Single Mom…and so much more!

Please join me today as I share my excitement about the Millionaire Journey with Paul Lawrence Vann, host of The Wealthy Speaker Show. Paul hosts an exciting and entertaining empowerment radio show. He has interviewed the likes of Chris Gardner, of The Pursuit of Happyness fame, Tim and Daphne Reid, Bala Kayanson and hundreds of phenomenal and amazing guests to include bestselling authors, social media experts, actors, actress, relationship gurus, wealth building strategist, creativity thought leaders, PR & media specialist and entrepreneurs.

Call with questions at (646) 595-4797 or join us on the web chat at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/paullawrencevann.

Related posts:
1. The One-Year Millionaire

Now when she’s burnin’ I’m a chill for a minute
‘Cause ain’t no lovin’ good enough to get burned while I’m up in it. The Chronic

It’s no secret that when it comes to dating, I got issues. I mean I’ve got standards and expectations, and that’s more than I can say about (some of) the men I meet.

Over the summer I got reacquainted with three men that I met online a few years ago, but never in person. One is a pervert, one is a victim, and the other is “very average.” I hadn’t talked to these guys in awhile, so when they reached out to me via IM, I replied.

That was my first mistake.

The first couple of IMs were the typical, hey, how have you been, and I’ve been thinking about you sort of stuff. But, that eventually “progressed,” if you will, to talking on the phone, which quickly reminded me of why I no longer talk to any of these men: too much talk about sex, which is a HUGE turnoff for me. I mean, come on, is it too much to ask that 40- and 50-year-old men have their sexual prowess issues worked out and have conversation beyond, “What you got on”?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude. I can roll with the best of them. But, like my grandmother always said, there’s a time and a place for everything. And after reading about these women on Oprah’s website this morning, I’m wondering when is the time and the place to have the talk about HIV, AIDs, STDs, pregnancy prevention or going to the clinic? Is it before or after we have sex?

Not only didn’t any of these men disclose their sexual history (or present), but none of them asked about mine. And I know that I’m not alone here. As I make my rounds on social networking sites, and see men claiming that they were “set up” by women who got pregnant, and women getting pregnant and don’t know who the father is, it shows me that there are plenty of people who are not doing their homework.

Several years ago I was in Atlanta with my boyfriend. We were on the tram going to our terminals, when he spotted a Delta plane. In a very matter-of-fact kind of way, he said, “Oh, I used to date a woman who worked for Delta. Yeah, she was a flight attendant, and she gave me a STD. I never had any symptoms, but my wife did. And I know it was her, because when she took her panties off, she had a green discharge…”

“And you slept with her anyway”?

“Yeah…”

I was beyond sick. Not because of what he’d said, but because I’d had unprotected sex with him. And why did I have unprotected sex with him? Because I was being stupid and irresponsible–PERIOD! Let’s just call it what it is. I’m not about to sit here and tell you that I didn’t know that I could get a STD or HIV from having unprotected sex, because I did. Now, did he pressure me into having sex? No. Was I raped? No. I was just flat out STUPID!

I got a battery of tests done when I got back home, and they all came back negative. Thank God. After that, I wised up. I’m not willing to travel down that road again. If any man wants to talk about having sex with me, he’d better start the conversation with what day are you available to go to the clinic? Otherwise, he will find himself on my DNA list with all of the other ones.

As for that boyfriend, he had to go. And it wasn’t so much that his past was a problem, but his present. He was too irresponsible in too many ways for me, especially when it came to sex. When I talked to him years later, he was still spreading love all over the world. He boasted that he had gotten several women pregnant, and that doesn’t happen when you show up like grown folks, and have the talk before you have sex.

So, tell me folks, when do YOU have the talk?

Related posts:
1. How Do I Talk to My Son About Sex?
2. Talking to Our Daughters About Sex: Who’s Teaching and Who’s Learning? 3. Sunday Soul Food: Sex Should Feel Good

For a short while now I’ve been marketing myself online as the six-figure single mompreneur. That tagline resulted in an ebook and high Google rankings. But, what I’ve failed to mention is that along with a six-figure salary comes some HIGH taxes.

