How this Black Mom gave Single Mothers a Voice...

[Mahogany Momma]

When Fadia Ward found herself a single black mom with four kids, alone with no father to provide for them she was upset. She was upset at the reality of hardship that often comes with being a single parent, and she was upset about her children not getting the financial, emotional, and fatherly support she knows they deserve. When she really sat down and contemplated that anger, she decided to turn it into something both therapeutic and quite unique. Out of Fadia's personal experiences came the creation of a different kind of website for parents. Knowing what it feels like to be a voiceless single mother in a world of broken black homes and poorly supported single parents, she decided to give single moms a space to share their stories, hold their children's father's accountable for their actions, and find strength in the real and present issues that connect single mothers across color lines and socio-economic boundaries.

Her site Daddydontwantme.com is as real and as straightforward as the name suggests. Airing out all the dirty laundry of accused dead beat dads this site primarily features stories from frustrated moms wanting to tell their stories, often times in a brutality honest way. And as Fadia knows from interacting with web readers to being featured on ABC, her site is both loved and hated in the online community. Whether you personally feel her site gives dads a bad wrap or not, the truth remains that many of these men have never been held accountable for their neglect of their children and their roles as fathers, so she is taking all the blows and stepping up to say that's not right. They are not good enough.

Love it or hate it, but please don't be quick to judge it because Daddydontwantme.com finally creates a voice for single moms (many of which are moms of color), who feel as though they have been hurt, abandoned, betrayed and left with fatherless children. And as Fadia points out to all featured submitters, it is their responsibility to only tell the truth. Her role is not to provide a place for people to create stories that harmfully attack a person's good character. She merely wants to put faces and stories together, showing the children who are left behind, the mothers fighting for their children's rights, and the fathers who have yet to be held accountable for their actions.

But the site does not end there. Hoping to shed light on what parenting should be about, Fadia also features a section on 'Real Dads' giving men an opportunity to either share their side of the story or to shed light on how they are playing active parts in their children's lives. The site also features original video clips like Fadia's documentary, on which several Junior High School students talk about what it feels like to be without their fathers, many of whom either left, got locked up in jail, or sadly passed away. Videos also include Fadia's News footage and documentaries made by single moms.

Whether you are a single mother looking to share her story, or any person curious to read these stories and learn more about the struggles surrounding single parenting please visit Daddydontwantme.com and connect with Fadia on the Black Moms Club.

Now to flip the script a bit.... Speaking on the site as both a black woman and a black mother of a black son, at the very least I thinks its important for us to have sites like this because we need not pretend such things don't exist, nor insist that they are simply dirty secrets we shouldn't air out. The fact remains that Black Family Unit needs to be rebuilt and in order to do so we must begin by being honest about what's going on in our communities, holding our black men more accountable for their actions, and ultimately letting our men be men.

I personally am not a single mom, I am blessed to have an amazing black man at my side and I have to fight to keep it that way. I have to fight against my own issues - a strong black woman who sometimes doesn't know how to let her man take the lead because she's spent so long doing it for herself. I have to fight against the voices in my head, showing me examples of my mothers and sisters who are single mothers - foolishly believing that if they did it it's ok to do it but it's not ok. It's not ok for us to not have functional family units. It's not ok to live with out the intimacy that comes with being in a real relationship or to think we alone can turn our boys into men. I have to fight against the demons of death that stole my father, the drug dealers who stole the life of my brother, the police who harass and beat my son's father for being a black man walking in a black neighborhood. I have to fight the demons inside both of us that have programmed us to sometimes fight each other, because we are slowly but surely learning what it is to love.

He is one of many strong Black Men who exist and thank God for them, but let's not pretend that years of slavery, oppression, and injustice have not given birth to the men who grace the pages of Daddydontwantme.com as dead beat dads. These are the men we need to find faith in, see them in their chosen and often unchosen state of invisibility. Our invisible black men being put into the system as soon as they hit 16 and walk the streets. Our men leaving poorly funded schools with failed educational systems told they are ACD and everything but intelligent, profound, and worth of a good education. Our men, these faces we see on tv sent to jail for robberies committed when perhaps two weeks prior they were denied that job or still couldn't seem to rub those two pennies hard enough for us all to survive. Our men turning street dreams into hoop dreams, touch downs, and BET vidoes into fortune 500 Companies from which everyone gets a cut and yet they are STILL cut out of the system, constantly told they are the ultimate cause of it's demise. And we, the black community at large, who foolishly rise to every occasion mass media gives to shoot them down, clown their triumphs, deny their flaws as our own. Because they are our own.

