You Just Don't Get It 5to8

Copyright © 2017 by Toya Wright Publishing ISBN: 978-0-9972178-4-1 eISBN: 978-0-9972178-5-8

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, ing, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by ing Rick George using [email protected]. Thank you for ing the author’s rights.

Credits Editorial: Carla DuPont Cover Shot: Tyus Cover Design: Aries George

Dedication

This is book is dedicated to my beautiful daughter and all other teenage girls out there. A daughter is such a beautiful blessing. Watching your daughter grow over the years to become an adult is such a wonderful feeling. As mothers, we go through all types of emotions over the years. A mother’s love is like no other. Our job is never done. The beauty of being a mother is being able to show unconditional love to our kids. We are here to protect, teach, and inspire them to be amazing women.

I was once that young girl who didn’t appreciate the mother figure I had in my life. My aunt used to tell me things and give me all types of advice when I was younger. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how important her advice was and how the things she taught me helped mold me into the woman I am today. Of course I had to learn a lot of things the hard way, but her guidance helped me stay on track and get back up every time I fell down.

Young ladies, never take your mother’s advice for granted. It might not make sense to you now, but trust me, it will when you get older.

Reginae, I am so proud of the young woman you’ve become. As you continue on to the next chapter in your life, I know that you will do great and you will continue to make us proud. May your dreams remain big and your worries stay small. Always to go after what you want and stay humble along the way. I love you so much and I’m extremely proud of you.

Love Mommy!

Thank you…

First and foremost, I would like to thank God for He is my rock, my salvation, and my strength. I would like to thank my daughter, Reginae Carter, and my unborn child for being my motivation and my reasons. My mother, Anita Johnson, for changing your life around and showing me that anything is possible if you believe in God. My manager, Richard George, for believing in me and pushing me each and every day; you are greatly appreciated. My auntie, Kristalyn Holden, for being a great mentor and always being there for me when I need you. My best-friends, Lidia Muse and Danielle Johnson, for showing me what real friendship looks like. I would like to thank Tyus, the photographer, for the amazing photo of Reginae and I. Thank you Aries George for this dope book cover. A special thank you to the love of my life, Robert Rushing, and all of my amazing family and friends…I love y’all forever. RIP to my angels Ryan Johnson, Josh Johnson, and Kathy Williams; you guys are always in my heart.

CONTENTS

INTRO

QUALITY TIME

TRUST

MAMA GOTTA HAVE A LIFE TOO

THE WONDER YEARS

WHAT ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS

I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

PUPPY LUV

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

LETTING GO

Intro…

Toya…

It's super hard to get your teenage daughter to communicate with you about certain things. As parents, we feel a mixture of emotions when we feel our kids aren’t telling us the whole truth. One of the biggest things I had to learn was how to listen to my daughter without judgement or overreacting. Trust me, It's very hard to hear your teenage daughter tell you some of the things that are going on in her world, especially with her group of friends at school. But, It's better to hear it come from her than any other person.

I always wanted to be the parent who listened to my child, then helped her without jumping to conclusions. It wasn't that easy though. since I had Reginae at a young age, I thought that part would be super easy. But when the time came, I couldn't handle it. I found myself handling her the wrong way. I would punish her, yell at her, and carry on. Overtime, I realized that my reactions were only making the situations worse. I had to switch that up real quick before our relationship was damaged beyond repair. I began to think about how I felt when I was her age not having anyone to talk to who could relate to me. Every time I talked to a family member about certain touchy situations, I ended up getting in trouble for just trying to be open and honest about what was happening in my life as a teenage girl trying to find her way in this world.

Constantly receiving harsh reactions to you opening up only makes you want to keep things bottled inside, hiding things from the people who are supposed to be around to give you guidance and teach you. When my daughter turned 15, I made a conscious effort to start making her feel a little more comfortable. I would always ask her what was going in her crew. When her girlfriends came to visit, I’d be in the room with them asking, “What's the tea?” Not as a parent to a child, but I was asking more as a friend.

That was my way of breaking the ice. Once she saw my reaction was more of understanding, opposed to preaching, she started opening up to me a little more. I gave her advice instead of getting upset with her. I'm not saying it was easy, but I knew that just as easily as she let me in, she could shut me right back out; I could lose her. Our kids are not our friends, at all, but we must develop a little friendship with them to make them feel comfortable talking to us. When I was growing up, my parents made it clear, “I'm not your friend.” They used to always tell us, “You are a child and need to stay in a child's place.”

In the world we live in today, we have to have adult-like conversations with our daughters because things move a lot faster than they did when we were growing up. Some of these little 14 and 15-year-olds are like little adults, LOL.

That's really why it was important for me to do a project like this with my daughter. I travel all over the country and meet a lot of young women who have daughters, like myself. The number one thing I hear is, “I don't know how to get through to her.” People always say they ire the relationship I have with my daughter, but believe me It's taken a lot of work and growing pains to get to where we are today.

Through this book, I hope you guys get to see those same fights and battles you’re having in your own home, I'm fighting in mine as well. This type of relationship isn't formed overnight; it takes trial and error along with a balance of good and bad situations to find the formula to build the great mother-daughter bond that we all want so much. We are raising our children in a different world than the one we were brought up in; It's a lot colder, a lot faster, and temptation is at every turn and at their fingertips with those stupid smartphones. Not to mention their friends, boyfriends, and role models from entertainment, sports, and even social media are not the best, but are highly influential. We have a tough job and we have to make sure that while all of those forces are in their left ear, we are in their right, giving them the guidance and the lessons that they may not want to hear now, but will definitely need later.

Quality Time

Toya…

When I gave birth to my daughter, I was 15-years-old. When I tell you she was my world! Everywhere I went, I took that little girl with me. The only time I left her was when I went to school. Other than that if you saw Toya, you saw Reginae right there beside me. For most of her childhood it was like that, which is why I think she’s so spoiled, LOL. She was a mama's girl and that's also why it's so hard for me to let go and let her grow up. We spent so much time together when she was little. I guess it had a lot to do with me wanting to break the cycle of how I was raised. I didn't spend much time with my mother as a kid, so I wanted to make sure I was with my daughter each and every day.

Before I really got things started as far as a career, I really wanted to open my own boutique. It was something that I worked at for years and I finally opened my boutique in 2007. After my very first reality show, my direction changed and I started to move more towards what I am currently doing like writing books, public speaking, and even hosting events.

Initially, when the television opportunity came into play, I was a little apprehensive because I thought that the type of schedule and lifestyle associated with entertainment would be too much, taking me away from my daughter more than I was ready for. At that point, Reginae already had one parent who was living this hectic whirlwind of a life, so I didn't think it would be good for me to add to that equation. When I sat down with the producers to talk about the show, I made it clear to them that my daughter was my first priority. For me to be involved with that project, things would have to work around me being a mother. Luckily, the producers understood and made sure to hold true to my wishes. They even took it a step further by including her in the show.

Reginae was still young at that time. It's hard to believe now, but back then she

really didn't like the cameras. Every time the cameras came to our home, she closed herself up in her room. When it was time for her to film, she would act super shy and that little girl didn't have a shy bone in her body. She just didn't like them being in our home all day I guess, LOL. As soon as they wrapped and left for the day, she would be super crunk and I would be super tired.

I did a lot of traveling to promote the show and during taping of the show. I couldn't take her with me on a lot of those trips because they involved a lot of moving around. When you’re filming a reality TV show, there is a lot of down time for location changes and light set up while you're on set which worked out well because that was more time we got to spend together. We spent time between taping and on my days off. That quality time was always something I looked forward to. When I had events, she was always excited to go with me. This continued through her preteen years, I don't think it was until she was probably 12 or 13 that I noticed she wanted to hang out with me less and kind of be around her friends more.

I would say, “Hey Reginae, I'm going to this event today,” and she would say, “I don't want to go Mommy. I want to go hang out with so-and-so.” Sometimes she’d ask if she could bring a friend along to hang out with us. I'm not gonna lie. At first, I had a hard time letting go. It kinda hurt my feelings a little bit because I was so used to her always wanting to be with her mother. We pretty much did everything together, but I understood and respected that she was growing up and she didn’t want to be under Mommy all day.

Now when she discovered boys, that was another story! She definitely didn't want to be around me as much and I found her spending time talking on the phone with her friends for hours about what was going on, who liked who, and everything that little girls talk about at that age. I listened in from time to time to make sure things weren't getting too grown, but I never heard anything that wasn't age appropriate.

It was around this time I really started to feel like I needed to go the extra mile to make sure we got that one-on-one girl time in. One day I randomly went to her and asked if she wanted to spend the day with me. I planned for us to go shopping and go to the spa. She said she wanted to go to Six Flags with her friends instead. I being completely crushed. I felt like we were becoming too distant. That was one of the times I had to pull rank and make her go with me.

During our lunch that day, we talked and I really felt like we hadn't spoken like that in a while; it felt good. At the end of the day, I told her that would be our little thing and we had to do it at least twice a month. It didn't happen right away though, I was busy getting caught up in everything that was going on around me at the time.

I started traveling every weekend and sometimes during the week. I felt terrible. Even though I knew I was working, I felt like I wasn't there for her. I made a promise to myself that I had to get our monthly mother-daughter dates back on. I knew how much faster this generation of kids was moving and I didn't want to be the parent who let social media or the streets raise my child. No way! I was determined not to be that parent. We did eventually pick back up on our motherdaughter time.

Our mother-daughter dates were always a really good time and we stayed true to our ritual right up to the point she got her first boyfriend. Things got more and more tricky because I wasn't getting the isolated time with her as much. I knew we needed that communication between mother and daughter in order to make sure that she was making the right choices and not being led in the wrong direction by this little boy.

Around that time, we started to film the MTV show ‘My Super Sweet 16’. Special projects started to really get busy for me. I was working on my publishing company, my hair company was doing really well, and with

everything being independent, it was really keeping me on the road a lot.

Coincidentally, this is around the same time Reginae was turning 16, so you know she was starting to kind of feel herself a little bit. I noticed a change in the way she talked to me. I started to feel like she wasn't telling me everything; she was kind of starting to hold back a little bit. It was frustrating because I really didn’t know where her head was.

One particular day, she came to me asking if it would be ok for her to get a tattoo. First of all, she was way too young to be thinking about a tattoo, so I was wondering where the tattoo talk was coming from. Most of her friends were a year older than her, so they had already started making plans to get tattoos.

As much as I complain about my tattoos, you would think she’d never want one. Anyone who knows me knows I hate most of my tattoos. I got them when I was really young, I didn't pick of best places on my body and I didn't put much thought into the designs I chose to get tatted on me permanently. I was just excited to be getting them and went a little crazy. Now that I'm a bit older, I definitely regret some of them.

I told her all about my experiences. I even showed her my tattoos before going through the tattoo removal process and she still felt very strongly about getting one. She told me that she wanted to get something really small that no one could see. I told her I didn't agree with the idea of her marking her body up, but she just kept pressing me. A few months later, she finally wore me down. I made her a promise that we would go together to get one for her 18th birthday. The only requirement was that we had to go together because it was her first.

