S1E1 "Momming In The Margins"

Motherhood should feel like a place to thrive, not a test of endurance. We kick off Season One with our theme that names what so many Black moms live every day—momming in the margins—tracing its roots with Black Ladies in Public Health, and connecting personal stories to data, policy, and power. We call for maternal vitality, not just survival, and close with a pledge that turns awareness into action.

• defining momming in the margins and why it matters
• partnership origin with Black Ladies in Public Health
• data gaps during COVID and real-world harm
• pairing qualitative and quantitative data for truth
• maternal vitality alongside mortality and morbidity
• Momnibus, Black Maternal Health Caucus, and advocacy training
• nursing lens on social needs and clinical care
• power, voice, and a community pledge to act

If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help more listeners find us. Your voice amplifies the movement—what will your pledge be?

Thanks so much to Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central and Southern New Jersey for sponsoring this episode.

Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey provides high-quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health care services at 14 health centers across the state. Whether you need birth control, STI testing and treatment, a wellness exam, cancer screenings, pregnancy testing and options education, abortion care, and more, you can turn to Planned Parenthood for the care you need and deserve.

Learn more at www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-northern-central-southern-new-jersey

Chapters

• 0:15 Welcome To Melinated Mommy Talks
• 1:33 Why A Podcast And Who It Serves
• 2:33 Support The Show: Subscriptions And Perks
• 3:11 Season Theme: Momming In The Margins
• 4:02 Origin Of The Phrase And BLiPH
• 6:20 Finding A Public Health Community
• 8:18 Defining Marginalization Beyond Income
• 9:10 COVID Data Gaps And Real Harm
• 10:44 Why Representation In Data Matters
• 11:27 From Mortality To Maternal Vitality
• 12:03 Policy, Momnibus, And Advocacy Training
• 13:00 A Personal Journey Into The Margins
• 14:40 Lived Experience Inside Clinical Care
• 16:28 Owning Power After Generational Silencing
• 18:20 See Your Power And Use Your Voice
• 19:55 The Pledge And An Invitation
• 22:16 Season Outlook And Community Support
• 24:56 Sponsorships, Thanks, And Next Steps

