I am so pleased to introduce this essay by Candace Stephens, who joined me on Season 7 of Flourish in the Foreign to talk about how she ended up in Denmark and how she has grown as a person, a partner, and a mother over eight years abroad. During that conversation, she spoke candidly about being pregnant in Denmark and about what it means to raise a multicultural, multiethnic child in one of the more homogeneous countries in Europe.
This essay is a continuation of a tension I have encountered many times across the archive: what does it actually look like to raise a child outside of your specific cultural context? How do you pass something on when you are still figuring out what you received? Candace writes about grief, inheritance, and what she is choosing to build for her daughter in the absence of the women who were supposed to show her how. Please enjoy.
Loss, Legacy, and Motherhood: Reflections on Parenting a Bi-Cultural Babe
Candace Stephens
I write this explorative essay on the day of my mother’s birthday, the third birthday I spent blowing out the candle for her. She passed away just 6 months after I gave birth to my first child, a beautiful, bountiful little girl. That first year of motherhood felt like I was submerged in a viscous pool of grief, guilt, gratitude, anger, and occasional bouts of wonder. Mostly wondering how the hell I was going to tackle the overwhelming responsibility of raising a young woman without support (at least Earth-bound) from the elder women in my life.
My paternal grandmother passed away shortly after I was born, and I have known her only through the inspiring stories shared by my father. She was a trailblazer, a boss, a warm presence, and a bad-ass with a heart of gold. The tales of her bravery, her brashness, and her smart mouth always filled me with encouragement, pride, but mostly grief. To lose someone you never had is its own special variation of grief, and I caught it early.
My maternal grandmother passed on when I was 7, after suffering a stroke and being bed-bound from the incident. I have vague memories of visiting her in the hospital, holding her soft, yet firm hand, though I could tell it was weaker than before. I had a bit more time with her, but again, most of the information I garnered was passed on to me through half-remembered stories and my mother’s own grief-stricken heart.
So when I say that my mom's passing felt like my last maternal representation and guide was viciously ripped away from me, I mean it as intensely as I still feel it today. Not only have I been grieving the loss of my mother, but of her mother, and all the mothers in my long ancestral line; all the women who had rich lives, hard lives, well-learned lives, yet whose stories never made it down the line to me. I often pondered on how much information we have lost along the way, and what legacy I could carry on if I’m ignorant of the legacy that I came from.
Yet still, motherhood found me. And it found me in a country I had immigrated to just 4 years prior, with less than 0 experience of how to parent, let alone how to parent amongst a culture I was just learning to understand for myself. Well, I guess I did have some information on how to parent, but unfortunately, it was mostly what not to do.
With all her beauty, fervency, and Boston bravery, my mother also suffered from addiction for most of my childhood and teen years. This notably strained our relationship with each other, but also my relationship to parenthood and motherhood, specifically. It felt like motherhood might be the thing that cost me my sanity or my spirit, as that’s what I had interpreted happened with my own mother. But once motherhood did find me, I felt I had no choice but to learn from my mother’s mishaps as well as her victories, to create a motherhood that didn’t hinder me, but actually lifted me up, so I could do the same for my offspring.
I’ve said often and confidently that I likely would not have become a mother if I were still living in America. Without diving headfirst into the harrowing Black maternal death rate, or constant threat of racism, sexism, and most -isms you can think of, I will say that becoming a parent in a country like Denmark was the first positive decision I made for my daughter. Well, picking a capable, loving, and incredible partner to be her father might have been the first one, but still…
Yet unfortunately, parenting doesn’t stop there; it keeps going, forever if you are lucky. And so now, exactly 4 years into motherhood, I find myself dancing with a new challenge, or rather, a challenge that has only grown in importance now that my little one is finding her words and own sense of self:
What parts of my culture should I pass on to my bi-racial, bi-cultural daughter?
Big question, huh? No wonder why I’ve been wrestling for it for years. Breaking it down, tearing it apart. Getting to the root of the inquiry itself. And I wish I could serve you up a clear-cut action plan, a strategic layout that tells you exactly what to share with your child and what to avoid; how to educate your international child in the best, tried-and-true way. But that’s not this essay, and it’s definitely not this life. But damn, do I wish it were sometimes.
Instead, during my grappling with this big question, I’ve tried my best to reduce it to a more tangible ask, which is:
How do we choose what to pass on to our kids, in general?
Whether you are navigating multiple cultures in your home or just one, we all have a choice of what we want to pass on to our kids, whether that be habits, ideals, routines, interests, advice, trauma, or antiques. And we often make the decision of whether to gift these things to our children in the moment, when a question arises from their little mouths, or when they test the boundaries of their world (and often our patience).
I’ve found that motherhood has been equal parts parenting my daughter and reparenting myself at the same time. Unlearning reactions so I can set a better example for my child. Soothing myself so I don’t bring my dysregulation to our mommy-daughter dates. Choosing to simply say “whoopsie” and grab a towel for a spill, rather than throw my arms up and shame her for accidentally spilling (something I had to unlearn to re-learn from my own childhood). All of these things are examples of choosing what thoughts, beliefs, and patterns I consciously want to pass down to my child.
