Nikkya Hargrove, MAMA: A Queer Black Woman's Story of a Family Lost and Found
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[0:42]Nikiya Hargrove is the author of Mama, a queer black woman story of a family lost and found.
[0:48]Nikiya is a graduate of Bard College and currently serves as a member of the School's Board of Governors and chair of the Alumni Diversity Committee.
[0:56]A lambda literary nonfiction fellow. She has written about adoption, marriage, motherhood, and the prison system for the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, scary mommy, and Shonda Land.
[1:06]She has worked for social impact non-profits for providing support to underserved communities throughout her professional career.
[1:12]She lives in Connecticut with her wife and three children.
[1:15]Welcome, Nikiya. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Mama, a queer black woman story of a family lost and found.
[1:25]Congratulations.
[1:26]Thank you. Thank you for having me. I know it's a mouthful.
[1:30]No, it's a great title and this book was so powerful. It was so good. I really loved it.
[1:38]I'm so impressed by the whole project by your strength and your life and then also the writing of it.
[1:45]So I'm a huge fan. Congratulations.
[1:48]Thank you. I appreciate your compliments. It was quite the journey in many ways.
[1:54]Okay, so for those who don't totally know, even though I read the subtitle, when you give a little more background on your life story, which is the story of the book, we can just start with.
[2:04]Well, I guess we can just start with the main through line and then go from there.
[2:10]Yeah, so the main through line is I had the birth of my half brother right after my graduation from from college and he was born to our mother when we shared.
[2:25]We have different fathers, but she was pregnant at my senior year of college and gave birth not long after I graduated.
[2:34]And he was born and he was the result of a relapse. His birth was the result of a relapse that she had having spent the prior night using crack cocaine.
[2:45]And so he was born and it was sort of like what happens next. He's here.
[2:50]She cannot take care of him. The state took him away. We were in New York at the time and and I could not let him go to foster care.
[2:58]And I could not live with myself knowing that I was able bodied sound mine having just graduated from college.
[3:05]I could not let him go to foster care and be lost in a system and I may never find him so I committed to to raising him and it is the story of our journey to figuring out what
[3:16]the parenthood could look like, even though I did not anticipate fully being his parents, but our mom passed away when he was four months old.
[3:26]And so I took him and the book is is dedicated to him. I think he has yet to finish reading it. I believe he's halfway through.
[3:35]But it is, you know, a story of the struggles we faced as mother and son. It is the story that I faced with struggles I had with my own mother who I mentioned was addicted to drugs my entire life.
[3:50]She was in and out of jail and then prison and then I found love and my life sort of changed again.
[4:00]When I when I found my partner.
[4:03]Oh my gosh.
[4:05]Journey is an understatement here from before this entire thing.
[4:09]I know another I know we need a better word for journey. I know so at the end of the book you mentioned that Jonathan was 17 held to see now.
[4:17]It'll be 18 in November.
[4:19]He's heading off to college in the day after the book comes out actually.
[4:24]Oh my gosh that is so perfect. You couldn't have written that better.
[4:27]You couldn't have written that ending any better.
[4:30]I think I would rewrite it to another week, but.
[4:35]You know, I was so strict. Well, first of all,
[4:37]Mama also doesn't refer to you.
[4:40]Mama is what your mom actually called you growing up, which is interesting because you were in a factor caretaker for so long, sort of having to hold that mantle.
[4:49]And then of course also your mama to your to Jonathan, a mama to Jonathan your.
[4:55]Yeah, so this sort of dual role of, you know, who are we raising anyway and what does that look like?
[5:02]And and how do you even possibly find time for you in the midst of caring for everybody else?
[5:07]Right. I mean, when you're going through it, right?
[5:10]You just plow through it.
[5:11]And so the book was an opportunity for me to sort of pause and really reflect on on what that time truly meant.
