Accept who you are: Muffy Mendoza helps cultivate safe space for black mothers in Pittsburgh and beyond
As a single mother before marrying her husband after 2008, Muffy Mendoza said she realized motherhood is a “thankless job” — especially being a black woman in Pittsburgh.
“It was very rough,” said the 37year-old Sheraden resident and mother of three boys. “By the time I got married, I realized you need a village to raise kids. Black women are often told that we don’t raise good kids, so I’m all about creating recognition for black mothers. Oftentimes, we are the ones facing the odds. Black women are the most educated women in our nation.”
Several years ago, she and now deputy executive director of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority Diamonte Walker started an online community and safe space for African American mothers in Pittsburgh called Brown Mamas. Now, spearheaded by Ms. Mendoza and other moms, the support community has over 5,000 members who include women from the city and other states. The group’s annual event called Brown Mamas Monologues — which features the stories of 10 black moms telling their stories — last year was one of several African American creative groups to receive $15,000 from the Advancing Black Arts in
Black Arts in Pittsburgh grant program.
Ms. Mendoza’s work was described as “redefining the American motherhood narrative to be more inclusive of black mothers.”
But black women in Pittsburgh and throughout the country need a place where they are free “be themselves,” and “not be judged because they may parent differently,” Ms. Mendoza said. In addition to testimonials and blogs, the group’s website provides an array of resources for single mothers that include housing, education, food, clothing and health.
Reports released in September 2019 by the city’s Gender Equity Commission showed Pittsburgh’s black residents could move to almost any other U.S. city of comparable size and have a better quality of life. The report also found black women in Pittsburgh are at high risk for maternal mortality and poverty and face barriers to employment and education.
“I think black moms at some point in the last 10 years got tired of trying to mimic white moms,” she said. “We just wanted to know that our version of motherhood did not have to be this USDA-certified, organic experience in order for it to qualify as a legit version of motherhood ... I think outside of Pittsburgh, a few moms are saying spaces like this don’t exist in other places. They’re always talking about how there’s nowhere for them to go and say, ‘I need a car seat. Can somebody give me their baby’s old car seat instead of me having to go and pay $75 for a brand new one?’”
In 2018, Ms. Mendoza published her first novel, “The Brown Mama Mindset” and workbook. Each chapter is “practical,” she said, and focuses on shifting the mindset around parenting for mothers.
“The moment a woman has a child, at first, you’re happy in a sense,” Ms. Mendoza said. “You can’t believe this baby just came out of you, and then right after that happens, a gunshot goes off. And then you never look back to see that you left your whole self back there. By the time you do look back, you’re like, she’s still back there, but you just keep going because you feel like you have to.”
But “it’s OK to slow down, to take this one step at a time, because really that’s all you have,” she added.
Self-acceptance is key in African American motherhood, she said.
“Accept the fact that you live where you live. Accept the fact that you were raised by who you were raised by and that you have the color skin that you have. And maybe from there, through self-acceptance, we can make some changes to the way we parent and raise our kids. But first, let us accept that we are who we are as black mothers.”
In partnership with Iyanna Bridges’ Doula Services, Brown Mamas on April 4 is hosting a “Birth Your Way” summit in response to a maternal health crisis, Ms. Mendoza said. The state’s maternal death rate rose from 5.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1994 to 12.7 deaths in 2014, according to state data.