I had a lot of last minute things to pop up on my schedule that week. I had to fly to Los Angeles, as well as spend some time in New York. I told her that when I

got back, we would go the following week. The trip ended up going better than I expected and what was supposed to be a two week trip turned into me being gone for almost an entire month. I’d stop home for a few days here and there; but for the most part, I was gone.

During that time we FaceTimed a lot and talked on the phone, but I wasn't be there in person. Every few days she made sure to remind me, “Mom, don't forget about my tattoo.” I told her I wouldn't. Honestly, when I got back home, I did kind of forget about it. I guess she got tired of reminding me. It must have been maybe two months later when Reginae came in my room looking for a shirt and I saw something on her back near her bra strap. I asked, “What's that?” and she responded, “What's what?” I think I saw the lightbulb go off in her head when she realized that she was busted for going to get the tattoo without telling me.

I didn't know whether to be mad or sad because she did something technically without my permission. Then again, she did have my permission and I just dropped the ball on it. The day I realized that she really kept that tattoo a secret, I started to wonder what else could she be hiding from me. I felt like over the years, I worked so hard on building a pretty open relationship with my daughter, I didn't want to mess that up. At that moment, although I was really upset at her, I also felt like I wasn't being a woman of my word. I had to hold myself able for slacking on our relationship and that was something I had never done in her 17 years of life.

I immediately dropped everything I had going on and said, “Let's just take a day, me and you. Let's do something and catch up.” That day I found out things she was going through with a few friends that I didn't know about. She told me all types of stories. Those weeks of me not checking in on her like I used to and traveling a lot took so much more of a toll than I could have ever imagined. That day, I recommitted myself to making sure we spent more time together and even now, I make sure my schedule is free for at least that one day a month for me and her to spend together. Just the two of us. Even if it is for nothing more than a spa day or go to dinner to catch up.

You are never too old for mother-daughter time. It's important these girls know, “Your mother has been there and done that.” What better advice than a mother’s advice? Some of us don't have our mothers around to give us advice and some of us didn't appreciate our mother’s advice when we were teens. My relationship with my daughter is everything to me and spending quality time with her is just as important as anything in my life. I pray daily that our bond stays strong forever and I also pray that when she has kids of her own, she has that same unbreakable bond with them.

Now I know as parents, it is important for us to provide, which means making money is always a high priority. I'm also aware that sometimes we don't have the disposable income to go on trips with our children or go to the spa and things like that. I challenge every mother and daughter to find the common interests you share with one another. Whether it's cooking or a television show, find something that you may have in common. Find something that you guys can connect over and talk about.

Most of the time, speaking about one thing can lead to her opening up about so many other things. It gives you time to be connected and find out what's going on in your child's world. Understand that there's so much that goes on in the day, let alone weeks upon weeks. Let them know that you care and that you want to stay abreast of everything that they are willing to share because not having a base for communication is the fastest way to lose them.

Reginae…

Growing up, I always loved being under my mom. Everywhere she was; I was there. When I was younger, my mom was also young, so she was pretty lenient with me. As my mom got older, she got more strict. But, I never had a problem

with it because she's always given me freedom. Once my mom started filming ‘Tiny and Toya’, she was really busy and always traveling. I would get sad because I wasn't used to that. We were always together and when she started getting busy, I didn't really like it. At the same time, I was always happy at her accomplishments. I just missed my mommy. When she was in town, she made sure we hung out and that would be the time of my life.

As I got older, the plot twisted. My mom would get mad that I wanted to hang out with my friends and not her. That's pretty normal though, it's just a case of your little girl growing up. I love hanging out with my mom and just being around her; but, we definitely need space apart, like sisters at times. We'll be chilling and she'll start nagging about something and kill the mood. I guess that's just a ‘mom’ thing.

Trust

Toya…

The day Reginae lost my trust was when she decided to go on a road trip with a few friends to celebrate one of her good friend’s birthday. I wasn't upset about her going on the trip, I was upset that she only told me half of the truth about who was going on the trip.

One evening, Reginae came to me while I was lying in bed to ask me if she could attend a cabin party with some friends. It was a long weekend and she was out of school on Monday so I didn't see an issue with her going…as long as they had some sort of supervision to make sure they had fun, but not too much fun.

The cabin was 2.5 hours away from Atlanta in Tennessee. Now, anyone who has ever made that drive knows it is nothing to play with. Tennessee has lots of mountains and the highways have lots of curves. Since she had only been driving just under a year, I told her I wasn't comfortable with her making that drive. She told me she’d be riding with the adult who was chaperoning the party, along with a few of her friends. Again, I didn't see a problem. Now, up to this point, I never really had any problems with Reginae lying, so I had no reason not to trust that she wasn't telling me the truth.

When she arrived at the cabin, she called me to let me know she had made it safe. I was really proud of her because I felt like she was being responsible. I went to my homegirl’s party later that night and her daughter was there with a few friends. We were sitting there talking after the party and I overheard my friend's daughter tell her friend that one of their mutual friends drove her car to the cabin, her car got stuck and the boys, including my daughter’s boyfriend, had to come and help her. She also said that my daughter told her that her truck got stuck earlier.

I was pissed! Not only did Reginae lie to me about it being an all-girls trip, she also lied about riding in the van. Now, I played plenty of games like this when I was a teen; I snuck out, snuck in and even left the city without my aunts having a clue. Most times I would get busted and when I returned home the police would be right there to greet me. I'm not a fool, I know teens will be teens. At the time, she only had a driving permit, not a license so she wasn't allowed to drive her truck after a certain time without adult supervision. Driving 2.5 hours away to another state was out of the question. After hearing that Reginae wasn't telling me the truth and knowing that she was in Tennessee with boys, I couldn't just act like nothing was wrong when I called her.

I waited until I got in the car to call because I didn't want her friend to know that I overheard her conversation. I was heated inside, but I tried to play it cool to give her the chance to come clean. When she picked up the phone, I asked her what was she doing. She said they were playing Uno. “Who is they?” I asked. She said her and the girls. I asked her were boys there and she got really quiet. I asked her again, she said her friend’s boyfriend was there and so was Josh, who happened to be her boyfriend. I asked her why didn't she tell me that boys were going on this so-called girls’ getaway. Her response was, she was afraid that I wouldn't have let her go if I knew boys were going. I asked her did the boys ride in the van with them. She said they hadn’t and told me that the van was full, so she decided to drive her truck.

I didn't know what to say, I was speechless! I couldn't believe she lied to me. I started yelling at her over the phone. I ended it by telling her to make sure she brought her ass home the next morning as soon as she woke up. I had to remind her that she was only 17 years old, “Little girl you are not grown! Who told you that it was ok to go on a weekend getaway with boys?”

I couldn't sleep that night, that's how upset I was. I could only imagine how my aunts used to feel when I disappeared for days on end with no word and no permission. The more I thought about it, the more infuriated I became. I knew I had to vent to someone. I decided to call Reginae's father to tell him what was

going on. I explained to him that his daughter drove to Tennessee with her friends and boys were there also. He told me that I needed to drive out there to go and pick her up ASAP. He seemed to be very upset and he could tell that I was upset so he told me to calm down and that he was going to give her a call.

I hate that her father always plays the good cop when he talks to her. I always tell him it takes a village to raise a kid; I need him to back me up sometimes. Y'all know how fathers are with their daughters…daddy's little girl! I just knew he was going to call her and let her have it for lying to me and for being away with a boy. As always, he called her like nothing was wrong asking her who she was with as if I hadn't just told him. She told him she was with a few friends and named everyone including Josh. He responded, “I didn't know you were with all of them. You know how your mother is. Just make sure you call her Nae. I know you are a smart girl, so don't do anything crazy.” He followed up by telling her to be safe out there.

It's funny that he was totally different on the phone with me. Dads can be so flip flop when it comes to these little girls, smh. I guess he wants to stay on her good side. What he doesn't understand is when the father responds like that, it makes the mother look like we are tripping all the time. What happened to being on the same page?

When she called me, the first thing she said was, “I can't believe you called my father. Why would you do that?” I responded asking her why would she lie to me. she said that her father wasn't tripping and repeated everything he said to her. I was even more pissed after that. Was she trying to check me?

This is one of those moments where blurring the lines of mother, daughter, and girlfriend came back to bite me in the ass. She must've forgot who the mother was and that I could parent any way I damn well please. She is mine!! I went from being upset with her to being upset with both of them. To me, that was a serious matter. For him not to have my back, then for the most part excuse her

actions, was wrong.

I tossed and turned all night. I couldn't help but think, What if something happened while they were driving? What if they would have gotten pulled over? Then I thought about her boyfriend being there and got mad all over again! I mean I've never had a problem with her dating because everything had been very out in the open. We’d always communicated about everything, but the thought of her being hundreds of miles away without any supervision with her boyfriend in a cabin was not an easy pill to swallow. On one hand, I was livid at this little girl, but on the other, I was disappointed and heartbroken that she would risk my trust like this.

I finally dozed off around 4 a.m., but I was right back up around 8. The first thing I did was call Reginae; she answered on the first ring, “I'm about an hour away, Mama. I'll be there in a second.” I said, “Ok,” and hung up the phone. What was I going to say to her? Some time had ed since I found out, so I wasn't as mad. The more I thought about how much danger she put herself in, though, I started to get mad all over again!

I got up, got myself together and went downstairs so I could be right in the kitchen when she came upstairs. About 90 minutes later, I heard the garage open and I prepared myself. No she didn't! This little girl got right on the elevator from the garage and went straight up to her room, I was pissed! For the first time in 17 years, she knew she was wrong and couldn't face me. That hurt me because I never had any type of issues like this with her. As I climbed the stairs to her bedroom I felt myself getting weak again, but this was no time to be her friend.

When I got to her room, I told her how upset I was that she lied to me. I told her I could no longer trust her. All I ever asked from her was honesty. She said, “I know I deserve to be punished so I'll take whatever. Just don't take my car.” Again, this little girl was trying to tell me how to parent. I explained to her what was wrong with her driving her car to Tennessee. She apologized and promised

to never lie to me again.

Not only did I take that car, I snatched that phone, too. That's what really broke her down. I spoke with her father afterwards when he called to see if I’d calmed down. He explained to me why he handled it the way he had. He told me that he’d spoken to her again and she understood the potential issues. He also said that I couldn't expect him to always blow up on her. I needed to let him handle things how he saw fit to handle them with his daughter. He felt he knew which way worked for them. I agreed to let him handle things his way, as long as he didn’t act like what she did was ok.

This was an eye opener for me on a few different levels. I now knew that my daughter was capable of lying to me, which ruined the trust between us. I also saw that she was older; she was becoming someone who I didn't know as well as I thought I did. That really hurt me. The fact that she would jeopardize so many things to hang with her friends was very unnerving. I was that same teen years before and this was, in many ways, my chickens coming home to roost. I was forced to pay more attention to the similarities we shared at this age. I was sure it would help me parent better in the future.