[5:18]For me as a young adult, but also as a recent college graduate, you know, there are things you sort of just want to be and do and I couldn't I couldn't do those just decide to go travel and visit Italy or.
[5:34]You know, I really had the responsibility of of raising him and I don't regret it.
[5:40]You know, now that I have a partner to go to Paris and Italy.
[5:46]I'd much rather do it now as a family.
[5:49]And so I did of course during that time, I would have loved to have been in Paris instead of in family court.
[5:57]But I think, you know, I think everything happened the way that it was meant to and I wouldn't I really wouldn't change any part of that.
[6:06]Maybe, you know, I talk about it in the book, but maybe the custody battle that we went with Jonathan's biological father.
[6:14]I probably would change that.
[6:17]But I really believe that we are as humans following a journey much bigger than us.
[6:23]And so we all have a responsibility in that and for me, it was standing up and being being that hope for Jonathan that I really didn't have in being able to call somebody.
[6:35]Mom and knowing that they were going to show up for me.
[6:38]You had this the strong belief right when Jonathan was born.
[6:42]You kind of knew you were like, this is my response, but I am going to do this.
[6:46]And you have this beautiful scene where you're holding him for the first time and like whispering to him and you're like, I am not going anywhere.
[6:53]You can count on me.
[6:54]And it like brought tears to my eyes because you were like, I don't know how you didn't know how it was going to happen.
[6:59]But you knew that you were going to be his person.
[7:02]And you knew that from that moment no matter what came in your way and so much came in your way.
[7:06]And you were just completely single minded.
[7:09]Like it was meant to be.
[7:11]Right.
[7:12]Right.
[7:13]Because if I let doubt get in my mind, then fear creeps in and then it's just a hamster wheel of messiness.
[7:19]And I didn't have time for that messiness.
[7:21]Honestly, you know, I had to really be or try to be one step ahead of what, you know, child protective services.
[7:28]Detective services was coming, you know, to us for or, you know, my mom was still alive for four months and those were, those were hard months, you know,
[7:38]navigating her life, my life, his life and needs.
[7:42]So those are for trying months.
[7:46]You have these moments of subjects to position from when your life was following this one trajectory and then another.
[7:53]I feel like it all came together in this moment where you're confiding in a friend of yours in college.
[7:59]And you hadn't told anyone about your mom.
[8:01]And then finally you were like, okay, my mom's in prison.
[8:04]And the friend was so nice and was like, you should have told us like blah, blah, but you had this.
[8:09]You were like carrying around all these secrets, which of course are so debilitating really the effect of carrying all these secrets with you and having all this.
[8:18]So like the person next to you is just like doing whatever in college.
[8:22]I mean, thinking back on those moments and like all of that just talk about the intensity of that emotion.
[8:30]So carrying secrets is very, you know, lack of a better word, heavy.
[8:34]For me, having been the daughter of a woman who was incarcerated and then soul drugs and ran from the police.
[8:43]All of that, you know, knowing who she was my mom was very honest.
[8:47]And when she wanted to be and then when she didn't want to be, she wasn't.
[8:51]And for her, it was natural that she would either tell the truth or other lie.
[8:55]And I just would be quiet.
[8:57]I wouldn't share and I would keep things in.
[9:00]And when I got to college was when I was really able to live in my true form as a queer woman.
[9:10]I was learning what I, or who I was as a black woman.
[9:14]And then I befriended a woman who became a very good friend, bedside who was also a woman of color.
[9:22]And from the Dominican Republic and we connected on that basic level before I felt comfortable sharing with her first.
[9:33]And I sort of tested the waters with her first to see how she would react.
[9:37]And then I said, you know, maybe I can tell other people, maybe they will react in the same way.
[9:41]And I didn't want pity from anyone.
[9:43]I didn't want multiple questions from anyone.
[9:46]I wanted to just say what I needed to say and leave it.
[9:50]And that's also what I like about writing.
[9:52]Like I'm able to put it on the page and walk away and fall where it will.