Transcript

Jaye Wilson: 0:15

Hey girl, hey, it's your girl Jaye. Welcome to season one of Melinated Mommy Talks, the podcast, where, as your host, I will be talking about and exploring so many amazing topics within the melanated mom's world. And sometimes we'll have some pretty dope ass guests to join in that conversation with me. This podcast is the birth child of our monthly in-person and virtual support group. We realize that all of the moms across the planet who want to participate in these conversations may not ever or may not always be able to attend our groups. What better way to include all of you than to bring the conversation directly to you? You can listen to these episodes and be part of the conversation anytime that works for you. And you can listen to them as many times as you want. This podcast allows us to reach more moms, birthing people, and all those folks out there who want to learn more about all that we go through and experience. This podcast is going to cover everything from the mom journey to relationships, to how policy and advocacy impact us, to raising these mini-me's, and so much more. So we are so excited to have you with us. If you love the idea of this voyage we are about to embark on with this podcast, then I encourage you to become a paid subscriber. Becoming a paid subscriber is an excellent way to help us keep this podcast going and growing and improving on our production quality. Being a paid subscriber also gives you access to exclusive bonus episodes and other content we will drop to show our thanks. With the launch of the podcast, we have already made our pilot episode available as a thank you to our subscribers. This is something we recorded a while back as we began exploring the concept of turning our Melinated Mommy Talks live and virtual groups into a podcast. It's a great episode where with a group of other melanated mommies and birthing supportive folks, we dive into the concept of Black Mama Magic, which you'll often hear me talking about on this podcast. I highly recommend that you check it out and we absolutely appreciate the support. You can get more information on how to subscribe by clicking the link in our podcast description. You can also help the podcast by just becoming a listening supporter if you're not interested in bonus episodes and subscribing. The link to listener support donations is also available through an additional link in our podcast description. Whether you decide to become a subscriber or listening supporter, we appreciate you and look forward to bringing you excellent content. Now, this season, girl, I am so excited for this full season of Melinated Mommy Talks. This season, we are going to be diving into the idea of momming in the margins. We're going to be defining it, exploring it with some special guests, and literally just scratching the surface on some of the ways that moms are momming in the margins. So go ahead and pull up your metaphorical seat, tap in, and enjoy this first episode of Melinated Mommy Talks the Podcast Show. Momming in the margins. Whooo! Chile! Such a huge topic for us to be exploring this season, but I am so excited to shed some light on this topic and build awareness around it. So let's get started. What exactly is Momming in the Margins? So the phrase momming in the margins actually came from one of our greatest partners, Black Ladies in Public Health. I was introduced to Black Ladies in Public Health through one of my greatest mentors, Dr. Patty O'Brien Richardson. She was telling me, you're doing all this work in public health, but are you really connected to the people who look like us who are making a difference? And said, you really need to be a part of this amazing network. I had no idea what this lady was talking about. But I was like, uh, well, help me understand. How do I connect to them? Dr. Patty sent a warm, welcoming email between myself, her, and Dr. Jasmine Ward. In that email, she introduced me, she gave her a little insight on who I was and where I was going and what my plans were with Melinated Moms. And Dr. Jasmine embraced me with open arms. When I connected with her, it was just like talking to a sister. She told me more about why she started Black Ladies in Public Health, who she was as a public health professional, and why it was so important for us to have a platform where other public health professionals who were women, specifically black women, saw, connected, and supported one another. So I said, How do I join? What do I need to do? How much does it cost? Jasmine was very upfront. She created this beautiful platform and had more than 10,000 members that were spanning across more than 30 countries, as well as obviously the United States. I felt like a little fish in a huge pond of beautiful black women who are doing amazing things. But I was wondering, how do I actually fit into this? So in my conversation with Jasmine, she actually invited me to come to New Orleans, where she was hosting a health symposium. And it was actually during Essence Fest. So it was my first time going to Louisiana and my first time technically going to Essence Fest. But I was there to meet something that was even greater than what I thought I would meet. I was meeting a partner. I was really learning what does it mean to be in a space of academic excellence, social impact, and support with women who look like me. I felt like I found my people. And I found the whole reason for having a network that really embraces all of the intersections of who we are. And it was highlighted literally in the name of the company. The health symposium was held at Xavier University, which is a beautiful historically black college and university, or HBCU in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was so significant for me because this was the first time I was ever on an HBCU campus. And it was the first time I really got to embrace the significance of seeing Black academic excellence in real time. I got to meet and greet and honestly just relish in the fact that I was there. I had no idea how that would change the trajectory of the work that I would do with Melinated Moms, literally and figuratively. And I didn't know what other things would be inspired just from having such a beautiful connection to this amazing network of women. Dr. Jasmine has been such an amazing support from the first day I met her. So as I was giving her more insight on my concepts of how Melinated Moms would change the world through maternal health equity, she just muttered the phrase, it sounds like you're working with moms in the margins. And I was like, wait a minute, what does that mean? And she told me when we think about what marginalization is and how it relates to the things that mothers need, especially black moms, it leaves us out and it takes away our ability to really be able to thrive in our motherhood. Black moms