Reginae…

When I pulled into the garage, I didn't know what was about to happen. I just knew I was in big trouble. I went through the elevator so she wouldn’t see me. Honestly, I had a couple of different emotions running through my head. On one hand, I thought maybe she'd understand because she's my mom and she was my age at one point. I hoped that would make her feel some type of sympathy for me. But on the other hand, I was thinking, Yeah I'm dead. I'm never going to have my car again. I felt bad for lying to her, but I knew if I told her everything upfront she probably would not have let me go. I really feel like she should have trusted me either way because she knows that I'm responsible and I'm smart.

I never realized that something that you take so long to build can be taken away in a second. Before this happened, I was able to do a lot of things as long as I told my mother about what was going on. This situation changed it all. After this, I couldn't do anything without a million questions and to be honest with you, none of it was worth it.

Ladies be open and honest with your parents because once the trust is broken it's hard to get that back.

Mama Gotta Have A Life Too

Toya…

When we bring our children into the world, it’s only natural that we want them to be raised by both parents. Unfortunately, sometimes things just don’t work out that way. In my case, I had my daughter when I was very young; both her father and I had a lot of growing up to do. Over the years we tried to work things out a few different times. Ultimately, that culminated in us getting married. Being married was nice because at least for a while, my daughter got a chance to experience what I didn’t, and that’s both parents in the home.

Being that we were both very young and completely unprepared for marriage, it didn’t last. I ended up being a single mom. Romantically, I knew the relationship was over, but I was still very apprehensive about how I proceeded in dating because I knew that my daughter would be watching. I wanted to portray a great image for her to emulate when it was time for her to start dating.

Growing up I had a lot of friends whose mothers had no problem bringing different men around. It was cool because those friends were able to get some type of male influence; however, when things ended and he didn’t come around anymore, they suffered because they’d formed a bond. Even though I wasn’t raised in the most stable situation I never saw my mom, my aunts or whoever I was staying with at the time, hop from man to man. There was always a constant name of who they were dealing with, so that’s what I took to be normal behavior and how a woman should conduct herself. It was always very important for me to do the same with my daughter because I didn’t want her to think it was normal or ok to bounce from man to man. I’m not judging anyone because we all have to take our time when we’re looking for love. And honestly, sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right. For me, when I did date after Reginae’s father, I definitely made a conscious effort to keep that separate from raising her.

Her father and I split for good when I was 22 years old. I’ll be the first to tell you I wasn’t ready to get out there and date. For a while, I really didn’t think I wanted to be with anyone else. After some time, I did begin to get lonely, so I figured it was time to start dating. When the marriage was over I decided to move to Atlanta for a fresh start. That made the transition back into dating even harder because I was around all these new people. I questioned them and their motives. With so many stories floating around about mothers’ boyfriends doing in appropriate things to their daughters, I was really scared.

Being in a new city, especially one known as ‘Black Hollywood’ anybody can make themselves appear however they want. Back in New Orleans, I pretty much knew everyone in the community, so I could easily find a point of reference when dating someone. When you meet a new person, you kind of know what they were about or you could at least call someone who they may know to get the real tea on them.

After talking to friends and finally just taking a chance, I did begin to date. At first, I was meeting all of the wrong types of guys, athletes, promoters and even street boys, but nothing serious ever materialized. After jumping back into it, I realized I wanted something different. I was trying to be over that life; I wanted somebody a little bit more quiet.

When I least expected it, I met this really, really sweet guy and we begin to talk. After the first few dates I thought maybe it could be something. We hung out and went places and had lots of fun. We never went to my house because I didn’t want him to meet my daughter. If we were at someone’s house, it was always his house.

He actually had a daughter who was around the same age as Reginae and he suggested that we do things together when he had her. Occasionally, when we were together, he would ask about her. As time went on, he let me know that he actually wanted to meet her. One time, he even bought her a little present ‘just

because’ and wanted to give it to her.

I thought it was very sweet of him to think enough of my daughter to want to get her something. At the same time, it sent me a red flag because I was thinking, Why is he so pressed to meet my daughter? Looking back at it from a more mature place, I can now see that he was really that much into me and was trying to progress the relationship. At the time, that didn’t matter to me. There were rules that I put in place and I was really strict on keeping that rule, “No man meets my daughter,” until we are in a relationship.

It had to be about five or six months into me dating him when Reginae’s birthday rolled around. At this point, I was starting to like him more and more and we were spending more time together. I had been in Atlanta for about two years and still didn’t know many people. I thought about getting Reginae a nice birthday cake; however, the only place I knew to go was Publix. I heard they had really good cakes, so I was gonna pick one up and just have them put her name on it. He told me he had one of the best cake people in the city and he wanted to take care of that for me. I didn’t see a problem with it. He was always doing nice, sweet things and getting a cake seemed simple enough. I agreed and I gave him the information to put on it.

The day of the party arrived and I didn’t have the cake yet, so I was panicking. I called him up to see what was going on. Again, he assured me that it would be ready by time of the party and he offered to drop it off at the party. In my head I was thinking, No way he is walking up in my baby’s party with a cake looking like a knight in shining armor. I knew that Wayne would be there, along with his mom, his friends, and a lot of other people who I wasn’t ready to explain this man to, LOL! I told him to meet me at my spot and I would get the cake from him.

Of course, we ended up running late. We were all rushing to finish getting dressed so we could head to the party. Right as we were about to head out, he

called me and told me he was pulling up with a friend to bring the cake upstairs. I told him I would meet him out front to open my truck up for them to put it inside. As he and his friend were putting the cake in the trunk, who do I see coming out of the front door? Reginae and a couple of my little cousins! I was like, WTF? He immediately shut the trunk and turned around with a big smile and said, “Happy birthday lil’ mama!” He went on to introduce himself and even gave her a couple dollars to pin on her for her birthday. Reginae looked up at him with a confused face asking, “Who are you?” He explained that he was my boyfriend and Reginae looked at me as to say ‘I’ve never heard anything about him.’

Then she went on to ask him when was his birthday. He said, “I’m a Scorpio just like your mother,” and she looked at him with a funny face saying, “Oh no!” They both began to laugh and joke back-and-forth. To tell the truth, it was actually a cute, little moment. Inside, I was fuming. Why did he introduce himself as my boyfriend before I could? Then I got mad at myself, Why did I even have him bring the cake here? This is all my fault. I turned around and told him I would talk to him later. Before I knew it, this nigga pulled me in for a hug. I was so embarrassed! I wiggled free and told everybody to get in the car.

As I drove down Highway 85 on our way to the party, I was silent. I turned the radio on and hoped that she would forget about it. In true Reginae fashion, she didn’t! “Mama who is that?” I told her he was just a friend and kept driving. She then asked with a little giggle, “Is that your boyfriend?” I didn’t want to lie to my child, I also wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her. I said, “No, just a friend,” and quickly changed the subject to her party.

That night after the party, I couldn’t get home to call him fast enough. The minute Nae went to her room, I closed the door to my bedroom and called him up. I let him have it!!! “Who told you to introduce yourself to my daughter as my boyfriend?? And why the fuck would you hug me like that in front of her?”

He sounded so pitiful on that phone. “I’m sorry T. I just really like you and I want us to be official.” I began to calm down, even started to question myself. I apologized for blasting him like that, then I told him we could talk the next day because I was tired.

The next day I called a few of my girlfriends to tell them about the situation and get their advice. They told me I was overreacting and was a bit hard on him. They suggested that maybe it was time I ease into the idea of him being around her since I really liked him and we were getting serious. My best-friend at the time was like, “Damn T! You guys have been knowing each other for months now. He seems like a really nice and respectful guy.” She told me to give it a shot. “It’s not like you introduced her to anyone else in the past,” she added. My friends knew how much of a big deal that was for me.

Over the next few months, we started spending time together with both of our daughters. We would hook up and do cute play dates. The girls were close in age and they had a good time together. Over the summer, she even came and stayed an entire weekend with Nae and they had a ball. Things between he and I continued to go well. I was really happy that I’d changed my mind and let him around her. It made things a lot easier for me and she seemed to take to him, too.

It was coming up on a year of us seeing each other. We decided to take the girls on a weekend trip to Disney World. As always, he set up an amazing time for all of us! on the way back, we had a car concert where we each took turns picking out songs and dedicating them to each other. The song he dedicated to me was, “Stick With You” by the Pussy Cat Dolls. It was the cutest thing. Reginae kept replaying it. She told him that was her favorite. I swear we must’ve listened to it 100 times, LOL!

With summer coming to an end and school starting soon, Nae and his daughter Kira said their goodbyes because they wouldn’t be seeing each other for a few weeks during the beginning of the school year. She was leaving to go back home

to her mother and wouldn’t be back until the holidays. It went back to the three of us just hanging out and doing little stuff here and there.

About four months after our trip, I got a call that I never imagined I would get. One of his good friends called me saying that he had been shot and killed after an altercation with another friend. I was devastated! Not only did I lose someone I cared about deeply, I had to tell my daughter what happened. I had never experienced anything like that before. It was tough. When I sat her down and told her, she cried so hard. I think it was partly for him, but it was also for his daughter; Reginae felt really bad for her. After some time, his daughter called my phone and wanted to speak to Nae. I was really happy that they got a chance to speak, but after that, it kinda just faded away and we lost .

This was one of my big reasons for not wanting to let anyone get close to Reginae; she really used to get attached to people fast. I always knew that in any relationship there is a chance it wouldn’t work out, then I would have to explain it to my child. I never fathomed having to explain anything this extreme. That was it, no one and I meant NO ONE was gonna meet my daughter again until there was a ring. I understand that not all relationships work out and things happen in life, I never wanted to be that girl who had different guys around my daughter like that. That was the one promise I made to myself that I was gonna keep, even if that meant being single for a while.

It took me a minute to start dating again, but when I did, there was a wall up. I didn’t let anyone really get close to me, let alone my daughter. The next person I met who I let get close to us was Mickey and we got married. From the time he first came around us until the last few months of our marriage, they were really close. I believe that can be attributed to me taking the time to feel him out and truly considering if he was someone I thought was ok to be around her.

It’s a tough balance when considering love and our children. Our children should be our life, but we want to have a life, too. Unfortunately, none of us can choose

what’s right 100% of the time. I have always tried to maintain a level of respect for myself and my daughter when considering my love life. Whether we realize it or not, our daughters are truly watching.

When Reginae brought home her first little thug-a-boo home, it happened to be the son of a popular ATL rapper. I didn’t like it, but I tried to understand where she was coming from. I’m sure my aunts looked at me the same way when I brought her father home and that gave me a good perspective to talk to her about their relationship from. Ultimately, I was right and he didn’t last long. The next boy she brought home was a lot closer to what I wanted for her. He was polite, had good manners, and was a gentleman. I attribute that to the progression she saw me make from the type of guys I used to go for earlier in my life to the type I go for now.

These days I’m dating again. I still do so with my daughter in mind. She’s older and I know it’s just as important now that she see me date someone who, above all, respects and cherishes me. She knows that I’ll always be here to give my two cents on her dating life, but when it’s all said and done, these are lessons she has to learn on her own.

I think I did an awesome job raising my daughter. Now I can see how I rubbed off on her. She reminds me a lot of myself, not hopping from guy to guy. When she finds someone, who she’s happy with who treats her right and respects her, that’s who she gives her extra time to. I’m so glad she’s that way instead of being out here dating everyone who gives her any type of attention, has status, or money. I’d like to think that’s because of the foundation I laid.

