Beyonce, Baby Bumps, and Doing It the Right Way
Well, well, well. Looks like the most fabulous kid to ever strut down the birth canal is on its way after Queen B’s announcement amidst the glitz and glamour of the VMA’s red carpet: She and Jigga are expecting their first bundle of joy together. After years of questioning the power couple about their plans to birth a power tot, the paparazzi finally has their wish and will probably spend the next nine months or so inviting us into the every bubble and bounce of Beyonce’s womb. Hold on to your Twitter feed, folks. It’s about to be a gossip and teeny-tiny-minute-detail filled pregnancy.
Even as Bey stood there drenched in her typical brand of flawless gorgeousness, cupping her cute little baby bump beneath a flowy Lanvin gown, something bigger than her obvious joy was in the works. Another Black couple is making marriage stylish, cool, obviously happy, and now they’re having a baby. Even as the brouhaha from the Will and Jada divorce dust-up tentatively settles, Beyonce and Jay-Z and Lala and Carmelo are making jumping the broom and raising babies palatable to a generation that has grown up listening to their choice of baby mama anthems while using “baby daddy” as a term of endearment.
When Keyshia Cole married her man, NBA baller Daniel Gibson, back in the spring, my first thought was ‘go ‘head, y’all!’ Because even though I’m smack dab in what will apparently be eternal singledom, I’m genuinely happy for any couple who finds each other, from celebrity mash-ups to Pookie and Clandetta down the block. Even with all the bells and whistles of the new millennium, there’s nothing like a good ol’ fashioned love story.
My second reaction was a bit more reflective: I wonder if Keyshia and her bestie Monica, who got married herself back in the beginning of the year, will inspire their fans, maybe even their fellow single mothers, to believe in the institution of marriage? Even reach for it? It would’ve been nothing for either one of them to take the new-age route and shack up instead of making it official. Seems like everybody and their sister’s cousin is either living together or creeping up on common law these days. It’s the modern way of getting to happily ever after. Times have changed and getting hitched isn’t even necessary anymore in order for a man and woman to be content, functional and socially accepted.
And that may work for some folks. To them and others who just don’t think it’s that deep, first comes love, second comes marriage, then comes the lady with the baby carriage is a rhyme that didn’t mean much more beyond the playground in elementary school. But to me, it’s the natural order of things, the way the good Lord intended them to be, the modus operandi that makes the most logical sense. I had to find this out the hard way, though. I read all of the comments in the blog posts that I write and one poignant (albeit a bit ig’nant) observer pointed out that my desire to one day have more kids with a hubby must mean that I had a baby with a brother who chose not to marry me in the first place. Ouch. But it’s true: I consciously made the choice to lie down as a teenager with my good, common sense floating somewhere between good sex and first love.
So now, after besting 12 years of single motherhood and nine more months on top of that of being a baby mama, I see now that there is a reason why you should wait to be married before you have little ones. This ish ain’t easy solo. Not that having a husband makes life a cakewalk, but if you’ve picked the right dude, you’ve got a partner to help shoulder and share the responsibilities that come with being a parent, a homeowner—heck, an adult in general.
I don’t know what any of these relationships look like from the inside, whether they’re genuinely happy, whether they’re actually, factually in love or whether they keep their distance and come together only for photo ops and public appearances. What goes on in their homes is privy only to them and the close companions that may or may not someday write tell-all books. I’m talking about what these couples represent.
Despite the dismal statistics about Black love, all this recent vow exchanging is a good look for the little 12 and 14 and 16 year-old girls all wrapped up in their celebrity worship. Maybe they’ll wait until they’re married with a hot-to-death career before they have a baby, just like Beyonce. Hey, if that’s what inspires them to wait, then I’m all for it. I know I for one would be much more hype about going to a married woman’s baby shower than force a smile to sit through one for another single mother.
Celebrities wield such heavy influence over what so many folks do, say and believe—including adults, so let’s not front—that Mrs. Carter’s decision to do it the right way (yep, I intentionally left the quotation marks off) just might spark a positive trend. Now that’s a story I’d be ready and eager to read about.
No defense of singlemotherhood, but children have to be raised, and if you’re single by choice or through divorce, you’re still on your own raising children. To say that marriage can fix the problem of singlemotherhood is NAIVE. Yes it works best if both parents are committed, but marriage does not necessarily equal that.
How many woman do you know who have been married and still have the single mother/baby mama blues?
I’m just saying let’s not act like marriage gives you some get right.
There is a MUCH bigger issue at stake than marriage. This is a band-aid solution to a bigger problem. You can take your ex-husband to court and he be legally mandated to pay up and he still not act right. You can be married to a man who decides that all you’ll get is support, financial, which helps, but it is not the same as him being present and accounted for.