aren't often given the luxury of enjoying their motherhood. They're only surviving it. So that marginalization, it tracks, honestly. It connects with the reason why Melinated Moms exist. It also tracks with the reason that Black Ladies in Public Health exists. If we don't know that there's representation out there, we won't know what we can or cannot do. So hearing her and understanding how she came to that conclusion from just me telling her my concept of my business, I, you know, I just can never thank her enough. She also taught me that marginalization is not synonymous with social economic status. So when we stop the thought that you can be marginalized or you are only marginalized when you are poor, less educated, or in these quote unquote boxes, then we actually lose out on the opportunity of supporting other people who are in different areas of marginalization. I saw the biggest change in the trajectory of Melinated Mom's growth during COVID through Dr. Jasmine Ward. We saw how each state across the United States had different data sets for identifying who were actually being impacted by COVID. Jasmine first pointed out if we are leaving off the necessity of identifying who or what or where people are in terms of being diagnosed with COVID and receiving treatment, we're actually amplifying the issue as opposed to closing the gap. I didn't think about it in the moment until I saw the data. So when you are not identifying black and brown people in these data sets, but you're also saying that we are disproportionately impacted by all of these public health issues. Where's the proof? Where's the purpose behind those numbers? So she was the first person to literally call that out and create a COVID-specific map that highlighted which states literally left out that information. With her doing that, that shined a light on a different way of us seeing where marginalization shows up in real time in our regular lives. There were many states who were so devastated by COVID, but they have so much missing information. And it actually added to the devastation in those states. When I think about how that applies to motherhood and in those same places, we see when people exclude that information, how that also relates to their mortality and morbidity rates in those same states. So one thing you'll probably hear me say quite a bit is the need for qualitative and quantitative data when you're telling the story, especially around marginalization. We will often hear different state agencies and officials use the term, we don't know why this happens, because they're missing these specific data sets. If you choose not to acknowledge why we need to be represented in the data, it actually adds to the problem. And I think it also goes back to the establishment of Black Maternal Health Week and why that in itself is so important. So if you've never heard of Black Maternal Health Week, it's April 11th to April 17th every single year. It has been a highly anticipated and celebrated week of awareness that really brings mortality and morbidity to the forefront across the country. But here at Melinated Moms, we're not just focusing on mortality and morbidity. We want to also focus on maternal vitality. Doing the work that we're doing, we get to see how we can change those narratives through our partnerships with the establishment and the expansion of the Momnibus, Black Maternal Health Caucus, and even in our own work with our signature advocacy training, find your roar, we have been able to train, implement, and execute advocacy in places and spaces that never existed before, where we're teaching moms and families how to use their personal stories to change the narrative of advocacy and talk to those change makers who can create larger levels of change through public policy and their own advocacy. When we make our legislators more aware of the stories, then we actually get to see it show up in those policies that can change it. I saw my own personal connection to momming in the margins when I think back to my journey to motherhood. I thought that by being equipped with education and health insurance, I was in a marriage, I had all of those traditional things that people say are supposed to exclude you from being classified as quote unquote one of those people. But the concept of one of those people usually comes from people who don't want to recognize you as a person. So I had to think about how my own humanity shifted my own perception of what marginalization really, really looked like. It actually almost inhibited me from even wanting to pursue motherhood because it was so damn hard. And I'm glad I'm stubborn as hell and I pushed through. But I know that's not everybody's story. I also got to see the direct relationship between my personal story and my work actually as a nurse, learning how to advocate for my patient's needs. I remember working in this beautiful space and asking patients, you know, your regular questions. How are you? Did you take your medicine? How was your last appointment? And realizing that this patient's diagnosis was more than just a CPT code or something that I studied at school. It was actually impacted by their whole lived experiences inside and outside of the clinical room. So if I'm speaking to a patient and they're saying, I haven't been able to take my medicine because I don't have enough money for food and I can't take this medicine without eating food, I had to take a step back and realize, oh my God, we are not paying attention to the fact this person is in a space of food insecurity. And that is actually what added to their disparity, not the other way around. So just bringing it back to Dr. Jasmine Ward and why, again, it's important for Black Ladies in Public Health to be in the forefront of that. She showed me we have to have lived experiences as a part of the story of why public health is important, why people who are in those numbers are not just numbers, and also the people who are analyzing all of this data, how they actually can tell different parts of the story that doesn't always show up with a particular question or filling in a blank. I think it could be a hard concept for us to just accept that we are one of those numbers. For me, I didn't think I could be one of those numbers because I thought I could only be one of those metrics if I am poor or if I have Medicaid or if I have these things, because that justified why marginalization exists. But if I'm not aware, even as a nurse, that I can still be marginalized regardless of what I may or may not have access to, I'm actually missing the point entirely. That adds to my commitment to do this work. And it makes me so much more grateful to have mentors and other women who can show me that this isn't just a new thought. This has been work that we've been doing for a long time. So before the masses actually recognized black