Sorry Kids, You Ain’t Doing Nothing Your Mama Didn’t Do Before

They say that children are a reflection of their parents. And if that really is the case, I’m in big trouble. As the mother of an 11-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter, it’s my job to protect them from all the danger this big, scary world has waiting for them. But my kids have no idea that in her day, their mom was on a mission to find trouble wherever she could. It wasn’t my fault. I was the oldest and the only girl in my family, so my parents worked out all of the kinks at my expense. Probably because they had done their own fair share of dirt in their day, I had the earliest curfew and the strictest set of house rules in my crew. And as a result, I was on a constant mission to free myself from their dictatorship.

Lucky for me, I was doing my dirt in a time before cell phones and social media, so there’s not much evidence left behind. Otherwise, I’d never be able to run for public office. But get me and my girls together with a few bottles of wine, and we can tell some stories about parties we shouldn’t have been at, drinks we shouldn’t have been served and company we damn sure shouldn’t have been keeping. And now that my kids are approaching the age when I was at my sneakiest and my parents and I were at constant odds, I’m scared to death.

For starters, I already see signs that they inherited my sneaky gene. I’ve heard lies roll a little too easily off their tongues. We’ve busted some undercover TikTok and SnapChat accounts. And I know we’ve only scratched the surface. Now I know why my father made all of my potential suitors come into our house and look him in the eye before I got in their car.

I know there are some things they’ll have to experience. They’ll miss curfew. They’ll find themselves in less than desirable places that they know their father and I wouldn’t approve of. But I also know that the stakes are higher than ever for them as Black children. Their choices could mean the difference between life and death. I want them to have fun, but I want them to know that I’m asking a million questions about where they’ll be and who they’ll be with so that if some ish goes down, I know exactly where to go. Young Black men and women of their generation have lost their lives while jogging, driving and falling asleep in a Wendy’s drive-thru. So as I try to loosen the reigns a little and give them the space make their own teenage memories, I say a little prayer that they make it home so I can put them on punishment.