I remember my $40,000 salary days, when I would get a $3,000 or $4,000 tax refund. I mean, it’s not like it’s been that long ago. Granted, I still had all four children at home at that time, but geez, the amount I pay in taxes now is ridiculous. Even with me not having them to take as a write off, I still shouldn’t be paying ten and twelve thousand dollars in taxes. And that doesn’t include property taxes.

I’m thankful for the increase. Lord, knows I am. And would I be happy just to go back to making $40,000/year? Absolutely not. So, it seems that the only way for me to break out of this middle class “trap” is to keep moving in the direction that I’m going, and that’s up. So, without further ado, I hereby declare that when I file my 2010 taxes in 2011, I will be a millionaire.

~Whew, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.~

Well, it’s out there now, and everyone reading this can walk with me as accountability partners. (I guess that means I’m dragging you into my psychosis.) Now how I’m going to get there remains to be seen, especially since I just moved to a new city, my project start date got pushed back several weeks, and I won’t get my first paycheck for another four weeks. But, through it all, God is able.

Last week I listened to an interview with Keith Cameron Smith on Blog Talk Radio, and once again I got to listen to a millionaire talk about the difference in the way millionaires and the middle class pay taxes. That was all I needed to let me know that it’s time for me to put all that I’ve been reading for years into action.

For years I’ve been talking about starting my own publishing company with books, magazines, CDs and DVDs. I guess now is as good a time as any to stop talking and put some action behind the words. I’ve always wanted to be a motivational speaker, which I already am. It’s just time to start getting paid. So, Les Brown and Tony Robbins move over, because here I come.

Even as I write this blog, I can feel fear trying to overtake me. But, the folks who really know me, know that I have a way of walking in the direction of my fears.

Lord, I come to you right now asking you to order my steps and enlarge my territory. I need you NOW.

Related posts:
1. Secret Millionaire Gives Single Mom $10,000
2. Ten Things I Wish I’d Done Before Having Kids

You learn more when you teach.

*singing*
As I look back over my life
And I think things o-o-ver
I can truly say, that I’ve been blessed.
I’ve got a testimony.

I’ve been doing the Single Moms and More show on Blog Talk Radio for almost a month now. And in my quest to help other single moms navigate their way through single motherhood, I’m realizing just how far I’ve come in my own journey. I often jokingly say that I was a teenage mom three times, and that’s only because I ran out of teenage years, and not because I stopped having children. I had my girls at 17, 18 and 19, and my son at 21. I separated from my husband exactly six months later, while I was pregnant with another son, and a week after being furloughed from my “secure” government job.

My husband took everything but the kids and the broken end of the sectional sofa (he took the other pieces). I didn’t get an unemployment check until the day before I went back to work. I moved into my apartment on a $100 move-in special, but since I didn’t get a check for two months, I had to make arrangements with the leasing office for the second and third months. I fell down the stairs when I was six-months pregnant, and started hemorrhaging to the point where I had to where my son’s diapers, because pads weren’t enough. My husband came over and got the children while I drove myself to the hospital (diaper and all). My son was stillborn, and since I was so broke, busted and disgusted, I had to let the hospital handle the disposal of the body. The next day I called to tell my husband I was home, and he dropped the children off at the door, and kept it moving.

It was rough going. But through it all, I didn’t give up. And that’s my message to single moms who may feel like they’re at the end of their rope, physically or emotionally. I know my story is not an original script. But, believe me when I tell you it gets greater later. You may feel like you’re not going to make it, but if you just hold on a little while longer, there’s a brighter day ahead.

Related posts:
1. If You Want a Good Role Model for Your Kids, Pick a Good Daddy
2. Ten Things I Wish I’d Done Before Having Kids
3. I Know How to Leave. Teach Me How to Stay.
4. High Maintenance, High Standards, or Just High Hopes?
5. What Do Daughters Really Want From Their Daddies?
6. A Letter to My Younger Self: Out of adversity comes greatness
7. A Letter to My Younger Self, part 2: Try doing self-help

A lack of money is not a lack of resources. And when you’re down to nothing, God is up to something.

When 55-year-old Angela Logan, a divorced mother of 3, fell into foreclosure on her Teaneck, NJ, home, Logan turned to baking an apple cake her family had always loved. “It was a flash of desperation,” Logan said. “I thought, ‘Wow. We could sell these cakes, they’re so good.’ ” Logan named her delicacy Mortgage Apple Cake and resolved to sell 100 in 10 days at $40 each to meet a mortgage payment, pay off bills and qualify for a federal program that could lower her monthly payments. At the end of those 10 days, Logan had double her expected orders.

