MyBrownBaby, Out! {The one where I say farewell to Blogger}

Share the MBB Love

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*queue Beyonce's "Upgrade" and insert image of Denene strutting in a hot pair of stilettos across your screen, Bey-style* 


Oh yes, it's true. MyBrownBaby's been upgraded. I've moved this bad boy over to my new mansion on WordPress—www.MyBrownBaby.com.


The site was created by the fabulous Jamie Varon of Shatterboxx Media, and she hooked a girl up! I invite you to take a look around our new place. We’ve got a talented line-up of MyBrownBaby contributors who’ll be serving up the intelligent, thoughtful, witty posts you’ve come to love here at MyBrownBaby. We’ve several new features, too, including MyBrownBaby Fresh, our new product spotlight section, and MBB TV, where we’ll be spinning the hits and introducing a new web series. We’re also upping the ante on recipes, reviews, contests, giveaways and music and book coverage and more, features that will help make MyBrownBaby a formidable destination on the mom and parenting blogosphere.

And after you’ve put your feet up, we invite you to “like” the MyBrownBaby FaceBook page, follow MyBrownBaby on Twitter, become a Google follower, and, most importantly, subscribe via RSS or get MyBrownBaby delivered right to your inbox so that you won’t miss a single, solitary, delicious word from MyBrownBaby.

If you have the old MyBrownBaby button from this blogger site, let me upgrade you! Share the MyBrownBaby love with this new button, which will direct your readers to the all new, funky, fly fresh MyBrownBaby.com.


Together, we’ll raise the bar when it comes to raising our beautiful brown babies, one MyBrownBaby post at a time.

Head on over to THE NEW MYBROWNBABY!

I'm Gonna Hip You To The Tee: Remembering Teena Marie

I can not tell you how many Friday nights I spent down in the basement of my childhood home back in Long Island, hairbrush in hand, lip-synching every last word, ad-lib and inflection Lady Tee poured into her song, Portuguese Love. God, I was such a homebody—short on friends, never kissed, totally lusting after this one particular boy I'd loved from the first day I'd met him in the 5th grade. He wasn't Portuguese, but that was just a minor detail. It was the sentiment of the words and the way Teena Marie sang them that transported me... transformed me... made me a believer. In love. And the possibilities.

On a starry winter night in Portugal

Where the ocean kissed the southern shore

There a dream I never thought would come to pass

Came and went like time spent through an hourglass 

You made love to me like fire and rain
Ooh, you know you've got to be a hurricane
Killing me with kisses, oh, so subtly
You make love forever, baby
You make love forever... 

Years later, I fell in love with Casanova Brown. The song, that is. And not just because I'd fallen in love with my fair share of Casanova Browns. It was the purity of Teena Marie's voice that moved me, especially when she struck that long, beautiful note in the ad-libs toward the end. And it was those incredible words that spoke to me:

I love you to the bone marrow
Even when I'm asleep
And who are you to say?
What he does when I'm not around
Just because I fell in love with Casanova Brown. 

I mean, I'd dug Teena Marie forever—woke up for school to Square Biz and Behind the Groove playing on my static-filled alarm clock radio, got a kick out of her slaying the guitar while she sang Lovergirl and I Need Your Lovin' on the dance shows from back in the day. It was solid music with a great dance beat. From a white girl, no less. It almost didn't seem natural, her hitting those notes. Having all that soul. That authenticity. 

But my God, I had to get grown to really appreciate the sheer talent/phenomenon/force that was the singer, songwriter and producer Teena Marie. Had to go through some heartbreak and some pain and come back out on the other side. And there she was, Lady Tee—reminding every last one of us that we weren't suckers for falling for the okey doke. Casanova Brown was a charming bastard and turned us all the way out and made us feel all kinda ways and mercy—De Ja Vu, we'd all been there before. But we were going to be all right. Loving again wasn't only possible—it was necessary. Human.

More recently, TVOne's UnSung: Teena Marie put the force that was Teena Marie on full blast—made clear that she was much more than just some Rick James creation. She was an incredible songwriter who penned virtually every last one of her songs. She was a multilingual instrumentalist—fluent in keys, congas and guitar. And she was a trailblazer when it came to taking on shady music companies.

Teena Marie was, simply, more.

And she'll be missed, but never forgotten.

So long, Vanilla Chocolate.

Lady Tee forever...

{Digging In the MBB Crates} Shining: What I Love About Me

Editor's Note: My beautiful, inspirational, and ridiculously, deliciously funny friend Akilah over at EXECUMAMA is holding a "See Me Shine" contest; participants are writing what they love about themselves in exchange for a chance to win a complimentary make-up session and photo shoot. I didn't have time to pen an original, but I was reminded of this essay I wrote last year when Akilah challenged me to write a love letter to myself, listing all the reasons why I heart me. In support of her contest and in the spirit of breaking out of the ridiculous fear that, in Akilah's words, "people will be all, 'Yo, stop talking about your own self, we don't care!'" I decided to repost my essay as a reminder that it's okay every once in a while to give myself a hug and a pat on the back and say, "Job well done, D. Job well done." 

Enjoy! (And hop over to Akilah's place to see how you can participate in this awesome contest!)

By Denene Millner

This letter is almost a week in the making. It did not come easy to me. See, I was always the nerdy one—the girl who buried her head in books and got lost in music and daydreamed behind closed doors. Because I couldn’t find the words. Because I was uncomfortable looking others in the eye. Because I’d been taught that children were supposed to see and not be seen, and it never, ever quite wore off.

I owned the quiet—peace, be still. Head down, nose to the grind.

It took me a long time to look up—to face myself in the mirror and appreciate what I saw. It was a guy friend of mine (a buddy, not a love interest) who literally held a mirror to my face. “Look at you,” he demanded. My face was so close to the glass I could see a cloud of my breath steam on my reflection. “You are beautiful, Denene. I can see it; why can’t you?”

I was all right, I guess. Never been one to brag.

