0:03

When I was growing up, my teacher used to send home conduct folders.

0:06

Every week I'd get my conduct folder and in the comments section she would always write talks too much and my mother would be my ah.

0:16

You know what I learned and I've come to understand.

0:20

It's just my gift.

0:22

I have been given the gift of gab gab and that's just what it is.

0:27

So we're going to be doing a whole lot of talking around here.

0:31

Welcome to the Black Family Therapy Podcast with Keon Moon, and I am Keon Moon, and we're going to be doing a whole lot of talking around here.

0:43

Today I have the privilege of speaking with someone that I have known all my life and I've always found her story just intriguing.

0:52

Anita Steele is a mother of four children.

0:55

She was born in Atlanta, georgia, and she has beat the eyes in several of life circumstances, and to me, she is the epitome of a survivor.

1:05

Let's welcome to the Black Family Therapy Podcast, anita Steele.

1:08

Hi, how are you?

1:15

I'm doing good, listen, so let's get into some things.

1:18

We've been knowing each other for a long time.

1:21

I just really just want to talk about everything that you've gone through, everything that you've had to face, and how you have triumphed through all of those things.

1:30

Let me let the audience get to know you just a little bit.

1:36

I'm going to ask you a few questions and you tell me your answers.

1:38

When I say the word family, what comes to your mind?

1:42

The family that I made for myself.

1:45

Children, the four that I had family what comes to your mind?

1:46

the family that I made for myself, children. What did I? I?

1:47

had, and the last one I'm going to give you is friends well, I have very few friends.

1:54

You know those that know me what is your favorite food?

1:58

barbecue ribs. Okay.

2:01

What is your favorite pastime?

2:03

Having all the family together. Grandmother, I'm going to say the family reunions that we used to have.

2:11

Interesting. All right, so a great segue into our conversation.

2:16

Growing up, what was your family structure like?

2:19

Did you live with your mom and dad?

2:21

Living with my mom and dad was a different experience.

2:24

They were, you know, I was at work and we was at home, although we had our grandmother across the streets from us, but basically we was always at home by ourselves.

2:37

They was always at work.

2:38

Did you live in a house with your you say your mom and your dad.

2:41

Yeah, I lived with my mom, dad and my two sisters.

2:44

And how many children did your mom have? Total?

2:47

My mom had a total of five kids four girls and one boy.

2:51

What was your perception of your environment when you was growing up, Like your neighborhood, your family structure?

2:58

What was your perception of it all?

3:01

The worst, the worst.

3:03

I up in atlanta, the south side of atlanta, simpson road, one of my parents that was like it was a whole new world coming from doorville to me, so you lived so originally.

3:18

You started off and you was born in the city of doorville, ge, georgia.

3:23

Well, I lived for the first.

3:26

Well, I'm going to back it our way up. Okay, for the first five years of my life I lived in Linnwood Park, Okay.

3:33

Then I moved to Doraville.

3:36

Then I moved to Atlanta.

3:39

Got it Okay, and so when you moved to Atlanta, it was a big change for you.

3:45

What was the major change that you going from Dorville to to the city of Atlanta?

3:51

It was a whole new world. I never that's the first time I ever seen people on the street, drunk people.

4:00

First time I ever seen a transvestite.

4:04

I mean that was like a whole different world for me.

4:08

Wow, interesting. Introduce me to the personalities in your family, such as, like your mom.

4:14

What kind of woman was your mother and what kind of man was your father?

4:19

My mother and my father were two of the kind.

4:22

They were both non to me. They always butted in and my father was just no nonsense.

4:29

You know, if you did anything you got your butt whooped my mama, she'd just curse you out.

4:36

Is there any whoopings that you remember from your father?

4:39

Yeah, there's one particular one. He thought that we had cooked some hot dogs on time and put them back in the refrigerator.

4:46

But we was trying to tell our daddy we didn't cook no hot dogs, we put them back in the refrigerator considering that he had got them from the bag lady in the neighborhood.

4:57

So that was that's the one whooping that I remember because he was really angry about that, apart from your immediate family, like was there a bigger family structure that you was also, or that your life was also intertwined with when you know, my parents split up and I had to.

