Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Start to Finish Motherhood, a podcast for those thinking or already single mothers 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 journey.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: So, hi, everybody. I'm here today with a lovely guest. This is a friend to the community. This is a friend of mine in real life. Regene has a son. She's a mompreneur. She's a business owner. So let's go ahead and get into it. So, as you know, season four is a tips for season. So I thought that this was a great time to bring you back to the show to talk about tips for finding resources for navigating your single mother by choice solo mother by choice journey. And so let's begin with you just giving us an introduction to yourself and your SMC journey and why you created SMDC Resources.
Sure.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Thank you, Aisha, for having me. Like you said, my name Regine. I'm the founder of SMBC Resources one by Choice Resources, which is a central hub where we have a directory. Where we have a directory, experts and guides and scholarships and grants and tools that solo moms or women who want to go on a solo mom journey can take advantage of. We don't charge the women to be part of. To take advantage of these resources or to take a look at them. It's something that we want to share broadly with the community so that every mom who's on the journey or every woman who's on the journey can feel supported or could at least have the knowledge or access to the resources they need on their journey.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you. Okay. And you're also mom to a little boy, so tell us about your.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: I am more than being the founder of SMBC Resources. I'm also a mother. So in 2022, I had the pleasure of welcoming my son home. I went the adoption route. He was 19 months at the time. He is now a thriving three and a half year old who was tearing up my house and eating all my food. I adored him.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: He is.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: He's the light of my life. And I say that, but he lights up the room. I just. My life completely changed when I met him. So it was a long journey, but I. He is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: All right, so let's talk about your definition of family and what got you to the point that SMC was your path, that you Knew it was your path.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So my definition of family. So I grew up with a lot of trauma. My family of origin, it was just chaotic in that house in which I grew up. I didn't necessarily have a beautiful example of what a marriage should look like. I didn't necessarily have a beautiful example of what family and community should do or how they should treat one another. So early, early on, the. I was attracted to everything that was chosen. Family, people who fostered, people who adopted. It was just always something that I was curious about. Making the deliberate choice that human being and I are family members. So as much as I wasn't convinced, like it took years in the dating pool for me to figure out that, like, I'm going the SMBP route. I knew that adoption was going to be part of my motherhood journey. And even when I was dating, I was one of those women, early 20s. Like, I didn't, I wasn't so focused if a man had a child, like being a step parent or forming a different type of family, I have always been open to. It's the men who were trash that led me to the side.
Solo was the way that I was going to go. But so essentially choosing a family has always been like, important to me and something that I wanted. Like, I wanted the freedom and the liberty to make the choice of forming my family and instilling the values that I wanted to have in my family home. That's always been a priority. Deciding whether or not I was going to go solo or not. Then probably in my mid-30s that I was like, it's time for me to really consider moving forward on my own with this dream that I've had since, since childhood of adopting a little one.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: All right, and so then how long did you spend in the thinking phase? Because I think the thinking phase there, there is layers. There are layers to it.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: So once you decide that this is what you want to do, then you have to let the people around or not. I know people who just pop up with a kid one day. But how long did it take you to get through the thought process and become okay with this being the path for you and actually taking concrete steps?
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah, my, my journey, my, my decision making process. Seven years. It took seven years of pushing again, my own questions and insecurities. It took seven years to think through what society was, was going to think of how society really what society thinks of single mothers. My family, we have a Haitian cultural background.
It's not something you see very often in the Haitian community of a Woman who has chosen to be a solo mom. You see single moms, but you don't necessarily see solo moms. And then there was my own family's expectation, my own issues with, you know, perfection, that it needed to look and be a certain way. So overcoming all of those thoughts, it was like a seven year process. And in that seven years, it took a lot of homework for me to figure out, how do I make this possible? How much is it going to cost? Where am I going to live? Do I have the right house? Like, all of the practicalities of becoming a solo mom also were part of that seven year development, decision making process. I think I really started getting serious.