But today, I will. Because Akilah asked me to. And because she’s right: Sometimes, you gotta remind yourself exactly what it is that you love about you. Here goes:

I love my eyes and my lips and my smile, and especially my chocolate skin. Understand that this is relatively new. Growing up, I avoided the sun like the plague—it makes you black, you know. Where I come from, being anything darker than a paper bag put you smack dab in the friend zone—and even further down the boyfriend chain if your hair was short and kinky. Which explains, in part, why I didn’t get my first kiss until damn near college. Fools. These days, I’m all, “the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” and I really couldn’t care less if you don’t appreciate it. It looks great with a smoky eye and a subtle red Bobbi Brown lip gloss, but I like it best bare—clean, simple, flawless.

I love my butt. This is big. Not my ass, but the fact that I truly love it—finally. Like my dark skin, my butt was a sin ‘round my way. If you couldn’t fit it in some Jordache or some Lees, it was too big for most of the guys I grew up with in Long Island, New York. (Mind you, had I grown up around some black boys in, say, Brooklyn, I’d have been knocked up by age 14.) For years, I tried my best to camouflage it—I tied sweaters around my waist and wore baggy pants and long, bulky sweaters, a desperate attempt to shrink it any way I could. Of course, it never worked. There’s no hiding this thing. But these days, it’s all about the booty (with nods to J-Lo, Beyonce), and there are companies that actually sell pants and skirts and dresses with stretchy fabric and accurate waist-to-booty ratios that make sense for women with hourglass figures (Banana Republic, Anthropologie, PZI, AppleBottom jeans). All of a sudden, my booty is in vogue and in properly sized clothing. What’s not to love?!

I love my sense of humor. I got jokes. I don’t know where this comes from. It’s that sarcastic, dry, witty thing. It is what it is. And it makes people laugh. I love to make people laugh. It's good for their souls. It's good for mine.

I love that I'm generous. I don't have a lot, but what I do have, I give freely. Because it's the right thing to do. Understand, I'm not talking about cash (though if I have it and you need it, you got it); I'm talking about my time and sweat. I'm a pretty good listener—a pretty good comforter. And I'm usually always ready to dig in. I get that from my parents, I think. I watched my mom go above and beyond in church and with her friends, who were equally generous. My Dad is the same way. I can't tell you how many times I saw him fix a stray kid's bike, or replace the neighbor's heater, or change a stranger's tire. I love that about him, and anyone who knows me knows my Dad is my hero. I love his helpfulness, and so I help, too. Ask and you will receive.

I love my ambition and drive. It got me a scholarship to college, when my parents couldn’t afford tuition. It got me a great gig right out of college, in one of the largest news gathering organizations in the world. It got me to a high-paying position as a political reporter at one of the then-largest newspapers in the country, at the tender age of 23. It got me a column at Parenting magazine, and 18 book deals, including a No. 1 New York Times best seller. What’s most special about my ambition and drive, though, is that I don’t use mine like weapons; I don’t feel like I have to stomp all over someone else to succeed. Quite the contrary, even as I’m doing what I can to be better at what I do, I’m constantly looking for ways to help others get in the game. I am blessed, no doubt, because of this. I’m sure of it.

I can truly look at myself in the mirror today and appreciate what I see.

Indeed, I love me some Denene.

And I’m going to work harder to love me even more.

What are you doing to love you?

I Go To Work...

First, know that I'm not giving up.

It's just that I'm in the middle of a bear of a project, with a June 15 deadline, and mama is stressed out. I've been operating at a pace that simply isn't human—reporting and writing a book, regularly writing blogs for Parenting.com, Dove.com, and Unilever's "Don't Fret the Sweat" campaign, freelancing for Essence, Heart & Soul and Parenting magazines, and doing most of the heavy lifting here at MyBrownBaby, in addition to trying my best to pull together my duties as a work-at-home mom, wife, volunteer, and friend without looking like a total deadbeat. I simply can not keep up this pace and do anything effectively.

I was complaining about, er... sharing this with my girl Akilah of Execumama a few weeks ago when she, in all of her you can do it/nobody's perfect/let go and live your best life ever wisdom, challenged me to come up with a list of five things I can do right now to make my life easier while I tackle this book project. "And for God's sake, take off that cape," she added.

For the record? I heart Akilah.

And though it took me a minute to develop it, I've finally come up with a list of five things I'm going to do to help me meet this book writing deadline without having to be carted away in a straight jacket. Here's what I came up with:

1. I'm going to fully implement the sole good thing to ever come out of the Reagan administration: Just say no. No more volunteering, no more running all around town participating in events, no more extending myself to help everyone else at the expense of my own projects. I gotta focus and I can't do that if I'm distracted by all that other stuff.

2. I'm handing off my cooking duties. I'm putting in a call t-o-d-a-y to my girl Shelley over at Naturi Beauty to see if we can work out a deal for her to swing some of those personal chef services our way, just until I get this book off my plate. She'll easily save me a good three hours a day in grocery shopping, prep, cooking, and clean-up if she hooks up our meals while I remain tied to this here MacBook.

3. The house is gonna have to be a little messy, dammit. So if you stop by and the laundry is piled high, the floors don't look like they've been swept, and it smells like Parliament Funkadelic just finished a funky, sweaty, three-hour body mashing set in my foyer, don't judge me—I'm writing.

4. Bye-bye FaceBook, Twitter, Yahoo, Gmail and all the other delicious distractions that keep me from knocking out these chapters with the lightening speed I'm capable of. Okay, well maybe I won't drop The Face totally, but, you know, I'll cut back some. (Sheesh--do they have a FaceBook Anonymous I can check into every once in a while? The habit is real.)

5. I'm going to have to fall back on the MyBrownBaby posts. Don't worry—you're still going to get the quality writing and thoughtful prose for which MyBrownBaby is reknowned, but I'm only going to be posting three times a week while I pour my writing energy into the book. This is temporary, I promise. And when I come back full-time, MyBrownBaby will be stronger, prettier, and better than ever. (Yup, I'll have a right nice surprise for you by then!)

Okay, wish me luck good people... 12 chapters in 30 days.

Watch.

