Essays in: Motherhood

I have shared 35 years of friendship with the woman sitting across from me. There are tears in her eyes and her voice is trembling. “Did I tell you I found my father, Malaka? I found my dad.” A lifetime of muttered prayers – secret, silly and fervent hopes whispered between little girls navigating a […]

“Mom? Do you have a minute?” Please ask me for help getting juice out of the fridge. Please as me to pour you a bowl of cereal… Of course, the voice asking me for my attention was many years past the need for such assistance. My Lord, I long for the days when the primary […]

Romans, friends, countrymen, lurkers and M.O.M readers; I come to you this day with the heat of blue flame coursing through my veins and the resolute determination of the water bear. Fear not! I come not with corona in my throat, but a question: Is there a fiscal cap on the expression of your devotion […]

“Mom?” Crap. I had been summoned by my child. The pitch of her voice and query-tinged timbre with which my pseudonym had been uttered meant that the next words out of her mouth were going to cost me something. What was it this time? Money? A ride to the mall AND money? Only one way […]

The child who was once small enough to fit in the palm of my hand stood towering over me, tears brimming her eyes. “Are you crying?” “No,” she said. A renegade tear plunked down her cheek. She brushed it away, but that only opened up the wellsprings to near bursting. What had brought this on? […]

In the early days of the Pandemic ™ and the massive loss of income and impact on livelihoods to follow, LLC Twitter dispensed its unique brand of sage advice: Why not just start your own business? This is the perfect time to become your own boss! What I love about the Band Commonly Known as […]

Schools opened back up in South Africa for in-person attendance around a month ago. We decided it would be safe to allow the kids to go back for myriad reasons. The total student population at our school numbers less than 100, physical classes would be offered on alternate days and the department of education had […]

I never thought I’d say it, but there are days when when I long for the simplicity of exploding diapers, hostile tantrums and 2am feedings. The same is not true for every mother, but I couldn’t wait to hold conversations with my kids. I would respond to their earnest, incoherent babble with seriousness and equal […]

At 8:15 every morning I take a water aerobics class because Big Girls need fitness too. And because while my breasts are cumbersome, vexing impediments to my speed while on land, they make excellent built-in flotation devices. Buoyant things, those GGs. So anyway, it’s me and the oumas in the pool every morning. At first […]

Besides, a boyfriend isn’t what she’s really after. What she wants is social acceptance and external validation…which is normal for a person her age. On some level, we all crave this.

Do you suffer from Diastasis Recti? Has childbirth left your belly looking like it got a 50% score on the attempt? Do you have so much muffin top that people mistake you for a walking Pillsbury ad? No? Then you can skip this post. The rest of you, follow me to Bellefit.com! I’m 9 years […]

Mothering comes in various stages of learning to unlearn to relearn. Isn’t that what the woke, young folks say these days? “We gotta learn to unlearn…” Whatever. As I type this I am sitting in a bar with a splitting headache. It’s * checks phone * 9:47 am. I’ve ordered a margarita because it seems […]

When I was at Hampton University doing my undergrad, I had classes with a student named Jemilla, an entity so powerful that at 18 she could only be described as more woman than girl. In the entirety of my (by then) very short life, I had never encountered a peer with a firmer grip on […]

“This video makes me feel lazy and messy and dumb.” Eh? Who is making my baby – only male offspring to jettison himself from my womb – feel ‘dumb’? As I whip around, I am confronted with the knot of muscles and knitted brows that often form a cast on my son’s bearing: frowning, disapproving, […]

Raising a teenager is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and that’s saying a lot – because I’ve had a pretty difficult life. From homelessness (my family had to live with relatives for a stint before ‘upgrading’ to a hotel – the same hotel where my uncle molested me at age 8); to hunger; to […]

Sixteen years ago I used to run a satirical blog called Maizebreak.com. It is now defunct. I would write parodies of the real news, conjure crazy and unlikely stories and photoshop images for humorous effect. It was my African answer to The Onion, which I discovered around early 2002. MaizeBreak did enjoy the longevity that […]

The 28th of May is Menstrual Hygiene Day! And you thought it was just another Monday. Surprise! Menstrual Hygiene Day (MH Day) is a global platform that brings together non-profits, government agencies, the private sector, the media and individuals to promote Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM). MH Day raises awareness of the challenges women and girls […]

I often talk about the teachers who shaped both the writer and woman I am today. Not infrequently, I mention one teacher’s name with more regularity than any other. (Go to Door Number 5 to receive your prize if you smiled wryly and said, “Mr. Quist.”) When done right, teaching is a difficult job. There […]

“There is no man more single than a married man in Joburg.”   Joy FM host Naa Ashorkor Mensa-Doku wanted to know why modern women are choosing to have children outside of the confines of traditional marriage and there was no shortage of men waiting to give her an answer. In fact, there was such […]

My two oldest children are 13 and 11 years old, which means that they are just about done losing teeth. This is a good thing, because there are few things creepier than tiptoeing into a pre-teens room in the dead of night, swathed only in a bed sheet or boxer shorts (depending on who’s playing […]

Sympathy noun Understanding between people; common feeling It doesn’t matter if your child is a few days old or well into their fifties; a parent is most likely to assess an unfamiliar scenario with one uppermost question: “Am I responding to this situation the right way?” Whether confronted with a choice between letting your infant […]