[10:00]And that is also very, very therapeutic.
[10:03]Yes, for fair.
[10:05]Right, I do know.
[10:06]Yes.
[10:08]Well, you also, when you talk about your own relationships
[10:11]and finding love and all that, you talk about a moment
[10:13]with your ex when your mom needed a place to go
[10:18]and you decided to sort of talk to her about it.
[10:20]I'm forgetting her name now, I'm so sorry.
[10:22]What was her name?
[10:23]Kate.
[10:24]And you were like, I can't just accept my mom now,
[10:27]even though she was nowhere to go.
[10:28]I have to talk to Kate and Kate was absolutely not.
[10:31]And you went with that and you were like, OK,
[10:33]even though you were really conflicted about it.
[10:37]But you didn't like the way she said it.
[10:40]It's like, we can say all we want about our family.
[10:42]But like when someone else says it, you're like, what?
[10:45]Don't go.
[10:45]So true.
[10:47]You know, they're cheerleaders and their judges.
[10:51]Yeah.
[10:51]So you go from that where you feel the sort of betrayal
[10:55]and then we get to see your whole arc.
[10:56]So tell me a little bit about that journey, if you will.
[11:02]I don't even know where to begin.
[11:03]That was such a complicated relationship, Zippy.
[11:08]Talk about therapy.
[11:09]I'll just be your therapist of the day.
[11:10]You can just, you know, I love it, you know?
[11:13]And it's free, which makes it even better.
[11:16]So I met Kate around the time that I was also graduating
[11:21]from college.
[11:22]And it was sort of love at first sight or lust at first sight.
[11:27]And we did this stereotypical sort of lesbian,
[11:31]you whole thing of going from zero to 60 very quickly.
[11:35]And so we were wrapped up in that.
[11:37]And it felt great until it didn't.
[11:39]And it things become complicated in relationships
[11:43]when you meet the other family, right?
[11:46]And so there was no hiding who my family was.
[11:49]I was always honest about who, who where I came from
[11:52]and my not so beautiful upbringing.
[11:58]And so was she.
[11:59]And we had this relationship.
[12:03]We lived together, we had dogs together.
[12:05]And when it came time for me to make a decision that would
[12:09]really, now that I think about it, have
[12:11]impacted my mother's life.
[12:13]I hope in a positive way, having let her come and stay with us.
[12:18]I understand why Kate was very adamant and said no.
[12:21]And she was very clear as to why she would say no.
[12:23]But I can't help but to wonder if I would have said yes
[12:28]to my mother if she would not have been homeless
[12:30]and would not have lived in a car
[12:31]and would not have given birth early.
[12:34]And but on the flip side, it wasn't my responsibility.
[12:37]And Kate's response allowed me an easy out.
[12:41]And maybe there was something cowardly about that.
[12:44]But it was necessary for me at the time.
[12:49]It was hard.
[12:50]I wasn't one to cry a lot back then.
[12:53]And I didn't cry about it, but I was sad about it.
[12:56]And my mother was sad about it.
[12:58]And I think my mother was really tired towards the end.
[13:02]And this was long before she died.
[13:05]But still, it was a difficult conversation for me
[13:10]to have with her.
[13:11]No, you can't come live with us.
[13:14]And then the matriarch of my family, my grandmother,
[13:18]who often raised me, called me.
[13:20]And like she's so, she was so good at it.
[13:23]But sort of guilt trip me.
[13:24]Like, hey, why do you say no to your mom?
[13:27]And I had to sort of stand up to her too.
[13:30]And my quiet little voice, I, you know,
[13:33]explained why.
[13:34]And then as relationships go, of course,
[13:37]the family didn't like Kate anymore because Kate said,
[13:40]no, you know, it's a full thing.
[13:42]So it was a great lesson for me.
