How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

It might be that our desires change or that our circumstances just don’t line up with an old vision. Either way, many people told me that discarding the picture they had of how their lives would be—sometimes joyfully, sometimes through grieving—was necessary in order to fully embrace something better, or at least accept something different.

If heterosexual, white, middle-class families with kids are America’s gold standard, then poor, unmarried, Black mothers are vilified as its disgrace.

we want to make maps to the future and not monuments to ourselves.”

aunties (and other nonparenting caretakers) also see children as whole people in a way that parents don’t.

It’s not that I don’t think I am capable of these things—I know I am—but I don’t want to. Life provides plenty of hardships and trials. I avoid intentionally adding to them.

So often, the thing we’re missing in our lives is something others are missing as well.

While it’s open to anyone, it’s not for everyone.

The village is not just a space for children to be nurtured; it is the core of our human existence.1 —MALESHA JESSIE TAYLOR

The ability to hold space for another’s experience is a critical one. It’s not about giving advice or trying to fix anything, but witnessing and just being an active, attentive presence.