Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Start to Finish Motherhood, a podcast for those thinking or already Single. Mother by Choice, just looking for practical advice for navigating life's relationships. When you decide to have children on your own, it doesn't mean that you're completely alone. I'm Aisha Jenkins, and I'm partnering with you every step of your.
Hi everybody. I wanted to. Kick us off and get us started on you learning a little bit about me and my reasons for creating the Start to Finish Motherhood podcast and brand. So I will admit that I am not a person who has ever craved the spotlight. I. Like to describe myself as an extroverted introvert, mainly because a lot of the professional positions that I've held have been kind of public speaking related or facilitation related.
I enjoy being in the background. I enjoy [00:01:00] being at the heart and soul of a project. I enjoy connecting with people behind the scenes. Laughing and joking and getting to know them. To be honest, I was a reluctant podcaster initially, but once I got going, I really enjoyed telling the stories of black women.
As a black woman myself, I am team all black, everything. And I humbly cheer on black women as they're excelling and succeeding in their lives. And I think that there's always room for all of us to, to get a piece of the success and the spotlight.
I enjoy creating and I enjoy being in safe spaces that reflect the gentleness, the love, the care, the honesty. and the softness that black women embody, even as society strives to tell the world differently. We know what we deserve and we deserve nice things and we deserve joy. We deserve ease, and we deserve tenderness to black women.
If [00:02:00] you're listening, you're amazing. You brighten up whatever space you're in, and I absolutely love being in the black skin that I'm in. So that being said, As a member of a marginalized community here in the US I know that supporting black women, Benefits all women. And so here I stand as the embodiment of blackness, and that means all of my stories will be told from a black lens.
So I don't have to rah-rah, I don't have to hold up a sign whenever I walk into a room saying I'm a black woman. It is obvious and all of my experiences and the stories that I recount will be through the lens of a black woman living in the US. I am a bit of an introvert, as I said, and I like connecting with people.
I genuinely like people and I like hearing their stories. You know, my story is, , a mixed bag of, tragedy and triumph [00:03:00] and, , depending on the situation. I don't want to necessarily change how people view me, and so I like to listen to other people's stories. I like to to ask questions because I'm genuinely curious about the experience that other people have in the world.
So when my first podcast came to an end, I decided to keep going. I have a backlog of people and stories that I want to have on the podcast, and I want to be able to share the wonderful, inspirational stories, and they're just waiting to be told and no one's asking black women to come share your stories.
I appreciate being able to offer this platform. I'm grateful to all of the guests who will be willing to share their stories on the show because I know that you are given of yourself, you're given of your time, you're given of your resources. For some people who are SMCs, that means getting a babysitter and finding a quiet place so that we can have a conversation.[00:04:00]
Ultimately you're trusting me with your stories. And I thank you for that in advance. So other things you'll come to learn about me is that I like people. I also value integrity and I value meeting people where they are. And sometimes leaving them where they are and loving them from a distance.
I come from a large family with a range of personalities and , dysfunctions as well. And I have over my 40 plus years on this earth have had to love people and leave them. And so that does not change. In this 47th year of my life, you know, and so I love people from a distance, and I believe that you can ultimately tell a lot about a person.
By how they treat other people, how they behave when they think no one is watching. And so how they treat people big and small. For me, I do believe in God and I believe that [00:05:00] God watches and guides my steps. I feel as if I'm walking in my purpose and that God is my ultimate judge. So regardless of what's going on around me, what other people are doing, how other people are being, influenced.
I'm always going to be grounded in God is my ultimate and final judge. That is going to dictate the things that I do and how I treat people. I want to be right in God's eyes. For me, that is at the core and the center of my moral compass. I am unapologetically pro-black and I also.
Love interacting with all people. Being pro-black does not mean that you're con everything else. It means that I love who I am. I love the skin that I'm in. I love my rich history and culture. I love all things that are black. And I also appreciate other people and where they are. To that, I would be remiss if I did not mention the people of all races who have [00:06:00] supported, inspired, guided, and nurtured me on my Single Mother by Choice journey.