Me.

Work.

The Beautiful Revolutionary: Remembering Lena Horne

Lena Horne taught me how to write.

It was back in 1997, when she was about to celebrate her 80th birthday, and the lovely Ms. Horne granted me, then a young political-turned-entertainment journalist, an interview for a cover story in the New York Daily News’ features section.

Thing is, she would only do it via the phone, and she would talk to me for 10 minutes only. Ten minutes. For a 4,000-word story that was due to my tough-as-nails/take-no-shorts editor the very next day.

And so there I sat, staggered: How on earth was I going to get a trailblazer, a legend, an icon, to say something meaningful and fresh about her almost 70-year long career—over the telephone in 10 minutes? And more importantly, how would I get any kind of meaningful story out of it—much less a 4,000-word composition meant to honor and commemorate this woman, whose elegance and grace in the face of extreme adversity brought great dignity to African Americans on the big screen? I mean, I’d spent an afternoon at Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis’s house, pouring through old newspaper clippings and playbills and listening to them trade stories about the industry; I’d talked to George Clooney for more than an hour about his aunt, Rosemary Clooney and that thing he does when he’s nervous or being coy; I’d traveled to the bowels of Shaolin (that’s Staten Island to you New York hip hop novices) to interview the Wu-Tang Clan (and caught a contact high in the process). How would I do the divine Ms. Horne justice?

In a moment of journalistic clarity (and out of sheer desperation), I decided to ask her a bunch of dumb stuff. Questions nobody probably ever dared ask her, but would adore knowing, like what was her favorite cartoon and if she listened to rap music and who her favorite modern-day film director was.

The result? The most amazing celebrity profile I’ve ever written—I won a feature-writing award for the piece—and certainly, of hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted during my almost 20-year journalism career, one of the most rewarding conversations I’ve ever had with a star. I’m grateful to Ms. Horne for making me stretch and reach and rise as a writer. But more, I’m grateful to her for standing upright—shoulders squared, chin up—and demanding respect—not just for herself, but for all of us black folk.

Lena Horne was, simply, divine.

When I got word that she passed yesterday at age 92, I went digging into my clip files for the story I wrote on her all those years ago. Here, an excerpt. It’s long—but worth the read… promise.




By Denene Millner
for the Daily News
June 22, 1997

So it’s settled, then.

Even the legendary singer Lena Horne, the American beauty for whom Max Factor once created a special shade of foundation, doesn’t understand the need for all those crazy products crowding the makeup counters and the bottoms of purses of baffled women across the land. Waterproof. Smudge-proof. Allergy-proof. Anti-age. Anti-wrinkle. Daytime shadows. Nighttime colors. Which to use? How do you use them?

“It must be terribly confusing,” she muses. “I don’t know why women haven’t gone crazy. I think you just have to look in the mirror and say, ‘Look, this morning I got a few more wrinkles, and there ain’t too much I can do about that.’”

A week and a day from age 80—her birthday is June 30—Ms. Horne doesn’t concern herself with such matters.

Maybe back in, oh, 1940 she gave a hoot. But it’s 1997, and she’s a tad too preoccupied with life and great-grands and the terrible twos and bad knees and Masterpiece Theatre to argue the merits of Maybelline Great Lash and Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair.

Let’s say she’s enjoying the simpler things in life.

Lena Horne likes Bugs Bunny cartoons, day-old collard greens and cold asparagus tips out of the can, mystery novelist Ruth Rendell and Oprah—“especially her book thing.” She doesn’t drive, refuses to chase her 2-year-old great-grandson through the house, thinks “we need” Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and long ago forsook shopping for shoes because she’d rather somebody go “pick them up for me.”

She hasn’t a clue who the Wu-Tang Clan is, but knows about Snoop Doggy Dogg and actually likes the creator of gangsta rap, Ice T. She also digs Spike Lee, especially his “School Daze” and “Mo’ Better Blues”—“I love Denzel”—but doesn’t seem to be so moved by Woody Allen.

“I don’t dislike him,” she clips.

All that’s to say that the woman who for so long carried the burden of trying to change the (black)face of Hollywood is comfortable now—content. There are no more cold stages filled with bright lights and prying eyes, no more lonely days, lost battles and hopes deferred—no more grand songs or square-box images for this beautiful actress and singer to squeeze into.

Ms. Horne is a living legend, but every bit as ordinary today as any of you have ever been or could ever be.

For her, there is family.

There is a close-knit circle of friends.

There is freedom.

There is peace.

At (almost) 80, it is finally so.



“I tease her all the time,” her daughter, Gail Buckley, jokes. “She is the most housebound person. She’s a Cancer. Astrologically, she’s true to her sign… Ask Joyce Jillson; it’s a very family-oriented sign, and she’s very family oriented.

“One of the things I appreciate now and didn’t really appreciate before was that family always came first,” Buckley adds. “That is so today.”

Which is probably why the self-analysis Ms. Horne offers these days of her six-decade show-business career is so, well, simple—if it’s a simple word you’re looking for.

“I would have liked to have been one of those entertainers like, let’s see, maybe like… well, Bessie Smith was loved by a certain era. Aretha Franklin was loved by another,” Ms. Horne reflects. “Each era creates a new kind of thing that people are drawn to, and I don’t know if I fit into any of those things.

“I’ve been the weird one,” she adds quietly. “I’ve been more concerned about my relatives and family—always. I’ve been that way in an attempt to get into a circle of my own.”

That’s how she’d like to be remembered—for her closeness to family?

“Yes. The weird family girl.”



Odd. Lena Horne doesn’t think she fits into any kind of “era.”

Doesn’t she know?

When she appeared in the 1943 film “Thousands Cheer” draped around that white pillar—so elegantly gowned, with that beautiful, toothy smile outshining a thousand stars—she sang her way right into America’s consciousness and single-handedly made a most significant change in the face of Hollywood.

There was no handkerchief on this Negro woman’s head, no apron tied around this beautiful black woman’s waist—no yass’ms” falling off her ruby-painted lips, no babies being birthed by her delicate hands. She was a new kind of colored gal—one who, as her father, Teddy Horne, so poignantly pointed out to MGM head Louis B. Mayer, would rather hire a maid than play one (and could afford it, too).