“Doing it the right way” can offer some protection, but it’s not a cure-all. You do your best, you think you choose correctly and you can still end up being a singlemother. Does your singlemother status somehow change because you were once married? Do the missing parent seem less of a loss because you were married to him?
I love EVERYTHING you have to say. As an expectant, unwed Mommy, that lives with her boyfriend we made the conscious decision to have a baby. Once upon a time I was that girl that believed in everything that marriage had to offer, until I GREW UP. I think the institution of marriage is a good thing, but it’s really, really flawed in my opinion. We are educated, we are loving, we are committed to raising our baby, and frankly we don’t give a damn what people have to say (trust, they’re talking, lol). I never lived my life on what society, family or friends expected of me, and never, ever will.
@ Kai99, I agree, It was a well written piece but you know folks can’t stop there, lol.
A happy and successful marriage between two mature adults is always better for the child. Divorce still happens yes but for the families that stay together they just greatly increased chances for their child to succeed in life. This is all statistically speaking so naysayers can fall back and comment to the people who take census.
So I am all for young girls knowing that the right way to bring a child into this world is to be educated, married, and happy. No wedding, no womb. It’s all about what’s best for the child and being and maintaining a happy family is it. So bring on the trend!
Crabs in a barrel baby mommas want others to suffer to.
I’m getting tired of these chicks. I’m tired of hearing their sob stories and I’m tired of hearing their excuses. They need to be held responsible for their actions and the only way I can see that happening is if we throw them under the bus the same way we throw deadbeat fathers under the bus.
Agreed, my 20 year old cousin told me I was old and when was I going to start having babies.
0_o I’m 26. I told her it’s not the dark ages we have these wonderful things humans created that control birth and that her little friends are not cute unmarried and baby-bumping on Facebook. They should be congratulating one another on school and other accomplishments. Hopefully she follows my example and not her friends.
I wish they would stop using crabs in the bucket as an expression. They are just trying to survive! They aren’t doing it out of spite, they just don’t want to die!
@Kennedy, Funny, my 15 year old students (male and female) told me you’re supposed to have all of your children by 20, and that at 26 it’s too late for me to even think about.
@ Yulez, I just died laughing, OMG, this is so sad. Well I guess we should just pack up our dried eggs and shut up, lol. I still don’t understand maybe schools have changed a lot but if I’m not mistaken we get a little educational video around 5th grade and I’m sure by 15 they have taken a health class. Those classes even without my Mom’s input were enough for me to say no thank you to sex for the exact reason being that they create other people. But I guess time’s have changed pretty soon they’ll be dressing their kids up and taking them to prom with Mommy, blech.
“I wonder if Keyshia and her bestie Monica, who got married herself back in the beginning of the year, will inspire their fans, maybe even their fellow single mothers, to believe in the institution of marriage?”
While they might inspire both groups (which are not mutually exclusive), black single mothers might as well throw in the towel when it comes to finding a mate. Some of them might very well get married…most of them won’t do so. Men, regardless of race, do not want to raise or support another man’s kids. This is another one of the consequences of poor decisions. The men who might make an exception are those who have children themselves. Otherwise these women are pretty much going to be single for the long-term.
Again, as a woman who was a single mom before she got married….
I agree with most of your comments concerning this issue. The institution of marriage should not be downplayed. The problem of out of wedlock kids need to be addressed especially among us black women.The cycle needs to be broken. Children need to be raised to value marriage first then kids (if they so choose to have one or some). Also making sure that they can afford financially to have kids.
When it comes to single moms you have to be realistic about your dating options. You already have a negative against you because your a single mother. That is just reality. Coming in you already have to know that your dating pool minimized because there are men who refuse to date a woman who already have a kid by someone else. The only thing a single mom can do is focus on men who dont mind that she already have a kid and choose the BEST out of those options. I think one of the ways single moms dating shoot themselves in the foot is when they come in with unrealistic expectations. I have heard single moms say that they wont date men with a kids! Though my hubby was childless, I didnt EXPECT for the man I date to not have kids when I have one myself? Actually it was ideal for me that he had a kid of his own. I mean if she comes across a dude she likes and he shows interest, she is going to have to show him that her situation is not going to be any further hinderance than it already is. So if having a child is an automatic negative already, a single mom cant come to a guy and be on some extra shit if she wants a chance to be married LOL.
@JS, I’ve seen plenty of black men taking care of (and marrying) single white women and their kids. I think that it may be circumstantial.
@Yulez
I don’t see it. I don’t see black men supporting white kids–as in those a white women had by a white man. Not the say this couldn’t be the case sometimes I simply have never seen it.
Generally speaking black men have been very vocal about not wanting a ready-made family.