So when we put my culture in the mix, though so much can feel muddied, dense, and critical about Black American history, I try to see it in the same light, asking myself, “what feels important to share with her now?”, rather than, “how can I ensure she knows everything she needs to about half of where she comes from?”
Cause that’s just it. She is half of me and half of her father. Half-American, half-Danish. Half Black, half White. Whole as herself.
One of our favorite books to tackle a bit of this intercultural, bi-racial experience is Mixed. It’s an insanely clever and remarkably simple showcase of the beauty of diversity and difference told through the lens of color theory. The book has incredibly straightforward examples of how two people can “mix” to create someone utterly unique. Like Blue and Yellow, who mix and create Green, who is a bit like Blue and a bit like Yellow, but is really a color all her own.
Did I cry the first time we read the book? Duh. But I was also immensely inspired by how simple they made the intricate concepts of culture, race, and diversity. So inspired, that I tried to see how I could simplify other dense topics in my own home. Which brought me back to that heavy question I’ve been holding:
How much of our culture is appropriate to pass on to our offspring when they don’t share that same culture/experience as bi-cultural people?
And would you believe it, I got to a simple and straight answer:
I have no fucking clue.
And honestly, I don’t think I need to right now. Because right now, I am more focused on recovering parts of myself so that I can effectively pass on what I feel is true, important, and inspiring. And I can’t do that if I don’t have my own deep sense of knowledge about the legacy I came from.
So the first step, is reparenting myself and getting clear on the pieces of me and my upbringing that I value–like freedom to explore, playdates with diverse friends, support in curiosity, trips with the family, Black hair salon trips, all-day pajama parties–and the things I don’t see value in anymore and choose not to pass to my little one–like self-defeat, grieving alone, productivity pressure, stereotyping others, speaking badly to oneself, and being scared to say ‘no’.
The next step is putting some respect on my own name and realizing that I, myself, am my culture. I am a representative and member of the unique culture that is Candace, forged in international experiences, artistic expressions, spiritual practices, and probably a bit too much RuPaul’s Drag Race. But I can’t ignore that my role as a mother has been shaped, built, and navigated within the intersection of my global experience. Not just as a Black American woman, but as a brave wanderer of the world who has touched more continents than many of the powerful women who came before her. In this perspective, I become less focused on all that I need to push onto my daughter, and all that I can inspire her to believe is possible through my own background and experience.
The final step is recognizing that my daughter is unique, is “mixed” with multiple cultures, and is, day by day, developing her own internal culture for herself. And this takes some of the pressure off, leaving me less stressed about when to introduce her to Harriet Tubman and the Selma Sit-Ins, and more focused on how I can weave our history into everyday learning lessons. Like the importance of being proud of our skin and hair, the emphasis on being kind to people that don’t look like you, the skills to stand up for herself, and know when to leave a space she doesn’t feel comfortable.
I don’t think I will ever stop asking myself, “Is it enough?” or “Is it too much?” when I think about the history I carry down to my child. But I think that’s just it. The act of worrying whether I am equipping her with the right information is itself a step in the right direction. Being aware and cognizant of the critical nature of sharing Black history with my half-Black daughter is itself a sign that I care, that I want to do right by her, and by the generations that came before and will come after.
Because at the end of the day, we are all learning and re-learning about our cultures, where we come from, and where we want to go in this life. Just as my daughter has begun doing in her early years. And it won’t stop. She will grow up and learn more about herself and her bridging cultures, much like I am constantly experiencing deeper notions of Danish culture and how my American culture rubs up against it.
It’s all a process, I remind myself. And when you come from such a rich, weighty, and powerful legacy that is the African diaspora and the Black American experience, I think it’s equally as important to focus on where we’ve been as much as where we are going. The struggle, the triumphs, the determination, the community, the joy, and the freedoms.
And still, I feel some of the most critical pieces for me to pass on to my daughter are more universal; things that will carry her at any time and amongst any culture, such as:
Speaking kindly to and about herself
Respecting her abilities and listening to her voice
Understanding the lives of the people she came from, seeing them as stepping stones, not chains
Having pride in who she is and who she is becoming, even when things get messy.
Because her mommy knows messy learning, as did her mother and the many mothers that came before. And one thing they all knew well was that messy learning is, fortunately (sometimes unfortunately), the best way to learn and to live in this life.
So I continue each day to be the legacy I hope to pass on to my daughter, taking each moment to re-evaluate what is worth passing along to generations I might never meet and what is worth letting end with me at the conclusion of my journey. And whether my daughter asks me how to draw Bluey, how to tell a friend that something she did made her sad, who Josephine Baker was, or why some people make fun of her hair, I’ll be there, ready to pass on the wisdom, with transparency, warmth, and the understanding that only her mother can provide.
Candace is a strategist, storyteller, and igniter for women doing big things across cultures. Her work lives at the intersection of intercultural communication, magnetic branding, deep coaching, and community design.
She is also the co-founder, host, and community leader of Black Babes Abroad, a growing global network of over 3,000+ Black and Brown femmes building thriving lives abroad.
Website: https://itscandacebabes.com/
Incredibly inspiring perspective and heartfelt share.
💘