No, she had the beauty, the class—hell, the dignity that had so long been denied to the more established actresses like Butterfly McQueen and Hattie McDaniel, who made their marks playing mammies. Here was this copper-toned siren with that long, pretty, “good” hair, looking just as sexy as any of Hollywood’s sexiest white women—Hedy Lamarr, Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth included.

With one three-minute number—“Honeysuckle Rose,” in “Thousands Cheer,”—Lena laid herself down and became the bridge over which hundreds of successful black actors and actresses walked to get to the dignified roles on the big screen. At the same time, blacks in general used Lena as a means of showing they were much more than the mammies and Toms America wanted them to be.

How could she not know that she too personified an era?



“She was a crossover diva,” says movie historian Donald Bogle, who, in his new book, “Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography,” tells of the role Horne’s career played in her rival’s success. “The movies put her on the map, and her appearance indicated a shirt in images for African-American women. She really did become the first black woman in Hollywood to be fully glamorized by a major film studio.”

But it’s not just black America that Lena Horne affected. No, it was much more than that. White people adored her. In the 40s. When liking black people wasn’t exactly at the top of everyone’s list. Lena was all right, though—for as black in spirit as she was, she appeared to be one of those “safe” Negroes, an amorphous woman who was so light-skinned, it was that much easier for whites to get past the fact that she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t threatening. She was beautiful.

It is no wonder, then, that the first black female Hollywood star would look as close to a white person as possible; she was black enough for black folks to be proud of and light enough for whites to forget her race.

Through all the manifestations of American culture, Lena navigated an extremely rocky road paved with harsh racist and sexist attitudes—arriving at her 80-year-old self a woman who crosses racial boundaries and generational ones, too. One is hard-pressed to find a seeing, hearing, sane and rational person over age 20 who doesn’t at least know a few tidbits about this lady.

Go ahead, mention her name: Guaranteed you’ll hear one of two things within the first few words—“God, she’s beautiful,” or “Stormy Weather.” This country knows who she is and cares about her deeply. Her music became a great unifier over the years, while her stories of struggles against racism and sexism, in both Hollywood and the United States, have been a salve for all souls. After all these years, she is still the symbol of beauty and dignity and class that was wrapped around that pillar 54 years ago.

That is, perhaps, why Americans, after all these years, are still infatuated with Ms. Lena Horne. She’s bigger than an “era.”

Surely, she must know.

Word(ful) Wednesday: Look At Me...

I'm not really sure if pictures of me as a baby are limited because my parents weren't big on taking them or because I'M ADOPTED and I came into their lives too late for them to get a bunch of shots, but what I do know is that photos of me as a child are hard to come by. But a few weeks ago while I was planning a video in honor of my DAD'S BIRTHDAY, my cousin floated me a few pictures of Baby Denene, and I unearthed a few in my mom's old photo albums. When I look at them, I'm consistently amazed at how much Lila and Mari are my little mini me's; in these pictures, in my face and my eyes and my skin and my smile, I see my babies. And I know for sure that my blood flows through their veins—an amazing thing to consider knowing that these two little people are the only human beings I know, for sure, are of my blood. That still kind of gives me goosebumps.

Just thought I'd share.

For more Wordful Wednesday posts, visit Angie at...

Who Gonna Check Me, Boo? The Hazards of Putting 'Em In Their Place

She played rugby and was big as hell—one of those corn-fed, meat-and-potato girls who looked like she spent her summer vacation stacking potato sacks in the fields, then eating her weight in carbs at dinnertime. That didn’t stop me from getting all up in her face, though—all 101 lbs, 5’ 1” of me.

She had taken my wet clothes out of the communal washing machine in our dorm laundry room, see, and put them on top of the dirty dryer so that she could wash her own load—and, um, yeah, homie didn’t play that. And that’s basically what I said, give or take a couple dozen cuss words and a call for her to bring it outside if she kept insisting on not apologizing.

Let’s just say the girl wasn’t phased.

Let’s just say I was happy she didn’t take me up on the call-out, because she would have Whooped. My. Ass.

Still, though I came thisclose to being squashed like a bug, it didn’t stop me from breaking bad whenever I felt wronged—speaking up and out when I thought someone had crossed the line and needed to be checked. Though I’m not nearly as loud as I was at 18, I assure you that I’m still not one for mincing words—which pretty much makes me no different from a host of other black women who haven’t a problem saying what’s on their minds, and wielding their words like a weapon.

But a racially-charged assault in Morrow, Georgia last week really made me take pause and reconsider just when, where, and how I should be using my Wu Tang Clan-styled, Samurai word swords. A young Army reservist mom, who had politely asked a stranger to excuse himself after nearly hitting her 7-year-old daughter in the face with a door as he rushed out of a Cracker Barrel, was brutally punched, stomped, cursed, and called all kinds of “nigger” and "bitch" by the man she checked—in front of her child!—an assault local NAACP officials are demanding be considered a hate crime. Troy D. West (that's him in the picture up top), the nut that assaulted Tiffany Hill was charged with misdemeanor battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to children — a felony cruelty to children charge was dropped — but the Clayton County district attorney says she may file more felony charges. The FBI is also investigating whether a hate crime occurred. West is free on bail.



By all accounts, Hill was respectful and polite when she told the man to watch out. I know plenty of women—specifically, African American women—who would have cussed him out for nearly hitting the baby and not apologizing. Ditto for the guy who repeatedly slapped a crying 2-year-old in a Wal-Mart in Stone Mountain, Georgia after warning the child’s mother that if she didn’t “shut up” the little girl, he would. You don’t get to hit/slap/look hard at a black child when her mama is lurking somewhere nearby, just waiting for a reason to open up a can of verbal whoop ass.