[13:44]Ultimately, Kate and I did not work out,
[13:47]even though I share some parts in the book
[13:51]where one might think we are going to work out,
[13:53]but we do find and I am grateful for that experience
[13:57]of being in the relationship that I was in with Kate
[14:00]during the time of my life that I needed it.
[14:02]Well, I feel like the whole moment is just one example
[14:05]of you finding your voice.
[14:07]And like everybody in some ways sort of breaks away
[14:11]from family and realizes like who they are.
[14:13]And I feel like that was even though you didn't necessarily
[14:15]want that to be the time or the way.
[14:18]It's like one of those points and flexion points
[14:22]when like you are coming into your own.
[14:24]And that's saying a lot.
[14:26]I mean, you also had so many powerful women in your life,
[14:30]you know, your grandmother, and like, you know, it was hot.
[14:34]This was hard.
[14:35]This is a hard path and yet you did it.
[14:38]It's like setting such a good role model.
[14:41]Like no matter what, you have to listen to your own voice
[14:45]and who that is.
[14:46]So I don't know, I found it inspiring.
[14:49]I mean, the whole story is inspiring, but.
[14:50]Well, thank you.
[14:52]I think, you know, there's a process in writing
[14:56]this is my first book.
[14:57]So I don't have any previous knowledge.
[15:00]But the process of writing this book,
[15:03]I could see my voice growing stronger and stronger.
[15:07]You know, as time goes on and, and you know,
[15:10]where I am today and where I was then feel so far removed
[15:15]from one another.
[15:16]But I'm still learning how to use my voice and when to use it
[15:19]and the right words, you know, I'm in Aries city
[15:22]and I really mean and, you know, my jokes all the time
[15:27]about how, you know, out in the world,
[15:30]they don't get the real me, but in our house,
[15:33]they get the real me and so I'm learning
[15:36]what the, where the balance lies, you know,
[15:38]between being honest and we're with whomever needs
[15:43]to hear my voice and being mean because I think I can be
[15:47]very quick to respond.
[15:49]And when I am, good things don't come to be.
[15:55]I don't advertise when I snap at the kids or whatever, you know,
[16:00]but it's never pretty.
[16:02]No, no, and I don't speak to the fact that, you know,
[16:06]that is a side that everyone needs to see as well.
[16:09]Right? So I, I'm learning, you know, I'm 42 and I'm currently
[16:16]the same age my mom was when she passed away
[16:18]and I carried some anxiety getting to 42
[16:23]and then remember that I'm very different
[16:25]and I lived a very, very different life than my mom.
[16:28]And so they're what didn't need to be fear
[16:31]as I blew out my 42 candles.
[16:36]Well, tell me more about when you decided to write this book
[16:39]and sort of the goals of the book and the process of it
[16:42]and all that.
[16:43]I mean, this is really raw, open, emotional,
[16:46]putting it out there as all good memoirs have to do, right?
[16:49]You have to go there and you did.
[16:50]And so it's, it's incredibly emotionally poignant.
[16:53]So when did you decide how did you decide all of that?
[16:58]I decided when I handed in my senior thesis at Bard College
[17:03]and I'm sitting in front of my board of professors
[17:06]and I'm mad because I gotta be and not the A
[17:10]that I wanted on it.
[17:11]And my professor says, you know, I would pay to read this.
[17:15]And I was like, huh, fascinating.
[17:18]So my senior thesis was about the effects of incarceration
[17:22]on the family system.
[17:24]And so the memoir really was born out of that
[17:27]back in 2005.
[17:29]And so I kept writing things that did not come to be
[17:35]a draft for anything, but I would just write
[17:37]because I loved it.
[17:38]And I still very much love that the act of writing.
[17:42]And so a friend of mine, Kara, reached out to me.
[17:46]I think it was 2015, something like that and said,
[17:51]hey, what do you think about writing a personal essay
[17:54]about adopting Tom of it?
[17:57]And I was like, for what?
[17:59]For who?
[18:00]And she's like, I don't know.
