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This week’s hottest moments included stories from two of my dearest friends, sharing how everything changed right after they gave birth the first time. Then, I did the most vulnerable thing I’ve done in 25 years. I opened up about how years of unresolved issues sparked a serious battle with postpartum anxiety. I’m sharing the bonus clip here — raw and unedited — with you all.

Toupelle Goodman on her battle with preeclampsia

Tanika Bashir, on how she unexpectedly found herself battling Bell’s Palsy postpartum

BONUS: My raw, unedited story about battling postpartum anxiety

The awkward thing about it, though, is that it had become way more polarizing and controversial than when I started it in 2018. Back then, it was considered an expressive and meaningful way to reproduce versions of yourself that the world had not seen. Ideas, morals, values, looks, jokes, personality quirks that few people got to experience.

Today, it’s considered more controversial, crowded, and cringe than anything. That’s right, I started a podcast.

In my first go-round, it was a podcast about influencers (it was 2018, please). This time, it’s a podcast seemingly about giving birth. A double cringe, if you will.

But this isn’t just about birthing children (although my first season deals with it a lot)… It’s about birthing new versions of yourself, again and again.

As I do, I made grand plans for it. And then, on the very first day of filming, I felt strange. By the second day of filming, I felt… pregnant.

As the months have stretched by, so have I (see photo of me and my “birthing braids” below). And so has this podcast production. I won’t lie, I’ve crawled to the finish line of this season in hopes I could present — at the very least — a thesis: These are the moments that make us. The unexpected changes that are greater than what we imagined, yet bring about a version of ourselves that maybe we’ve been praying for.

I feel like I am 11 minutes from popping, so I made sure to get everything ready to go for the next few weeks. Sorry for ghosting you for a few months, but these labors of love were important to focus all of my energy on (in addition to the two kids, home, and full-time job).

Here’s your teaser. Season one starts next week and features some of my goodest girlfriends and the women I admire. Enjoy!

The video is a wildly accurate portrayal of people struggling to make ends meet, finding conventional and unconventional (i.e., illegal) ways to make it happen, while navigating old white male gatekeepers and entitled, poorly behaved children of the next generation. All while she sings, “there’s gotta be more to life than chasing out every temporary high to satisfy me.” I found that ironic, given that “chasing highs” was really just her finding creative ways to pay to put a roof over her child’s head. From girl bossing to waitressing to robbing banks, she was quite inventive, given that influencing and selling feet pics wasn’t quite a thing when this came out in 2009.

What makes any of us different when today we’re all side hustling online, maintaining corporate jobs, paying bill after bill, while attempting to find some whimsy in a martini glass or a doom scroll? We were in our teenage years when this song came out, and yet we’re still relating to it so hard.

So I have to wonder… are we in the era where we’re reliving our teenage angst? Or is this song just one big self-fulfilled prophecy? Or has this always been American life, and we’re arriving at the age where we’re aware of it? Hard to say when every day feels like Groundhog Day.

What song from way back is making you question how long things have been this way?

Let me explain.

We’re living in the golden age of opinions, thanks to what I call “Feed Culture”. We open our phones and spend all day being fed opinions. Everybody’s got an idea of who other people should be. And, we love a good trope (i.e., “Black moms,” “bi-racial kid with white moms,” “pretty privileged,” “immigrant child,” “firstborn daughter,” etc., etc.). We come up with labels, and then sit back and judge every move people make based on whether it fits the title we’ve given them.

And the minute you have kids? The tropes start multiplying like the laundry you swore you’d keep up with. Suddenly, everybody from your auntie to your neighbor’s cousin who swore she’ll never have kids to the lady at Target (girl, why are you at Target?!) has a feeling about what a mother should be.

And the gag is, it actually does not matter what you do. Being defined as ‘mom’ means there’s a constant undercurrent of shame that society has for you. No matter what you do, it’s a shame to somebody.