And just in my journey in life, my friendship circles are broad and diverse. I love and respect my white friends just as much as I love and respect my black friends, my Latinx friends, my friends of the Asian diaspora. I love, love, love and respect. My black friends and in particular black women hold a special place in my heart because I'm one of them and I'm raising two of them.
And so I'm always going to strive to, treat them and all people with dignity, respect, in particular black women with a kindness and a gentleness. I'm also unapologetically a feminist. I will stand for black women always. I will stand for women. Always in their ability to have autonomy and choice over their body and giving voice to themselves.
And I also love, love the men in my life who also [00:07:00] bolster and support and inspire me to no end. I, you know, I had a wonderful stepdad who I grew up with. My kids have a wonderful uncle who's rough and tumble and plays with them. And so I really wanted to get in front of this because some people out there believe that the choice to become a Single Mother by Choice.
Is one that's based on a hate for men. But it is not. Many of us do not hate men. Some of us were raised by men. Some of us have men in our lives who actively. Influence our children. Some of us love men. Some of us were married to men. I was some of us hope to marry men or partner with men in the future.
And so the choice to become a Single Mother by Choice is not one about men, or about hate. It's about parenting and it's about love and wanting to give love influence and nurture children. So, I will have men on my [00:08:00] podcast from time to time where it's appropriate. I do believe that there is value in.
What the male energy brings to our lives and the lives of children. I think that there is value in diversity. And so I am a black mother raising black girls, and so diversity for me looks like people of other races, people of other gender, people of.
Other cultures and ethnic groups. So having all of that richness added into my parenting style. I have a broad and diverse pool of friends, so I will be pulling ideas and sourcing ideas from this pool of people. But these people also will help to shape and help to nurture my own kids and me as a parent.
I believe. All aspects and all people have something of value to, offer to the world. And so I'm gonna double down on that. And so you'll [00:09:00] see a lot of that diversity reflected in the Start to Finish Motherhood podcast because these people have helped to shape me and I trust them with my audience.
So this is a vulnerable and a transparent moment. I am confident about many things including becoming a Single, Mother by Choice. But I also realize that children, the dynamic between a child and a parent and a child and siblings and that entire family unit are X-factor. And you can never really predict who your child is going to be
being a parent really humbles you in that way because you are just not sure if you're hitting the mark until after the fact, right? Becoming a parent later in life has afforded me the opportunity to reflect on what I want my home life to look like with my kids, what I want my parenting approach to be.
I pulled from reflecting on my own [00:10:00] childhood and the choices and decisions that my parents made for me, my siblings, and our life together. I also pull from whatever I learned on the therapist couch, that I might not have been able to put into words, but they helped me to frame. I look at my parents now because when you're a kid, you don't really see them as an adult.
You see them as that authority figure. But now having reached a certain age, I look back on my parents with a keen understanding. Of what challenges they may have encountered, trying to raise up upstanding kids. I really took my time while I was trying to conceive, to really think about how I wanted to approach being a parent.
This also required me to listen and observe other people. And so I took note and I remember. Asking one of my coworker friends, your kids speak so highly of you. How did you arrive at that point? She gave me pointers, and I've been doing that [00:11:00] ever since. When I hear people speak proudly of their parents and not just like a whole glossed and polished view of their parents, because I find out from asking questions, it's just like, yeah, my parents were imperfect.
But these are the things and these are the reasons, and this is what I've come to learn about their choices in parenting, which I, as a parent, I really value. I want my kids to have the same view of me. I want that to be my parenting legacy. I am an imperfect being right, but I do try to parent my kids where they are and to their specific needs.
I try to approach parenting with love and respect and demonstrating that love and respect that I have for them. So I actually parent with the end in mind. I also know that there's going to be a point where I am vulnerable and I become the child. To them as the authority figure in my life and how do I want them to treat me?
I want them to treat me [00:12:00] with respect and dignity when I don't always have. The, the thoughts or the mental faculties or the physical ability to do so. And so I parent with the end in mind. While also I do practice a lot of mindfulness with my kids because they are so small and because my influence on their day-to-day life is so big.