[18:01]I might have an opportunity in an Elle magazine.
[18:03]And I said, okay, sure.
[18:06]I like it all right.
[18:08]And so the book really started with that essay.
[18:11]Again, I'd put it to bed.
[18:14]I'd just done what I needed to do for,
[18:18]I don't know, six, seven years of raising Jonathan
[18:21]and getting a career and et cetera.
[18:24]And so the book really was born out of that Elle essay.
[18:27]And then I started freelancing.
[18:30]And I mentioned that I'm in areas like goals.
[18:35]And I set a goal to get into a different publication
[18:40]every single month, or that didn't work.
[18:43]It was every other month.
[18:44]And as I kept writing, I decided that I needed
[18:47]to be really curious about writing a book.
[18:49]And the goal, the sole goal for me in writing this book
[18:55]is simply so that one person who picks it up can say,
[19:00]ah, I am not alone and there is hope.
[19:04]I am a firm believer that all we need is hope.
[19:08]And if we have that hope and we have that vision
[19:10]of what we want, we'll get it.
[19:13]But you can't lose sight of that goal in that hope.
[19:15]Because like I said, fear will set in.
[19:18]And once fear grips you and takes hold, for me, it's over.
[19:23]And so if you pick up my book and you read it
[19:27]and you get to that last page, I want you to close it
[19:31]and say, OK, I got this.
[19:34]I can do this.
[19:35]Whatever this is.
[19:37]And I know my story is not a typical story, right?
[19:42]It's not the ending, I think, that people
[19:45]would expect having been where I was.
[19:50]And I think that's a little jarring for people.
[19:53]But I could not have done and accomplished the things
[19:57]that I accomplished one without the community.
[20:00]I built along the way.
[20:02]The women that have taught me so much
[20:04]about what to do and what not to do.
[20:07]But if I didn't have hope, you know,
[20:09]if I didn't have hope, I was born one pound in 10 ounces
[20:14]and I survived during a time when no one was really in the 80s.
[20:19]So I had the fight in me and I still very much do much
[20:24]to my wife's dismay as of late,
[20:26]but it's just like, what do you want to do?
[20:29]What?
[20:32]I'm offering therapy, but not couples counseling today.
[20:35]So do right next time.
[20:40]Why did I not come on?
[20:43]Well speaking of your ending, is it okay if I read
[20:45]because it's so beautiful the way you ended the book?
[20:47]You are.
[20:48]And I read, I don't know, part of this from the last two pages.
[20:51]But as I write this, Jonathan 17th birthday
[20:55]is approaching and I am not ready.
[20:57]Time has gone by so fast and yet so slow
[21:00]and we have weathered many storms.
[21:01]But when asked why he has two moms or where his dad is,
[21:04]Jonathan can answer it with confidence.
[21:07]There are times when he needs to teach others
[21:09]about inclusivity, about queerness,
[21:11]about non-traditional families,
[21:12]just as heterosexual moms of color
[21:14]must arm their kids with appropriate responses
[21:16]to all the questions and microaggressions that come their way.
[21:19]Danuszka and I as queer parents must do the same.
[21:23]And then I'm just gonna go further down the page.
[21:25]We have made a home full of love
[21:27]with photos of so many family memories,
[21:30]lining our walls side by side with our kids artwork.
[21:33]We randomly leave sticky notes for each other
[21:35]on the television, on walls, on bathroom mirrors,
[21:38]saying things like, I love you very much
[21:40]and have a wonderful day, you are the best.
[21:42]And then the last sentence, plus part,
[21:45]you said home is where there is life and love.
[21:48]And as I saw my children look around
[21:49]and up in the small village,
[21:51]I felt immense gratitude with my family.
[21:54]I am no longer lost, I am found.
[21:57]That I am.
[21:58]So good.
[21:59]Oh my gosh.
[22:00]Thank you, thank you.
[22:01]It's really moving.
