Yes, some women will–consciously or unconsciously–follow in their mothers footsteps. Others will do everything in their power not do be like their mothers. And, life will “happen” to others, who never intended on being a single parent, such as the death of their mate.

I grew up the first daughter to a single mother. My mother unknowingly encouraged manlessness. My mother can and STIL does everything – without a man. To this day, she still thinks that men are expendable and not necessary. While I’m a single mother and almost an empty nester in my 30s, I think my mother influenced how I viewed men early on. Now, that I’m older, however, I now value relationships and look forward to one day being married.

We are so powerful as women yes but our power is more than we can imagine. I believe we women have the power to turn our men around, we have to educate our daughters, if u want children you need a husband. My mother is a single mother to 3 children. In each case I suspect she believed pregnancy would lead to marriage. We never talked about men and relationships. No open communication about men and hurt, how she got into her situations. When I ask her, she gets very mad at me and refuses to talk openly and honestly. I long for advice from someone who has been there and loves me enough to tell it like it is.

I laid down with a man who was not my husband, I took a risk and I am responsible for the consequences. I pray daily that God will give me the strength to not make mountains out of molehills and see this commitment through to the end. I believe he will reward my efforts because we are good people and we love our son and each other very much.

I talk to my little sister (14) DAILY about how important it is for her to finish her education before she becomes seriously involved with a man. Women can be easily sidetracked by a man and his desires. She will never be able to say she had no idea. I tell her because I love her dearly and I know she has a lot to do with her life. I tell her she has not been alive long enough to know what she needs in a man. I tell her to find herself and discover herpurpose because we have a greater purpose than being wives and mothers. At the same time, I tell her, there is nothing wrong with her desire to have a man in her life and wives and mothers are the most beautiful necessary creatures on Earth. I tell her because I love her and I want her to find a good man if she wants to have children so she does not have to worry about her child’s stability. Two GOOD parents are better than one. If we do this for our daughters, they will have different lives than we had, I promise.

If these men were only able to look at all we black women put ourselves through to keep him in our life and keep him as the father of our children, he would take pride in that and act accordingly, but we have not been able to make him see, so we continue to suffer, all of us.

Abandon the men if you would like, deny slavery’s influence, continue to live in denial and maybe the issues will take care of themself. Who knows? It is the 21st century, maybe children do not need both of their parents anymore…

The single mothers I come across want me to be a single mother too. That is all there is to it. “You don’t need him!” I am not like that and I will not put on some strong black woman front to keep people from knowing that I have pain over the issue.

If you want a black man, you should be able to have one. I offer my opinion only to show that I understand there is more feeding into this predicament than we care to admit. The legacy of slavery is real…how many of us can say what part of Africa we are from? How can you have pride in yourself and your culture when you have no idea who you are??? I give examples of celebrities making decisions to be single mothers because they are role models and we all know people model themselves after these individuals. This is fact, you don’t have to like it. No, celebrities are not the problem, but they are certainly an indicator that the moral code has gone awry when it is deemed completely acceptable to have children out of wedlock with whomever you please. Maybe marriage is irrelevant in the current society and I certainly do NOT want people who are not good for each other getting married an torturing their children with the nonsense, but when you are didicated to your relationship and facing the problems together, there is hardly a support system out there. Lots of support for single mothers, AND LORD KNOW THEY NEED IT, I would NEVER begrudge a woman support she needs but may I please have some support too?

I think women speak and act as if it’s easy. As if they can do it alone. In the bed at night I expect there are some heavy hearts. It can be done alone because sometimes that’s how it has to be but kids need both parents. There are times when I say to my husband…please go talk to her, I can’t I need a break. Single women don’t have that option. Sometimes my husband will bring home dinner so I don’t have to cook…again when you’re single that’s not an option. The burden is on one person. When our kids were infants we took turns getting up at night – one night on , one night off…whew what a relief those off nights were for both of us.

Just because a person says and behaves in front of others that everything is A-Okay doesn’t make it so. That is more ‘strong black woman’ posturing.

What I see missing most in Black couples is commitment. How easy it is to lie to one another, curse one another, disrespect one another. This breaks up families.

Just recently in the news Kandi (one of the Desperate Housewives)lost her fiance in violence stemming from infidelity, lies, cheating. The moral compass is as low as it gets in our community. My husband and I know few happy married black couples, most of them have cheated and broken up long ago.

What makes the children suffer is the arguing and the disrespect – not necessarily the end of a marriage. Arguing hurts children and teaches them how to treat people.

