I found the papers when I was 12 -- in a metal box tucked under my parents' bed. I wasn't supposed to be snooping all through their personal belongings; my mother had put a lock on her door, presumably to keep my brother and I from dipping into her stash of moon pies and discovering her and my dad's copy of "The Joy of Sex." But kids are experts at finding the hidden, and that little flimsy lock was no match for the wits of a curious preteen and her big brother. If we wanted to see it, it was going to get seen.

But this? This I wasn't ready for.

BABY GIRL...
DENENE MILLNER...
HEREYBY FORMALLY ADOPTED ON THIS DAY...

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It's weird to watch someone become a person a little bit at a time, day by day. She came to us a stranger in her own body. She could think and feel, cry and poop. The rest was a blank slate. She'd stare right through you, seemingly unable to tell people from lamp posts, all but blind and totally startled and amazed by the world around her.

She made eye contact with me first, maybe recognizing in my eyes something that reminded her of herself, maybe fascinated by their wet shiny appearance. I had her strapped to my chest in the Moby wrap and she kept craning her neck backwards. Afraid her little melon-head would pop off, I kept trying to force her back into the wrap but she would have none of it. Eventually I realized that she was leaning back to correctly focus on my face. I let her head rest in my hand and her face lit up. She stared right into my eyes with her little lips pursed and her eyebrows raised in surprised recognition. "Oh! My mom!" she seemed to say. I won't forget that moment.

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I’m an African American mom with brown babies, and I take great pleasure in writing about the issues that moms of color and mothers of children of color face as we raise our kids. And while I happily co-sign the idea that at the base of it, all we moms want the same things for our children -- for them to be happy, healthy, smart, kind, honest, trustworthy, successful human beings -- we simply do not all parent the same, and there absolutely ARE issues that I deal with as an African American mom that white moms would never have to think about if they’re not raising a brown child.

 

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This is the story of all-too-many brown girls everywhere -- a story that some of us African American moms are desperately trying to change with our generation of daughters.

Which is why there was such an uproar recently when Newsweek’s Allison Samuels openly criticized Angelina Jolie, a white mom, for letting her adopted, Ethiopian-born daughter, Zahara Jolie-Pitt, sport hair Samuels said was “wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a ‘hot mess.’” 

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My talk with my mom about menstruation went something like this:

Me: “Mommy? We learned about periods in health class today. The teacher said we should get this kit. It comes with books and pads and stuff.”

My mom: “Okay.”

Uh, huh. That was the end of the conversation. She ordered the kit for me -- it came with three books about puberty and an assortment of pads and tampons -- and when it arrived, she handed it to me and we never talked about periods again.

 

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