The second that water breaks, people start running down the checklist to identify what part of it you should be ashamed of: Who’s her partner? Is he trash or a unicorn? And if he’s a unicorn, let’s wait for the shoe to drop, because no, he’s not. How much money does she have? Is she supposed to be hustling at the peak of her career? Or is she unambitious, waiting for That Man to take care of her? What’s her body looking like? And who is she turning into? Is that pregnancy hard on her? Why is she pregnant? Is she on antidepressants? Why can’t she just be happy? And if you’re not white? Multiply all that by a hundred.

Don’t believe me? Just watch how everyone acts:

Nobody tells you this, but the whole ‘mom’ identity is so stigmatized, you’d think we all just appeared out of thin air and didn’t actually come from one.

At my big age, I’m realizing there’s only one way to bypass all of this bullshit: Figure out who you are, for real, before the world tries to drown you out with its noise and hand you an identity you never asked for.

Because when I first had my son, I was so overwhelmed by all of the above that I did not trust any of the decisions I made. Nothing was God-fearing enough, involved enough, career-focused enough, or smart enough. I had no idea if working late meant I was being ungrateful for the blessing of children or if taking a sick day meant I was a lazy hoe waiting for a man to save me. I couldn’t take a date night or a girls’ trip without questioning if I was being male-centered or self-centered. Some women around me questioned my hair, and some men had reactions to my body. I wasn’t sure if I should be sweating it out in the gym or toning down the blonde to avoid giving my daughter a complex. People were shocked to see me buy myself a nice purse and equally outraged at the financial decisions I was making to empower my kids’ education. I was down bad y’all. Paralyzed because every decision was judged.

And online, the Internet was a bizarre symphony of people shaming others for having kids in this kind of world, or for having a relationship — let alone kids — with a man, period.

Amidst all of this, I spent a lot of time secretly wondering how many people remembered that for most of us, being ‘mom’ isn’t even the whole story. And the way we ‘mom’ is actually a reflection of who we are, individually.

Like, you may be a mom, yeah, but maybe you’re more identified with being a climate justice activist. So that’s why all your bottles are glass and not plastic.

Or, maybe you’ve always been about fitness, but you’re happier than ever about being three sizes up because thick was actually always your goal. So you really do not care to be on a GLP-1 and are down to your pre-baby weight.

And, damn, maybe you always wanted a love story that challenged you and made you grow, and you love that you had your kids right in the middle of that wild ride. So you have no shame in having two baby daddies.

All of this made me realize that you have to build your identity before the world tries to slap a name tag on you, and then wear it like you paid a lot for it. Relentlessly.

Otherwise, you’ll wake up making choices for the person you’re supposed to be, not the one you actually are. And that’s how you end up lost. Struggling with that thing they’re calling matrescence.

Before I realized this, I spent way too much time curating what kind of mother I should be based on the millions of labels and expectations. But the reality is, motherhood is not a curation. You’re an original.

So do yourself a favor, shorty. Take out the pen. And start writing your own narrative, now.

But to be honest, this is just me, being Kamari-coded. I get excited, start talking to people before I even properly introduce myself, and then slowly peel back the Scorpio layers over the course of years. By 2030, you’ll really know me, I promise.

Here’s how we’re going to slowly launch this relationship. I’m going to reveal a bit now, and we’ll just keep building from there.

What you should know about me (because you’ve been attentive on this date, right?!):

If you’ve been here since January, you already know a few things: I’m almost 40 (but as the legendary Kyle Cooke says, we don’t acknowledge age), I’m pushin’ every possible P, I think about my mom – and the general concept of being a mom – more than I ever thought I would at this stage, and I really love being Black (while having hardcore justice warrior tendencies, because Black people in America really shouldn’t be paying taxes but…)

What you probably don’t know, yet:

I’ve been quietly building something over here, in between school drop-offs, needles to the face (if you’re my husband, you didn’t just read that), and tiny crises everywhere (we will NOT label them “mid-life”).

It’s called When the Water Broke. Yes, it’s a podcast. Not unlike the one I had in 2018 (IYKYK), but also wildly different because I’m a new woman in Christ.