Thing is, with all the snarling, angry, half-crazy, desperate, on-the-fringe nuts parading across my television screen and newspaper everyday, it’s becoming painfully clear that all-too-many people are on the edge and willing to jump—no matter how big the bark being lobbed at them, no matter the consequences. The world increasingly is becoming one full of crazies who, provoked or no, aim to hurt others for no reason other than that they can. What’s worse is that they’re doing it in front of—and in the case of the Wal-Mart incident, to—children.

I have to admit that after reading about these two incidents, I’m a little bit more loath to pop off at the mouth at people who transgress against me and mine. Because now that I have babies to protect, I’m pretty clear that there are plenty of nuts out there who might be more than willing to hurt us, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can’t fight all of them in any meaningful way (despite the stereotype that in-your-face, angry black women can kick ass, you can rest assured a vast majority of us don’t have the physical fight to match the decibels we reach in our good, old fashioned cuss outs). Not saying that the Army mom was in the wrong or had the beat-down coming; clearly, she was respectful and had every right to speak up without being hit for it. But really, is it ever safe to demand manners from a stranger who angrily stomps past and almost hits a child with absolutely no care in the world for the girl’s safety and well-being? Similarly, is it ever safe to stay in the aisle with a crazy who threatens to “shut up” your child “if you don’t?”

I mean, my balls just don’t hang that low. (Unless Nick is with me. But he’s been warning me for years to stop depending on him to regulate after I pop off at the mouth.)

I don’t know—just food for thought: The world is full of can’t-get-right people just itching to do you and the babies harm; better to let them stomp off and exert their crazies somewhere else while you explain to your children that he/she is certifiably insane, rather than let the babies see it first hand.

MyBrownBaby on the Today show: Tips for Beating the Back-to-School Blues

One of my favorite writing gigs is my job as a columnist, contributing editor and Mom Squad member at Parenting magazine. The last office job I held before I became a work-at-home southerner was in Parenting's Manhattan offices, where I toiled as the features editor, assigning and editing the Ages & Stages section and some of the main features, and coordinating and writing the annual mom-tested gift guide (which earned me the affectionate title, "Big," because, like the Tom Hanks character in the hit movie, I played with toys for a living). When Nick and I decided to head South for more peaceful writing pastures, Parenting graciously hooked a girl up with the Reality Check column, which, under the capable hands of editor-in-chief Susan Kane, is now called, "Ask Denene." Every month, I give advice to more than two million moms looking for help handling their tricky, sticky parenting dilemmas; you can check out my columns in both monthly editions of Parenting—the Early Years, for moms with kids from newborns to age five, and the School Years, for moms with children ages five to 12. If you haven't given Parenting a good read lately, it's time for you to take a second look; the stories are beautifully written, super informative, and told from a heartfelt mom-to-mom perspective. There's no stuffiness here—the advice is down-to-earth and relatable.

Occasionally, Parenting brings those stories to television, and invites me to speak on the magazine's behalf in interviews on various TV shows. Yesterday, I got to mix it up with the Today show's Matt Lauer in a segment that kicked off the popular news program's "Back-to-school" series; we tackled how to help your kids shake the back-to-school jitters. Check it out:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

To read Parenting's feature on conquering the back-to-school blues and other great Parenting stories, click HERE.

Shameless MyBrownBaby Self-Promotion: "Never Make the Same Mistake Twice."

Yup, I wrote it.

I figured I'd just put it on out there because I keep getting Facebook messages, emails, and phone calls from my people asking, "Girl, is that you holding Nene's hand in the commercials?!"

The answer: Yes, that is me in the promos for an upcoming episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, in which Nene and I are discussing her memoir, the book I helped her write. Never Make the Same Mistake Twice: Lessons On Love and Life Learned the Hard Way, hit bookstores on Tuesday, smack dab in the middle of the explosive second season of Bravo's Atlanta Housewives franchise. Hate it or love it, The Real Housewives of Atlanta is appointment TV, and Nene's cut-throat, in-your-face, keepin'-it-real antics with castmates Kim Zolciak, Sheree Whitfield, Kandi Burress and Lisa Hartwell are downright addictive.

For all the smack Nene talks on RHOA, though, she really brings it in the pages of "Mistake," in which she exposes her dark past as a stripper, a domestic abuse victim, and the illegitimate daughter of parents who gave her up for adoption and kept her paternal lineage a secret. Sensational as her backstory is, it's also poignant, and definitely helps to explain Nene's journey toward becoming the reality show sensation she is today. Yes, she goes after Kim and Sheree in her book, but those two chapters are but a small part of her incredible story, which we crafted as a revealing tell-all to help inspire women facing the same challenges Nene dealt with as a teenager and young single mother.

For sure, it's a good story, told in Nene's signature, raw voice, but written in a way that brings honor to her story. (Come on, now: You know I'm not going to co-sign on any bull.) To see an excerpt, click HERE.

Never Make the Same Mistake Twice comes on the heels of my book with Steve Harvey, the New York Times best-selling advice book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. My 17th and 18th books, a novel for tweens and a picture book I penned with Holly Robinson Peete, hit stores next Spring.

As for my appearance on RHOA, I'm not sure which episode I'll be on, or how it'll be edited, or if I'll look like a complete idiot when it's shown, so say a prayer that mama preserves at least a modicum of class when I make my reality show debut. And even if I do look like Bobo the Fool, at the very least, let's hope the "Nene's Writing a Book" storyline makes "Never Make the Same Mistake Twice" a bestseller, because mama's gotta send three brown babies to Yale.

Don't play. Pray.

Amen.

My Time To Shine: What I Love Most About Me

My girl Akilah over at EXECUMAMA challenged me to write a letter to myself, listing all the reasons why I love me. My letter is almost a week in the making. It did not come easy to me. See, I was always the nerdy one—the girl who buried her head in books and got lost in music and daydreamed behind closed doors. Because I couldn’t find the words. Because I was uncomfortable looking others in the eye. Because I’d been taught that children were supposed to see and not be seen, and it never, ever quite wore off.

I owned the quiet—peace, be still. Head down, nose to the grind.

