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any other african americans raising kids in the "heartland"  

post #1 of 8
2/14/08 at 8:42pm
Thread Starter 
We are an african american family. we are older parents, professionals, politically liberal and socially conservative. our biggest challenge is staying afrocentric in our white rural community and raising kids with positive self-esteems.

anyway, i went to barnes and noble two days ago while my husband was "in town" on business and bot myself a mothering magazine as a treat. of course, i have read it cover to cover. i had forgotten all about this message board...i am not sure i would have know what to do, if even i knew about it previously. i havent seen the magazine in years. i was pregnant when we moved to colorado from new mexico and overwhelmed with life--had no time for magazines. anyway. i have two kiddos age 2 ds and 6 months dd, we breastfeed, cloth diaper part time, we are more AP than our parents, but not as much as alot of others. we plan to home school. i just started using mama cloth. i am addicted to diaperswappers.com

i dont kno if this is the rgt place to start a thread or not.
post #2 of 8
2/15/08 at 1:34am
Aww, I don't actually identify my family under a title yet but I am economically liberal and socially conservative. I'm African American, my dh is caucasian/korean. I have some relatives in CO.
post #3 of 8
2/15/08 at 11:06am
I am in a similiar boat, I am Black, dh is white and we now live in Maine, moved here almost 6 years ago. In that time I have formed a small group of sista friends but aside from 1 who is afrocentric and holistic, the others think I am weird. Like you I am politically liberal, socially conservative and Christian, so in general meeting people I connect with is hard regardless of the race issues.

I will say that the internet has been my saving grace, I belong to a few closed online communities of sistas that keep me grounded and support me otherwise I would have packed up and went back to Chicago years ago.

Shay
post #4 of 8
2/17/08 at 3:43am
Thread Starter 

it so nice to meet both of you...where in colorado

its so nice to hear from both of you, where in colorado do your relatives live? we have been in rural america for 8 months now --we moved from albuquerque (some folks would consider albuquerque to be "country"). we are getting ready to go to colorado springs for a business trip i will write again on tuesday. our biggest challenges right now are financial--we havent sold our old home so we are paying two mortgages AND spiritual-- we havent found a church home. i underestimated how hard it would be to be the only "chips" in the cookie at church. .. and i cannot abide the pastor praying for the troops and not praying for the people we are killing over there...pray for us on these issues.
post #5 of 8
2/17/08 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajv View Post
our biggest challenges right now are financial--we havent sold our old home so we are paying two mortgages AND spiritual-- we havent found a church home. i underestimated how hard it would be to be the only "chips" in the cookie at church. .. and i cannot abide the pastor praying for the troops and not praying for the people we are killing over there...pray for us on these issues.
I have been in Maine almost 6 years and still have not found a church home, we had found 2 churches that we attended for a year each but in the end they were not for us. One I felt out of place, the other went a little crazy on us and we had to leave for differences in biblical interpretation. There is a black church about 30 mins from us but I know the pastor and well we don't see eye to eye, so right now I just stay with my daily bible reading and prayer and beleive that we will find a church when it is meant to happen. Yeah at one church we went to there was a lot of praying for the troops but to me it was like we need to pray for more than that.

I think things get easier when you live in predominantly white places once you have been there a while, in our case we are regulars at local eateries, go to local fests, the library, etc but it takes time. It took the first 3 years before I started to feel comfy and not like I am always on display. When wr bought our home almost 4 years ago that was interesting, only now are the neighbors friendly, that took time.

Good luck!

Shay
post #6 of 8
2/20/08 at 5:05am
I'm actually in CA. Sorry, I get sporadic time on the computer these days as I have limited computer time during lent. Um, I have a nephew in Aurora, CO and 2 nieces and a nephew in Cortez, CO. Finding a church can be so hard! I'm so happy that I am settled in there at least! I've been getting more involved over the years and really enjoying it.

Honestly I'm really finding that I can't get "everything" I need from any one group and end up getting connections through different groups. I'm just too diverse.
post #7 of 8
2/21/08 at 3:41am
Thread Starter 

thanks for the responses,

who is steve burton? i have been out of town, and i have to go to our county convention this saturday(one of the downsides of going to a small town caucus, everyone ended up being a delegate...ha ha ha). we continue church hopping this weekend. aj
post #8 of 8
2/21/08 at 11:43pm
He is an actor on General Hospital : My weakness.
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