Podcasting has always been a love of mine – and so I’ve decided to jump full-in. We’re talking lights, cameras, bundles and bundles of hair, a little makeup, and lots of editing because I am not self-possessed enough to deliver 2 raw hours of my own face to the Internet.

Now, before you roll your eyes and say more people need to put down mics and pick up books… let me tell you what this is not:

1. It is not a labor-and-delivery advice show, nor is it about parenting 101. (I am barely surviving bedtime. My daughter has a bigger backbone than I ever had. I am her employee. I have no advice.)

2. It is not a momfluencer situation. (I will not be recommending a $48 baby spoon; my son tells me I need to shop less.) Editor’s Note: I will accept offers to do paid promotions because daycare is illegally priced in my hood. So, judge me if you want, but maybe I *will* push a $48 baby spoon if I get paid $48.50.

3. It is not me performing wellness in a linen set. My wig is literally sliding off (heeelp!), and I’m wearing my favorite dirty GAP hoodie, and I have more thoughts about the geopolitical implications of daycare tuition than I do about nasty ass green juice.

What it is, and what this Substack is, is a culture and comedy show about those moments that “break your brain” and change you forever… for better. Water break moments. The ones that split everything into before and after, and you can’t ever go back.

Some of you already caught that vibe in the Fruitvale Station piece. Or in that first brain dump, where I went from Korea face-lifts to gun violence to Beyoncé’s Act III in nine bullet points flat. Or in the Pushin’ P post, where I sat down to write something cute about perimenopause and ended up confessing that I’ve been Googling prolapse in the bathroom while my kids try to break the door down.

That’s the show. That’s the Substack. That’s what we’re doing here.

What you’re going to find out:

I try really hard to stick to my commitments. Like any self-respecting mom. But the truth is, I cancel and reschedule everything at least 3x depending on who is throwing up, what my hair is giving, and how much social battery I have left to communicate with people outside of my own head.

So that means I will try my best to deliver high-quality writing to you weekly, leading up to when this precious podcast actually drops.

Sometimes I’ll write about culture, motherhood, identity, pop culture, grief, comedy, and the occasional unhinged numbered list. Other times, you just have to listen to me talk about how hard it is to launch a pricey podcast when you’re terrified that AI will take your job tomorrow (I ask Claude very often if it will replace me… awkward convo).

Then in May, the podcast will drop, and you’ll get to hear these conversations with people who’ve survived their own water break moments. And I promise you this: you will be moved.

What you should do when you leave here:

If you hate all of this, thanks anyway. Like… I never handled rejection well, so I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe leave a comment so I can grow thick skin?

And if you love this, leave a comment too – or a water break moment of your own.

We’re going to have some funnnnn!

When the Water Broke is a space where we (bonus points if you’re a moms, smart, fun, irreverent — or reverent, Black, queer, etc.) safely explore all of the moments in life that are breaking our brains and forever changing who we are.

We’re blending pop culture, current events, and intimate storytelling to share the cultural and personal ruptures that give birth to new versions of ourselves.

There’s a group chat here on Substack where we can talk before and after the main conversation. It’s a conversation space for subscribers only. I’ll post questions and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

Join chat

How to get started

1. Get the Substack app by clicking this link or the button below. New chat threads won’t be sent sent via email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. You can also access chat on the web.

Get app

2. Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

3. That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.

First of all, everyone loves to talk about slippery slopes, but there is no sled like the one you get on when you get pregnant in a pandemic in your mid-thirties, and suddenly you are post-partum, perimenopausal, and unclear every month on whether it’s your period or pregnancy threatening to pop up. Bottom line, I am the definition of pushin’ p. (I think, because to be honest, I never actually knew what that meant, which is … fitting).

And that is something most of us (in this situation) almost never really have time to focus on in any dedicated or structured way.

Don’t get it twisted. There have been tons of critical approaches for women at this stage to optimize how they appear. Botox or Sculptra? (Both.) Protective styles or natural? GLP-1 or keto? Stay-at-home mom or content creator? There are a million resources to help you rebrand and redefine yourself externally so that you can keep up.