Join Lisa and Tina on the Elite Single Moms show on Blog Talk Radio as they examine how you can take what little you have left, and turn it into something bigger. You can join us live on the Internet, or call in: (347) 850-1548.

Are you a single mom raising more than one child? What are some of the challenges you face? Diapers? Child care expenses? Dating? Housing?

Who has it harder, parents of one or parents of multiples? Join Lisa and Tina on the Elite Single Moms show, Monday at 6PM EST, as they share the joys and challenges of raising 4 and 3 children, respectively.

Lisa and Tina co-host the Elite Single Moms show every Monday at 6PM EST on Blog Talk Radio. You can join us live on the Internet, or call in by phone, 347-850-1548.

Related Posts:
1. Make Room for Mom: An Alternative Work Schedule
2. Balancing Act: How to Juggle Work, School, Play and Being a Mom
3. Depression and the Single Mom
4. Elite Single Moms on Blog Talk Radio
5. Single Moms and More on Blog Talk Radio

Thank you to my dear friend, Monica Fountain, for telling me about this movie. Providence St. Mel is her husband’s (John) alma mater. (Check out the essay John wrote for the Chicago Sun Times on September 4th.)

This school is located on Chicago’s West Side, where gangs and drugs are realities, and yet the school reports that for 29 straight years, it has placed 100 percent of its high-school graduates in colleges. Of course this figure benefits from the school’s policy of expelling troublemakers, but it also reflects its commitment to providing deserving students with a quality education.

Unfortunately, movies like this don’t get promoted or supported as heavily as the crime films, so let’s show our support THIS weekend.

Related posts:
1. Monday Movie Review: Fireproof
2. What Makes Me a Strong Black Woman?

What is your relationship like with yourself?

As mothers, we spend a lot of time defining ourselves by our children, our friendships and our work. We forget who we are and the things that we like.

The first step to improving your relationship with yourself is to really examine your relationship with yourself. In order to be a great parent, you’ve got to put yourself first. I know this goes against everything that women think about motherhood. But, in order to be a great mom, you first need to be a great you. You can’t teach what you don’t know, and you can’t lead where you don’t go. How can you teach your child to be happy, healthy and whole when you’re broken, busted and disgusted? Your child will feed from your energy.

So, let’s put mom first for a moment:

What is your favorite color?

What is your favorite food?

What is your favorite TV show?

What is your favorite restaurant?

What is your bedtime?

What is your favorite dessert?

How did it feel to think about yourself? Did you feel guilty or sad because you believe that a mom should never put herself first? Did you feel excited because you’ve put yourself last for so long? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Get ready! Get ready! Get ready! The Single Mom Boot Camp is coming soon. It’s all about empowerment and transformation. Subscribe to this blog to be sure you get notified of the dates and times.

Related posts:
1. Make Room for Mom: An Alternative Work Schedule
2. Balancing Act: How to Juggle Work, School, Play and Being a Mom

Dear Lisa and Tina,

I was listening to your show about sex and the single mom, and you talked about when you should put your daughter on the pill. But, as a single mom, I want to know how to talk to my son about sex?

Elite Single Mom Listener

Dear Listener,

Lisa here. Tina threw this one to me since her son is 5, and mine is 19.

I talked to my son the same way I talked to my daughters about sex. I especially emphasized to him the importance of planting his seed someplace where he’d want to stay and watch it grow. Around 7th or 8th grade, my son started thinking it was cool to flash condoms (unopened) as his way of bragging about “supposedly” having sex. He even kept STACKS of them on his dresser. Although I didn’t think he was having sex at the time, I didn’t take it lightly. My talk with him was about respecting himself and treating himself valuable, just like I wanted my girls to do. I met a gentleman a couple years ago who said he had a hard time connecting and relating to women because he hadn’t placed a high enough value on himself when he’d slept with women in the past. I had never heard a man say that before. This guy told me how low he felt when he dated a married woman. The sneaking around, waiting for her to call. He said he lost respect for himself until he heard a pastor preach about men valuing themselves sexually. Over the years I’ve heard men briefly broach the subject, but I’ve never had one go into it in as much detail as this guy did.