5:15

We moved back in with my Aunt Pauline, and that was my brother's sister, my aunt, my cousin and sometimes my grandmother.

5:23

We all was in the same house.

5:25

So, hey, pauline was like, you would equate her to like the family matriarch, Exactly Okay.

5:32

And what was it like in that environment with your, you know, with your bigger family?

5:38

Well, you had some that you know.

5:41

Pauline was real Christian, like you know, my grandmother she was, you know, laid back cool.

5:47

Yeah, you had like some manipulative personalities.

5:53

You had cool personalities Basically in the household.

5:58

Everybody come together in the living room and talk or whatever, but everybody stayed to themselves.

6:03

It was never really like conversations being held to talk to you about anything.

6:09

How did those personalities, how did that affect you as you was growing up?

6:14

I always felt like I was different. I just felt like I didn't really belong.

6:19

I didn't think like they think I was more free-spirited.

6:25

I was very talkative. That got taken away because I was told I talked too much and I deemed the nickname motor mouth.

6:34

I was just always alone by myself and I just never felt like I just fit in with the bigger family, with some of them.

6:43

So you talked about you feeling different and not being, you know not fitting in and you know being kind of like ostracized in in a.

6:51

Is there any particular thing that you can remember that happened, that triggered those feelings?

6:59

One time I was, you know, being a child, being curious my mom I think she was doing my aunt's hair and me being curious, always touching stuff I picked my mom's lighter up off the table and you know how you flick a lighter uh-huh.

7:18

Fortunately it caught a tag in the closet and I burned up all my cousin's clothes accidentally.

7:24

But that was like worse. I mean, I got like, oh my god, they they got.

7:31

So what made you do it? And I was trying to explain to them that I didn't mean to do it, but that ain't what they wanted to hear.

7:37

Eventually they kept saying what made you do it?

7:39

And they didn't take me for my word. So it was just a mistake.

7:42

I flicked the lighter in and caught, you know the spark, caught something.

7:46

So they just, you know, beat me until finally I told them.

7:50

They said what made you do it?

7:55

I said, well, the devil made me do it. So they thought I was, you know, kind of demonic, I guess.

7:58

I mean, they didn't believe me.

8:02

So I don't know if I should be laughing right now.

8:05

Or they thought you was evil.

8:09

They thought you was evil, you done. Burned all them lady clothes.

8:12

Burned all them damn clothes. So Nita so you done, had this experience, and now you're becoming a young woman, a teenager.

8:21

You know you're experiencing, you know all the things that a teenager would experience.

8:26

What are some of the things that helped shape that adolescent or teenage years for you?

8:33

Leaving home going exploring things for myself, because I actually left home at 17 and moved there with a friend and, you know, babysit their little things just to get out of that house.

8:45

So when you say just to get out of the house, you mean out of the house with your bigger family, with, with where everybody's living together.

8:51

Exactly I can imagine that could be, you know, a very interesting situation.

8:56

Oh, you became a mother and entered into a marriage.

9:01

What was that journey like for you?

9:04

to be honest, I was never really sure, but after I did it I knew I should have did it which part being a being a mother or getting married.

9:11

Getting married.

9:13

Being a mother.

9:13

it was a blessing. My biggest thing was not to be the same as my mother, not put a job for my kids to always be involved in the school activities.

9:26

That was my biggest thing, but the marriage hindered a lot of my growth, to be honest.

9:32

In what way?

9:33

As far as how I want to parent, given that he was from a whole different background.

9:38

He wasn't you know. Our parenting skills wasn't the same.

9:42

He wanted to beat the kids for everything they did.

9:44

No, I want to punish him, give him structure, put him to bed at a certain time.

9:49

A lot of things I tried to do because I was married didn't work out, you end up getting a divorce correct.

9:56

Yeah 20 years later, 20 years later.

9:59

Now, that's an interesting statement.

10:01

Explain that.

10:03

Well, I stayed hoping that it would work out.

10:05

I really wanted it to work out. But after having you know first child and a couple of years later the second child and a couple of years later the third child, the fourth child was an accident, but I really wanted my parents to work.

10:24

I really did learn to love my husband but when I really realized I loved him but I wasn't in love with him and I don't think he was in love with me because he cheated all the time.

10:37

You said you learned to love your husband when you got married to him.