Regínae…

Now that I’m older, I can respect my mother for guarding me and not letting me meet every guy friend she had. I was younger when my parents separated, so I didn’t really know what was going on. All I knew was that my mom and I were moving to ATL and my dad was going to Miami. When we moved to Atlanta, it was literally just my mom and I all the time. She never introduced me to her guy friends.

The first one I meeting was really nice and I liked when he came around. He ended up ing away. I being really sad about that. Every time I think about him, I cry because if that man was alive today, I believe he would still be with my mother. *wipes tears * After he ed, I kept his family in my prayers for a long time and I still think about him whenever I hear that certain song from our Disney World trip.

Mickey was such a great guy and I saw how he cared for me and my mom; that won both of us over. In my eyes, Mickey made my mom the happiest I’ve ever seen her. They hardly ever argued; we were always joking around and having a nice time. When they decided they were gonna get married, I was so excited because Mickey treated me as if I was his own. Yet, he never stepped on my dad’s toes, which I always respected Mickey for.

Dating and relationships are tough. Looking at my mom’s relationships has showed me the ups and downs of love. I’m sure having a daughter didn’t make them any easier. As I am older now, I see that my mom did everything in her power to protect my heart and my feelings. I know that one day – a long time from now – I’ll do the same for my kids!

The Wonder Years

Toya…

I know every mother feels like this, but I truly feel like my daughter was the sweetest baby ever. She was so pretty, full of energy, and always smiling. When she was first born, I thought she looked a lot like my mom. Everybody fought me on that. They said she looked a lot like her dad. I was ok with that. I was just so happy that she was here and she was a healthy baby. From day one she was full of personality. She was always walking around the house singing and performing for anyone who came by. She was just under two years old when she started walking up to the TV trying to sing along with music videos, especially her dad’s. She would make little noises to imitate the sounds he made. It was so cute!

People would always tell me how much of a good baby she was. She’d stay with my family without a problem and pretty much slept through the night. Everyone would say, “Just wait until she hits those terrible two’s. It’s gonna be really bad for you.” The truth is, I never really experienced that. She continued to be a great child throughout her entire childhood. Skip to 10 years later nobody told me about the ‘terrible teens’. Now those were a whole other story.

It’s an unexplainable feeling the moment you first take notice to your daughter’s body beginning to transition from a child to a young woman. It’s not always really obvious, but it’s like you start to see her filling out her shirts a bit more or her jeans might hug her a little bit tighter in places they didn’t before. Then all at once it hits you like a ton of bricks…your daughter is really becoming a woman!

From the first time I could see Reginae’s body starting to develop, it was difficult for me because I really wasn’t ready for her to deal with all of the things that came along with it. I knew it was important that I began to have different conversations with her, conversations I wasn’t ready to have at that point. I knew

how important it was for me to educate her on the changes that were happening and why they were happening because it would be knowledge she needed when making those crucial important decisions over the next few years.

Being a parent at an early age has always been something that stuck with me. While I realize that I have been very fortunate, I will never downplay how difficult it is to raise a child when you are only a child yourself. I never wanted that for her. So I made the decision many years ago that when my daughter became of age where she could get pregnant, the possibility of becoming a teen parent was something that I would educate her on so she wouldn’t go down the same path I did.

Even if your child is the greatest kid in the world, you being that age and you know what the little boys wanted. I know some of the things that I was doing at her age made me very strict on her when she hit that age. She used to tell me, “Mom, I’m not you. I’m not going to do anything like that.” Hearing those words wasn’t enough. I was gonna do everything in my power to drill into her mind that this was serious and it could happen a lot easier than she thought.

I don’t think it really hit all the way home for both of us until she got her cycle for the first time. It was a weekday and she was at school; I was at a studio doing a photo shoot when the phone rang. It was the school nurse and immediately I begin to panic. I didn’t know if she was hurt or sick and needed to be picked up right away. The nurse could hear the panic in my voice; she began to reassure me that it was nothing like that. It actually turned out to be something much worse in my book. When the words came out of her mouth, I don’t think I processed them right away. I repeated, “Reginae got her period?” She replied, “Yes,” and I immediately started to cry.

I knew I couldn’t speak to Reginae in that state so I pulled it together and I asked the nurse to put her on the phone. When she got on the phone, the first thing out of her mouth was, “Mommy are you crying?” I itted I was and she asked,

“What are you crying for?” I busted out laughing and I said, “Because you’re growing up. My baby is not a baby anymore.” She laughed, “I know.”

She told me the nurse had given her something to take care of it for the day and that she was ok. I asked if she wanted me to come get her and she said she would see me when she got home. I hung up the phone and began to cry again, LOL! I cried a little while longer, then I had to pull myself together to finish the shoot. When we wrapped up the shoot an hour later, I jumped right in my car headed to Walmart to get her a few items. I had a list of things I wanted to pick up to make her a little care package for when this time came the next month.

I knew what things would come in handy and I wanted her to be equipped with the right items so she would be as comfortable as she could be the next time. I got her all of the essentials: baby wipes, pads, a change of underwear, and a nice cute little pouch to put everything inside. It was very important for me to do that for her because when I was that age I knew how important it was to make sure you had everything you needed during that time of the month. I didn’t want her to have any accidents at school and end up getting embarrassed.

I ed when I was her age, I had an accident at school. On my way to the restroom to clean myself up, my pad fell out of my hand. Everyone knew exactly what was going on in my pants. The boys teased me the whole day and I was mortified! I wanted to go home. They made fun of me for days after that!

I didn’t want my daughter to experience that type of embarrassment at school. Even though having a cycle is a part of becoming a young woman, and all of us have to experience it at some point in our lives, I just wanted her to be prepared.

She was only 10 years old. I really thought I had more time before this happened. This was only the first in the series of events that would take place

over the next few years.

She was already going through a physical change and had to deal with her peers calling her fat. I used to hate that because she was only a kid. I didn’t want them to mess with her self-esteem. It was my job to constantly remind her how beautiful she was.

Puberty wreaks all types the hell on your body and it gives young teens a whole new set of problems to deal with on top of a list of things to keep track of on a monthly basis. During the change you get acne, your voice matures from sounding like a little kid’s voice to a woman’s voice, and worst of all, you start to grow hair in places you didn’t have it before. Shaving was something that I didn’t really want to get into. I knew I had to because unlike having a cycle, it wasn’t something that was only addressed once a month. Depending on the individual, it can be something that needs to be done weekly or daily.

I always stressed the importance of the hygiene the body needs. One of my personal biggies is seeing a young lady who has hair under her arms or on her legs. When my daughter began to wear dresses, I took the time to show her how to shave her legs so that she wouldn’t hurt herself. There are rules and techniques you must apply in order not to hurt yourself while also avoiding ingrown hairs and irritation. I also found these tutorials to be a great bonding tool for us. It was like I was welcoming her into womanhood by her practicing something that is really only needed as an adult.

All of the changes that happen during puberty were especially sensitive for me because many of them I found out about from my peers. There was no care package for me. No one ever took me in the bathroom and showed me how to shave. Hell, I didn’t even learn about waxing until I was in my 20’s. I never wanted Reginae to seek out anyone else to teach her about these things because there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Anyone who knows me, knows I can have a bit of a potty mouth. When me and my friends get together, everything is bitch this, bitch that. But you gotta understand where I come from, that word doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in most other places. It is used a lot more casually, so that’s always how I was accustomed to talking. With this in mind, I made a conscious effort not to talk like that in front of my daughter. However, over the years, I definitely have had my moments when I didn’t do the best job at that.

None of those moments were more apparent than the day I came downstairs and caught Reginae cursing with one of her friends. I could not believe that my 12year-old baby girl was talking like an adult using every four letter word in the book. I just stood there and listened as she verbally assaulted this little girl. I could not believe what I was hearing. After about a minute, I couldn’t hold myself anymore. I busted in the room and asked her to repeat herself. She was startled by my sudden entrance; her face turned as red as a strawberry. I could tell she was very embarrassed. At that moment, I reminded her that she was only a child. I told her friend to go upstairs and call her mom to come pick her up, then told Reginae she was to stay in her room and she was on punishment.

Shortly after her friend left, I returned to her room to have a talk with her about her language. I told her that I was very disappointed in her and I asked where she had heard those words in the past. She couldn’t even look me in my eyes and she kept shrugging her shoulders as to say she didn’t know. Finally, I asked her had she ever heard me talk like that and she slowly shook her head ‘yes’.

Even though we both knew that she was wrong for using that type of language, I honestly didn’t want to punish her. Instead, I thought it would be more of a teachable moment if we had a conversation about the language she used. This would be the first of many conversations on etiquette that we would have over the next few years about how a young lady is to carry herself in public and in private alike. Every time I saw behavior I didn’t like, I would use it as an opportunity to school her in the ways of a proper young lady. It was important

for her to know that she had to watch her language and to generally watch the way she carried herself because people would judge her based on how she presented herself to the world.

From the time she was a child, I stayed on top of her about her manners, saying things like, ‘please,’ and ‘thank you,’ and of course addressing and respecting elders. Whenever the question of my daughter’s respect for elders comes up in relation to social media, it’s always a tough issue for me. On one hand, she was raised to respect her elders, but on the other hand, this only comes up when she feels like those elders are not showing the same respect to her or her loved ones.

I didn’t condone disrespectful actions in the past. Now that she is a young adult, I feel like she is smart enough to deal with those instances appropriately. Above all, she knows that in this world you have to give respect to get respect.

As a pre-teen transitioning into a young lady, this very impressionable time has so many outside forces vying your child’s attention. None are more addictive or dangerous than social media. Social media runs the world, it’s no secret. I am so glad that when I was coming up, it did not exist. I, myself, may be part of the blame. I have collectively over 5 million followers across Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook. I have young girls who look at me each day and they think that my life is so great. They look at my daughter and think that her life is so great also. Yes, we are blessed with a lot of material things. But, one thing about it, I’ve always tried to stress to Reginae that these things are just…things. They don’t make you better than anyone and at the end of the day you can’t take any of it with you when you die.

Now, I realize that for me, making that statement is easy because after all, I do have the material things and I do enjoy being able to provide them for my daughter. My problem with social media is the fact that most social media influencers in a position of power and influence only tell the good parts of their story out loud when I feel the other chapters are just as important. For every

Instafamous girl, there are 100 girls out here doing things that she’s not proud of to maintain a lifestyle she sees being posted about. The younger girls who are coming up don’t see that side of it. They just think everything is all trips, bags, and lobster.

I feel like it’s very important for mothers to have serious conversations with their daughters concerning social media. Social media is not reality. It’s great to look at to use as motivation to drive you to work harder on achieving your goals, but it’s also equally important that you understand what it takes to achieve those things and understand that a lot of times you are chasing something that’s not real. Young teenage girls look at the different, expensive things they see and want them. So it’s very important for them to fully understand everything that goes into obtaining these things.