They are my men. They are our black men and however much the system beats them down we need them to rise to the occasion for I fear we have entered some of our darkest hours. We need black men, black fathers to love their women, protect their children, and provide for their families. We need you to be present and proactive with respect to fixing our issues and reclaiming our civil rights in a system not designed for us to succeed in. We don't need to be dependent on government checks and we don't need to be in a place where we have to demand child support. We need to depend on you, because we all need to depend on each other. There is nothing wrong with black pride, there is nothing wrong with black unity. It is not a matter of isolation reverse segregation as other's might want you to believe. It is a right and an honor to take pride in our birth right, our skin, our people, ourselves.

Each One Teach One
LaShanda Henry
Creator of the Black Moms Club and Multiple Shades of You Online
Positive Websites for People of Color
www.msoyonline.com

[Elaine]

thank you for this inspiring story....I would like to know how I can have a
story done on me...I am a single mother of 11...own my own successful biz
helping disadvantaged and on May 28 of this week I will appear on the Dr.
Phil show...here is my website www.itsmytyme.com

[Mahogany Momma]

That's sounds really interesting Elaine. You have inspired me to add a new forum category on which you and other mothers can share your story with all of BMC. Check out the new category 'Moms on a Mission'. As new posts are added, I will select stories to feature on the mainpage.

[Mahogany Momma]

Elaine, I just had a just to watch your video. Wow. Miss lady all I can say is wow. You are definitely worthy of praise. I have one son, and I've always believed that when the time was right I should take in a foster child, because I feel so many of our children need to be loved. I will hope you will share more so that myself and others can learn from you and follow in your footsteps, because we need to step and take these children into our homes and into our hearts. We will definitely speak more on this but I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that your work really moved me to tears. If you haven't already done so, I am going to feature the video on bmc.

[Nikesha]

This sounds a lot like my website www.babymamasunited.com and my Deadbeat Fathers Myspace Page, that I've had for quite some time....... I mean exactly like it..


How can I get my website also featured? Thanks

[Mahogany Momma]

After writing the article 'How this Black Mom gave Single Mothers a Voice...' in recognition of Fadia Ward's website Daddydontwantme.com, several moms have come out to share their own projects and inspirational stories as well. It was because of these women, possibly even you that I decided to start our latest BMC Forum - Moms on a Mission.

Did you turn a personal experience into a powerful revolution? Share your community outreach efforts and accomplishments on the official Black Moms Club Forum - 'Moms on a Mission'. Let us both inspire and motivate one another to do positive things for our children and within our communities.

As you add your stories here, I will regularly select posts to be featured on the main page and/or sent out to the BMC community in a Broadcast Email.

PS - Though you can comment on this post, if you would like to post your own story, please do so by starting a new discussion in the 'Moms on a Mission' category.

-LHenry
-blackmomsclub.ning.com

[Fadia Ward]

Well I guess great minds think alike, I came up with SorryAssBabyDaddies.com in 2002, people think it's new but it's not.

[Kiri Love]

70% of black households are single parents, mostly headed by single moms. Nationwide, across the races, 39% of all mothers are (allegedly) single moms. Which puts single moms into the MILLIONS. The increase was well established by the mid 1990's. So technically, there should be millions of web sites, talking about FATHERS who walked away from their responsibility. All working hard in support of each other, to keep this #1 social issue among the black race, on the top of our priorities. I'm disgusted that there isn't more books, magazines, network media, organizations, etc, devoted to this issue. It is a SHAMEFUL TOPIC among black men to discuss, sing, and write about , it seems. Single mom's tongues are surpressed by being accused of bitterness, nagging, and irresponsibleness. It is going to take every single one of the MILLIONS OF SINGLE MOMS, to come out of the woodwork, and deal with this issue head on, side by side, to turn this around for our next generation.

I support any and every effort that deals with the fatherless issue. Maybe you guys need to become sister sites, and start a network of as many like minded sites as possible. There's strength and power in numbers. Collective voices will receive the attention needed to grow this movement.

BE SURE TO COME PLUG WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING ON MY BTR SHOW!

http://themakingofadeadbeat.blogspot.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psycheofthesingleparent Saturdays 11pm EST/10 CST

[Mahogany Momma]

Really great point Kiri, I totally agree that they should work together and with other single moms. I recently went to Fadia's site watched the powerful min-documentary on Deadbeatdads.tv I went to this single mom's youtube page and the HATE these men and some women are giving her, saying they know why her baby father left her and that she was a whore when mind you she was MARRIED to this guy for several years... just such negative energy. More support among mothers is truly needed.

[Kiri Love]

That's exactly why I started a single moms TALK RADIO SHOW. If I hear, "You should have known better", one more time, I'm going to snap. TOO MUCH CRITICISM, and our experiences get cut short, because people are out of time, to continue the discussion. The discussion will be on every week, and I encourage 1,000 more people to start an identical show on BTR. Come join me, everybody. It's free to host your own show on BTR!