I heard the breaking news on my way to work. My heart sank and I became dizzy at the thought of this 6 year old floating through the air in a contraption and falling to his death. It marked a gray cloud over my entire day. Then to learn Mr. Heene orchestrated all this madness. All I could do was cuss and scream!
 
One of the greatest responsibilities of parenting is protecting our children from our own insanity!
 
The Heene parents have certainly failed in that area and I can't wait to see what their punishment will be. Unfortunately, I'm sure they will now get a reality tv show from all of this drama. Even if they are charged. Now their son will forever be known as "The Balloon Boy". I don't even know his real name.
 
I saw their first appearence on Wife Swap and I was sure someone would call child protective services. The father appeared dangerous and immature. I was aggravated that Wife Swap would even air them. We have just gone too far with our ridiculous sensationalism of dysfunction. The Octo Mom, Jon & Kate Plus 8, so much of entertainment is a freak show that puts money and ratings before the health and well being of kids and families.
 
I work hard to keep my insane moments out of my kid's lives! We all should. We have no right to ruin our kid's childhood with our immature madness and deranged dreams.

The question came from my 15 year-old and has been asked a few times before by my 8 year-old. It is a funny question to me as it always seems to come when I am sewing or making jewelry or a painting to sell.

"Everybody is poor in some way or another. We have what we need and I don't want a whole lot of other stuff." I'll respond.

Over course this answer doesn't satisfy them because they want to know how much money I have in my bank account and when my next payday will be.

Some experts say we shouldn't trouble our children with the state of our finances. I grew up always knowing my mother's money woes and always stressed about making ends meet. I don't divulge everything to my girls, but I do keep it real enough for them.

I tell them that I always have some money, but that doesn't mean I am going to spend it on our fleeting desires. If I say I have 'no money', it really means I have no money I should spend right now.

If I say 'I'm broke', it means I need to make more money right now. If I say, 'we're loaded this week', it means we can do a lil' bit of frivolus shopping.

If I am sewing and painting and crafting and pricing...well, that means I am feeling creative and know someone will want to part with their money to by a peice of beauty from me. That is therapy, survival and thriving.

So, right now children, Momma is broke, has some money , is selling art and, we are not poor. Not today, at least.

That's keeping it real, Baby!

I am so proud of my daughters for their participation in the All-City People's Parade hosted by Labor Fest this past Monday.

The day started with both girls asking why we celebrate Labor Day. I said something like...workers have had to fight for rights and fair wages. I tried to explain unions. My 15-year-old got it. My 8-year-old somewhat understood.

Once we arrived at the parade staging area at Zeidler Park, the girls were wowed with all the union workers proudly congregating with their teams in their bright T-shirts. There were so many kids and family of all ages and persuasions.

The All-City floats, costumes and puppets were met with excitement, and I watched my girls taking in all the hard work and energy it takes to pull off such an event.

They were excited to be part of it. To march in the parade to represent the victims of homicide for the Summer of Peace Initiative. All of the children in our mock cemetery section of the parade took their headstones with an air of responsibility and respect. The youngest, Jamal, was only three years old.

We marched from Zeidler to Labor Fest at the Summerfest grounds. The children did not complain. Little Jamal marched steadily for 99% of the trek. I carried him for a few minutes even though he told me he wasn't tired.

8 year olds Nia and Kim had to tinkle and held tight until we could sprint into the grounds for relief. That is a lot of work.

We gathered for our piece in the pageant at 1:30 p.m., and all the young players remained serious and committed, despite the fact that we were all starving!

Afterwards everyone expressed how they had fun and want to be in Labor Fest next year.

Wonderful.

Checkout my coverage of the 1st Annual All City People's Parade @ www.my1channel.com under Everyday People.

Hoodmomma has been mad a lot lately. Milwaukee is a hot mess.

Peter Nelsen, a man in a position of authority over an emotionally unstable mother, Theola Nealy, impregnates her shortly after working on her case. More undeniable evidence of the taint and rot consuming the fabric of our community.

I'm angry but not surprised. I have seen with my own eyes and experienced first-hand how some men take advantage of vulnerable women assisgned to their care.

Nelsen had better never work in such a position again. Not only did he know better, but he has contributed to the mental and emotional assault this woman has endured in her life. Perhaps she saw him as a savior. Perhaps the value she places on herself is so low, she felt loved by his advances. He has added yet another layer of pain and hoplessness that she will wear. I'm afraid I don't trust the system to take care of her needs.

All of her children are gone. Nelsen has the baby they created. He only lets her see the child while she's supervised.

"This was not a woman I was going to leave my child with," he said. "This woman really isn't all there."

Oh yeah, Mr. Nelsen? She was "all there" enough for you to have sex with her.