[22:03]It's just really moving.
[22:04]Anyway, it's all interesting to hear someone else
[22:07]read my words.
[22:10]I truly, truly felt lost and scared
[22:15]and all of the emotions that you can imagine
[22:17]that I would, would have felt.
[22:19]I felt and I have to be grateful every day
[22:23]that I'm on the other side of that.
[22:25]And my family keeps me whole and they drive me insane.
[22:29]So both can live together.
[22:34]You have any, not tips per se, but thoughts on making yourself
[22:41]a new model of being a mother
[22:43]from what you had been given yourself.
[22:46]Like how to forge your own path
[22:48]when the role model is not necessarily
[22:51]the way you wanna follow it.
[22:52]I didn't say that very well, you know what I mean?
[22:54]I know what you mean.
[22:55]I'm still learning.
[22:56]I can point out, you know, all the things
[23:00]that my mother did wrong or all the ways I wished my grandmother
[23:03]would have allowed me to call her mom
[23:06]or the many times, but I think I'm still really learning
[23:10]what being a good mom means.
[23:12]And I think that changes from time to time, you know,
[23:16]sometimes it changes when the kids change ages or grades.
[23:20]But I do know that at the heart of being a quote unquote
[23:25]good mom, it starts with dealing with your own stuff.
[23:32]Recognizing your scars and figuring out
[23:36]how to put a band-aid on them.
[23:39]Because at the end of the day, we need to show up
[23:41]for our kids.
[23:41]And if that means going to therapy, it means going to therapy.
[23:45]If that means not buying an extra coffee that day
[23:49]because the kidney is a new violin, that's what it means.
[23:52]So it just, that's a cheap, that's a cheap violin, one coffee.
[23:57]Well, I'm kidding, I get multiple coffees a day.
[24:01]So I'm pulling on from any real life thing happening right now.
[24:07]My kid wants a violin and I'm petrified.
[24:11]We have a trumpet situation going on here and get it
[24:13]from the school, I don't have to buy it,
[24:15]but it's very loud.
[24:16]Yeah, yes, yes, we're working on that.
[24:18]Yep, we're working on the school.
[24:20]So yeah, I think defining good mother needs to be something
[24:25]that you define for yourself.
[24:27]If it's not repeating some of the things your mom repeated,
[24:31]then okay, great.
[24:32]But I think we all have the power to create that for ourselves.
[24:37]I love that.
[24:39]Are you going to keep writing?
[24:40]You have another book.
[24:41]What's your plan?
[24:42]Yes, yes, and yes.
[24:43]The next book, you know, I do the therapy thing.
[24:47]I'm not as consistent with it as I would like,
[24:49]but I do do it.
[24:50]So what I discovered in therapy is that I have complex PTSD,
[24:54]which, you know, we don't have time to get into.
[24:57]But the book that I'm writing will, I'll explore that.
[24:59]And my daughters are very upset that they don't have a book
[25:04]written about them.
[25:05]So I will be including them in book number two.
[25:08]And it'll be a story about not only my journey
[25:13]to understanding what CPTSD is,
[25:16]but also the journeys of other parents.
[25:18]So that will be, that is book number two.
[25:22]Amazing, congratulations.
[25:24]Thank you.
[25:25]Nickia, thank you so much for all of it.
[25:29]It's just thank you.
[25:30]Thank you.
[25:30]Thank you for sharing and helping others.
[25:32]It's really amazing.
[25:33]Well, thank you for taking the time with me.
[25:35]And this was great.
[25:36]So thank you.
[25:37]Thank you.
[25:38]Okay.
[25:38]Bye.
[25:39]Good day.
[25:39]Bye.
[25:40]Thank you.
[25:40]You're welcome.
[25:41]Bye bye.
[25:42]Bye.
[25:44]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[25:47]If you love it, please leave a review.
[25:49]And follow us on social at Citi Owens and at Citi Readers.