I try to stay in the moment with them. And so it really is a balancing act between how do I go about explaining this so that they understand into their adulthood, but also how do I talk to them in the moment and for where they are developmentally. So even while I do all of this, I'm aware that children become adults and they tell their own stories, and they had their own recounts of what happened in the.
And so they're gonna have their stories to tell. So my legacy will ultimately be told by my children, and I hope that I make them proud with the decisions that I've made for their lives and the choices I've made for them until they were able to participate [00:13:00] and then take over the decision making process for themselves.
One of the other things that you will see that I do that is really intentional, I am big on consent. So if you follow any of my social media channels, if you follow me or if you know me personally, you know that I am very intentional about what I share about my children's lives, what pictures I share and videos I share on social media because I don't believe that they are at the age of.
I don't think that they, even if they verbalize at eight and three and a half that mommy, yes, it's okay to share that picture. They don't understand. They haven't lived enough to understand the long term ramifications of putting something out there into perpetuity. I want to honor them and their decisions and their future selves by airing on the side of, I will wait until they reach an age of consent and then can make those decisions for [00:14:00] themselves..
because even if I feed them information on, their thoughts on being donor conceived or their thoughts on where I chose to live, or you know, how I chose to spend our summers, even though I can feed that to them, they're just saying, what I want to hear as their parent because they love me.
Right? And so I wanna be mindful of. We're living in different times and things shared to the world can exist forever. I realize that I do have my own story, but at some point my story overlaps with their story. And so in my mind, my starting point is I decided to become an SMC. My end point is, here's your conception story.
Now go and be great with that story, right? And from there, they get to decide what they want to tell their friends. They get to decide what they want to tell the world. I have given them words like what that is. And even as I tell them their stories of [00:15:00] how they came to me, their conception stories, they are asking me questions and they are formulating what their own narrative is going to be.
And I want to respect and honor that. It's a balancing act. And I have the weight of the responsibility about what and how much I share about our collective story. And I respect them as people, even though they're tiny little humans. I do respect them and I want them to be a participant in telling their story.
So there you have it. I hope that you follow the podcast and all of the Start to Finish Motherhood socials so that you can grow with me. You can laugh with me, you can, you can watch me as I I parent my kids. I will have some premium. Podcast episodes that will go a lot deeper to some of the conversations.
From the guests that we have on the podcast, I will share some insights into myself and my own family life. So all of those different premium podcast episodes will be shared with those who purchase the community membership. [00:16:00] So if you would like to know more about me, if you would like to support the work that I'm doing, the platform that I'm creating, then please consider purchasing a monthly membership.
It will allow me to continue to do the work and tell the stories of Single Mother by Choice Black, Single Mother by Choice Black women, here in the United States. You can find out more about membership and what it includes at the Start to Finish Motherhood website.
And speaking of the Start to Finish motherhood website, my goal with the website was to provide resources, tools, and support to help you on every step of your Single, Mother by Choice journey. As a Single Mother by Choice, who's been in the community for close to 12 years, there's some common needs that people have with regards to support.
My vision was to create a one-stop shop for those much needed resources. Resources around tough conversations like how do I tell my friends and family that I plan to become a Single Mother by Choice? How do I envision parenting my [00:17:00] child? How do I build a support village that supports both me and my children?
How do I tell my job that I am planning to be a mom? Where do I go for additional resources? The resources provided will be as diverse as our community. That's my goal. Single Mother by Choice are not a monolith, and our resources will reflect that fact. I hope you enjoy taking a look at the different resources and yeah, until next time,
thanks for listening. To Start to finish Motherhood with Aisha. If you wanna keep the conversation going, follow start to finish motherhood on Instagram or email me at Aisha. Start to finish motherhood.com. If you love this episode, please share it with anyone who's thinking of becoming a Single Mother by Choice.
Anyone who's already parenting as a Single, Mother by Choice, and just looking for advice on navigating it all, or a friend or family member who's looking to support someone else's Single Mother by Choice Journey. Until next time, [00:18:00] bye now.