Probably I was 39 or 40 when I was really looking at the foster care system. And I was. But I was looking at becoming a foster parent and was equally in a one bedroom apartment. Right. So like the things weren't necessarily aligning, but I was actually speaking to experts, I was actually speaking to social workers, talking to adoption agencies, going to the webinars and seminars that people were doing around adoption to see if I could, if this was going to become my reality. And during that time, I was also speaking to my family and saying, look, I know we have extended family members who've adopted and who have gone through that route. I have an aunt who fostered a girl for a number of years, Right. I wanted to make sure that if I brought a child home, my family would treat my child on their own. Because it's not just me. I knew my heart. I knew my heart. I love him. Right? And I knew that the never I don't flinch when I look at him. That's my boy. Right? But would my extended family embrace him, love him, care for him as their own? Was a question that I actually sat down with my parents, I sat down with my siblings. I was like, I need to know your answer right now. Like, how do you feel? And everybody said, yes. And then the baby said, and being frank, yes.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: It's like managing everybody else's expectations. So once you decide that I'm okay, this is my route. And then it's almost like the bigger challenge is getting your family, your support, village on board and actually deciding who is going to be. Whereas you might have supported me, you might not be the person who can support my family and Correct. It's better to know that sooner rather than later.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: That's right. And what you find is a lot of people say, yeah, of course, absolutely. I've had experiences where, you know, and I'm not saying this to blame my family or anything like that, where they just forgot my son during Christmas when all the cousins were getting presents and whoops, we forgot to get him something. Like, there are situations like that. Like, people will say, yep, I'm ready to support. I got your bat. That's going to be my nephew. But when it becomes. When that rubber hits the road, you start experiencing things differently, which leads to a different village. I'm not saying that it's all doom and gloom. I mean, we found our village eventually.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that a little bit. What does your village look like? I'm always curious because there are people who start the SSE journey and they're like, yep, I'm going to have my family, my girlfriends, I'm gonna dance, I'm gonna do all this stuff. They're all gonna come together, it's gonna be a nice little stew, and they're all gonna support me. But then the village that ends up supporting you looks vastly different in it than all of the words that came out of people's mouths before.
[00:09:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's surprising where my village came from. So it's exactly what you said. Like, the people that I expect. And the issue was me, right? It's me putting my own expectation on others of how they will behave when my family comes together. The reality is that these kids, they open doors and they build relationships with people that I had no idea even existed. And that allowed us to meet certain people. And my village came about completely differently. One of my really good friends who's part of my village was my brother's ex, who's also a single mom who lives, like, in the area where I live. Like, we. I hadn't seen her in 30 years. How was I supposed to know that our kids would be approximately the same age? She's not a solo mom. She's a single mom. But she is such an important part of our village. Our kids see each other all the time. They adore each other. But she's also the. Can you watch the baby for an afternoon? I gotta run and do something. Or she's also like, I have the date. Is there any way then. Yes, absolutely. Like, that we could support each other that way without. You know, it's surprising how supportive she's been in this journey. When we just reconnected after the kids were born, Right. Never expected her to come along. Never in that community, led to another community. And I started reconnecting with people that I've known for years who some way Somehow just understand the path that I'm on and are happy to be part of this village and this community and want to do family with me. For that, I'm forever grateful.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: And it's. I don't think that we appreciate enough the transformation we go through as individuals.
[00:11:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Because you shift as a person. Your brain shift, your chemistry shifts, your focus shifts. And I used to be Jane on the spot, Keisha on the spot. I would be on time all the time. Now pull together and now just look, you're about to get whatever rolls out the house.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: That's right. That's right. And the people who love you for it and through it and in it are exactly who you want to be. Part of your village or you will find your people. You don't find your killing.
Do you know what I'm saying? And it's for me to just grab that oatmeal and be like, it's okay, girl, just go on. We're fine, we're fine. Nobody's looking at the oatmeal anyway. And most people exist.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: So there's, there's a ton of stuff that we could talk about with parenting, highs and lows, joys and pain, making space for other humans. But before we get too far into those conversations, they'll come out when they come out. But let's talk about the SMBC resources that you put together. Because I think it's really important. I know when I was going through, when I was considering adoption, whether I was considering artificial reproductive services, it was still coming out of my pocket. I was still a single person on this journey looking for resources. And when I say resources, I didn't even know what terms to Google. So I'm like, you have this idea in your head what you want to do. So can we talk about SMBC resources, why you created it? And then the focus was your target? And let's get into that.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think similarly to you, you don't even know what to Google oftentimes. Right. And even the term art. Art. Assisted Reproductive technology, that term was not a term that was in my, in my peripheral, I knew ivf. I didn't know iui. There was so many other things that I just didn't necessarily. I didn't know you could get a donor, none of that. Right. And it's such a. It's a full blown education to start understanding what your options are. So like I said, for me it was seven years and a little bit like you. I had to. The Google of the Google within Google to figure out what was possible and what was not. And I did eventually get to some answers. Some of the answers I got just through the experience of becoming a solo mom.