No, everyone is not a size 2, and it is important to love yourself and embrace the body that you were blessed with. A couple of years back, I thought I needed to change my body in order to feel better about myself. In my 20’s, I decided to have plastic surgery. Now looking back, I actually regret getting my surgery. That just goes to show you that as women we are never satisfied with what we have. It’s important for these young girls to understand the importance of embracing what God has blessed them with rather than look to social media or their peers to find out what beauty is. We are each different and beautiful in our own unique way.

The adolescent years that lead a young lady into adulthood are some of the most important of her entire life. This is the first time that she is faced with making so many decisions while having to consider a lot of new factors. During this same period, she also may feel more alone and self-conscious because of all the elements she has to deal with. It’s very important that in this time, we as mothers are right there to help guide and navigate our daughters through troubled water. As adults, we have already been through this, having gained the perspective that they need in order to figure out what they should be doing.

This period is often times frustrating as a parent because they’re not always going to listen to us or believe what we are telling them is true. still, it is important for us to be patient and make ourselves available for them to get the information they need. Even though they may not pick up the lessons as fast as we would like them to, it’s crucial that we also allow them to fall so that they may learn some of these lessons on their own. After all, experience is the best teacher. We all have to learn from our own experiences. No one wants to see their daughter fall or get hurt; yet, I had to learn that it’s all a part of life.

It hurts to see our kids doing the opposite of what we taught them, but sometimes that’s the way it is.

What About Your Friends

Toya…

I grew up in New Orleans in the late 80’s, early 90’s. One thing I was never in short supply of was friends. I pretty much always got along with everyone, so I made friends pretty easily in school and around my neighborhood. I was one of those girls who was cool with the boys and the girls pretty much the same. One thing I can say for certain, if you were my friend, I had your back no matter what.

Over 20 years later, I’m proud to say I still have a lot of my day ones in my life. We might not talk as much as we used to, but they are still there for me when I need a shoulder to cry on or just some friendly advice and it’s definitely vice versa. It’s very hard to find someone who will be there with you when the chips are down and I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes when it comes to trusting people and making friends. Unfortunately, some of the people who were around when I was growing up are no longer in my life. I can’t lie, some of the circumstances that removed them from my life weren’t all their fault. But overall, I can say I have been a great friend to those who have been in my life and for those who have needed me.

I my aunts would say to me, “Don’t trust that girl,” or “That’s not your friend.” I wouldn’t care or listen to what they had to say, continuing to hang out and share my secrets with them. In my mind I was thinking, They don’t know my friend. They don’t know our relationship and what it is built upon. So I’d continue right on doing what they told me not to: trusting, sharing, and letting people in deeper than they should’ve been let in. In time, sure enough, I saw that some of those people didn’t really care for me as much as I thought they did.

I had to learn the hard lesson that sometimes people who are older just have a

way of knowing certain things! They’ve been around long enough to have seen this scenario play out in different ways over and over again. With the different lessons I like to think I’ve learned, I’m not as trusting when it comes to selecting friends today. This is something I’ve also tried to teach my daughter. outside of her being a celebrity kid, she’s just someone with a genuinely good heart who can easily be taken advantage of if she lets the wrong people close to her. Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of good-hearted, genuine people in this world. Unfortunately, there are also people who have ulterior motives, befriending you just to take advantage of you.

Over the years, I’ve learned that having ulterior motives doesn’t necessarily make people bad, this is just in certain people’s nature. Being exposed to these types of people is something that I have been trying to prepare my daughter for since she was a child. I don’t want her to learn the hard way, because growing up the way she has been blessed to makes the stakes much higher and the risk will always be there.

When I met Wayne, he was just a local rapper trying to make it big like everyone else. He didn’t have the huge entourage, the big cars, or a mansion. It was just me and him walking down the street in Bunker Hill doing normal stuff teens do. At the time, I was on the school dance team. Me and a couple of the girls on the team actually became very close. One of the girls in particular, I called my best friend at the time. We would stay on the phone for hours and hang out on the weekends. Eventually, I did the one thing that every older woman in your life tells you not to do…brought her around my boyfriend!

At first everything was cool, she’d come hang out with us and everything was normal. In fact, Wayne was trying to hook her up with one of his people. I thought it was kind of cool that we could really all hang out together. Soon, the two of them started to develop their own friendship. At the time, I really didn’t have a problem with it. They even called each other sister and brother. Since they weren’t doing anything behind my back, I was cool with it. My issue began when I started to hear rumblings that she was trying hook him up with some of

her friends. I was so hurt because I thought she was a real friend who I could trust with my secrets. Instead, she turned out to be someone who was an opportunist with an ulterior motive.

That situation was the beginning of the learning process for me that would take well over 10 years for me to perfect. Hell, I still may not have it all the way down, but now my antennas are always up for those in my life who do not seem to have a genuine purpose. Being an adult is a bit different because you have your set friends. These friends have experienced trials with you and are tried and true. However as a teenager, when you meet someone new, they all seem to have good intentions, so it’s a bit tougher.

By the time my daughter arrived a few years later, I was more experienced in this area and I knew this would be an issue that could affect her. Being the child of a celebrity, you are blessed with different things, sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s status. What most don’t understand is that it also comes with a unique set of problems and obstacles you have to learn to navigate. Your life is far from perfect. Yeah you may have some material things and access to a world that most could only dream of, but there is also a whole group of people who dislike you and want to see you fail simply because of your lineage. I worried about this a lot with Reginae because at an early age I found out that she was a very giving person with a big heart.

Reginae’s father and I gave her an allowance. It was never really much, but just enough to get little things here and there. One day, I got a call from the school letting me know that she was taking her allowance and paying for the other kids’ lunches. I wasn’t sure if she was being bullied to do it or not. After doing some investigating, I found out that she was just doing it for her friends because she wanted to. I thought that was sweet; but, it also let me know that I had to talk to her about being so giving. Not long after that, I got another call from the school saying Reginae had taken money given to her by her father, unbeknownst to me, and tried to donate it to the school’s fund for the playground they were looking to build. This time I knew I had to sit her down and have a real heart-to-heart

with her about giving and making sure she understood the concept along with her responsibilities as someone blessed with more and being taken advantage of by those who know she has a giving heart. She assured me that she was only giving because she wanted to and she understood what she was doing, so I had no problem with it.

As she grew up, I always kept a close eye on the friends she brought around. I was usually able to tell who was around for her and who was around for the ride. Every time I imparted my opinion on her, I would be met with an argument about how her friends, “Aren’t like that,” and how I can’t pick her friends. As much as it pained me, I knew this was a lesson she could only learn by experience. Luckily, her first such lesson would come not too much later.

My daughter’s ninth grade year in high school, she met this girl by the name of Amy. Amy was such a fun person to hang out with and they clicked pretty quickly after meeting. Her parents owned a dental office in Atlanta and all of the Atlanta celebs went there because Amy’s father was one of the top dentists in ATL. She was a Caucasian girl, but all of her friends were black. She would come over our house and stay the week for school; she travelled with us on family vacations, too. I even enjoyed Amy’s company; she was always full of energy and knew every new song that came out. She’d walk through the door singing and dancing all the time. over a very short period of time, I watched her and Reginae get closer and closer. This led to me even getting cool with her mother. We’d go out for drinks sometimes when the girls hung out.

As a parent, you know how we always get a certain vibe from people our kids bring around? The scary thing is, I didn’t get that vibe from Amy, she seemed to be 100. She wasn’t a ‘yes girl,’ she was one of those people who wasn’t afraid to speak their mind. If she agreed with something, she went with the flow; if she didn’t, she would let you know. That’s what I liked about her. I hate when Reginae brings friends home and they are just cool with whatever my daughter wants, instead of going by what they want to do. To me, that is a tell-tale sign that they are just along for the ride. An important part of being a friend is having

the ability to tell someone when they are wrong or when you disagree with something.

My daughter started introducing Amy to all of her friends who didn’t go to school with them, including her old boyfriends. One of her old boyfriends also had a famous parent and coincidentally, when they were introduced, they became really cool. Amy and Reginae’s old flame talked and hung out without Reginae knowing anything about it. Then people started coming back to tell her that they saw her ex and good friend together.

When I caught wind of what was going on, it immediately threw up a red flag because of my past experience just like this. Amy denied any of it every time Reginae asked her about it, so Reginae thought that people were just saying it to be messy to ruin their friendship. This happened a few times and she didn’t pay it any mind. It wasn’t until one day she was on Snapchat and saw the boy post a video of Amy riding in the car with him. Reginae called her immediately after watching his snap and she didn’t pick up. At this point, she was pissed. She came into my bedroom telling me that Amy was with her ex. She said she wasn’t mad that they were together; she was upset that Amy lied to her and really had been sneaking and hanging out with him behind her back the whole time.

Reginae tried calling her back about an hour later and she still didn’t answer the phone. It was days later before they finally spoke. Reginae told Amy how she felt about being lied to and knowing that Amy was hanging out with her ex. Reginae also reminded her that she broke Girl Code 101: You don’t mess with your friend’s ex behind her back…If you are feeling him, let her know.

She was really hurt behind the Amy situation and she could no longer trust her. Reginae cut her off, and learned her first lesson about how you have to be careful about bringing the wrong women around your man. After she told Amy that she was fake and to lose her number, in true high school fashion, Amy started talking about Reginae on social media, being petty, and causing the

typical teenage girl drama. I told Reginae not to entertain it. I gave her a quote that over the years has saved me from a lot of stress and second guessing myself, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

In the aftermath of the situation, I can’t lie…I was a little happy that it happened, how and when it happened. It was a lesson that she needed to learn at some point. Thank God in this case it wasn’t something too drastic that really tore her apart. It did, however, give her the chance to see that everyone who she calls friend is not truly her real friend.

Today, we still bicker back-and-forth about some of the people who she allows in her circle. I try to also drive home the point that while you may have friends who love you and who are genuine, you still have to be careful about how you move with them because the issues in their lives can bleed over into yours causing you to have issues.

Take the Clark Atlanta University situation for example. There was an incident where Reginae’s friend was being targeted, but when the media got a hold of it, the headlines read, “Reginae Carter gets into a fight.” That particular girl is someone who has been in Reginae’s life for a long time and who is a good friend of hers, but at the same time Reginae also knows that she is not someone who is going to back down from a confrontation and will always defend herself. Unfortunately, that’s not always the best course of action. This is something that most times you can only learn with age and experience.

No matter what, we all need friends and no friend is ever going to be perfect. We just want to make sure that our children are making the best choices they can. It’s important to surround yourself with friends who are going to nurture you and build you up along your journey of becoming the best person you can be. You aren’t going to always like the company your children keep, but I feel like it’s more important that they learn lessons from those situations early enough in life that they can better recognize a true friend, as well as the value they add to your

life just by being in it. If they don’t pay attention and learn these traits, they can carry on detrimental friendships and relationships for years and it will be a burden to their life. Sadly, this is one of those areas where experience is the best teacher. I’ve learned to give my two cents, then step back and let life happen. With age and experience, hopefully they will begin to make better choices and learn how to avoid those potentially toxic friendships.

Regínae…

This is a tough one for me because I really treat my friends like family and I expect to receive the same in return. Even though I have had some bad experiences in the past, I’m not ready to write everyone off as a bad person. Everything that has happened up to this point has kind of made me numb to making new friends. Some people might think I’m this way because of my upbringing or the material things I have been blessed with. To fully understand me, you first must understand how many times I have been betrayed by the people closest to me.