Mr. Nelsen, you are in no position to decide who should be supervising who.

I pray the District Attorney will go to war on this one. I'll be watching.

In the meantime, I'm praying prosecutors will have a heart for Labrina...another victim of the system and of a few rotten adults who should have been nurturing her.
 

Monday, Aug. 24, was the hardest day of 2009 for me.

I was shaky on the drive to Children's Court. As I waited to enter the courtroom on Monday, my nerves shrieked like steel on stone. My lungs were choked and my blood boiling.

I was afraid to see young Labrina Brown. Afraid of facing a child I've never met, but a child I feel I've somehow let down. I was angry with so many people, especially the media stars in the waiting room doing crosswords and others rolling their eyes...waiting for the drama to begin. Angry that only a handful of community advocates came out to show support for Labrina. Guilty that my own daughters were safe and happy at home.

The only treasure of the whole day was being in the presence of  The Honorable Vel Phillips and Mother Lucille Berrien. These two women were there to support from the heart with the unrelenting energy of tribal warriors. True Hoodmommas and mentors.

Yeah...I was pissed off all day. But mostly at myself, because I don't have all the answers, and at times I waver on my faith in the power everday people have to change or defeat such injustices.

We yell on Facebook and talk a good game when it comes to standing up and speaking out on hot issues. But only a few of us want to do the hard work in real life. We've got to get off the net, the soap boxes and get out into the streets, especially Milwaukee's women.

I want mothers to get mad. It wouldn't be "angry for nothing." Our community can only be as healthy as its women and children. Milwaukee's womb is bruised and poisoned. Too many of our women and children are suffering, and Labrina Brown is a product of a cycle in which broken and abused women struggle to manage families and life.

I wanted so badly to approach Labrina's family and offer my support. I wanted to share a hug. But the wall of pain and fear the women stood behind was not penetrable.

So this leads me to understand that it will take empowered women to help and heal our sisters. Only then can Milwaukee repair its tattered fabric. We need to build an alliance of women. Not just social workers, lawyers and paid advocates, but everyday women and mothers who are willing to stand up and advocate for the good of the village.

I'm willing to start it. I'm willing to carry the burden and give birth to this alliance. Let us start with gathering together at Labrina's next court date with flowers and posters of love for her and hope for the family. It is simple and may cost an hour away from work. But it would be a virtual hug. And a hug is a good start to the healing process.

So I am inviting you to join The Hoodmomma Alliance. It will only cost you a bit of compassion and a commitment to humanism.

What is a Hoodmomma?

Hoodmommas are warrior women fighting to strengthen our families and restore the tattered fibers of our urban communities.
We are warrior women celebrating the power and promise in our communities.

Hood: not meaning a dangerous place where black and brown people live, but Hood: meaning a family place, community, home.

Momma: not meaning a woman who has birthed a baby but Momma: meaning a leader, guide and giver.

For me, it can be hard to see through rage and pain.

I am a middle-aged, well-adjusted, cared for, educated and healthy adult. It must be EVEN harder for a 13-year-old to see reason beyond the raging storm.

In my distant past, I have worn shoes chillingly similar to young Labrina Brown's. In this scary present, I know numbers of young people stuck in dark valleys of pain and neglect with adult forces beyond their control and no capacity to navigate. The systems and community have failed her just as it, we, you and me, have failed countless others. We have to find better ways to help those who need it most.

I needed to know what was on people's minds regarding how Labrina Brown should be charged so I asked my Facebook connections. An overwhelming majority believe she should be CHARGED AS A CHILD. A handful feel she shoulde be CHARGED AS AN ADULT. A few need more information and facts to unfold.

Interestingly enough, most "charged as child" commenters are more firm in their position after Gina Barton and Crocker Stephenson's revealing article on Aug. 16.

Me? Well, true to my Hoodmomma roots, my mother-gut rarely steers me wrong. There is something to be said for a heart's intelligence in these situations. CHILD! CHILD! CHILD!
 
*The following are a few comments from a few Facebook readers.
 
GRL: Charged as a child. Why? Because she happens to be a very young teenager and has 5 years before she becomes a legal adult!

PCH: Child!!!! She is a child under the supervision of adults. If anything, the adults should be scrutinized.
 
KY: Unless she has a well documented developmental impairment, I believe in adult time for adult crime.

JW: Don't know what to say-- We will see how it plays out when all the facts are presented.
 
SM: Child. Children's court for children. Adult court for Adults

JB: The only fact that is important to me, in this instance, is that Labrina is a child. Since when is a 13 year old not a child? The law that tries children as adults is as bad as the crimes that the law thinks it will prevent by trying and punishing children as adults.
 