But did our internal systems ever get the much-needed attention to adjust for the next phase of life? If your children are under 10 or you’re close to 40, chances are you’re still dealing with new internal changes that have no clear answers. I know mothers who have faced everything from wrecked cortisol to crippling endometriosis to debilitating mental health conditions. I’m definitely one of many who have struggled to physically feel fully back on track. And the answers have not come with a clear injectable solution and an aesthetic community.

In between meetings, I’ve spoken to women’s health experts about what my blood work or irregular cycles mean. After bedtime, I’ve researched PCOS and endometriosis. During the late-night doom scroll, I’ve watched countless videos about perimenopause and pregnancy after 40 (because the symptoms are eerily similar). This morning, while hiding in the bathroom (IYKYK), I texted my best friend about post-partum prolapse. The physical changes feel endless, and the information feels both extensive and vague. We’re Pushin P with 99 problems and 99,000 answers.

While I don’t have solutions, I do think it’s a topic worth opening the group chat for. Literal years of research have helped me find a few helpful resources (not withstanding the gross amount of money I’ve wasted sifting through grifters selling supplements and Reddit threads scaring me half to death).

Let’s open up a bit and start sharing what we know and what we don’t. Because it’s a weird time, which means we’ve got to start talking about it.

(P.S. - Sorry for any typos. Wrote this without AI while managing snowed-in kids.)

All day long, I think about something that I call “water break moments.” They are moments that happen throughout our lives that fundamentally shift how we see the world. The things that break our brains. Sometimes they’re huge and obvious, and sometimes they’re so small that you don’t even realize you’ve been changed until years later.

It was the moment the credits rolled in the theater at the end of the film Fruitvale Station. It was 2013, but I remember that movie’s ending like it was yesterday because no one got up. You would’ve sworn someone had yelled out, “Nobody move, and no one gets hurt.” A packed theater full of Black folks that refused to leave. Heavy sobs. Muffled whispers about it being a damn shame. A movie night turned funeral. Every one of us sat in that theater knowing that we could not undo what we had just experienced on the screen. We sat there for what felt like 24 hours, but was more like 30 minutes. One man finally did scream out (“This shit has to stop!!”). And when we were ready, we slowly filed out of the theater. We’d taken that time, sitting together in a dark theater in some sort of communal daze. Whether we knew it or not, we were taking the time to prepare our faces.

A collective shift, we recognized that despite the glory years, we still have a lot to lose, are losing it, and will lose more. The movie came out the day before the Trayvon Martin verdict. And little did we know, we sat there doing a preparation ritual. We prepared to walk out of that theater and into the world — into jobs and relationships and the news and the internet — with those damn stretched smiles. “We gon’ be alright,” kind of smiles.

It is a thing we do. “Fix your face.” And this was that…but different. Instead of taking the punch, reacting, and then redirecting our outward expression, we were doing a new thing. We were anticipating. Plotting in advance to show grace at a table that would be piled high with bullshit. Proactively smile, as if it does not matter and cannot hurt.

I watched Michael B. Jordan at the Critics’ Choice Awards and Ryan Coogler at The Golden Globes. Every awards season, I begin to remember that day in the theater. And I add a few people to the reel of prepared faces that plays in my mind. Teyana’s. Halle’s. Kamala’s. Bey’s. Will’s. Kendrick’s. My aunt’s. My mother’s. My dad’s. My sisters’. My own.

So this year, I’ll watch with one wish. At the very least, I hope one day all my people get free access to Botox. A little token to unburden us as we hold these stretched smiles.

Yet, it was almost impossible to type that sentence. Because I do not enjoy gratuitous fantasies as I did in the 90s or early 2000s. Now, I disgust myself at the dream of being an oblivious, wealthy Black girl, born of the Talented Tenth, dressed like Whitley or Hilary — or more realistically, Ashley — completely satisfied with the business of hosting a brunch for my Sorors as a networking fundraiser for my husband’s new socially-conscious tech startup that promises to clean the world’s water.