10:42

Did you not love him?

10:44

I really didn't know what love was. I had just turned 18, like a few months from turning 18 when I got married, so I really know I didn't really know what love was.

10:54

Over time being in a relationship, you learned to love.

10:57

Yeah, I learned to love him, Thought he would have been my everything.

11:02

That's why I stayed. I wanted to work it out but I wasn't happy.

11:06

If you're open to talking about it. What do you think led to the demise of the marriage?

11:13

Cheating and having children outside the marriage.

11:18

So, basically, the lack of commitment in honoring the marriage and the vows that were taken.

11:24

Exactly so you say you have four kids.

11:27

Tell me their ages 30, 26, 21, and 17.

11:33

So you're a mother of adult children, pretty much.

11:36

What was your greatest joy in becoming a mother?

11:40

Being loved by my kids.

11:42

That's an all different type of love.

11:44

It's like you know, a child loves their mother or father unconditionally because they're innocent.

11:52

So just being loved by my kids so it's safe to say, if you look back, if you're, if you're looking in hindsight, right, it's safe to say that you lacked love or you lack love and growing up, I did yeah, did you grow up thinking that your mother did not love you, or that your parents or that your broader family did not love you?

12:16

yeah, no one ever saying my own father could never tell me he loved me.

12:21

My mother would, now and then, but the family structure was like everybody was, you know, more like tough love.

12:29

I'll show you that I love you by the things I do for you, but nobody ever tells you that they love you.

12:36

You're doing a good job, you. You know.

12:39

It's things I never heard do you think that because of that, because you lack love or never heard love, that maybe you was looking for that in this person that told you I love you, you know, and that you end up spending over 20 years of your life committed to that really did not love you?

13:02

Yeah, basically yes, I mean because he always was very about him saying that he loved me.

13:11

But saying it, meaning it, it's two different things.

13:15

And I had to learn that. You know, that's really incredible.

13:18

Just if we just pause right there, that's really incredible that you can recognize.

13:24

Hey, I grew up lacking love, lacking someone telling me or hearing that I love you, and then here was someone that comes along and tells you I love you, I love you.

13:40

It's very expressive toward, or very expressive of telling you, you know I love you, and it fulfills that need for a minute, until you start to grow, until your life starts to have other experiences and you begin to learn that it's more than just somebody telling me I love you.

14:01

Your actions, your, your respect level, your commitment to me has to align with what you are saying to me, and I think that's that's very important for people to hear and understand.

14:15

Make sure you subscribe to the Black Family Therapy Podcast exclusively on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

14:22

You have four children and there are some things that has you know.

14:26

With any parent that has children, there are things that transpire with our children as our children grow and become their own persons.

14:34

There is a particular situation that you experience and it is a source of trauma With your eldest daughter.

14:42

What happened?

14:44

She was touched, molested by a family member, and not just a family member, Also her dad's girlfriend's son.

14:53

But the dad covered that up and protected him.

14:56

But me, being a mother, I had to stand up and have that person locked up for touching my child.

15:02

I got a lot of flack behind it with family members because a lot of black families tend to sweep that under the rug and I wasn't willing to sweep that under the rug so I caught tension and you know family not speaking to you for a while.

15:17

I had to really endure that all alone because my husband blamed me for it happening.

15:25

As a mother. What are those feelings?

15:29

How did you? How did you feel about a, about what was happening to your child, and then B, about the family member that was doing it?

15:38

I can imagine the conflict that must lie there.

15:48

I was very hurt and just couldn't understand why would they do that to my child. At the time I had just given birth to my third child.

15:53

My baby was a pound and a half and I was already going through a lot with just having a new baby, and she was born very, very small.

16:02

It just happened at a time where, you know, I really didn't have nobody.

16:07

Nobody asked me anything.

16:09

I had to deal with it on my own and take care of a baby that was, you know, very small.

16:17

So it was really hard. I never, really I never talked about it period to no one.

16:22

Just recently, you know, I started opening up and speaking my truth about it because it was warranted.

16:30

Being that you had no outlet to really communicate what was happening with you and no support from family.

16:38

This, honestly, almost has me in tears.

16:40

What was your coping mechanism? How did you cope with that Stayed?

