Category: Community

Octane is built on authentic communities and founded on acts of selfless service. Mothers of May is a month long celebration of moms from all aspects of life. By hosting a space for ‘each one teach one’ women share their own unique perspectives and lessons of motherhood. 

by: Le’Shae Robinson

“Your son doesn’t live with you?” is a question I’m often asked and I can see and hear the judgment when it comes up. No, my son doesn’t live with me. He lives with his father. No, I’m not a drug addict. I’ve had the same car for years now. I’ve had my current address for over a year. I have a BA in Communication. I have kept a 9-5 professional job since 2013. I freelance and help small business owners occasionally. Nothing is wrong with me.

My son lives with his father. It’s a really long story but basically my son’s father and I are no longer together for a number of reasons so we are working to learn how to co-parent while creating some form of stability for our child, hence the reason why he lives with his father.

Parenthood doesn’t come with a manual and I really wish it did.

It’s been trial and error for me. My son is only two years old but these two years have flown by and I have grown so much. I love being a mom. My son brings joy to my life. He is smart, funny, curious, caring, a natural born leader, loves to eat, sings all the time, and so much more. That’s what I know for sure today.

However, that wasn’t the case the first three months of his life. He couldn’t talk so he cried for things he needed. Sometimes the crying stopped soon if I could figure out what he needed. Sometimes there was nothing I could do to make him stop crying and so I would cry too. I felt defeated, sleep deprived, and sometimes depressed.

I breast fed him and felt so much pressure about making sure he had enough milk just from the time he was born until I stopped. I remember the lactation nurse coming in my room at the hospital and aggressively talking to me about how I might have to switch to bottles because my son was losing weight. My son was only a few days old! To add to that, I lived in a city with no family. My mom and I were disagreeing about things so we also weren’t speaking. It was really the perfect storm to put a damper on other things in my life and that’s exactly what happened.

So at the start of the new year, I moved out on my own. We made the agreement that I would get my son on the weekends. It was heartbreaking not to see my son everyday. It still is. It was difficult in other ways too. I live on the third floor and there isn’t an elevator so when I do have my son with me I have to lug him and whatever other bags we have up those stairs. They live 45 minutes from me and often I have to drive there to get him. It’s a far ride, completely out of the way, and it is a good bit of gas. I don’t have the relationship with his daycare teachers that I would like. I don’t get to spend every holiday with him anymore because we share every other holiday.

Sometimes I worry about what kind of meals his father makes him. Is it full of nutrition? Are there enough fruits and veggies in his diet? I have a lot of fears and worries about not seeing my son everyday like I used to. However, it it through the ways that I have learned to take better care of myself that I have become a better mom to him.

This isn’t a Tyler Perry film but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had to get in touch with God again. I don’t actively go to church anymore but I have a much stronger relationship with God then when I left that house. I lost a lot of friends after leaving. Some of my family members judged me. I felt alone and I was so it was really easy to just start talking to God openly about things.

I started changing how I talked to myself. I cut off statements of “I’m poor” or “I’m so fat”. I’ve replaced negative statements with “You’re worthy”, “you’re that chick today!”, “you have all the resources you need”, “can’t stop, won’t stop”, “today’s a good day to have a good day” and many other positive mantras.

In turn, when I started saying the opposite I started making the real changes to manifest the new positive things I was telling myself. I got a personal trainer who is awesome! She would pump me up in the gym. She would text me positive things. I started following her fitness group online where there was more positivity. Then in turn, I started losing weight. I started purposely choosing new friends who were positive. I started going out to public events that promoted positive messages. I even started a new business!  

While these are all good results, it’s come with a lot of personal growth. For example, I overcame anxiety and negotiated a higher salary. I’ve had to professionally confront people on rumors that weren’t true in order to protect my reputation. I’ve had to barter services with people. I have completed and pushed projects and ideas that were near and dear to my heart that didn’t get the results that I wanted.

I’ve survived two months with no job. I’ve even had to let some friends go. All of these things were difficult for me to do. However, it is through a closer relationship with God, supportive family and friends,  and daily positive affirmations that I have had pushed through these tough situations.

