Coaxing an Independent Spirit In My Black Son: mater mea’s Makeda Thomas

Today on MyBrownBaby, we celebrate mater mea mom Makeda Thomas, a New York-based choreographer, who is raising her son, Shiloh, in a home filled with family and love. Here, Makeda,  photographed by Bee Walker for mater mea, shares the importance of and her vision for nurturing an independent spirit in her boy.

What is your parenting style and how do you execute it, especially when you experience doubt as a mother?

I’m encouraging Shiloh to be seriously independent. I think the only true way to honor the self is if you ask questions and explore, and try and fail—and all of these things require that you have a really independent spirit. I want him to have that even if it means that we disagree, which I imagine it will. But I still want him to ask his own questions in his own ways, and to find his own answers. That’s important to me. That’s honoring the divine, and it’s all I want him to do.

This photo and quote was reprinted with permission from mater mea.