My mom and I don’t see eye-to-eye on most of my friends. I know it’s because she’s experienced betrayal from her friends over the years. What I want her to understand most is that I know everyone isn’t here for the right reasons; I am selective of the people I let in my life. A few of the people my mother warned me about turned out to be exactly what she told me they were. At the same token, some of the people she really liked turned out not to be so great either. I’m happy with the people I call my friends. We fight, get mad at each other, and may not talk every day, but I’m there for them when they need me and they are there for me.

I Hate You So Much Right Now

Toya…

Every mother and daughter enters a phase where they start not to get along as much as they used to. It’s like you tell them something and they feel like they just have to have the last word. Often times this begins to occur right around puberty. They start ‘smelling themselves’ as my grandmother used to put it. I don’t know if it’s because their bodies are changing or the attention they’re starting to get from boys, but as females we just begin to have a little more sass and be a little bit more free with our tongues when it comes to authority figures.

You ever look up one day and wonder, What the hell happened to my child? Like where did the sweet little girl go? One day they’re playing dress-up with your clothes walking around in your heels that are too big for them; the next day, taking shit out of your closet without even asking you and you get lucky if you ever see it again! You ever ask your daughter the simplest thing and she buck up? Before you know it, you’re calling your friends to calm you down before you go to jail for putting your hands on that little girl. You can’t even have a conversation with them without them turning up or having a little twang in their voice. You’re wondering, What the hell did I do to her to deserve this? Well ladies, if you experience this, you have reached those preteen years that we were on the other side of just a few years ago. But honestly, were we really this bad?

I can’t lie, I was a bit of a handful for my aunts to handle at 13. You weren’t going talk to me any kind of way. I had to have the last word, and if I sensed the slightest bit of disrespect, you were getting it thrown right back at you 10 times harder. I was never a troublemaker in school; but if I was having a conversation with my friends and the teacher interjected, I let her know quick not to talk to me in that way, LOL. That led to me getting kicked out of class on more than one occasion. I can’t front, I had a terrible mouth! I just had to have the last word. At home, it was no different. If my aunt asked me to do a chore and I didn’t feel it was my turn, I spoke up on it or just plain would not do it.

To me, I wasn’t doing anything wrong and honestly I never did anything just for the sake of being difficult. I actually felt like my opinions weren’t being heard; yet, some of my points were valid. For example, this one time in school I was sitting in class minding my own business. It was the start of homeroom, so everyone was talking while we were hanging out before class started. I felt like the teacher singled me out by telling me to move my seat because I was talking. Now, in this situation, I was just responding to a question I was asked. I tried to explain this to her, but she wasn’t hearing it. I felt like I was being picked on, so I refused to move my seat and as a result I was kicked out of class and subsequently suspended for insubordination.

When I got home that afternoon, my aunt was not trying to hear my side of the story. In her eyes, the bottom line was that I got suspended for running my mouth and being disrespectful and I had to be punished. She decided to put me on punishment for the weekend and not allow me to go to this party I had been planning on going to all week. I was so upset because I really didn’t feel like I had done anything to deserve getting in trouble in the first place. Now I had to miss the party. I said, “Forget this, I’m going to this party anyway!” I waited until she went in her room for the night, grabbed some clothes and snuck over my friend’s house. It wasn’t until the next morning that she realized I wasn’t in my room.

Those were the days before every teenager had their own phone, so she had to call around to get the numbers for all of my friends. About 1 o’clock that afternoon, my friend’s mom told me that my aunt had called looking for me, and she wanted me home right away. I didn’t really care what she had to say because I didn’t feel like I was wrong. Looking back at the situation as an adult, it wasn’t cool for me to just do what I wanted. I was all the way out of pocket for handling it that way. I’m sure it scared her because she didn’t know where I had been all night. Looking back as a mother in a more mature place, I don’t know what I would do if my daughter did something like that. One thing I was raised to do was never disrespect my elders. In that case, I out right defied her and went somewhere I was told not to go.

The early years with Nae were so easy. She was such a good child. She didn’t give me any problems and she was very, very sweet. Going into her teen years, she started not wanting to be around me as much. I still didn’t have much cause for concern because she was still very respectful and didn’t give me any real problems. I had no idea what was in store for me after her 13th birthday.

The distance gap between us started to widen fast and she didn’t want to hang around me as much. When we were at home, she was in her room with the door closed, opposed to us spending time together in the living room or my bedroom. That was the first thing I noticed. The next thing I noticed was that mouth! Everything I said, she had a response or an answer for…and she had to have the last word every time. The next thing I noticed that really caught me off guard was she began to look at me like I was old, as if I hadn’t been her age just 15 years earlier. She would say things like, “That’s how you old people did things,” and, “That’s how you used to do it, we don’t do it like that anymore.”

Once, when I asked Reginae to do some chores around the house, she was sitting in the living room watching TV on her laptop and talking on her phone. I told her I was about to go to the store, but before I got back, I wanted her to wash the dishes, feed her dog, and clean the kitchen. The entire time I was telling her what to do, she was steady on the phone almost like I was interrupting her or something. I told her, “See what happens if I come back and everything is not done.” She said, “Ok,” and went right back to doing what she was doing on that damn phone.

About an hour later, I was headed back to the house with a trunk full of groceries. When I was about five minutes away, I called her phone to tell her to meet me in the garage to help me with the groceries…no answer. She must’ve heard the door go up when I pulled in because when I walked in the kitchen, she was at the sink washing dishes. The dog wasn’t fed and the kitchen was still a mess. In fact, you could tell she had just started on the dishes because there was nothing in the rack. I was livid! I told her to get her ass off that phone and she

quickly told her friend she would call her back.

Before I could even get a sentence out of my mouth her phone was ringing again! I told her to give me the damn phone and she asked, “For what?” I said, “I’m not going to ask again,” and I started towards her. She started to laugh and she gave me the phone, but not before saying her favorite line, “I didn’t do anything.” She sure didn’t do anything…she didn’t do anything I asked her to do. After she finished the dishes, she came over to me and asked for her phone, I told her she wasn’t getting the phone back. She said, “You can’t just take my phone like that.” Who did this child think she was? I said, “You didn’t buy this phone, you don’t pay the bill on this phone, I can do whatever I want with this phone.” She mumbled something under her breath and stomped up the stairs to her room.

I was right behind her ass. I asked, “What did you say under your breath?” “I can’t wait to get out of this house,” she responded. I told her, “Baby, you don’t have to wait another day. Where you wanna go?” She had me so upset. I didn’t ask her to do much around the house, so when she didn’t do the small things I asked, it really got under my skin. For the next few days, she came to me daily with a new excuse of why she needed her phone back. “Something could happen to me, I need it for school. How will I keep in touch with you?” I didn’t care, she was going to learn this lesson the hard way.

It wasn’t quite a week before I gave her the phone back. I decided it was time because she finally came to me in a mature and honest way. She itted to being lazy on that day and not taking care of her responsibility. I knew that part of her coming to me was just to get her phone back, but at the same time I could see that she was better understanding what put us in that situation. It would be a few months before we had another blowout like that. For a while I didn’t have to ask twice for things to get done around the house, she was even proactive in keeping her room clean and taking care of her dog. For me, that was a big victory.

It was crazy for me to have to deal with my daughter acting the same way that I used to act when I was her age. After our big fights, I’d laugh sometimes because all of the older people in my life warned me about these days. They would say, “Just wait ’til that girl gets older. Everything you did to us, she gon’ do right back to you.” They were 100% right. My daughter was everything I was at that age and more. My mouth, my attitude, and even the way I wouldn’t move until I was ready to move…I got it all back. I always figured when the time came, I would just pop her and she would do what I said. Only, it’s not that simple. These days, it hurts more taking the things away that they love the most.

I now understand better that the daddy’s little girl and mama’s boys are really a thing. Fathers treat their daughters differently during this time and they seem to get along a lot better. I don’t have a son, but I would assume that we probably wouldn’t have the same issues that I have had with my daughter. In those formative years, there’s just something between with mothers and daughters that causes them to go at each other’s neck. I don’t know if it’s us trying to protect them from everything that we know is out there or if it’s something else, but I’ve seen the same fights happen between almost every mother-daughter pair I know.

Today, Reginae and I are still very close, but we still have blowouts every now and then. To be honest, we probably will always have them because we each have such strong personalities. Neither of us wants to back down when we feel strongly about something. That’s an aspect of our relationship that I’ll never like. The love we have for each other will always remain the same and her respect for me will always be that of a daughter and mother.

Regínae…

I sometimes call my mom ‘mother dearest’ because she’s always nagging about the smallest things. She used to come in my room and tell me to clean up and it wouldn’t even be messy. I’d just sit and think, Hmmm, I have the top floor and

she never has to ever see my room; but she still makes it her job to check my room.

Growing up I’ve always had a flip mouth, but I knew when to shut up when it came to my mom. As I’ve grown, my mouth has definitely gotten better and I also went to Christian school my whole life. There I learned you shorten your days by disrespecting your parents. I don’t try to get flip or by any means, disrespect her, but sometimes she JUST DON’T GET IT, LOL! I started communicating my feelings in a responsible and respectful manner to get that in return. That’s really the key to all relationships.

We will disagree at times. I believe as we grow older, parents don’t understand that we have our own minds and we have to start using them at some point. However, with their guidance and , we’ll be fine. With every argument we’ve had, I’ve learned at least one thing and walked away from the conversation knowing what I did wrong and thinking about how I could fix it. That’s the glory of a having a mother. I thank God everyday ‘cause some people have never met their mom.

I love my mom and with every lesson I’ve learned from her, it’s molded me to be the person I am today and who I will become.

Puppy Luv

Toya…

your first crush? It might’ve been someone you went to school with, you may’ve met them in church or they may have even lived in your neighborhood. having to make sure your outfit and hair was just right every day just in case you saw them? How did you feel when you got the news that they liked you back? Think about those butterflies you got when they spoke to you.

I don’t know how it was where you grew up, but back in New Orleans on Saturday nights ‘The Dance Party’ was like the best place to see the cute boys from all of the schools around the city. We lived for that each week. It was five dollars to get in and it went from 7 p.m. to midnight. The cool kids started rolling in about 9 p.m. and the DJ didn’t start playing the best music until the last two hours. When the slow jams came on, you could tell who liked who because the boys would be grinding all on the girls, LOL.

Back then it was all about getting a girl’s beeper number. Boys would have their ink pens and paper all ready to go! I got in trouble almost every week because I wanted to be one of the last people out of the party. For me this was the only time I got a chance to see the boy I was dating at the time, so I didn’t care. This one time, me and my friends even lied and told my aunt we had a ride home when we didn’t. We ended up having to walk like three miles just to get home. Not to mention we had to take a route that took us underneath a bridge and down a dangerous service road.

When we got home, my aunt busted us and we ended up getting punished. We couldn’t go back to the dance party for a few weeks. I was sick because the little boy I was dating at the time was very popular. I knew if it wasn’t me, it would be another girl there dancing with him. oh, the things we did for love, LoL, or

should I say, puppy luv.