I use these same tactics when it comes to parenting my son now. I pray to God to heal my son when he’s sick and there’s nothing I can do for him. I make time with my son intentional by making sure we are surrounded by positive family and friends who support us.

If I get overwhelmed, I repeat positive affirmations over and over.

These are just a few of the lessons I’ve learned through being a mom. The greatest one is that in order to better serve your children (or anyone) you have to take care of yourself first so that you can develop mental endurance. Life will still continue to happen so how will you ride the wave?

Le’Shae is a mom, author, market strategist and business owner of Hair to Door online wig subscription service.

Follow Hair To Door on Instagram.

Octane is built on authentic communities and founded on acts of selfless service. Mothers of May is a month long celebration of moms from all aspects of life. By hosting a space for ‘each one teach one’ women share their own unique perspectives and lessons of motherhood. 

By Celeste | @parentingandheels

As I was listening to “Life Changes” by Thomas Rhett, I was thinking about how relevant it was to my life. When Shawn and I got married we had this idea about how life would go. Well we all know life never goes the way we plan……

Over 8 years ago I began my journey in motherhood without even realizing it.

At the time we were traveling to Aruba and Las Vegas and here and there having a good time as husband and wife. One day (I can’t even remember how we found out about this) we decided to travel ten hours to Wilmington, NC. There was a promotion for a free stay and dinner if you booked an appointment to see a residential development they were building. We thought why not?!! It’s free and who knows maybe we will buy a house there! If you’re not familiar with Wilmington it’s a beautiful historic town built on the Cape Fear River and next door to Wrightsville Beach. Well we absolutely fell in love with this little town and when we returned home we decided to sell our first home and move to the beach!!!

Well like I said before, life changes! Not two weeks after we sold our home and was packing up, I found out I was pregnant. Keep in mind that we were moving on a whim. That meant we were quitting our jobs and just moving! Obviously I couldn’t just quit my job being pregnant; we needed to keep our insurance. Besides the fact that my mom would kill me if I moved far away with her grandchild! We made the responsible decision to stay and look for a home here. We ended up moving two houses down from our old house. Our neighbors must have thought we were nuts!!! They were kind of right.

We were bummed about not living by the beach but we were excited about this new adventure!! We were thrilled when Audrey was born and loved her more than the beach (that’s right; I said it!).

It was about two weeks in when the realities of parenthood hit us hard. She had colic, and I’m not talking that one hour a night of crying. If she was awake, she was crying. She took three 30 minute naps a day. You can do the math. She cried ALL the time. She also went through a 6 week period when she woke every hour on the hour throughout the night. We were utterly exhausted. I obviously still loved her, but I needed a break!! We both did!!
Luckily she eventually grew out of her colic and is the BEST kid now! She’s so responsible, so sweet and compassionate. But, we decided NO MORE kids!!! We just couldn’t do the “baby thing” again.

The picture above is the vacation we took in 2017. We took Audrey to swim with the dolphins, took a sunset dolphin cruise and had the best time!!! It was the first vacation we had been on that we could actually relax because she was older and more self sufficient. It was AMAZING!!! I remember watching families with young children thinking “Shew, I’m glad we’re done with that stage!” Little did I know, I was pregnant with Brooklyn at the time. Talk about life changing!!! I had no idea what we were about to be hit with when we got home.

It wasn’t until three days after we got back that I found out. I was going on Audrey’s school field trip as a chaperone to the orchard but that morning I woke up SO sick!! I could barely get dressed and I had to monitor 24 kids that day!

I pulled myself together and made it there (barely). A friend of mine was there chaperoning another class. She said, “You look awful. Are you ok?” I told her how sick I was. She said, “Are you pregnant?!” Umm no! Don’t be ridiculous!!! I’m almost 40 years old! No way, no how!! The whole day she kept asking me if I was ok and trying to persuade me to take a pregnancy test. I think I finally agreed when I dry heaved on one of the kids!

TRUE STORY! Later that afternoon she bought a test for me and dropped it off. It was like a scene from a bad 80’s movie…taking a pregnancy test and keeping it under wraps.