So, I’ll pick up my cross and tell you what I am really focused on and how I really got here, on Substack. I will tell you in no particular order. Here is the mind of a millennial Black mom in 2025 — oops, 2026.

1. Fuck, I am almost 40. (Shit, I have to stop cursing. I love Jesus, and I love to curse. I get it from my mom and her mom.)

2. My mom. My grandmothers. They’re all gone now. Two of them lived to see their 90s, but my mom… she haunts me. Forever 44. Thanks to a reckless cancer. The older I have gotten, the more I have become her. Sometimes I love it, but most days I absolutely fear it. Reckoning with the way she was too overwhelmed with too many kids and too few tools to survive her own selflessness. Seeing her in myself every time I stretch to host another family event, offer another financial sacrifice, take another pregnancy test, or anxiously beg my doctor for another biopsy.

3. I cannot allow my trauma to continue to be my personality at 40 years old. At some point, you do all the therapy and have to accept that you’re way bigger than the trauma. You’ve intellectualized it, accepted it, and now… you have to leave it there. Walk away and do not turn into a pillar of salt. Toughen the fuck up.

4. On a lighter note, I need to financially afford to go to Korea for 2 weeks and get my entire face lifted (Black does not crack, but it does melt a bit). Who would babysit my kids for 2 whole weeks? Lord knows, my husband will want to come, but if he came, he would be outraged by the idea of me scaffolding my face. I’ll figure this part out later.

5. Are the girls wearing wigs or sew-ins now? Decades of bleaching my hair and perimenopause are catching up with me. My mom always had thick, lush, wig-like hair. And so did I. But, as I fell deeper into the victimhood of an obsessive love for all shades of blonde, I succumbed to sew-in life. And now I’m being gently nudged to consider wigs. But ugh, as Tenika B says… that screen door (or lace, as you girls call it). I’ll come back to this. For now, sew-ins. But by summer, I need a plan that does not include those deceptive ass protective style goddess braids. Jesus, release me from those braids!

6. A white woman died yesterday. Shot in the face. This country is the country that I have been fighting for since the day my mother died. On that uncharacteristically warm day in 1999, I was catapulted into a future that revealed entirely too much too soon. I knew, spiritually and cellularly, from 12 years old, that this country — this place of white supremacy and class war and otherness — would aim to tear down every facet of humanity and art that it possibly could before taking its last breath. America, a reckless cancer.

7. Oh, maybe that is what Beyoncé will name Act III? Can I afford another act? I’ll think about this later. Maybe I’ll sell a bag on The Real Real and get tickets in Paris.

8. My baby will start kindergarten in this country soon. I consider sacrificing the already worn-down, neglected elements of my soul to find a way to earn a little more corporately. That way, I can send him to a private school. I hate the thought of it, but the thought is up and stuck, anchored by fear that the neighborhood public school is too accessible to deranged, gun-wielding men. The same neighborhood that, on many days, I feel like my husband and I fought for our lives to get into. One of the nicest neighborhoods in America, they say. But what’s nice when you can shoot a woman in the face in Minnesota?

9. Dishes. Laundry. Housekeeping. Text back. Network. Start a side gig. Reach out to that sick friend. Duplicate. Check out that new album. Call family. Thank my Dad. Schedule more therapy. Sign up for my own dance class. Fuck, start saving more. Stop shopping. Be inspired by my son. Multiply. Couples trip. Summer plans. Sleep train them, again. Am I pregnant? See my doctor, get blood tests. Expand. Is my mind the epitome of uncontrolled thoughts growing and growing?

I’m not done. I am nowhere near done. Because there is something, above all else, that I cannot stop thinking about and have been dying to talk about.

I want to talk about the political and economic state of the world. I do. I want to talk to you about how it started. How we got here. How we became people like this, with uncontrolled chaos inside and out. I want to start from the beginning.

I want to talk about when the water broke.