It took me a long time to look up—to face myself in the mirror and appreciate what I saw. It was a guy friend of mine (a buddy, not a love interest) who literally held a mirror to my face. “Look at you,” he demanded. My face was so close to the glass I could see a cloud of my breath steam on my reflection. “You are beautiful, Denene. I can see it; why can’t you?”

I was all right, I guess. Never been one to brag.

But today, I will. Because Akilah asked me to. And because she’s right: Sometimes, you gotta remind yourself exactly what it is that you love about you. Here goes:

I love my eyes and my lips and my smile, and especially my chocolate skin. Understand that this is relatively new. Growing up, I avoided the sun like the plague—it makes you black, you know. Where I come from, being anything darker than a paper bag put you smack dab in the friend zone—and even further down the boyfriend chain if your hair was short and kinky. Which explains, in part, why I didn’t get my first kiss until damn near college. Fools. These days, I’m all, “the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” and I really couldn’t care less if you don’t appreciate it. It looks great with a smoky eye and a subtle red Bobbi Brown lip gloss, but I like it best bare—clean, simple, flawless.

I love my butt. This is big. Not my ass, but the fact that I truly love it—finally. Like my dark skin, my butt was a sin ‘round my way. If you couldn’t fit it in some Jordache or some Lees, it was too big for most of the guys I grew up with in Long Island, New York. (Mind you, had I grown up around some black boys in, say, Brooklyn, I’d have been knocked up by age 14.) For years, I tried my best to camouflage it—I tied sweaters around my waist and wore baggy pants and long, bulky sweaters, a desperate attempt to shrink it any way I could. Of course, it never worked. There’s no hiding this thing. But these days, it’s all about the booty (with nods to J-Lo, Beyonce), and there are companies that actually sell pants and skirts and dresses with stretchy fabric and accurate waist-to-booty ratios that make sense for women with hourglass figures (Banana Republic, Anthropologie, PZI, AppleBottom jeans). All of a sudden, my booty is in vogue and in properly sized clothing. What’s not to love?!

I love my sense of humor. I got jokes. I don’t know where this comes from. It’s that sarcastic, dry, witty thing. It is what it is. And it makes people laugh. I love to make people laugh. It's good for their souls. It's good for mine.

I love that I'm generous. I don't have a lot, but what I do have, I give freely. Because it's the right thing to do. Understand, I'm not talking about cash (though if I have it and you need it, you got it); I'm talking about my time and sweat. I'm a pretty good listener—a pretty good comforter. And I'm usually always ready to dig in. I get that from my parents, I think. I watched my mom go above and beyond in church and with her friends, who were equally generous. My Dad is the same way. I can't tell you how many times I saw him fix a stray kid's bike, or replace the neighbor's heater, or change a stranger's tire. I love that about him, and anyone who knows me knows my Dad is my hero. I love his helpfulness, and so I help, too. Ask and you will receive.

I love my ambition and drive. It got me a scholarship to college, when my parents couldn’t afford tuition. It got me a great gig right out of college, in one of the largest news gathering organizations in the world. It got me to a high-paying position as a political reporter at one of the then-largest newspapers in the country, at the tender age of 23. It got me a column at Parenting magazine, and 18 book deals, including a No. 1 New York Times best seller. What’s most special about my ambition and drive, though, is that I don’t use mine like weapons; I don’t feel like I have to stomp all over someone else to succeed. Quite the contrary, even as I’m doing what I can to be better at what I do, I’m constantly looking for ways to help others get in the game. I am blessed, no doubt, because of this. I’m sure of it.

I can truly look at myself in the mirror today and appreciate what I see.

Indeed, I love me some Denene.

And I’m going to work harder to love me even more.

What are you doing to love you?

Little Dolls: Tenderly Tending to Every Strand of Brown Girl Hair, With a Smile

By DENENE MILLNER

Good grief, why didn’t anybody warn me? I mean, I had a bazillion dolls—most of them black with coarse hair that I spent hours combing and washing and pulling into ponytails and meticulously parting into perfect and perfectly fabulous rows of cornrows. Sometimes a piece of brown paper bag or a spare sponge roller could coax a curl or two, you know, for special occasions. An assortment of pomades (Afro Sheen and Dax were ready for the sneaking in the bathroom cabinet), Afro picks, rat-tails, and wide-tooth combs, and of course ribbons and beads, made my dolls Ebony Fashion Fair runway-ready. Their hair looked good, okay? And between every brush stroke/twist/hair clipping/braid, I plotted, man. I was going to have babies and those babies would be girls, and those girls would wear beautiful dresses and sit quietly while I weaved their hair into incredible hairstyles that would make them the envy of grade schoolers everywhere.

Yeah—right.



I got what I’d been begging God for since the day I learned how to braid hair at age five: two girls with a lotta hair I can comb. Except my girls don’t sit still like my dolls did. Their hair and scalp isn’t made of plastic and synthetic fibers. I can’t brace them between my knees and pull it and twist it and tug at it. I’m charged with taking great care of two heads of kinky, curly hair—not including my own—with little information and great trepidation, even after all these years. There were no books out there to help me figure it out when they were babies. And there still aren’t any black children’s hair care books out now. Taking care of all this hair is not easy.



If I just look at Lila’s head, or, Heaven forbid, announce that her hair will need washing sometime in the next month, she screams holy hell—like I just told her the moment all 7-year-olds will be hung upside down by their toenails is imminent. The girl can go three weeks with the same twists—lint and dried grass and all manner of rug remnants intertwined in her luscious locs—and not give a rat’s booty if it looks like complete madness. Just please, don’t say you’re going to comb it.



Mari is much easier. I still remember the first time Nick and I washed her hair; she wasn’t even a week old, swaddled in a blanket, nestled in Nick’s big hands. He held her head under the stream of warm water in the kitchen sink, and I rubbed Johnson’s Baby Shampoo over her curly hair. The girl fell asleep—like she was in a spa. I can pull it, twist it, scratch it, the kid is cool. But she’s got a dry scalp condition that keeps me workin’ day and night trying to figure out how to keep her head moisturized, shiny and healthy and natural. Some weeks, I have to wash, condition, and style her hair twice, almost two hours worth of work at each sitting.