AM: she should be charged as an adult. When life is devalued to the point that we look past this death to the next one, that becomes the real issue. 13 or not, there was some serious lack of parenting and her parents should get time as well.
 
EW: Brain-development studies show, unquestionably, that the human brain does not reach the point of mature reasoning ability until the early twenties. A child does not have the physical structures in the brain that allow for really understanding consequences, the larger picture, that an adult has. I don't know why this important piece of information has not made its way into common knowledge. Quite possibly due to the blood-thirsty nature of our society regarding punishment. No child should be tried as an adult.
 
DK: The whole concept and context of "charging" and criminal justice [(hrow people into "the system") in this case is an absolute error thanks to our lack of imagination and caring.
 
GT: Wow. if that's the story and what actually happened, my answer is "tried as a child." He lost his life over petty behavior toward her. She also obviously has issues and being tried as a child will give her chance to turn her life around-if she actually gets some services that work...
 
SB: Labrina Brown is a child. Child.
 
VP: child! She IS a child regardless of her actions!
 
SM: There is a law that says that kids over TEN years of age need to go to ADULT court even for man slaughter!?! what does ADULT even mean, then?

It's been 30-plus years of back-to-school seasons, and I still can't shake that gray chill that moves over me when mid-August hits and tumbles into September, my birth month.

It is a complicated stew of mixed feelings now. A bag of the natural anxiety of childhood's first days of school. Will the teacher like me? Will I have a new dress and new shoes? Will I be the only one in Goodwill outfits or a neighbor's daughter's hand-me-downs? Will I make new friends?

Throw a heap of teenage angst and confusion into the brew: I hate these people! Why am I here? I refuse to dress like THEM. I'll be the skinniest, flatest-chested girl in the class. Don't neglect to add the wobbly, unseasoned nerves of the first fall on a college campus.

And finally, chuck in a mixed bag of the fruits of motherhood. Stir. Stir crazy! My baby is leaving me. What will I do with myself all day? Will the other moms like me? Do I have enough time to volunteer at the school? Do I even want to volunteer? Will the other moms look down on me if I'm not at the PTA meetings. Is my girl dressed cute enough? Do I look like a bum when I drop her off in the mornings? Do I look too sexy at the Open Houses?

This morning, I find myself dreading the back-to-school shopping. The hunt for girls' clothing that isn't plastered with sexy sayings and suggestive cuts. Hating the racks of Hannah Montanna staring back at me! Deciding which hair products I'm going to need to buy for my 8-year-old so she can force her beautiful woolly curls to magically become straight like the flaxen-haired friend in class.

I'm irritated with my 15-year-old's student fees and expensive calculator and the fact that now she only wants her hair done "at the shop."

But mostly, mostly, now the blues are about me getting older with each season. About my role and duties changing as the girls grow and go.

These are the bitter with the sweet blues of opening a new chapter beyond childhood, womanhood and motherhood. About knowing that when they are grown and gone, I will be wobbly-kneed and shy again as I step back on to campus to finish what I started so many seasons ago.
 
Yeah, these sweet blues are about walking on. Of another step to take and the courage to step on to a different path. When the time does come, Momma gonna buy her a new pair of shoes for the journey. Brand spanking new!

A child, Labrina Brown, has been charged as an adult for first-degree reckless homicide. The victim is her step-grandfather, Robert Moon, 48.

As soon as I caught the story on the tube and heard the sensational spit about "murder over milk," I fussed, "She ain't angry for nuthin." I counted my blessings for my own well-adjusted, fairly happy teen daughter.

"She Ain't Angry for Nuthin" is a theme from a workshop on girls and the roots of their rage. My mother-gut, common sense and violence prevention training tells me that there is a deep well of pain and a raging fire that something and/or someone in Labrina's environment
fed. I shake a firm finger at the way certain media initiated an image of a crazy teen tripping over damned milk!

I wouldn't be at all surprised (and hope it is not the case) if this child had been sexually abused or violated physically and emotionally in some way. Certainly there was emotional trouble.

Milwaukee media must be more responsible with its coverage of such sensitive situations. As parents, we need to demand smart and sensitive coverage instead of drama and sensationalism. As a nonviolence educator, I demand balanced coverage and dissemination of preventative resources and highlights of the forces that lead to this outrageous behavior.

A responsible media would have immediately shared with Milwaukee parents how to identify signs of brewing rage and ways to access help for their child headed for the same desperate and reckless actions.

Last night, my 15-year-old asked me what I felt about the young girl's predicament. I said, "She aint angry for nothing...and she should and will be punished...but the greatest disappointment will be the community not working hard enough to remove the forces
that got her to that place of murderous rage."