by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman-Johnson, originally published at Not the Nanny

My mother always told me not to stare, but I soon realized that’s not always possible. So I decided that at the very least, if one must silently judge another, it absolutely should not be done blatantly. And never, ever, with one’s mouth hanging [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson
Recently, for the first time in what felt like forever, my husband and I left a child’s birthday party feeling like we’d enjoyed it as much as our kids. According to him, it was the great conversation, but I know that was only just the half. Exiting down the [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson, originally published at Our Kind of Parenting
“That’s it Mommy, I want that one!” My three-year-old flung her arm towards a wall of shiny, sherbet-colored princess costumes.
“I thought you wanted to be a duck.”
“I changed my mind. I wanna be Cinderella for Halloween. See it, Mommy? Right there!”
I [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson
I’m a Northern black woman who grew up in a family whose idea of a traditional meal was spaghetti with meat sauce. No soul food savvy matriarchs have graced either side of my family tree since the great migration. So when my own kids were born, I was determined [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson

A week before my five-year-old daughter’s dance recital, her instructor, Miss Debbie, pulled me aside.

“We’re asking that all the girls wear their hair in a bun.”

I looked at Jasmin’s, golden-brown mane that was pulled neatly into a single puff on the top of her head. Each perfectly spiraled strand was infused with the genetic code of women who came before my child, myself and every other black woman in our family tree. These weren’t the girl next door’s curls. “A bun?”

The fitter-than-thou fifty-something in a black leotard, tights and pink leg warmers looked me squarely in the face. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure if it will do that.” I knew I sounded kind of strange, sitting there talking about my daughter’s hair as if it had a life of it’s own. But it did.

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson, originally published at Our Kind of Parenting
It was ninety-six degrees in the shade but I was way past the point of feeling cute in that Liz Lange swimsuit at our local pool (some maternity clothes just aren’t designed for the third trimester). So while my oldest was at [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson

I never thought I’d raise my children in the country, but when my husband was offered a professorship at a well-respected liberal arts college in upstate New York, we nixed our plan for raising worldly Manhattan tots in favor of a slower pace. Ultimately it was a joint decision, [...]