Our lives changed forever that afternoon. The lines on that test couldn’t have been clearer. I remember texting Shawn a picture of the test at work. Yeah I know. I could’ve been much more eloquent about it, but I was in total shock!! He called me and said, “Soooo….how do you feel?” I said, “I feel better now that I’ve had some crackers and ginger ale.” He said, “No I mean…how do you FEEL??” Well I was scared and shocked, but I knew God had a plan and I had to trust that. My whole pregnancy I was a nervous wreck. I thought, “There is no way I can do this again! I’m completely starting over and I’m almost 40 years old!! What am I going to do?!” We had even given away EVERYTHING! We had to buy all new baby stuff. We were literally starting from scratch.

Now we have two beautiful little girls (7 years apart) and wouldn’t trade it for the world!!! Side note: Brooklyn was such an easy baby compared to Audrey. We had a lot of people praying she would be much calmer and it definitely worked!!

Now we‘re not living our dream of spending days by the ocean but we’re living a dream we didn’t know we wanted until we had it!!!

I couldn’t imagine my life without my two girls and my husband. Days are hard sometimes, but it’s all worth having those big smiles in my small little world. Life definitely changes, but sometimes those changes are bigger than us and exactly what we need!!!

Hi!! I’m Celeste, a KY blogger, wife and mom of two girls who are 11 months and 7 years. That’s right! I’m starting over in the baby world.

 I am about creating balance between self and family. My passions are my family of course, fashion and food. 

I have been a stay-at-home mom for 7 years with my two girls. I am both in the school age world and the baby world. 

 I love to share what I have learned on this journey called motherhood! I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, but I love talking about my experiences over the past 7 years as a mom!!

Moms need other moms to support each other and that’s why I love what I’m doing!!

Octane is built on authentic communities and founded on acts of selfless service. Mothers of May is a month long celebration of moms from all aspects of life. By hosting a space for ‘each one teach one’ women share their own unique perspectives and lessons of motherhood. 

By Joy Bolton Berry

My name is Joy … And I’m the mother of three adult children ages 29, 27 and 23. My oldest son was convicted of a horrible crime and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Chase my first beautiful son has battled mental and intellectual issues primarily all of his life. He was also much larger than most kids his age and was a victim of bullying. He lost his father unexpectedly before he finished high school.

After two knee surgeries within two years it was no longer eligible to play basketball and became depressed and lost. This was a connection to kids that accepted and looked out for him. He was now forced to find another peer group to do the same. This peer group was kids that turned to drugs to soften the blow of life.

The background information is not for sympathy but a brief synopsis into the life of a good human being dealing with difficulties and ultimately making choices that impacted not only himself but his entire family.

For the past 14 years… I have attended court proceedings, talked with psychiatrist, made multiple calls to attorneys, made weekly jail visits (some entailed a three hour round-trip drive), accepted weekly phone calls, deposited money in jail account, and updated family members with pertinent information for 14 years!!!!

I dealt with sadness, anger, depression and most of all guilt. I was constantly thinking that I must have hurt Chase so badly that I caused him to behave so recklessly. Where did I fail at being a good mother? I felt so much pain for so many years. I was angry at everyone. No one is fighting for Chase but me.

I was tired. Change arrived in the form of a divorce, discovering self-love, and most importantly… my new relationship and faith in God. Anger, anxiety, exhaustion, fear, frustrated and was given over to God. I began to see my life outside of my sons incarceration.

I have fought so long for my son that I forgot to fight for myself.

Joy Bolton-Berry

There’s so much more to discuss as it pertains to intellectual disabilities and incarcerated persons, mental health care in prison facilities, delayed and nonexistent services for individuals reentering society, predatory phone in prison services, etc. you simply cannot fight everything and everyone alone. And I cannot dissect every moment of my life to try to figure out how things could be different.

What I’ve learned is to find balance. You have to find the joy in every circumstance. I hear the joy in my sons voice, laugh and smile. I will not feel guilty as I experience joy in my own life.

There’s so much to experience that I can give to chase, to uplift and motivate him. He is excited for me in spite of the circumstance. I could be excited for him as well.

Chase will be eligible for parole soon. I pray for his opportunity to make a better life for himself. He wants me to be proud. He talks about photography, animals and having a family.