What I, what I realized is that the answers are available. They're also very sporadic. You have to know, like your algorithm on Google has to lock in order to understand which rabbit hole to get you through in order to get the answers. And I found that very frustrating. So what I have is a background in technology, I have a background in marketing. And I'm like, how do I bring the two together to create one directory, one resource where somebody can go to and find not necessarily all the answers to the questions, but if I need a guide, if I need an expert, if I need, most importantly a grant, a scholarship, if I need support, support or tools to get me through my solo mom journey, here's one central repository of information where I could get all of that data. There are a lot of community groups. Yours is one. You could go on Facebook and look for solo mom communities. They exist, right? There are plenty of people on social media who are sharing their experience, which is fantastic. There are women who are writing books about their journeys, children's book, like you could go and search on Amazon. But the reality is that sometimes you just want to, you just want some guidance or one clear path of what it could potentially look like. And then start there and find the directory experts, guides, people who could give you information in one central location. So that's the entire objective of SMBC Resources. As I was going through the journey, one of the big epiphanies is that I wasn't as alone as I thought I was. I knew that women did that. You hear about Madonna, adopted these kids, right? And it's beautiful and extraordinary, but really the community is a lot broader and larger than I initially thought. So after doing some research, 2.7 million single mom by choice in the United States. That's a large community of women who have the information.
Most of us are willing to share with one another what the journey looked like.
And most of us also need support and tools in order to succeed. So essentially that's what got me to say, there's a large population out there. They're all probably searching social media, Google, whatever, or trying to understand what they're benefits at work will cover or will not cover. How do I gather all of that information, curate it so that there's one central source for them to get those tools?
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Yep. Okay, so sources, resources, what services that SMBC Resources provide?
[00:16:28] Speaker C: I'm keeping it very simple and Narrow. Right now, you're either coming to get to the directory where you search, hey, I need an expert in law in this zip code and this is what I get, or what you. Another level of support that we're trying to do is what we call our wraparound program. And this is probably a mother, a woman who's on the journey, needs a little bit of coaching and needs a little bit of help on going from point A to point B. And what we'll do with that wraparound program is you come to us, you let us know a little bit about where you are in the journey, and we bring together the experts for you. So you need a coach. Let me call Aisha and see if she could support you and have a conversation or two with you. You need, you need an attorney. I know an attorney over here. And I'm going to bring in a financial expert because you need to check your budget and see if you could really afford that. And that financial expert will go through, through your benefits plan at work and help you identify how much can be covered, how much of your treatments can be covered, how much of your adoption, how much will you be reimbursed for. And then continue to work with our directory because then the grant is there to cover the rest. The amount that your employer may not cover, the rest of the amount that your insurance may not cover. Here, let's help you apply for these scholarships and these grants for you to get most, if not all of the costs covered in order to support you in your journey.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: And that's hugely important, especially with both of those. But understanding your benefits, right, you don't want to be caught flat footed at the time. You actually need to use those benefits to find out they didn't work the way that you thought that they work. They didn't cover what you thought that they would cover. And then you're trying to figure out which pinky toenail to sell so that.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: I can get me to this thing. That's right.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: I'm curious. So you're a mompreneur. How do you balance it all?
[00:18:24] Speaker C: Ah, the balance. Do I balance it all? I don't know that I'm.
