What is success?

What is success? How do you know if you are successful? Who sets the standards on how success is measured?

These are some questions that I've been sitting with recently. A month ago I quit my job as a teacher to work from home. I plan on doing day care from home so that I can be home full time with the little one. While being a parent is definitely a full time job.. I feel like I should be doing something else to contribute to society. I have always wanted to start a non-profit after school program for girls. But I know I don't have the time to do that now.. so I was thinking of maybe mentoring or doing some other volunteer work in the mean time. Right now I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle volunteering, raising the little one and starting a home business. The desire is definitely there but I'm just not sure if the timing is right. I just can't help feeling like I need to be doing something other than just being Micah's mother.
 And that brings me back to the idea of what is success and who decides what it looks like. If I'm happy and I'm raising a happy well rounded toddler.. shouldn't that be enough?

I'm also struggling with the same concept when it comes to my relationship with my baby daddy. After going to therapy, several attempted break ups, soul searching, and endless nights of discussion.. I think we have finally achieved balance and peace in our relationship. I think for the first time in four years I really feel like I can see us going the distance together as a team. We still don't live together.. and we may never.. but I feel like I'm finally getting what I need from the relationship.  We have even discussed working on baby number two in the near future.

However when I talk to my girlfriends about all the progress that we have made they still can't let go of the marriage issue. I have told them, my aunts, grandmothers and practical strangers that I do not feel the need to be married. But no one believes me! People have told me that I'm settling and that I don't want to get married because he doesn't want to get married. But honestly.. I just want to be happy.  I just want peace. I want our little non-traditional family to be happy. So whether we live under  different roofs, or have different last names I really don't care just as long as we're all happy and healthy. And at the end of the day.. isn't that really what success is?

Raising our sons

 I began writing my blog partly because I'm very intrigued by the way that relationships/marriages are heading in our society. It seems that more and more people are opting to 'shack up' . And that for those who do choose to marry some of them get divorced and still others cheat on their spouses. Having been a product of a two parent home I always thought I would be married by 25. I am now 31, unmarried and so are most of the women in my circle of friends. So, while I am fascinated with the way that the opposite sexes are relating to each other on the whole..I am even more intrigued by how we as African American men and women relate to each other.

Once I started my blog I started to search for blogs that were writing about issues that interest me. I came across some blogs that were by single Black women and those that promoted marriage in the Black community. And as many of you already know marriage isn't looking so good for Black women. I believe the current stats are that 42% of Black women have never been married. It has been my personal experience and that of my girlfriends that we have been able to find eligible black men to date..it has just been getting ring on it that has proved difficult. Therefore as a Black mother raising a Black son is it not my duty to raise a son who values marriage? And who also sees himself marrying a Black woman?

Should we as Black women who are raising the next generation of Black men be sure that we are steering them in the direction of Black women? I personally don't see anything wrong with that. While I am teaching him to be compassionate, go to college, and open doors for young ladies. I think its also my duty to make sure that he sees the benefit in choosing a Black mate and raising a strong Black family. The reason I feel strongly about this is that marriage is the building block of any community. And currently over 70% of Black children are born into single parent households. We as Black mothers are responsible for raising the Black men that we need more of in our community.

With all of that said we are also raising a generation that may not put as much weight on race as we do. While I was raised by parents who told me vivid stories of segregation and I can personally remember Nelson Mandela being freed from prison. I am raising a son who will have in some of his earliest memories a president that looks like him. So while I will plant seeds for the vision of his future chocolate family..at the end of the day I just want him to be happy with whoever he chooses.