Now y’all now I’m the first to say something about folks because, well, I can. But this time, I don’t care how crazy you all think I am, Erykah Badu is my new hero. As most of you already know, Badu blasted bloggers on the okayplayer message boards (entitled “Pregnant With Insults”) for criticizing her decision to have babies by more than one father. Badu was responding to numerous comments about her rumored pregnancy from hip hop artist Jay Electronica. If pregnant, this would be Badu’s third child out of wedlock, each from a different father (her 10-year old son was with Andre 3000 and her 4-year old daughter is from the D.O.C.).
Being someone who has two kids from two different men (yeah, what!), I can understand her frustration. Why the hell is everyone so judgmental about what she decides to do with her own life?? And more importantly, how many dudes is out here with multiple random baby mothers, and no one says anything about them.
It’s the DOUBLE STANDARD again. And it really bothers the heck out of me. Now, me (another unwed mother) being fascinated with this topic and waiting to see what haters are saying, I went ahead and read a lot of the blog comments and I could see why she is so damn pissed. People are saying all types of disrespectful and vulgar things about her, for basically…having sex with men she was in relationships with, and then having children. And guess what I don’t believe that those criticizing her commenting are church-going spouses. What very few folks are saying is that it’s only because she’s a WOMAN!!! What is this like 1925?? It’s 2008, let her do her.
The Official Site of Kim Osorio 
I too saw Erykah’s response and was equally impressed by it. I am a single mother who just had her first baby out of wedlock almost a year ago. Because I was raised during the Cosby era, by parents who have been married for 25 years, I felt guilty about having a baby without a spouse. I worried about what would happen when I did meet a man with whom I could settle down. I would have children by two different fathers *gasp*. But then I thought about my mother, who had me with her first husband and my sister with her second. She left an early, abusive marriage in order to form a healthier, more evolved one, and she pats herself on the back for that. Why can’t we younger women give ourselves or receive the same credit for refusing to settle into unfulfilling relationships? I tried to talk to my mother about the whole Erykah-Okayplayer saga. She went into a whole “she’s just trying to justify being trifling” thing. I don’t agree. Now, I will say that having a child is not necessarily the most … sensible? … way to demonstrate you and your partner’s level of commitment. Marriage is a way to say to the world and God that you have chosen to make a life with a person. Living together. Or just plain staying together. But that said, if Erykah wants these children, and wants to continue looking for that perfect other half, then, she is well within her rights. She is having children that she apparently wants and has the resources to give adequate care. So she’s not doing anything “wrong.” It is “wrong” to have children that you are not prepared to raise. Having children out of wedlock, or having multiple kids with multiple men, these are simply ways to make a family – choices that some women make and others don’t. I think that there are only moral implications if you subscribe to a traditional view of “family” or “marriage.” And obviously Erykah doesn’t. She makes her own rules – always has. That’s a huge part of what makes her such a great artist. I personally think that the people that are ripping her apart are not the so-called “moral majority,” as you said, but people who feel ashamed and self-conscious about their own failure to live according to the middle class, bourgeois script. They’re scapegoating her. “See, I only have one kid out of wedlock, but she has three.” And that’s BS. It is a double standard and a sick exemplar of how people in this so-called culture (Hip hop? Does it exist anymore?) hate on each other to get ahead (even if it’s just psychologically or emotionally). I’m with you, though. I applaud Erykah. And you (I also see you as a gifted young woman in hip hop, doing her thing). And as for Erykah and her baby-making … I say, the more, the merrier. Heroic mamas birth revolutionary babies.
I agree with you Kim. It’s that DOUBLESTANDARD. Totally Wack ass people being judgemental, and who knows what the hell they got going on….”while you point your finger, there are 3 other fingers pointing back at you”. I really respect Erykah and her repsonse, my favorite part??? “Kiss my Placenta”…..plus her new album is beyond heat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love the blog, I just found it a week ago but it’s in my favorites now.
I need some of that Baduism! LOL!
And it is., indeed, 2008.
Do you, Erykah.
“And more importantly, how many dudes is out here with multiple random baby mothers, and no one says anything about them.”
Now that is a bold face lie, the planet stays talking about baby daddies.
Lets be for real. Ruby your mother was a married woman when she had her kids so she was well within her rights to have two children with both of those men. Stop trying to justify being trifling. What kind of example are you setting for your children when they grow up and have a mother that did not respect herself to wait until a man committed himself to their mother before she had his child.
It takes two people to make a baby for a good damn reason. I like to believe that reason is because both are need to be in the home the child to be stable. Why should your child be denied the best possible life. That would be both parents in the home loving one another and loving the child(ren).
