Who Names Me? Who Creates Me? Black Women and The Mother Archetype

Hi my loves,

Let’s chat about the Mother archetype. Mother is a loaded word for anyone. It can mean so many things all at the same time.

Black women who were born, have ever resided or currently live in the United States of America contend with the history of the Black woman in this space we call those United States.

Mothers not far removed from civil rights, segregation, Jim Crow, share cropping, reconstruction, civil war, and slavery. If not one’s mother, their mother, their mother’s mother, or their mother’s mother.

In a short span of time the life of the Black woman has transformed quickly. To choose whether to have a child has always been in the hands of the Mother, but the level of violence that choice may include has varied with lack of freedom and access to medical care.

Mother’s that had to choose between a life of violence and bondage or death and a possibility of freedom. Mother’s that knew their time with their child was limited to the whims of their owners. Mothers that saw hope for a free future for their children only to have it dashed away from the violence that met that dream. Mother’s who didn’t even consider work a form of freedom because they had always been working.

Mother’s marching dreaming of equal access to the world for their children and community.

Mother’s working dreaming of safe homes, food, and clothing for their families.

Mother’s studying dreaming of days when they and their children could choose their own path of making money.

Mother’s homemaking dreaming of nurturing their families and keeping them close.

Mother’s praying dreaming of the day when their children can make the choice for themselves of whether they want to have children, a family, a career, a life dedicated to their faith or themselves.

Black mother’s hold all these spaces and more.

And their children?

Their Black daughters specifically, continue to brush up against the stereotypes, prejudice, bias, and projections of social norms, groups, and individuals that want to lable them.

Mammy. Jezebel. Sapphire. Mule. Video Vixen. Diva. Welfare Queen. Bossy. Strong. Fast. Savior.

Never letting them name themselves.

The split between the archetype of the Mother and the stereotype of the Mammy fractures the psyche creating a hunger.

How do we respond to this hunger for nourishment? With closeness? With love?

Perfectionism? Always striving to get it right. The perfect student, helper, althelete, dancer, artist, and daughter? Never too much. While that voice inside continues to whisper and shout that you’ll never be enough.

Rebellion? Rejecting all of that perfectionism, because what’s the point?

Perhaps just deciding to do the best that you can.

The call for 2025-2029 to be four years of reclaiming our time, rest, peace, softness, greatness, needs, and desires is proclaimed across social media platforms.

During this time, may the daughters reclaim their names and themselves. May the Mother’s dreams blossom. And may we mend the split between the Mother and the Daughter Archetype.

To allow ourselves to claim our inner beings – the inner child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder. To name them bravely and embrace them.

To go within and actively take part in the process of creating ourselves. Releasing the projection of the Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and Mule stereotypes thrust upon us. Those old stories recycles from the Madonna, Whore, Witch, and Shrew.

To live.

In 2025, may we live fully and completely. Dreaming of a thousand futures where our creative energy is free.

With love,

Kamilah Rose