Dating for my daughter was something I took very seriously and dreaded for a very long time. We were raised very differently, where I grew up and how I grew up forced me to be a lot more street smart and savvy. I knew my daughter may not have that knowledge because she was raised very differently. I didn’t want any of these little boys to be able to get in her head and play her.

When she first came to me in the seventh grade talking about she liked a boy, I told her, “Girl, go sit down somewhere!” I wasn’t trying to hear it at all. I just wasn’t ready. I’m sure she probably continued to communicate with him behind my back, but there was no way at 12-years-old I was going to condone her calling someone her boyfriend.

My daughter got her first cell phone at 8-years-old. We really decided to give it to her so she could keep in with her dad. When she traveled to see him, I would be able to call and speak with her. This was before iPhones, so what she could do was very limited; just calling and texting.

It had to be the start of her freshman year in high school when the boyfriend issue came up again. This time, she didn’t come to me directly. I just started to notice that she would always take her phone in her room when she wanted to talk. If she was on her phone when I entered her room she would hurry up and get off. Now, I never wanted my daughter to feel like she couldn’t talk to me about anything, so I knew that I had to change my stance on her having these types of feelings when it came to boys. She was about to be 14 and it was something that I knew I couldn’t hold off on much longer, especially since I became pregnant with her at 15.

Our first conversations about her dating were pretty simple. I asked her was

there anyone she was crushing on or talking to. At first, I could tell she was apprehensive to open up; but once I reassured her that it was OK and I shared some of my experiences with her dad at that age, she began to open up and get more comfortable. She began to tell me about this boy who she called her boyfriend named J. She said they had met two years earlier through friends, but they never had met in person, they would just talk on the phone and video chat on Skype. It wasn’t until about six months after I found out about him that they actually met up for their first real date at the movies.

I went back and forth about her dating. Ultimately, I decided to let her because I knew from experience that it was going to happen behind my back or out in the open. I never wanted her to sneak around.

Before their date, I think I was more nervous than she was. I wanted to make sure that she was safe, so her friends had to go as well. I gave her money to pay for her ticket and snacks. Later, she told me that J paid for her ticket; he even bought her some popcorn and a drink. They ended up dating off and on for the next two years. It was during that time she met the boy who would become, in my opinion, her first real boyfriend.

When she began to date this boy, I knew that it was time we had a real conversation about dating…what she should expect, how she should be treated, and even sex. one of the good things about being a younger parent was that it wasn’t too long ago I was experiencing the same emotions and feelings. I the strong infatuation that felt like love when I met my first little boyfriend. You couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t in love and that we wouldn’t be together forever. When I dated Reginae’s father, my aunts used to tell me, “That boy ain’t gonna be with you.” I would tell them, “I can’t wait to prove y’all wrong!”

I wanted Reginae to have realistic expectations about boys. They were young, so they were going to be immature, they were going to like other girls, and you

never knew what they were going to do next because they were unpredictable and still learning themselves.

When it was time to have that big talk about the birds and the bees, I did not want to have it! I really had it in my head that she wasn’t going to have sex anytime soon so there was no need for it. This particular boy used to come over our house and just hang out, watch TV, have dinner, and stuff like that. I looking at them on the couch one day and really coming to grips with thinking that they may be at that point in the relationship. I knew the talk couldn’t wait any longer. I told her the same stuff that all of our parents told us, use protection and talk to me before you do it. I also put an extra twist on it. I made up all of these horror stories about people I knew who had gotten sexually transmitted diseases in high school to scare her, LOL. In retrospect, I was totally wrong for doing that to her. At the time, I was scared that she may get pregnant, or worse, get an STD that she couldn’t get rid of.

When it was time to put Reginae on birth control, it was also a decision that I really wrestled with. I felt like by putting her on it I was kinda giving her permission to have sex and making it easier for her to not use protection if she did have sex. On the other hand, if I didn’t put her on it for that reason, I would be no different than those old school parents who chose to ignore the obvious things in front of them all for the sake of doing things how the generation before them had done it.

At the end of the day, I know you can’t stop someone from having sex if they want to. Since I pride myself on being progressive when it comes to parenting, I decided to put her on birth control. However, I planned to reinforce it with lots of knowledge and communication. That way, she’d know the risks of unprotected sex while still having a safety net for pregnancy.

That relationship as a whole was the typical high school relationship between a popular girl and a star athlete. only with these two, you had the element of social

media in there which made things that much more difficult. Girls would slide in her DM’s and tell her different things about him which really upset her. She still wasn’t trying to hear what I tried to tell her. Although this particular boy was a gentleman and a nice guy, I did think he was a little too fast for her. As a parent, I think we all may feel this way at some point with the boys our daughters choose.

I think the thing that unnerved me the most about their relationship was I felt like Reginae was starting to lose herself in it. They broke up a lot, too. I found her not wanting to be with her friends as much. I found her neglecting things in her life like wanting to be up under this boy all of the time. With him being an athlete, that was his full-time job. When he wasn’t at practice, he was training; that was clearly his priority. I had to remind her that while he was chasing his dreams, going to practice, and staying in his books, she was neglecting hers. Her dreams were falling by the wayside.

Everything was totally about him! If he wasn’t going to be there; she didn’t want to go. After a while that behavior really started to piss me off. We fought about it. I would remind her of the things I went through with her father and dating over the years. Her reply was always, “He’s not like that,” and, “That’s not going to happen with us.” The thing that stood out the most is when she told me, “I can’t wait until he proves you wrong.” When she said that, it scared me because I ed saying the same thing about her father a few years earlier to my aunts.

When they graduated high school, they planned to keep the relationship going. She had committed to attending a college here in Atlanta, but he was traveling to the Midwest to play football. It wasn’t long after he left before the wheels came off and they were broken up again. She was really hurt at first about it. I had to tell her that long-distance relationships are really hard, especially at that age. They both were in new places in their lives and experiencing new things; part of that for a young boy is new girls. I was actually a bit surprised how fast she moved on after the relationship and got over it.

Like magic, right after the relationship ended, she began to get back into the things she used to be into such as her acting classes, hanging out with her girls, and we even begin to hang out a lot more during the summer before she started school. I’m not sure what the future of that relationship is, but I do feel like she’s learned important lessons up to this point about dating. I’m a lot more confident and comfortable with her dating going forward.

Mothers, I can’t begin to tell you how to handle this scenario when it comes into play in your own daughter’s life because our daughters are different. Each relationship will have different elements. There are nice boys out here. Unfortunately, there are jerks too and those are the types who can really mess up young teenage girls’ lives before they have a chance to get started. To make matters even more difficult, a lot of young girls go for the bad boys and they are the worst type of guys.

It may sound cliché, but mothers you have to talk to your daughters. Ask them questions and tell them about your experiences in dating, both good and bad. If they don’t find out from you, they’re going to find out from someone else. Even though they might not want to listen to what you have to say, it’s still important that you say it because you never know when it will come in handy. I also think it’s very important to separate your relationships from her relationships. Everything that is happening to you or has happened to you is not necessarily going to happen to her. Don’t taint her expectations just because you haven’t had the best experiences. , dating is trial and error. They are not always going to get it right, so let them enjoy their puppy luv.

Been There, Done That

Toya…

Nothing is new under the sun. It might not have been done exactly how you are doing it, but believe me honey, it’s been done to death! I wasn’t always a mom, so believe me when I say I have pulled a caper or two in my day, LOL. I’ve snuck out, snuck in, skipped school, and almost anything else you can think of as a teenage girl. Sometimes it was for a boy, others it may have been peer pressure. Each time it was a bad decision and I was putting myself at risk for all sorts of bad things to potentially happen to me. That’s the thing, when you’re young, you act and think about the consequences later; usually after you’ve been caught.

When I think about my daughter doing some of the same things, the scariest part is ing that I didn’t always get caught. So there’s no way for me to know everything that she’s getting into. In fact, for every time my aunts busted me, there were probably four or five times I got away with it, (sorry Aunties, LOL). It wasn’t until I started to get sloppy and stopped caring that I began getting caught. By then, it was really too late. I realized the punishment wouldn’t be too bad compared to the fun I had.

When I had Reginae, I knew she would grow up one day and try to do some of the same things I did. I felt like since I had done so much, I would recognize the signs and she wouldn’t be able to get away with any of it. The fact is, by the time that age came, I wasn’t as tuned in as I thought I would be. Don’t get me wrong, I was very present and hands-on. With work, my love life, and life as a whole, it was easier for some things to slip through the cracks. When I realized this, my strategy quickly changed from ‘prevent’ to ‘communicate’. I wanted us to talk about the boys, the girls, and everything in between. As you know, these kids think they are the first and only to do everything.

Back when I was a teenager, my auntie used to stay on me about gossiping. If I was on the phone and she heard me talking about someone, she was quick to butt in and say, “All that gossiping gonna come back to bite you in the ass!” Even if I wasn’t saying anything bad, LOL. She would also tell me over and over about how messy girls could be in hopes that I wouldn’t get caught up in anything. As usual, I thought, Not my friends…and I kept on doing just what she was telling me not to do. And as usual, this would be a lesson that I’d have to learn the hard way.

As a teenager, like most young girls, I had two separate sets of friends: my ‘in school friends’ and my ‘neighborhood friends’. The girls I hung out with at home were made up of girls from the block who I had known since grade school and we were close like family to the point we would tell people that we were cousins, (LOL, you know everybody was your cousin back then). My clique in school was the popular, pretty girls. We used to call ourselves The Cover Girls. All the boys liked us. I think that’s why other girls stayed trying to fight us, LOL. In both crews, I was the quiet girl who was trying to always be the peacemaker. But, don’t get it twisted, that changed as soon as I felt like someone was trying me.

At that time, I would say I had a best-friend in both crews. In the hood, Sheana was my best-friend, and at school, it was Tiffany. As far as I knew, I treated everyone pretty much the same; however, both sides would accuse me of acting funny when I got around the other group. I didn’t think too much of it because it was never anything crazy. Over time, their feelings started to change and I could feel the tension when we’d all hang. It was like they wanted me to make a choice. I really didn’t think that was necessary. In true Toya fashion, I thought I could make them get along. Why did I do that? It was like everything I did added more fuel to the fire with me being stuck right in the middle.

Back in the 90’s, there used to be a big fair at the Superdome. I would usually go every year with my home girls from the neighborhood. This particular year, since so much animosity was going on between my crews, I thought this would

be the perfect opportunity to squash any tension. I decided to invite Tiffany along. We caught the bus down to The Dome and Tiffany was supposed to meet us. When her mom pulled up in that champagne colored, 2-door Lexus, I couldn’t believe my friends’ faces! They were disgusted! They each started hating on the other girl for no reason. I told Sheana to be nice and she looked at me like, ‘Yeah right, smh.’ Tiffany walked up and gave me a hug, when she turned to speak to my other friends, I knew it was going to be a long day.

Once inside, we were walking around, eating, and playing games. We walked by a basketball game where the boys were shooting the ball and I heard somebody call my name. I turned around and saw it was this boy named Rocky who went to school with Tiffany and I. We were pretty cool because I was going with his best friend, Corey; but Corey wasn’t there because he was on punishment. I knew Tiffany had a little crush on Rocky, but I don’t think he liked her back the same way.