Incarceration has damaged my family but there is still joy in the aftermath.

For that I am thankful.

Joy is the co-host of local show “The Joys and Lowes of Relationships” on Lexington Community Radio on WLXU 93.1FM and local columnist for The Lextropolis.

She is a vocal advocate for families affected by incarceration, neglect and abuse and a fierce community leader among women of color.

Octane is built on authentic communities and founded on acts of selfless service. Mothers of May is a month long celebration of moms from all aspects of life. By hosting a space for ‘each one teach one’ women share their own unique perspectives and lessons of motherhood.

By Cicely N. Carter

When I was first thrust into the realm of special needs parenting, I feel like many of the articles I was able to find about being a special needs parent or Autism mom specifically we’re a little bit gloom and doom. Of course they spoke to hope and how the diagnosis is not the end of the world, but I didn’t find too many people who were truly celebratory. They celebrated their children of course, but no one truly took hold of the special needs parent title and embraced it. I now realize it may have been because at the root of it all, we are all still moms. No less than other moms, just different.

We are now almost 7 years into Liam’s diagnosis and I will say that the challenges we face today and the hope I feel for Liam’s future are a stark contrast to how we started out. I did not know what Autism really was at the time, but I do remember feeling very sad and grieving for the normal life I thought he would never have. Here he is turning 10 later this year and living his best life. Of course he and we have faced struggles and obstacles, but from some of the things I heard along our journey, the outlook wasn’t very good.

I remember when he was about 3 and ½ years old and we went to a meeting about SSI because as a single parent who worked and was in school, I still needed additional income to help pay for daycare and to meet our daily needs. As a part of the SSI application process, they send you to a third-party agency to do a psychological evaluation. Much of Autism diagnoses and evaluations are done simply by observation. The woman who gave him the third-party diagnosis, also told me that he almost certainly had ADHD and I should probably get that checked on and get him medicated for that as well.  I remember seething internally and believing that there was some sort of racial or cultural bias because all the things I had read and observed from him at that point said nothing about ADHD. I ignored what she had to say and at 9 years old, there is still no ADHD diagnosis and Liam is not on any medications.

Being Liam’s mom has made me grow and expand into roles I never knew I would take on. I have become Liam’s number one advocate. If I don’t believe something is pertinent to him or relevant for the challenges he faces, I speak up and say something. Although he is the one experiencing Autism and I am the one on the outside looking in, I have to use both my mom intuition and my knowledge of my child to make the most informed decision that I can about his life. Turning into an advocate has also given me strength and confidence in myself and in other areas.

While so often the focus on the struggle of Autism parenting, there is so much joy that Liam experiences in his life and joy that he brings to mine.

Due in part to Autism and to heredity, Liam speaks his mind and holds nothing back. He has said some things that have put me in slightly awkward situations, but it’s really nothing that I haven’t been able to laugh off and get over. Liam took his first international trip at 6 to the Bahamas and I’m not even sure he had one meltdown that entire trip. That was such huge progress for him. He got on a plane, we stayed at an Airbnb and then we boarded a huge cruise ship. Everything except the plane ride was completely new to him. He scaled that obstacle without a hitch.

There was the time a year and a half ago that Liam decided to play basketball for the first time. Although he complained about going to practice, he got better at dribbling and shooting and towards the end was finally engaged in the game. He decided not to continue his future NBA career, but I applaud him for trying because it was his first time doing a team sport and I know it caused him a lot of anxiety.

If being an Autism mom has done nothing else for me, it has made me appreciate and celebrate every milestone no matter how small.

Every single time Liam shows progression and overcomes an obstacle, I am his biggest cheerleader. I want him to know that there is cause to celebrate every triumph. I have experienced this life with him right by his side. I can’t be everywhere, I can’t know everything and I can’t ever see thing through his eyes, but I can be the support he needs. If that’s all I was ever meant to do on this Earth, I am more than happy that I was divinely chosen as his mom.

ABOUT CICELY

Cicely is a mom, a graduating nurse student, MUA and blogger behind @bougiebeautybabe. When not the co-host of the #MoreThanGraphics podcast Cicely is raising curiosity and exploration within her beloved son Liam. Follow her on Instagram.