In Our Ever-Present Cloud of Doom, Let’s Be Thankful We Have Air We Can Breathe
By NICK CHILES Every once in a while as a parent, you stumble across stories or tidbits of information that help you to gain some...
Easing Mommy Guilt: 20 Quick Ways To Connect With Your Baby When Time Is Short
Even to this day, more than a decade later, I remember what it felt like—that gnawing, desperately unsettled, perpetually unsatisfied, I’m-totally-failing-my-baby feeling I had when...
Fresh Links: Breastfeeding Support For Black Moms, Plus Honest Toddler & New De La Soul Music
Just a few months after the Centers For Disease Control reported a rise in both the numbers of African American mothers breastfeeding and the length...
A MyBrownBaby Salute to Ebony Magazine for the Cover Story, ‘Saving Our Sons’
By NICK CHILES I have been writing about black males for most of the past two decades, but I’ve never been as excited about a...
Spare the Rod: A Black Father Spanks His Daughter and Vows Never To Do It Again
By SHAWN TAYLOR A couple of years ago, I was very deeply involved in putting together an anthology entitled Ass-Whooping’s Greatest Hits: Reflections on the Spankings We...
To a 10-Year-Old, Boston Marathon Carnage is Just Another Day in the American News Cycle
By NICK CHILES There is a numbing familiarity to these scenes now, when Americans unite for a moment to share their horror at another despicable...
Class Act: Remembering and Celebrating 42 and Negro League Baseball, For Our Babies’ Sakes
This past weekend, we took the girlpies to see 42, the feature film about Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League...
On the MyBrownBaby Stoop: ReShonda Tate Billingsley Spills On Her New Book, “The Motherhood Diaries”
With gems like, Let the Church Say Amen and The Pastor’s Wife among her 26 (!) books, national bestselling author ReShonda Tate Billingsley knows writing. But the...
The Motherhood Diaries: A Humorous Look At Raising Kids In the New Millenium
By ReSHONDA TATE BILLINGSLEY Dear Diary, My mother came to visit this week. She fed my six-month-old collard greens and cornbread. She won’t listen to...
In Tearful Speech, Michelle Obama Recognizes Her Own Life in Hadiya Pendleton’s
By NICK CHILES Sometimes it feels like the rest of us operate in a separate world than our lawmakers in Washington. I’ve been getting that...
[Father/Hood] Fairy Tales For Black Girls: Making Up Stories Of Our Own For Our Daughters
By SHAWN TAYLOR Now that my daughter remembers things with remarkable recall, is capable of critical thought, has a keen eye for the differences between...
Gratitude: What I Learned About Motherhood and Life While On Public Assistance
Before I became a single mom, I cut up all my credit cards except one. Thanks to God and the Queen (whose face is printed...
Strip Clubs & Dollar Bills: Explaining the Game—And Its Implications—To My Teen Daughter
I didn’t mean to black out on my 13-year-old this past weekend. It’s just that when we drove past Club Onyx, the infamous Atlanta strip...
What Beating A Child With A Cord Looks Like (Newsflash: It Is NOT Good Parenting)
By DR. STACEY PATTON The digital universe is full of viral videos of adults beating children. I view them warily, alert for triggers that catapult...
Kudos to Magic Johnson for Modeling Fatherly Love in Supporting His Gay Son
By NICK CHILES What a beautiful demonstration of loving and supportive fatherhood we got this week from the great Magic Johnson. On the occasion of his...