Am I really balancing it all? Listen, the idea of balance, I think is really in our heads as well. Like I'm managing. We do the best we can. Mompreneur. I chose this Route 1 because I'm a mom, right? Mompreneur is mom first. What I was seeking when I left my job is freedom of time. I wanted the freedom to be. I want to go to the little school play. I want to go to the little school show. I want to be able to sneak away for 45 minutes to drop off the lunch that he forgot at home this morning. He's not wearing the right socks for the day. Like, those are little things that are really important to me. So I worked with a coach, a career coach, and one of the things that we discovered about me that I've always been. I've always been the girl who hasn't, like, party. Aisha, you bring tea, I'll bring sandwiches, and we're having tea time. Let's bring people together and make this a fiesta. That's always been me. And SMBC Resources is a little bit of that. It's not like I have all the answers or anything like that, but I know how to bring people together. I know how to bring the right people around the table to have a really sophisticated part. So that's a little bit of how the mompreneur came about. I think it's just the right time. I have the right experience to bring this to the table. And it's also giving me the one thing that I love the most, which is freedom of time. I get to make him breakfast. Like, I'm not. I get to make him dinner. I get to say, let's go for a walk after dinner if it. Even if it's 15, 20 minutes. And those are the things that I value the most. Like, I'm actually building a relationship with my kid. And that's. I'm beyond grateful for.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: It's interesting. Do you think that the pandemic shifted things? I know I saw a big shift in me in terms of. I have. My youngest is five. And I don't think that she has known a time where mommy didn't have the flexibility to show up for her spring concert and to go early and pick her up to get Boba.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Yes. Right.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Which I'm going to do today. And it's funny.
It's just been an interesting shift, like, leaning into the fact that you change. If you allow parenthood, if you allow the different journeys to change you polish you up, shine you up, a diamond in the rug. And so for me, so I totally get. I'm going to school to read Peter Rabbit to the kids and all the wonderful things.
[00:21:02] Speaker C: And there's such. There's such joy in that. Right. That you may not have uncovered. So your question is whether or not the pandemic changed? I really don't know. I wasn't a mother during the pandemic. Right. My son came like when master off by the time I went to pick him up. Yeah. So and I. And even prior to that I was a work from home employee for years and years. So when the pandemic hit, it was just like, okay, let's just keep working. But what I didn't value then was the gift of time. Because as much as I was still home doing all the things, I would work till 9, 10 o'clock at night, I would work on weekends. Everything revolves around either I'm hanging out with friends and having a good time or I'm working. Uh, whereas now I just am so much more open into just like being home or having obstacles because it's hot outside. And that alone is just what I'm able and willing to do right now. So yeah, that's my journey in mompreneur.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Blake. Okay, so I'm going to get a little bit into your business. I know that a lot of us are introverts. So within SMBC resources, is there a community building aspect? And if so, so how did you go about building your community or how like your community that supports your family?
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Yeah, there. So no, there is no community aspect. What I want to do is point to the communities that already exist. I didn't feel a need to necessarily reinvent the wheel. I know you have a community. I'm part of it. I love it. I'm on there every other day, an opinion or something. And that is, that is part of, that is part of our mission, that we're not necessarily here to provide a service. I'm not reinventing something that's already working. I think you have a great community. I speak to those women all the time.
I'm more than happy to refer people to that community and say, hey, do you know about start to finish motherhood? Go check that out and come back to us when you have specific questions or when you need the specific help that I have to offer. I'm sure Aisha will refer you back to me or vice versa. But no, there is no community aspect. What's happening very often is that women will reach out to us, us via social media asking us questions. And exactly what I just said. I'm either pointing to an expert or a guide that's listed in our directory, or I'm pointing them to a community that's already in existence and saying, pose that question on that channel and see if you can get an answer.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yes, I love it because people will. After the episodes, I will get emails like, especially, I've been really Focused with this podcast series on highlighting spotlighting adoption stories. And I found a lot of people will ask what agency did they use? Did they navigate this? And so is that a resource? Is that in the directory? Because I think when you're looking for an adoption agency as a solo parent, I tend to say look for something that is LGBTQIA friendly, look for something that is supportive and will cater to transparent. Right. So do you have that in your directory as well?
[00:24:05] Speaker C: In my directory I have more adoption coaches.
The reason why I my adoption story is a little bit traumatic in the sense that I won't name the agency that I went through. I didn't think they, they necessarily did me justice. I also uncovered like the adoption industry is an industry.
