RAISING A MAN: Tips for single mothers AND fathers #10 of 10

As an adult, I can remember a few bad decisions from my childhood that makes me laugh. One particular stupid thing I did was at the worse possible time. I remember the people that were there and how it later caused me a significant amount of embarrassment and shame. It almost ended up with me getting a good woopin’.

I think back to when I was 11 years old and my grandparents were out of town for a couple days, my uncle was in charge. I thought that if I did something and I could, quite possibly, not get the strap.

I was at a friends birthday party and, for some reason, I felt like I could act a fool. There were about 15 teenagers and parents at this party. I was one of two black kids there, my older cousin was the other black child there.

I was acting a fool…ruining the surprise about the trick candles, plucking people, running my mouth, acting like a monkey in the worse possible way.

This tip is not about acting like a monkey in front of white people or about my uncle’s explanation of how I misrepresented the family or even about my cousin snitching on me. This tip is about the fact that no one has proof of what happened. There may be a still picture or some parent reminiscing about the out of control black kid at Brian’s party. They don’t remember my name and the whole event is possibly forgotten.

That was decades ago, social media didn’t exist back then. YOU don’t have that luxury now, everyone has a camera or is recording you on video. You are being recorded even when you think you are not. My last tip, #10, is about social media. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TicTok didn’t exist back then so I don’t have my most embarrassing moment on some platform somewhere. My event wasn’t even the only thing I had done as a child and it wasn’t a moment, it was the damn whole party! My point is…regardless of what you do, it will be a bad thing and it will be your worse moment replayed over and over again.

I changed my last tip because of Sha’carri Richardson. She’s 21 years old and she’s making some mistakes. We all make mistakes but luckily, not on the world stage. Hopefully, she will look back at this, years later, as an immature time in her life. People will replay her comments, her tweets, etc. We were all immature once, shoot we still have our moments now but fortunately it wasn’t replayed on the world stage. My advice is be careful of how you allow people and these social media platforms in your life for the good or the bad.

MPM