Those men probably have kids themselves.
@JS, Yeah, that phenomenon is common in Indiana. They’re more willing to take on a white man’s responsibility (whether those kids are the product of a failed marriage or out of wedlock), than their own or another black man’s. It maybe that its just more desirable to marry a white woman under any circumstance for them. But, I don’t want to go there today.
It’s strange and sad.
*screw faced* I’m confused by this particular conversation because it implies that finding a black man (especially) with NO KIDS is easy. One of the things I find most intriguing about Jay Z (in fact it’s the only intriguing thing, because I think Jay Z is the most uncharasmatic persona this side of Posh Spice) is that he at 41 had no kids (Kanye, too). Even the so-called conscious rappers have kids out-of-wedlock, from Common and Andre 3000 to Talib Kweli. A black man with no kids may not want a “ready-made” family but there are plenty of black men with kids available for single black moms. In fact, if anything a single (black) mom should be setting her sights on a mate who has kids because men with no children have proven to be a danger to their partner’s children. So much so, that the city of Chicago, sadly, once had to create a campaign warning single moms after a rash of boyfriends were being charged in the deaths of their girlfriends’ infant children. I think any effort to tell single moms that they are damaged goods who should be branded with Scarlet M’s is sexist. I rarely hear black men with kids receiving the same message: that love and marriage is an uphill climb. I’m a single black woman with no kids and I’d prefer a man with no kids. And there are plenty of women like me who would avoid a man with kids like the plague.
@Reason
Trust–judging from my black female friends–a black man with kids out of wedlock is unwanted too. Most black women with themselves together don’t want them either–at least not the individuals I have run across.
I think this another thing messing up relations between black women and black men. They can’t reasonably come together because each party is already coming to the table with baggage (and yes out of wedlock kids and the baby mama/daddy are baggage).
Furthermore black women put themselves at a disadvantage simply by limiting themselves to the pool of black men out here (which ain’t nothing to get excited about at all). Y’all love black men and vow to love them forever ever so now take the bitter with the sweet.
I tell you what if a man comes up to me and hits on and tells me he has kids I RUN the other way! Once a man hit on me in front of his 6ish y/o daughter! I was disgusted that he would do that in front of her and me. I think some of these men think that just because you are a woman you are supposed to be open to their ready made family, like me having a uterus is supposed to make me love all kids and accepts the ones you have! Please!
This is my response to mainly some comments I read….
Marriage is definitely not a “fix all” solution, but that doesn’t mean women (who want to be married) should be discouraged to put a PRIORITY on doing things in the “proper order” with whoever they enter into a relationship. When I say “proper order” I mean marrying the RIGHT man first (a man who would be a good husband, provider, father, etc). and then have a kid or kids with that man if you desire to have kids and can take care of them. This includes childless and never married women, and single mothers (whether by divorce or unwed). If a childless woman who wants to be married have a chance to do things in the “proper order” I say do it. if a divorced woman have another chance to do the “proper order” again I say do it. if a single mother have another chance to to do things in the “proper order” even though her first child was done out of order I say do it.
Marriage does not fix everything, but having a kid out of wedlock yet justifying that “oh well if I would have married and it ends in a divorce I would still be a single mother” sure isn’t the answer. Single mother hood whether before marriage or out of divorce is not healthy for children to be apart of and should NEVER be lightly justified when a woman mentions doing things in the “proper order”. A child deserves to be in a household where both parents love him AND love each other. So one parent raising a child is NOT the ideal. Two people raising the child but constantly at odds with each other is also not the ideal. So any woman putting PRIORITY RIGHT NOW regardless if she was childless and never married, divoriced, or have a child out of wedlock is a good thing as long as they are focused on choosing the proper mate, staying married to that proper mate, and raising children up in the way they should go within that marriage. Not just getting married, have a fab wedding, and thats it LOL. Should the idea of marriage first then kids always be the priority from the jump? Yes. Should that have been the standard before women made the choice to become single moms? Yes. Should that be the standard that our little black girls should be raised on? I say yes. In a perfect world, I wish everybody starts out childless and never married when they come into marriage because that is also the ideal, but people fuck up and they move on.
This is coming from a woman who was a single mother before she got married. Not trying to downplay the problem of out of wedlock kids because IT IS A PROBLEM. A problem that definitely needs to be addressed among us black women. However, I hate when people try to discourage someone who wants to follow “the proper order”. Peace!
i send you two kisses , one for each cheek. glad it worked out for you.
Great message Satin. I appreciate you speaking the truth in love to all of us, whether we’re single mothers by divorce/death, never married mothers or don’t have kids at all.
Whatever situation we’re in right now, let’s make sure that our next move before having another child (or a first child) is establishing the proper order of marriage, then kids.