are preferred over women and mothers. It appears state and social forces will usher in this very crucial movement, when in fact, women and children are the exact linchpin. Many people like me, even with two active parents, draw a direct line of my eating and lifestyle experiences to my mother. While my father influenced my eating habits, healthy food practices were often implemented by my mother. Fathers can regulate the diet of children, but can they manage the lifestyle of mothers?

Still now, I don't understand the mechanism of vegetables and I can't explain the chemistry of pure hair oils. But I know that when I cook greens in too much oil, they don't taste as good as my mother's, and when I use olive oil on my hair instead of synthetic creams, my hair becomes shiny, beautiful, and strong as my mother's.

This relationship works in reverse. Four out of five African American women are obese, making us the most obese group of Americans. And the CDC finds that maternal pre-pregnancy obesity is associated with childhood obesity. Some of this explains why African American children between ages 6 and 17 are 1.3 times as likely to be overweight as their white peers and are at greater risk of diabetes, asthma and heart disease. A lot of the problem is, mother see, child do. Michelle Obama's campaign has the chance to embrace and nurture mothers in a huge, phenomenal way.

For years my mom was soy-minded, making as many trips to mainstream grocery stores as small health food shops. Her bookshelves were lined with alternative healthy living literature. When she was going to make a big change in her life, she meditated on it. And when she went vegetarian, she invited her children to join along.

Throughout the years, I adopted these habits, and not because I was a health guru like my mother, but because I absorbed them as a result of admiring my mother, my role model since the womb. Now I have a health propensity without thinking about it. And, some things are just wired. No matter where I am in the world, if I have even a cold, I call my mom first. How maternal health emerges in this vast obesity fight will be amazing to watch, and necessary to see.