What worries me most is this affect on children – growing up arguing, not trusting, lying. I have heard boys as young as nine say how ‘fine’ a grown woman is and brag about having more than one girlfriend – at NINE!

I’ve heard women – angry and unhappy with men talk to their daughters about how not to let a man ‘have what he want’, don’t let them haters get you down…just a negativity that worries me.

I’ve heard boys as old as 13 say how they don ‘t want a black girlfriend – they are loud, mean and in his words “have blue hair, now who wants a girl with blue hair!?”. My son asked me if it was okay to marry a girl that was not his color. My daughter has a hard time being friends with black girls sometimes because they are ‘mean and bossy’….

that worries me most. We’re raising our children to be positive, well rounded and empathetic but so few of us are that I wonder who they will marry???

I’d say to black women, don’t put the negativity you feel towards men off on your kids (if you’re on the phone talking they hear you, if you are in the car screaming at someone who cut you off they hear you) – take it OUT of your language.

I don’t use the word ‘hater’. It’s negative. It’s accusatory. These people are hurting not hating. Don’t use it.

Don’t argue with one another, take the curse words out of your language, look at the Atlanta Housewives and learn a lesson. Men don’t find this attractive and it’s not acceptable behavior. Nene is the angriest wealthy woman I’ve ever seen, why all the anger? She’s used to it, it’s all she knows, everyone is a ‘hater’ in her eyes. It’s so easy to be jealous of one another. Take those thoughts out of your head. Don’t let your kids watch this show, it’s negative – the kids see these people as themselves, they have the same color shoot they probably have an Auntie like NeNe. I definitely do. I can barely watch the show any more it’s so negative.

Talk to your kids. Leave the clubs and the happy hours for people that don’t have responsibilities. I say this to single mothers, married people, and single men. You won’t find anyone in them anyway. Don’t waist your time. Instead, movie nights, have the girls overs with their children, keep the focus on the kids. Do the other stuff OCCASIONALLY.

My husband and I don’t go out unless we go together or will meet there. Those days are over and so what. This past Friday I picked up my kids from school, surprised them with a trip to the store told them it was movie night. We made homemade pizza, my husband video taped and we had a wonderful time. That is what life is about.

I could go on and on, remember you are raising future husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, we need the best. Thanks for reading.

Marjorie Bostwick
The Right Mentor.com

My children, your children and all the other children on the face of this earth are not mistakes.

As parents we are human and a large percentage of the time we are not going to measure up to everything we teach our children. How can we? It’s not possible. I try to practice what I preach, but there are times when I fail miserably and when I fail I always sit my children down and talk to them. I’ve learned to allow room for error and I’ve learned to forgive myself. I AIN’T PERFECT.

I believe what we are facing goes far beyond self-esteem. What we are facing is a spiritual problem and I’m not talking about religion. Yes, we all need to have a positive self-esteem, but even then things are still out of whack. People are trying to figure out why they are here, why do they exist and what part they have to play in this story called life. One thing is for sure; black people don’t know who they are. There is more to us than just the color of our skin, the way we dance, how big our butts or penises are, how well we play basketball and so forth and so on…It’s a fact that slavery has damaged us and we still feel the sting of slaveries poison in our relationships, but we can’t continue to allow this mentality to keep us stuck in a rut. I don’t have the answers, but one thing I can do is work on myself and do my best to raise four strong black women and a strong black man.

Peace & Blessings,

K. Amoah

“”"”They are going IN on this topic! Like I feel some type of way but I don’t even know how to put in into words and that whole ‘because of slavery men don’t know how to care for their families is CRAP!’ Every kid on the corner “hustling” does NOT even know or care to learn about his history so she needs to stop right there. Did she even mention if she was married??? (@Joni Murray)
Ugh … I can’t stand females seriously ; at the end of the day it has NOTHING to do with society its self esteem PERIOD.”"”"

While my wife & I have tried to raise our now 21yr daughter to have self esteem. About herself, the job she performs and getting her education. The simple fact is. When she is out of our sight. In the club or out on a date. If there is NO underlying ((SELF CONTROL)), then yes mistakes will happen. I would rather not refer to our young out of wedlock children as Mistakes. Not every birth is planned. Married or not.

I try to appreciate when a teaching moment occurs. I think that these postings are exactly that. The hardest thing that I have found to do since having my children is to Practice-what-I-Preach. My single mother raised two sons. I did not want that for my kids and 26yrs later. I’m still working VERY hard to keep it that way.