IT’S MY LIFE

Me, Mama, And The Pill

My mother would have done anything to give me a shot at my dreams

This would not be me at seventeen if my mother had anything to do with it. Photo by Mustafa Omar on Unsplash

Sensual Black Man, Do You Love Me?

When Mama’s bossy younger sister stopped by the house one day and picked up the premier issue of Essence magazine that I’d recently purchased, she noticed one of the feature stories on the cover.

Shocked, she questioned my mother about allowing fourteen-year-old me to read such grown-up material.

Mama put on her eyeglasses and perused the front of the magazine. She shrugged.

“I don’t see the problem.”

I had to hand it to my mother. She had many mighty Mama moments. And shutting down her sister that day was one of them.

The premiere issue of Essence Magazine. Photo courtesy of Essence Communications.

A Facebook post earlier today about teenagers getting distracted by falling in love took me back to a place long ago. I was a seventeen-year-old high school senior in 1972 when my mother defied convention, my father, and even herself, when she agreed to put me on the Pill.

Ever since I was a little girl, I had one dream. To become a fashion designer. By high…