So although I felt like my words fell on deaf ears at the time (like everything else I said to him), I think he got it. I admire the way my son respects women. I just hope he respects himself in the same way.

I talked to my son this morning. This may not sound like a huge deal to most, but believe me when I tell you it is. My son is 19, and for years he prided himself on being a thug-wannabe. He was the sagging-pants-wearing, two-earring-in-each-ear-having, you-don’t-know-anything, Mom-attitude-having, young black man that just about drove me out of my mind. He knew everything, and had been everywhere. Yet, he didn’t know a doggone thing.

Here’s a young man who always prided himself on being the class clown. He went to about 10 different high schools. Literally. The first one was an Agricultural academy. He would show up EVERY day, but wouldn’t do any work. I never understood why he got out of bed and went to school, only to not do anything. The school’s director became concerned about him not graduating on-time because he didn’t have enough credits, so she recommended an alternative school. The problem was, I couldn’t put him in an alternative school because he needed to have disciplinary problems-truancy, etc.-at his regular school, or be referred by the courts (probation, social problems, etc.). I finally talked to a friend in the district who told me how to get him into an alternative school, and my son went there doing the same thing he did at the other school–NOTHING. I met with the administrators one day, with my son in-tow, and told them that I wanted a report from every teacher each day. My son complied. He brought the paper home, and EVERY teacher signed off on the form, and wrote, “slept through class…slept through class…slept through class.” He actually had the nerve to sleep through class, and then ask the teacher to sign off on the form that I gave him.

The daddy dance

One day I was sitting at work and my phone rang. It was a 770-area code. When I picked up, it was him. He and his daddy had orchestrated a plan for him to come live with him in Atlanta without my knowledge. Little did they know how much of a favor they had done me. I no longer had to worry when I heard news reports of a shooting when I woke up in the morning, whether it was him or not. But, that didn’t last long either. It wasn’t long before he wanted out of his dad’s house and headed back to Minnesota to live with his sister. I had packed up and left the state by then. Two months later he got kicked off my daughter’s property, so he packed up and went to Illinois to live with his grandma. Within six months, he was back in Minnesota because his grandmama was “trippin’.”

I was the mean mother. I had several family members who “can’t believe I could just let my son be out there like that. I have never seen a mother ‘dog’ her kids the way you do.” I admit it was hard at first to hear how bad of a parent I was when I know all that I’ve done for my kids. But, I was also outraged at the people who were enabling him to be a pitiful excuse for a man–his daddy, his sisters, and his grandmother. When he showed up at my daughter’s house, I immediately told her to put his butt out. But, she couldn’t do that to him.

Well, let’s just say that he’s had a few incidents and encounters lately that woke him up. And the thug appeal isn’t as appealing as it once was. He has cut his hair, and gotten a job. When he called me last week asking where he could find a reasonable apartment, I just about choked. Don’t get me wrong, my son is no dummy. He knew what he was doing, and he did it as long as he could. Once he saw that no one was going to enable him any longer, he got off his butt and got a job. Not only that, he now makes more money than all of my girls. Speaking of which, my first-born, who did the same daddy dance, and packed up and went to Atlanta without anyone knowing, got a job this week working for a mortgage company in Minnesota. And my baby girl is back in school hitting the books hard, preparing for law school. When she dropped out last year, that was the end of me helping her get financial aid or anything else. And, wouldn’t you know, she somehow managed to fill out the forms herself and get over $14,000 in grants and scholarships. All of this came after being on academic probation. Even I don’t know how she pulled that one off.

I asked my son this morning if today was payday, and he told me that he gets paid every Thursday.

“Oh, so you’re a baller now, huh?”

“Mom, I’m not a baller, I’m a working man.”

“Say what? You sound like you’re growing up.”

“Mom, I’ve been grown. I’m just starting to make wiser choices.”

Oh my goodness, I almost choked again. So, to all the mothers out there coddling their children, you’re not doing them a favor. And to all the mean moms out there, stand your ground. You may not see all of your hard work pay off right away, but they do grow up to be human beings.

Related posts:
1. Helping Our Children Know Where They Come From
2. If You Want a Good Role Model for Your Children, Pick a Good Daddy
3. How to Raise Multilingual Children
4. Jail is not a Career Choice