We ended up hanging out with him and his friends for a little while. I could see that he was feeling Sheana. Tiffany could see it too, because she started acting like she was ready to go saying she was about to call her mom to come get her. When we got to school on Monday, I saw Rocky in the hallway. The first thing he said to me was, “Hook me up with Sheana.” I didn’t want any parts of it because I knew Tiffany liked him, but Corey kept asking me to, so I ended up putting those two on three-way later that night.

Now for all of my 70’s and 80’s babies; y’all know all about that three-way! Before MySpace, Facebook or any social media we had three-way. Just like social media, it could get very messy if you weren’t careful.

I didn’t think I was doing anything bad by introducing them; clearly I was wrong. To make things worse, Sheana started telling Rocky a lot of Tiffany’s personal business that I’d casually repeated during previous conversations.

When Tiffany found out about me hooking them up, she got mad at me and didn’t talk to me for a few days. When it started getting back that I discussed Tiffany’s business with Sheana, she started telling everybody that I was fake and the other girls in school who we hung out with started to act really funny with me. Next thing you know, some of my business was floating around school. People started to play on my phone, then I heard Tiffany wanted to fight me. All this stemmed from me playing both sides of the fence with two people I thought were my real friends.

With Reginae, I tried the same way my aunt did to keep her out of mess by avoiding gossip. The first time I heard her talking about someone, I quickly intervened with my story. The first thing she threw back at me was how old I was and how nobody does that anymore. I already knew she wasn’t going to listen to what I was telling her, so I fell back and let her learn on her own. About a month later, she came to me talking to me about some girl wanted to fight her over the boy she was dating. She said the girl was all on Twitter talking about her and a mutual friend of theirs was in the middle of it all.

Fortunately, this situation turned out to be a real eye opener for Reginae. Before I could say, “I told you so,” she kinda said it for me. I explained to her that while times had changed, so had the channels of communication. The important thing to was the basis of the problem which was the gossip I told her about way before she did it. I tried to drive home the point that I wasn’t just pulling what I said out of the sky; that situation was something I had been through previously and something that she could have avoided if she would have listened to my story and stayed out of it.

As parents, we don’t always want to tell our children about some of the dirt we did growing up. We don’t want to feel embarrassed, we don’t want them to think that it’s ok for them to try some of the same things and at the end of the day it’s not their business, LOL. But sometimes, those mistakes we made can help them make better choices in order to avoid certain pitfalls. We have made it through

the same obstacle courses that they are encountering, sometimes unscathed and in some cases, we still have the battle scars. Either way, we as parents have the knowledge gained with that experience. It is up to us whether we want to share it.

Equally, mothers we can’t forget that we have made mistakes. At the end of the day, our children may have some of those same traits that we had at their age. Take Reginae for example. She’s a sweet girl, but I know she also has a mouth on her and she will click out in a second. That’s pretty much the same way I was at her age…and kind of still am. I don’t excuse it at all. Her attitude is something I stay on her about because I know it’s a problem for her. As parents, we are quick to jump on our kids and punish them for their personalities. To be real, they get their personalities from us! The way we behaved toward our parents is coming back to get us now.

It’s up to us how we treat each situation and if we take advantage of the opportunity to make them teachable moments. I’m not saying that if your child does something wrong you shouldn’t discipline them and make them experience the consequences for their actions. I feel that you can possibly get more out of sticky situations by opening up and sharing your experiences. Make them relatable so they can have the information they need to make better decisions in the future.

Letting Go

Toya…

Seasons change, grass grows, and flowers bloom. The only thing constant in life will be change. In this case, change takes place over a long period of time. One day your baby is just not a baby anymore. It’s a bittersweet moment when you realize it because while you are happy to see them reach some of their goals and be ready to leave the nest, you also know what awaits them in this crazy world. You want to protect them from it for as long as you can. You have so many questions running through your mind, “Are they ready?”, “Did I teach them right?”, “Will they call me if they need something?”

Unfortunately, as parents we can’t hold them back no matter how much we want to. There comes a time when we have to let them go and trust the job that we have done.

I have literally spent the last two years dreading this day. There were two things in particular that I knew officially signaled the end of my daughter’s childhood and marked the beginning of her being an adult. They were her 18th birthday and the day she graduated from high school. Both of these days were joyous occasions, but both carried a small bit of sadness for me; I knew with each of them my control was being silently relinquished.

From the time Reginae and I began butting heads in her early teens, there has been no phrase uttered more by her than, “I cannot wait to turn 18 and get out of this house!” Every time she said this, it really pissed me off because I felt like it was very disrespectful. It felt like she did not appreciate me, everything I was doing, and have done for her entire life. Most times, the phrase was brought on by me just trying to be a good parent and me getting on her about something that she was slacking on like cleaning her room, doing her schoolwork, or her having company over.

The closer we drew to her 18th birthday, the more frequently I heard this phrase. It almost became like a ive threat as to say, “Once I turn 18, you can’t tell me anything anymore.” Now mothers, we all know that this is a joke at best! As long as you are my child, you had better at least respect my input and show me the respect that a child should show a parent. One thing I always took comfort in was the fact that she had no idea what was waiting on the other side of the door.

When you are a teenager, you think you have life all figured out. You think that you know enough to be on your own and make sound decisions. While that is not totally untrue, there are so many things that you need to learn and know. Those things can only be learned by actually living and going through particular situations. Leaving your parents’ house is one thing, but knowing how to thrive in the real world is a whole other issue. I’m not saying that my daughter is not ready or incapable of doing this; however, I know that it is not as easy as she has it in her head.

May 25th, 2017 was a very emotional and bittersweet day for us. The day had finally arrived for Reginae to graduate from high school. We woke up that morning and we were all super excited! My mother cooked breakfast as we watched Reginae get glammed up for her big day. she had to be at the Georgia World Congress Center at 10:30 a.m. to get lined up with the rest of the grads. As usual, we were rushing.

We sat around and talked to her as she put on her dress and shoes to head out of the door. I could see the excitement in her eyes. She was happy and nervous at the same time. The day that she dreamed of for so long was here and it was her moment. My best-friend had flown in town for the graduation, so she dropped her off at the Congress Center that morning while I was getting dressed to make sure I was on time. I didn’t want to miss anything!

My family, along with her father’s side of the family, came in town for her graduation. It was hell trying to get the few people who stayed with us out of the house so that we would be on time for the graduation. When the family and I arrived at the venue, we were greeted by her father and his friends. We rushed to find our seats before all of the graduates marched in kicking off the ceremony. As Reginae walked in I could tell she was looking for us, but had no idea where we were. We clapped, screamed, and took a few pictures as she walked by. Words couldn’t express how happy I was for my baby girl! I was a proud mama watching my daughter sit on that stage in her cap and gown; something I didn’t get to experience. I just kept looking at her smiling and taking photos to add to my memory book.

When it comes time for your daughter to leave the nest, you have to remind yourself that this is what you have been preparing her for since the day you brought her into this world. Everything from you teaching her how to walk, talk, respect herself, and how to go after what she wants leads to that moment. Looking back on when she lost her first tooth, to when she had her first crush, maybe when she got her first job, or that first real heart-to-heart conversation you had…all of those moments are still in there. Everything you have worked to teach and instill inside of her is still in there.

The final thing you need to do during this time is be there to the decision she makes as far as her next step in life. Whether it was college or entering the workforce; I tried to make it clear to Reginae that she would have my .

When I was my daughter’s age, I had a lot of other factors in my life that not only affected what were to be my high school years, but my first few years of adulthood. College wasn’t really an option for me. I was focused on raising her and figuring out how to myself and my younger brother, Rudy.

I’ve seen a lot of parents try to push their kids into doing things that please them more than the actual child. I’ve seen it with sports and fathers trying to live

through their sons. That was definitely something I didn’t want to do to my daughter and her education. Don’t get me wrong, I was very vocal about the fact that I would like her to seek a higher education. At the end of the day, if she chose to do otherwise, ultimately it was her decision.

Thankfully, she did decide to attend college. But in true Reginae fashion, she wanted to do it her way. After a few tours at a local school she chose to attend in the fall of 2017, she also decided that having her own apartment would suit her best. Initially, I had a lot of concerns because I know how important your first year in school is and I didn’t want her to have that type of distraction. Letting her get an apartment was a part of the give-and-take I was trying to practice when it came to this next stage in her life.

When it came time to move into her new place, it was also the first week of school. As a parent, I made sure to take care of her school expenses like books and tuition; but when it came to the apartment, that was another story. If she would’ve stayed on campus, naturally I would’ve foot the bill for her dorm room, so I didn’t have a problem helping her out with her rent. But I made it clear that anything extra in this apartment, like a big TV, she was responsible for.

The hardest part for me was knowing that I wouldn’t be there to police the situation nor would she be in a dorm where there would be some type of supervision. I made my peace with it and took this as the first test of her independence.

One way I have prepared for my daughter to leave is by taking time to enjoy her and the relationship we have been able to build up to this point. The conversations have changed, the scenarios have changed, and believe it or not my child has given me some great advice. It’s a wonderful feeling to look at the person who you have raised and see those lessons that you have taught coming out of her. I see her making better decisions and applying what she has learned from her past experiences. I couldn’t be more proud. All I have ever wanted her

to do is think critically and pay attention to the world around her.

I write these words as I prepare for my own daughter to leave the nest. I have struggled with these emotions while preparing her to make the transition. Ultimately, I am happy with the job I have done. I know my daughter is not perfect – nobody is. I know what I have attempted to teach and instill in her over these past 18 years.

As the end of this journey drew closer to an end, I decided that I wanted to chronicle it to share with you all. You ladies have daughters who are at various points and stages described in this book. I am here to tell you that I have been there and I can relate to whatever struggle or battle you are currently fighting with your daughter.

We fight like cats and dogs sometimes. The crazy part is, I know I will even miss that when she’s gone. While our circumstances may be different from yours, we were not spared any of life’s trials during the years. The same wars being waged in your home were going on inside of mine. With patience and prayer, you will get through it together and your bond will be that much stronger for it. Good luck and God bless you on your journey!

Regínae…

Since graduation, I’ve started college and I moved out. The transition is actually interesting to me. I see myself growing as a young adult and my mom is the reason for it all. I see now the times she would tell me to clean my room and other things I needed to know in life are really coming in handy.

School has been going great for me and although it can get overwhelming just being who I am, I enjoy the experience. With me being in college and moving to my own place, I was kinda nervous at first because I didn’t think I could take on all that responsibility. But, I prayed and thought about it and realized I could do it! Plus, my parents were great teachers. Me and my mom’s relationship is actually better than ever right now. We talk all the time and I try to go visit her often. Of course, after a couple of hours, I’m ready to go back to my place and she hates when I want to leave. She misses me so much and I miss her too, but I’m having fun just being a college student.

I’m glad I made this decision for my life because it’s getting me ready for the real world at a young age. I don’t want to ever have to rely on anyone even though I always know my parents are 100% ive.

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