It Takes A Village of Black Moms

Yesterday I had two interesting encounters with mothers.

First, I was talking with a black mother, who was concerned about her younger sister. The girl had been acting up. Visiting her parents over Easter, this woman noticed a friend of the sister had been spending a lot of time at the house. Not impressed with the friend or her influence on the sister, the woman asked, "I see you around here a lot; what's your story?" Clearly, the story didn't move her, because at the end of the day, she said to the friend, "Now it's time for you to go home. You've got to get cleaned up and get ready for school tomorrow. Plus, you've got to leave here before my mother gets tired of you." She drove the girl to her own house and said to the mother (whom she knew a bit), "Your daughter is not being serious. You are her mother. She needs to spend more time at home with you."

"How did the mother take that?" I asked, a little bit nervous.

"She was fine," I was told. "She thanked me for watching out for her daughter."

Later that day, I was with a group of white mothers for a play date. One little boy whose mother was absent was being rough. He purposely stepped on fingers and kicked another boy in the face. The mothers were not sure what to do. We clucked to each other along the lines of "What should we do with him? Should we say something to his mother?" We did, of course, tell him not to hurt his playmates, but then we reevaluated, "I hope I wasn't too mean. . ." "No, you weren't too mean! You were fine!" I'm not sure if anyone did say anything to the mother. I certainly didn't.

Anyone who's not blind can see where I'm going with this. Long ago I noticed how African American mothers take charge of random children. I was really impressed once to see a woman stop her car, roll down the window, and scold a group of boys who were playing too close to traffic. This seemed like a good public service. Once I tried it when I was driving and boys were horsing around on the side of the road. I pulled over and rolled down the window, "You kids need to watch out, because if you fall in front of a car, it won't be able to stop in time." They were dumbstruck and appalled. No "Yes ma'ams." No "Sorry, ma'ams." They stared at me as if I was a big crabby grump. Mortified, I drove away. I didn't intend to be mean.

Important lesson: It may take a village, but only if you're part of it. I'm not sure I'm in a village at all.