16:45

to myself. I began to smoke a lot of cigarettes.

16:48

I cried a lot and just kept my faith in God.

16:53

God is what got me through, because I had no one else.

16:56

You said that the family was upset with you.

16:59

Why would they be upset with you protecting?

17:04

your child. It felt like I should just let it go and let it ride and just sweep it under the roof.

17:10

I can't honestly say how they felt because they've never expressed it, but, coming from me being a mother, if it was an outside person they would have to, you know, be prosecuted for what happened.

17:22

So just because it's your family doesn't mean it should just, you know, be swept under the rug.

17:28

I was always taught right and right and wrong is wrong, so I stood for what was right.

17:34

As any good parent would. Do you think that when these things happen in our family, that it is fair, or do you think that it is right that we do not discuss these things?

17:50

No, I feel like it should be discussed because then you know I would have gotten a lot of answers that I needed from them, why they felt like I should have just let it go.

18:01

To be honest, I've talked to quite a few people and my perspective is people think OK, well, it happened to me, so it's OK.

18:10

It's happened to a lot of people that never came forward and spoke on what happened to them.

18:16

They swept it under the rug. I think that's more difficult to cope with it without ever talking about it, or just, to you know, say it happened and never talk about it and never express it to the family member or the person that it happened to.

18:32

I feel like a lot of people think, okay, well, if it happened to me, it's okay that it happened to my child.

18:39

I see that people feel about that subject because it happens a lot more often than people tell.

18:46

But I had to stand for what was right, period.

18:50

Now, where are you in those family relationships?

18:53

Where do you stand now?

18:55

we got an understanding and I'm just rebuilding a relationship, but some relationships are not rebuilt after the divorce.

19:04

After you know what you've gone through with your oldest daughter, after you now had other children and you're now even a grandmother, where are you with yourself?

19:15

I'm still growing, I'm still learning.

19:18

I'm learning to take people for what they show me that they are.

19:22

I really come to grips, a couple of years ago, with the divorce because that was very I had a lot of things to forgive him for.

19:32

So once I started really thinking about it and playing it over in my mind, because I had a lot of resentment, I had a lot of hate.

19:39

In order to get over the resentment, the hate, I had to really literally say it loud I forgive, I forgive myself, I forgive.

19:47

You know, I forgive the family member the heart mother.

19:50

I forgive, you know. I forgive the family member, the heart mother.

19:55

I forgive everyone, and it's not just for them, it's just it's for my own peace.

20:00

And ever since I've forgiven everyone, I've been at peace.

20:04

I'm standing my ground just because it's family.

20:07

You can't respect what I say and respect my boundaries.

20:11

I'm learning to tell people the truth and not what they want to hear.

20:15

I'm trying to, you know, teach my children more patience, and you know everything's not warranted for argument.

20:22

Your silence is the biggest teacher.

20:25

If you sit back and say nothing, you know my aunt used to always say if you say nothing, they'll never even know you hurt.

20:32

That's where I am now.

20:35

I'm, you know. I'm still becoming the woman I should have been years ago.

20:41

I think you're right on time. I actually think you're right on time.

20:43

I think you're in the timing of God and God's plan for where you're supposed to be.

20:47

What do you know now that you wish you would have knew back then?

20:52

Love myself, loving myself more.

20:55

What would you tell your younger self?

20:58

Now I just tell my younger self you know, keep going, don't give up, don't let what nobody say get you down, just keep going.

21:05

If I had a better support system, I could have been what I actually wanted to be.

21:10

I wasn't a school teacher.

21:12

Well, anita, listen. Thank you for being vulnerable.

21:15

Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for coming on the Black Family Therapy Podcast.

21:20

I'm so honored and I appreciate you.

21:22

And let me tell you something I believe wholeheartedly that you are right on time, you're right on schedule, you're right where God wants you to be his plan for your life, because ultimately, at the end of the day, it's all about his plan for your life and his purpose.

21:36

Right, right, there we go, so I think you're doing good.

21:39

Thank you for sharing your story. This has been another episode of Black Family Therapy Podcast with Kian Moon.

21:44

I am Kian Moon. I love you guys.

21:47

Thank you. Make sure you subscribe to the black family therapy podcast exclusively on apple podcast and spotify.