IDENTITY
By MamaChellie Emichelle Clark
Smashwords Edition
Copyrighted and Edited-January 2012
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Ebook may not be re-sold or donated to another person. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Warranty
Edith Michelle Clark is the author and creator of MamaChellie Books. This book does not include any scrape or compilations of any other source or person. This book does not violate privacy rights or have plagiarized material included. This book does not include any hateful, discriminating, or racial contents.
Contents
Introduction
Back in the Day
Child Development
Wellness
Identity
About the Author
Introduction
It is required to obtain a state license to teach, preach, drive, and to purchase alcoholic beverages. Childrearing is the most important accomplishment in a person’s life but requires no certification.
In my opinion, if parents were required to obtain proper education toward child rearing, the child development process would change considerably and America would be a better place to live. But in actuality, not many American citizens would agree with having their privacy rights violated by having an authorized requirement for parenting.
Therefore, parents should obtain a sense of self-identity and wellness before having children. Reaching ones identity in life requires self-love, wellness, spiritual growth, and basic social interaction skills. Many parents lack the true understanding of self-love. In order for a person to properly love another they must have the contentment of loving self.
My purpose of writing this manual is to encourage parents to prepare their children towards becoming responsible adults. This manual will include information towards improving parenting skills, wellness, and the importance of self-love.
I pray that after viewing this manual, God will place on the hearts of every individual to desire the need of the village concept. This country needs the support of all adults to save the life of the youth that is developing with little or no guidance of morals and values.
I dedicate this manual to my youngest son Michael. Michael inspired me to live out my dreams and to find my true identity in life. Writing this manual was one of my many dreams.
Enjoy!
Back in the Day
People often express how they miss the good old days. In my opinion, the good old days were not that great! The only thing good about the good old days was that Black people of the fifties and sixties cared for each other.
Most urban and city people during this time, were basically from the south. Many moved to the city to find work and to escape the obstacles of the south. A Black family could purchase a home and live within their community without being lynched or having to enter stores from the back or side entrance.
The people practiced Southern Hospitality in the city. If a Black family experienced hardship, the loving neighbors would gather together and throw a rent party to help the family in need. People spoke to each other every morning and no one was ever lonely or alone.
A widower or widow had their friends in the neighborhood for a means of support. A Sunday morning was a time for rest and most children were required to attend Sunday school every Sunday. Children had school clothes and Sunday school clothes, and the only thing that was designer was the China.
The father was the head of the family, and the mother taught her children discipline, manners, and respect for everyone within the community.
Sunday evenings included Black families gathering together to feast. The large meals consisted of food for the soul. The Sunday dinners then are essentially what people today have during holiday meals. The doors of the average Black family remained unlocked during the day so that a person could simply, “Come on in.”
On Saturdays, the fish truck man and the fruit and vegetable truck man made his living by depending solely on the community to gather in line to purchase their foods from the truck. The food trucks were owned by Black men from the south. And the foods were farm grown.
A drive by back then meant that the food trucks were sold out and the men would simply drive by the neighborhood without stopping. People fought for their civil rights during this time and you barely heard of Black on Black crime.
Discipline was not against the law and there was little knowledge of child abuse in a Black family unit. A good ass whipping meant that the child was out of line for a few seconds and the parent handled their parental duties. The parents would often state, “This will hurt me more than it will hurt you.”
There was no such term as a time out.
Time out then meant the television broadcasting system was going off the air at midnight.
Parents did not rely on medication for their children’s disposition or emotional problems, and seeking therapy was rarely heard of.
In most cases, a parent would only have to stare at their child and the child would cease acting up. Today, parents have little authority over their children and the people left to discipline and to properly teach their children are the schools and the police.
I guess this is why we have security guards in elementary schools and gun detectors in high schools. Back in the day, if a child was out of line, the entire neighborhood could chastise the unruly child. The normal way of life then, was of the village concept.
The term village meant that anyone who lived within the community could chastise a child without having any feedback from the child or the parent. Today, people fear reprimanding their own children and could essentially not care less in regards to a child’s unruly behavior, especially if the child is not their own.
But please do not be fooled about the so-called good old days. A lot happened in the sixties and the family values suffered considerably. In the Sixties, America was facing a time of racism and sexism. While the suburban women were eagerly burning their bras, the average Black woman was trying to keep her family values intact.
The African American person was titled, Negro, Black or another word that is ultimately against the law to use in public. People crooned songs of promise, hope, and simply embraced the empowerment of their blackness.
James Brown informed the Black people to “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m proud.” While Freda Payne requested they simply bring our boys home alive!
As a child, I remember clearly how the young Black men and fathers returned home from the Vietnam War. The Black men returned home without any welcome and the only thing they returned home to was grief. Their wives were forced to work outside of the homes, and women who could not work were forced to apply for Welfare.
Welfare back then was totally different; a woman could not have a man in the household or have the luxury of a television. If the returned solider suffered with a disability or was shell shocked, he might have been forced to leave the home to ensure his family would benefit from the enabling good old Mr. Welfare.
If a woman failed to have a strong sense of purpose, she would basically fall underneath the cracks while depending on welfare and her children would suffer as well. A more educated woman could work and support her family, but would often do so without the support of the Black man.
If the Black man was not imprisoned, disabled, or addicted to drugs from the results of the Vietnam War and from the constant disrespect of his own country, he might have had a chance to save his family back then.
This was also a time when Dr. Martin Luther King served as a leader to Black families, but once he was assassinated many Black people lost hope. This depressing time caused many Black people to fight for their rights. But some fought with the use of alcohol dependence while others simply failed to fight and embraced the desire to simply flee their urban neighborhoods.
The term, “making it,” required Black people to no longer help one another, but to gain a sense of every man for themselves. This horrible lesson was expressed to the children coming up during this time.
By the Seventies, most deprived Black people were relying on winning a street number, hustling, and or prostitution in order to survive. The family values were dying. People no longer had a need to keep their streets clean of litter and trash, because they had little respect for their community.
There were no more voices to be heard about civil rights, it was now a right for each individual to simply no longer love self. Black people no longer chased the dream of the people but they chased the all American Dream, “Buy a house, a car, and get as far away from the ghetto as you can!”
By the eighties, sex and violence was of the norm. The young Black men had no role models and the pimps, drug dealers and hustlers seemed to be their only active role models. The Black family no longer had the morals to stay within a family unit, and society had even perfected the single mother, by entitling her as the new Single Woman of America- Ms!
The sitcoms that were aired convinced women of this time, that single parenting was acceptable. It was no longer uncommon to see a woman having a child out of wedlock, it was practically encouraged.
The average Black man, who was raised with decent morals and values, had to then reprogram his new bride to understand the concept of togetherness because the basic new Ms. was far too independent to need a man in her life.
She could actually bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan herself. So where did this leave our beautiful Black men?
The makings of what we have today are a group of mislead, miseducated, and programmed group of people that now believe they must do whatever needed to prevent living in poverty. And please believe that the new breed coming up have little remorse in their methods of survival.
How in the hell did teaching children right from wrong, and teaching them morals and values in life become a thing of the past? The Black people of the good old days, lost their true meaning and cause of what their ancestors died for.
The love of money and power overruled their proper methods of upbringing. The Black man and woman are now slaves of the invisible master.
The new invisible master today, is raping, molesting, disrespecting, impregnating, exploiting, killing, drugging, depriving our children of decent educations, and guess who the new invisible master is-the Black person who does not give a damn!