mortality or morbidity, we've been known. We've been changing the numbers in the narrative. But the way that we've been able to amplify it has always looked different. We're considered to be 13% of the population. But how are we disproportionately almost always at the top of everybody's list for a disparity? We gotta think about that. I think that's why it's also important for us to keep our own numbers and for us to actually have these conversations with each other because now we have something to compare it to. When we're able to connect with other colleagues and scientists and families who can tell you about their experiences, who aren't looking for generalizations, they're not looking for the objective view, they're giving you the realness. That's when we see things change. I'm really grateful, so grateful that Jasmine saw the need for moms in the margins to be a significant way that we can change how these numbers are really impacting us. And I think the most powerful part about that is it allows us to rethink how we care for ourselves. I've seen how it felt to be a patient who was disregarded or ignored when I was going through my own health journey, but I had no idea that this was something that other people were experiencing who were in my shoes. So I want to challenge you as a listener to think about how has marginalization touched you? How have you separated yourself from marginalization? And where's the fork in the road for us to come to a collaborative space so that we're not siloing ourselves out and creating more other categories instead of collaborative opportunities of shifting the way that we support moms in the margin. In many black communities, we believe that we are powerless. So if that is your innate cultural perception, it may feel foreign to you to think that you can be powerful. If you go back to thinking about Jim Crow and prior to when it was like enacted, like it was literally about survival. It was literally a dangerous life or death situation to highlight that you're smarter, that you're faster, that you're more articulate, that you have a wider range than our white counterparts. So it makes sense that it's hard for us to see what power can look like through us and how powerful we actually are and always have been. It reminds me of this time where I participated in this activity and we were talking about the power that existed in the room. We talked about the people who are in our personal and professional networks, our lived experiences, all of the things. And before the end of the exercise, I saw the room go from this beautiful, wide, blossomed flower to this shrunken, diminished version of itself that literally sucked the power out of it, out of the room. The women in that room felt like they were, they were not worthy to say that they are powerful. And they gave more reasons for why they weren't powerful than why they were. And I, I had to like take a step back because, you know, who am I to tell you you're powerful if you can't see it? But what I did do, because y'all know me, y'all know me, what I did do is say, if you don't see your power, that's fine. But I do. I do understand the reach I have, I do understand what influence I have, and I'm not afraid of it. I'm not gonna let other people define who I am and who I am not. I've lived my whole life myself this whole time. And I, I appreciate the responsibility that I have been given to honor the power and influence I've grown to have. And on top of all of that, I wanted them to see that I saw their power, and I see your power too. I think the power that marginalization has on us is it, it makes us dim our light. But we are here to turn that light switch on. You gotta think about it from that space of close mouths, don't get fed. Speak up. Use your voice. Your voice lights up every room that you are in, and every room that you are in, you are supposed to be there. Do not let other people make you feel like you are marginalized in your own powerful space. I know it might feel heavy, but this is why I'm so passionate about bringing this to the light. When we stand in that light, we realize that we are not alone. Let's not fear how the margins define us. Let's find the way that marginalization doesn't determine our destiny. So you'll hear me make sure that I am tying in my commitment to this work through creating a pledge. That is my personal way of committing to this work and standing on it. At the end of every episode, you'll hear what my pledge is going to be. And we always will invite our guests to take the pledge with us. So I challenge you to stand in that same integrity because this is how we create the change we want to see. So I pledge to remind myself that marginalization stops with me. I pledge to change the way the margins define me and my community. And I pledge to open doors for other black ladies in public health to be the evidence-based data that represents the changes that we need. What will your pledge be? It is through these kinds of conversations where we realize we may all be in the margins, in one way or another. When we can identify those margins, we remove the stigma, shame, and isolation associated with those margins. Then we can actually begin to get the support we need and allow our community to be there for us. We are only touching the tip of the iceberg this season with the idea of momming in the margins. But I look forward to exploring as much of it as we can with y'all. So I'm gonna wrap this up for now, and I can't wait to see you on our next episode. Thank you so much for joining me and listening. Melinated Mommy Talks the Podcast is your place for authentic and raw conversations about what it means to be a melanated mom. So make sure to subscribe on all of the platforms where you listen to your favorite podcasts. Make sure to like and share. And if you want to continue seeing our podcast grow, make sure to become a paid subscriber for exclusive bonus content or become a donating listening supporter. I want to give a special thanks to our episode sponsor, Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey. They provide high-quality, affordable, sexual, and reproductive health care services at 14 health centers across the state of New Jersey. Whether you need birth control, STI testing and treatment, a wellness exam, cancer screenings, pregnancy testing, and options on health education, abortion care, and more, you can turn to Planned Parenthood for the care you need and deserve. Learn more at Planned Parenthood.org/ planned-parenthood- northern-central- southern- new- jersey Whoooo! That is a mouthful, but it is absolutely worth your time. If you're interested in becoming an individual or corporate sponsor of this podcast, go to MelinatedMoms. com/ podcast for more information. We can't wait to have you with us in our next episode. So keep listening, stay connected, and stay tapped in.