It's not as pretty as we see it in the movie. So I'm a little. For now, until we can vet these agencies and until we know that they are credible, until we know that they will really support Solomons and the way that we feel solo moms should be supported, we're staying away from listing agencies. Unless we've had a conversation with them that we've really vetted them and we know for a fact that these are people that we feel comfortable referring Solo Moss to. It could change. I'm not saying that in a year or two we won't be listing agencies, but for the client being, we're investing where you can get the right relationship or the right tool to get to the point where you need to go.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it totally makes sense. On season three, I had an adoption coach on the show. And so, yeah, so very similar in that we want to walk with you and help you navigate, but we can't really be 100% too. And if I'm going to direct somebody to you, I know that you were vetted and I know.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: And so I know what I know. Okay, so Regine, what's up next for you? We talked a little bit about you running for Congress. You.
So let's, let's talk about, let's talk about what is what motivates you, like what you're passionate about, what keeps you up at night as you do this work.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm going to preface this and just mention again, I am not running for comrade. How are you?
[00:25:55] Speaker B: But no, not at all.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: Not touching that with a ten foot pole, essentially. Look, my big vision is we want to dismantle these stereotypes that we have around. Like that's the vision. Right? Let's dismantle these false narrative or the stereotype that's associated with solo moms or single moms or single motherhood. I just think that in our country, we talk about women's rights and we often, when we talk about policy and women's rights, we often talk about the right to terminate a pregnancy without necessarily talking about the right to become a parent, which is equally as important. So when we talk about, you know, the right to abortion and making abortion illegal by nature, that means that these kids. Who's going to raise these kids? Right? It means that we need to revisit what the foster care system looks like. It means that we need to revisit what the adoption industry looks like. While I was on my own journey, I experienced. I can't remember the exact number, but there were a number of grants and scholarships that I went to as a solo parent trying to adopt that I was rejected for because these people would not offer grants, they would not offer scholarship, they would not offer support.
People who were single, people who were unpartnered, not married, all of the things, right? I encountered that. And it felt so wrong to me that we had 400,000 children on a daily basis in the US in the foster care system. That's the average number. There are, on average about 175,000 foster care homes, like homes that are certified to be foster, to offer foster care. And we're saying that a single woman cannot come in and foster one of these kids, or a single woman cannot come in and adopt one of those children who are all out there looking for love, looking for home, looking for care, which is exactly what I'm able to offer. So my grand vision is that we change, that we shift the cultural perception of what solo parenthood is. I want to be part of changing what the definition of family is. The patriarchy has ruined these wonderful, beautiful families that are in existence. We know they exist. You will have one, I have one. And I think that I would love to be part of that. I would love to one day, as much as I'm not running for Congress, but sit down at Congress and really speak about who we are as house head of households, who we are as mothers and as parents who are bringing up these kids who are successful, happy, well educated, well rounded, Right. And who are becoming amazing citizens of the planet. Really.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Well, on that note, I mean, what more needs to be said? So, regime, thank you so much for sitting down to talk to me. Where can our listeners find you? Where can they access your directory?
[00:29:08] Speaker C: Sure. The directory is on our website, smbcresources.com all in one word, solo mom. By Choice Resources. If you Google that, you should get to our website. SMBC Resources is also our handle. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I invite any woman. Reach out, ask questions. If you're not finding the resource that you need, let us know. If you know a resource that you've utilized in your journey, let us know. We're more than happy to go do the research and figure out if it's still in existence, if it's valuable, and if they're still supporting us. If you're an expert who supports Solanams as well and you want to be featured on our directory, also reach out, right? If you're offering coaching services, you're an attorney, you're a financial coach, whatever it is, financial planner, cpa, let us know. I think there's an opportunity to have all of these businesses listed on the directory as long as they're willing to support women who are on the SMBC journey like you and I.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: All right, well, there you have it, listeners. Regine, thank you again and we'll talk soon.
[00:30:20] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Thanks for listening To Start to Finish Motherhood with Aisha. If you want to keep the conversation going, follow Start to Finish Motherhood on Instagram. Email me@aisha starttofinishmotherhood.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. Bye now.