I’ve spent exorbitant amounts of cash on hair products that promised miracles. When those didn’t work, I put together my own rosemary oil, Vitamin E, glycerin, and water elixirs for Mari’s hair, and shea butter and coconut oil concoctions for Lila’s—mixtures wholly conjured up from a patchwork of advice and internet research on how to care for African American hair. There's plenty information about grown folk hair. Hardly anything about the tender tendrils of little brown girls.



And when I’m not researching and combing, I’m talking to my babies—constantly talking. About how wonderful it is to have natural hair, with its gloriously kinky, curly, poofy texture—soft like cotton, strong enough to break the teeth of a comb. How it doesn’t need to swing to be beautiful. That afros are the fire.

Nobody tells little black girls such things.

No, we grow up with our own people telling us how “nappy” our head is, and mamas popping us in the neck for crying when all that tugging at our strong hair/tender scalps gets to hurting, and watching TV and magazine ads celebrate little brown girls with fine, loosely-curled, “other” hair. Brought up to believe this hair is a chore and a burden.



And so I wash and condition and massage and mix elixirs and spray and oil and pull and twist and part and braid. And I don’t complain. At least not to my girls.

They are not the dolls from when I was little, this is true. But they are dolls, the two of them, and their hair is beautiful.

Every. Single. Strand.

Shameless MyBrownBaby Self-Promotion: the iVillage Hook Up

I've loved iVillage for quite some time, particularly for their commitment to bringing quality online content to women. Of late, though, they've gone above and beyond to create stories written by and designed to reach out to women of color, and I'm over-the-moon to see moms who look like me acknowledged, celebrated, and invited into the national debate on motherhood, womanhood and femininity. Just last week, the site's YourTotalHealth section ran a package on the effects of sun exposure on darker skin, dispelling the myth that people of color can't get skin cancer. (yes, sisters, we CAN get skin cancer—no matter how much melanin we have,) and I was, indeed, honored when an iVillage editor invited me to write an accompanying personal blog post about how I came to the decision to take sun protection seriously. Here, a little taste of what I wrote:

See, what you have to understand is that neither of my parents really cared about the health risks of my playing out in the sun; sunburn, melanoma, wrinkles, heat rashes—none of these conditions concerned them a lick. No, their reasoning for keeping me out of the harmful rays was much more practical: "The sun," they insisted, "will make you black."

And Lord knows, the last thing this little African American girl, whose family was integrating an all-white neighborhood in Long Island, wanted to do was be (gasp!) black. After all, light was all right, brown could stick around and black—well, as the little skin color ditty went, black had to get back. The message: Do what you gotta do to avoid getting darker. And if that meant avoiding pools/beaches/soccer fields/the great outdoors/any place where the sun could magically turn milk chocolate girls into Hershey's special dark chocolate, well, then that's how it was going to go down.

It wasn't until I got to college and read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and joined an African sorority and got around some friends who insisted that "the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice" that I lifted my head toward the sky.

To read the entire post on iVillage's Your Total Health, click HERE. If you're so moved, please leave a comment so that they know you appreciate their commitment to writing stories for, by, and about ALL of us.

In the meantime, the Chiles/Millner clan is back from the much ballyhooed camping trip. I'll give you all the delicious details about our two-day, two-night deep-in-the-woods adventure later this week, but I wanted to give you a little sneak peek at some of the fantastic pictures we took. Up top is my beautiful nephew Cole, who has amazingly expressive eyes and ain't afraid to use 'em. And here is my Lila, taking a swim with all her homies in the lake (and yes, she was sufficiently greased up with SPF 30 to protect all that lovely chocolate skin!).



Happy reading!

MyBrownBaby Redux: I'll Always Love My Mama

Mother's Day is a little tricky around here; it makes me incredibly happy to celebrate motherhood with my family and friends, but incredibly sad, too, because I'm reminded in a big way that my mom is gone from here. This will be the sixth Mother's Day I'll have without her, and though I anticipate it'll be nowhere near as painful as the first, I'll still wake up Sunday morning wishing I could hear her voice, see her smile, wrap my arms around her waist, and tell her one more time how much I adore her. I've been thinking a lot about the following post, which I wrote months ago, when I first founded MyBrownBaby; I thought it would be nice to run it in honor of Bettye Millner. Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. I love you.

By DENENE MILLNER
I’m not sure what made me think about her today. I was in the grocery store, smelling the over-priced strawberries when my mother suddenly popped into my mind. It happens like that, you know—I’ll be doing something absolutely mundane, and there she’ll be, standing in the bathroom mirror of my childhood home, putting on her lipstick and adjusting her church hat; or standing over me and my Dad, watching us eat that extra sweet potato pie she baked just for us, because she knew we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off the two she made for Thanksgiving dinner; or singing a silly song to my Mari, which, even loud and off-key, always managed to make my then-baby girl fall fast asleep. Sometimes, the memories make me giggle a little. Sometimes, I can’t quite control the tears, and I’m blinded by overwhelming sadness.

A lot of times, I just miss her so.

Bettye went away from here six years ago—suddenly, surprisingly, heart-achingly. Mari was three, and so she couldn’t quite understand, really, why she wouldn’t be able to lay in her “Gamma’s” arms anymore. Lila was barely two months old, and so all she has is a few pictures of my mom holding her in her arms, nuzzling Lila’s fat cheeks. I was a young mother, trying to figure out how to raise two girl pies and be a good wife and hold down a challenging magazine gig and write books and run a household and live a fulfilled life. None of us was ready for her to go. We needed her.

I needed her.

Still do.