Now in the case of Rubys’ mothers first husband being abusive that is a special case and she had a right to leave to protect herself and her child from harm. But she was a good upstanding woman. She got married to another man before having another child.
Now I know a child can be raised to be a great adult without both parents but it is more difficult and could have easily been avoided. Care to argue that point with me, take your best shot? You know that when you were growing up your dream was not to be a single mother. Correct me if I am wrong. If it was then maybe you should set your goals a bit higher.
Peace and Love. Stop Telling Yourself Lies.
Whatever. I could name a few rappers and men locally that have more than 4 children and they are not for the same mother. I don’t see anyone complaining about them. Erykah fell in love and decided to have a child with the man she fell in love with at the time. After awhile things didn’t go right and they both went their separate ways. The kids aren’t even that close in age so what’s the big deal. Would they had felt better if she aborted them? WTF!!! Some people just seem to think that they are holier than Thou. If she had married all three of them and divorced it would have been the same thing.
All of you MFs that are worried about Erykah and what she does need to tell me why the hell the gas prices are still so f-ing high. Now that’s something to worry about. Shyt. You also need to be worry ing about them damn Shanaene and Sheniqua MFs that are not doing something with themselves and tricking every night just to pay for their luxuries and wasting my damn tax dollars being on welfare and section 8 with them damn 5 children from different baby daddies. At least Erykah knows who her children’s fathers are and works for a living.
It is 2008 and the family structure has changed. What we need to do is adapt and STILL raise our kids to rise up. I’ve got three kids (ages 10, 4 and 2) with two different father’s (one present, one in the pen.) All my kids live with me, have full bullies, decent gear, clean kicks and cable access. Sometimes we eat Top Ramen for three days straight and sometimes we get to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s two days in a row.
I was 21 and married when I had my daughter. We divorced and I moved on. I fell in love and had two children with a man I consider a soulmate even though we have broken up. Whether children are conceived in wed-lock, during a one night stand, with people we love or relationships regretted, children are a beautiful thing and as long as we treat them with love and guide them to be good people it shouldn’t matter how many BMs and BDs are involved.
The one thing I will say is that multiple BMs and BDs means unprotected sex, lets strap it on so that when we do have kids, they are healthy and we are too!
Kim why you let this bother the heck out of you. You letting people get the best of you. I have mixed feelings on this issue.
wow…”the more the merrier”
what a dumb ass..pardon my street, but no, the more is not merrier. why is it that us latinas and blacks are always trying to fake the funk that it’s liberating to get knocked up by 2, 3, 4, 5 men and bare children from each…
wake up! this is not about judging, this is about a major glitch in the system of our cultures. it’s not about wedlock even, it’s about the fact that we are the ones with the fatherless kids, the high hiv rates and the consistent volatile poverty and environments…there is a problem with laying down and opening it up with little discretion. my mother is from the middle east (iran) and my dad is afro-cuban, people in my mother’s culture are horrified that blacks and latinos spread it like jam…even though they respect both cultures, they cannot conceive it. although i am always trying to explain the history and concepts to them, defending in a way, in my head a light goes off and i know that the situation is FUCKED!
kim is 100% right about the double standard, but please, condoms are free, and so is common sense.
This is in response to Nahid Martinez’s comment that her mother ( who is Iranian from the MiddleEast, which is actually Northeast Africa, another argument for another day) and her culture are “horrified that Blacks and Latinos spread it like jam”. I’m not in denial of the ills of the Black and Latino community as it relates to family, child support and child rearing. Who are Iranians, or any other group who like to falsify history as to them having some moral superiority to people of African descent? If you are historically astute, you will know that the so called ” Arabs” were the first to enslave Africans on the continent and to institute the wholesale rape, destruction and fatherlessness of African people thousands of years before the Portuguese, Spaniards or the English. Where’s the horror and outrage about that? This is not opinion, this is historical fact. All behavior must be looked at and examined in the proper context, historically, psychologically, and culturally. I am glad that you stated that you try to put the current situation of Blacks in perspective to your Iranian family, the best way to do this is to expose the hypocrisy and mythology surrounding Iranian history and culture which will easily negate this feeling of superiority that many people have. A good understanding of world history is the only defense against the superiority game that many ethnic groups like to play when speaking of people of African descent. Africans have their flaws and issues like all groups, but when you look at the rest of the world through the lens of truth, the majority of them have elevated themselves at the expense of abusing, mistreating and misappropriating African people, land, culture…a case of the child rebelling against it’s mother and father. I don’t argue African superiority, I argue for African primacy, as the first people to walk the earth and to establish civilization, including the moral values that so many like to claim as their own.
Real brain power on display. Thanks for that aenwsr!
Hey, nice tips. I’ll buy a bottle of beer to the man from that forum who told me to visit your site 🙂