I didn’t always appreciate the mother that Bettye Millner was. She was old school—strict and a little mean and definitely one of those moms who thought children were to be seen, not heard. She reveled in making her kids do chores (I spent so much time scrubbing, vacuuming and doing laundry during weekend high school events that I seriously considered changing my name to Cinderella). She chauffeured my brother, Troy, and I to church every Sunday, faithfully, and with a smile. And most certainly, Bettye believed that any child who stepped out of line had a sound whooping coming right to ‘em (her weapon of choice: a fresh, thin, sturdy switch from the tree in the front yard). She was tart-tongued and quick to tell you about yourself—fiercely protective and ridiculously private (she’s somewhere on the other side clutching her pearls over me writing this blog about her, I’m sure!). And she prayed for us even when we didn’t know it—even when we didn’t deserve it. Especially when we needed it.

I expected her to be a similar kind of grandmother—to apply those strict, old school traits to the way she would love my babies. But she was different with them—all googly and sweet and swooning. She would snatch Mari right out of my arms before she or I could get through the door good, and rush her away to a room full of gifts, and a plate full of food, and a VCR full of kid movies—just waiting for her grandbaby. She’d read to her and sing to her and talk to her and welcome Mari to talk back. She’d dress up her grandbaby and sport her down the church aisle American’s Next Top Model style, showing her off to anyone with eyes. And she’d fall asleep with Mari snuggled next to her in her bed—my father banished to the basement couch to make room for the little girl child she loved so.

And just as she revealed a different side of Bettye as “grandmother,” my mom revealed a different, softer side of herself to me, too. Suddenly, we became fellow moms: Rather than tell me what to do, she encouraged me to do what I thought was right; instead of holding her secrets close, she shared them with the hope that they would help me be a better mom; rather than reprimand me for my childcare decisions, she trusted my judgment. I’ll never forget the day when I came to her distraught because someone very close to us criticized my decision to keep breastfeeding Mari past six months. Honestly, I expected her to agree; after all, what self-respecting, black working mom kept her ninny in a baby’s mouth past a few months when there was work to do and baby formula at the ready?

“Mari is your baby,” she insisted when I came to her, overwhelmed and a little mad at the judgmental mom who questioned my decision. “You’re not ever going to hear me questioning how you’re raising your child. You’re going to make mistakes—all of us did before you, and many will after you. You do what’s right for you.”

What I would do to have her here. To order. To direct. To encourage. And pray for me and mine. There are so many things that I wish she could see—Mari and Lila’s fierce competitive spirit on the soccer field, the rows of A’s on their report cards. I know she would love Lila’s mischievousness, and Mari’s curiousness. She’d hang their artwork up on her refrigerator, and brag about her grandbabies to her friends, and sit them right up there in the front pew, so they could pay attention to the preacher, and the other deaconesses could give them mints and pinches on their cheeks. And my mother would be overwhelmed by my daughters’ beauty—proud of the young ladies they’re becoming. Excited about who they’ll be.

I do wish, too, that she were still here so that my daughters could see first-hand the incredible woman their grandmother was.

We are all missing out on something special now that Bettye Millner is gone.

I’ll tell Mari and Lila about her, though—keep her fresh in their memories.

And I’ll wait for her to come to me again—a lovely, sweet, heartbreaking vision in my mind.

My Kid, The Next Last Comic Standing, Part II: The Knock Knock Sisters Take The Stage

I wrote back in January about my Lila and her fearlessness and how I had to take myself out of myself to allow her to follow her 6-year-old passion. (Now, the thing you should know about 6-year-old passions is that they're subject to all kinds of little whims, and can quickly devolve into loud, teary, hissy fits if said whims are not indulged. Try telling the girl that all the red popsicles are gone and only purple and orange are left. Or that it's just not fresh to wear a corduroy mini-skirt and sandals in 40-degree weather. Exactly.) Still, at the urging of many of my MyBrownBaby friends, I let the girl try out with her best friend, Maggie, for the school talent show.

And wouldn't you know it? They got in.

After months of weekly school rehearsals and impromptu, on-command performances for me, Nick, and Maggie's 'rents (Maggie's mom is Gretchen, the star of last week's "Little Things" post), the big night finally arrived; the duo, dubbed "The Knock Knock Sisters" by the talent show organizers, hit the stage and tore the house down with their super cute performance.

No, they didn't "win"—not officially, anyway. Trophies went to an adorable little girl who did a super-cute magician act, another little girl who did a rousing performance of Aretha Franklin's "Respect," a 5th grade boy who wrote an original poem about Barack Obama, and two other little girls who, in my opinion, did some wholly inappropriate dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and a song (if that's what you want to call it) by Soulja Boy. Still, Maggie and Lila were—and still are—winners in my book—for signing themselves up, committing themselves to a routine, and climbing up onto that stage in front of an auditorium full of people, and telling their jokes with confidence and great big ol' smiles and ease. Like they'd been telling jokes together for years.

Check out our babies up top.

Fearless.

(With special thanks to Gretchen for the video, which she shot through proud tears of joy!)

My Puberty Story Was Featured On The Today Show!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So, you all know by now that I'm a part of Parenting magazine's "Mom Squad," a group of "mom experts" who dispense monthly advice to moms looking for help raising their kids, strengthening their relationships, getting their finances in check, getting organized, and being better to themselves, and then some. Occasionally, as a contributing editor for the magazine, I'll also write feature-length stories about childhood development, relationships, and child-rearing, and, thanks to the magazine's awesome publicity department, occasionally, my stories will get picked up by national TV shows. This morning, The Today Show did a segment based on a piece I wrote for Parenting, titled "What To Expect When Puberty Hits," featuring executive editor Lisa Bain and Dr. Ivor Horn, the Washington, D.C.-based pediatrician I quoted in the story. (I wasn't on the show because, as I pointed out in my "Little Things" post about my girl Gretchen last week, I'm super swamped, Nick's been out of town, and I couldn't be in New York this morning. But they did ask.)

Whether you're staring puberty in the face or have a ways to go before your little one gets boobies and stinky under arms, check out the story; in my research, I learned so much about my daughter's changing body and how I should respond to it as a thoughtful, in-the-know parent (read: handing her a copy of "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret," and a box of sanitary napkins is not enough info to help her deal). The story breaks down the signs for when your child is going through The Change, how to help them through it, and sound advice from moms who've been there. Check out The Today Show clip above, too, for helpful info.

Enjoy!