Motherhood at the Time of the Apocalypse

“What’s that?” my kiddo asks, poking their head out of the car, big brown eyes widening as the light of dusk dims, their head tilting toward the sky as the steady hum of propellers passes overhead.

“What’s that, Mommy?”

I fumble chaotically around in the car, collecting all of the fallen toys and popcorn kernels on the floor after picking the kiddo up from daycare. I can tell what it is before I even raise my head. It has become second nature at that point—military helicopters. Ever since late January, there has been an increase in government-issued planes flying over the house, sometimes moving 2 or 3 at a time. Don’t get me wrong; my childhood was filled with the sounds of imperialism constantly flying overhead, albeit from the air force base close to our house or the the local airshow—our family's favorite pastime. My dad, who worked at that same air force base, was able to identify the type of plane by the sound of the engine. I’ve inherited that same skill from my dad—only with an added layer of fear: the growing frequency of planes flying overhead.

Against all Heteronormative Costs

Before the world turned, seven years prior, my baby was born out of rebellion, creativity, and the desire to add to my legacy as a queer person by manifesting, in the flesh, the queer future we were all fighting for. As a person who identifies as Black, nonbinary, and queer, the plan to have my baby was all but simple, and I refused to hear how else this baby was going to come into the world against all heteronormative costs. For me, admittedly, I had no idea what that was going to look like personified. After a failed natural try and two rounds of IUI, a brown chubby baby was welcomed into the world more unstable than I previously believed. I thought I was ready—always brainstorming alternative routes in my journey that were as far away from heteronormativity as possible. Because as a queer person, there is always a system or thought to buck up against…right? 

My rebellion drove my Southern-rooted, Christian family bananas. What do you mean, I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby? Move over Gender Reveals! We are celebrating with a Wakanda-themed baby shower with a DJ and a brunch buffet. We even added a bit of woo-woo to the mix, holding an outside spiritual ceremony led by my brilliant transmasculine friend and my closest fr-amily circle as they all wore white strings tied to our wrists to be cut when the kiddo was born. I was determined for my queerness to leave no stone unturned in the kiddo’s welcoming on this side of the plane, with French toast on the side. 

Yet, I thought after birth was when all those books, degrees, and classes I had taken were supposed to make sense. I quickly found out that once you become responsible for another human being, the choices change. Policies that didn’t apply to me before, or that I could easily ignore, now applied to BOTH of us. As 2020 crept in with disease (COVID-19) and dis-ease (the Great Uprisings of 2020), finding ways to keep a mask on a kiddo’s face, holding their tiny arms in a struggle for a vaccine, or avoiding public places due to protests in the city, I felt powerless. Resentment started to seep into my activist heart, not towards my baby, but towards myself. On any other day, I would be out protesting with my community, making signs, and passing out water bottles. But now? My baby needed for me to be home, stay home, and stay alive. As we just moved and settled into our new home during the pandemic, I quickly noticed these planes outside our window… were starting to feel different.

The New Normal

I am not too far from the main base where the administration flies in and out of. Either the helicopters are flying lower, or my eyesight is getting better—I can easily see the “United States of America” on the aircraft as they fly overhead. As they fly past two or three at a time, they create this low, yet disrupting buzz—low enough to be noticeable, irritating enough to remind me of the world that is slowly changing around me.

As much as I try to normalize life around us, I keep asking myself: what does “normal” even mean in a society held together by violence?

The police, to my kiddo, is not a group to be feared…or at least that’s not what their tablet tells them. Police are helpful; they solve crimes by arresting bad people in black-and-white striped outfits. But what do I do when I want my kid to know ICE only as something that keeps drinks cold—and not as the mafia-like force that kidnaps people who look like them off the street? As Black people, the idea of a helpful police officer in my home feels about as real as the dinosaurs my kiddo thinks still exist. As parents and caretakers, we shape what is real for our kids. I’ve also come to understand that no matter how carefully we try to protect our children’s realities, the powers that be—especially when justice is at stake—always find ways to intrude, using executive orders, fear tactics, and terror to undermine the world we are trying to build.

I read my child fairytales amidst the nightmare of ICE raids and anti-vax campaigns. The threat of so-called “wellness camps,” rooted in the administration’s claim that autism is caused by Tylenol and circumcision, and the illegal kidnapping of Black and brown people that continues to tear families apart, are the things that keep me up at night. No degree I have on my wall could prepare me for the reality of having to protect my kid from the world I brought them into. I can't help but feel a sense of guilt, as if in my path of resistance, driving the grand bus through queerness, I kinda veered too far to the left. And as hard as I am trying to fight YouTube's algorithm from showing my kiddo “how to survive a nuclear bomb,” it does feel like the praxis of the world is changing faster than my theories of survival. I realize that I am starting to grieve the world I thought I was creating through my rebellion.

But what would a world be without them? To not have a set of grubby hands that smell like noodles grab the sides of your face, and smile deeply through the eyes that you gave them?

Their existence is my responsibility. I am a Mother, the person who ushered their spirit into the world—with the help of a community of people, doctors, and some man I found on the internet. Raising a child with the string a bit loose has taught me more than I expected. I know what I am building does not always have all of the pieces of what mainstream society sees as a ‘complete family’, but I feel like I am giving them options to live in so many other validating ways. Giving my kiddo a taste of freedom and a will to thrive forced me to see my parenting not as a solo venture but as a group project.

How We Keep Each Other

I made a conscious choice to bring another life onto this planet, even amid turmoil. What grounded me was the realization that although I am raising this child solo, it is still my responsibility to root them in the community around us. To resist the isolation the world was forcing us into, it became important for my child to be seen and witnessed by others, particularly by Black people in the community. So they would know how to care for my child, should I not make it home.

One survival skill I carried with me from childhood was learning how to exist in spaces with other kids who looked like me. Learning how to share toys and keeping up with video games and music helped me find my people. As a millennial parent, as much as it irks my nerves, it brings my heart sacred and collective joy to hear my kid give me an exaggerated “bruh!” after I tell them to put their plate in the sink. To me, they are learning the language of a community we may one day need, if we find ourselves separated from one another.

When we take walks in our neighborhood and hear the neighbors exclaim, “they have gotten so big,” it makes me realize they are paying attention. My city’s community centers, parks, libraries—even the grocery store—have become hubs of joy and wisdom. From the pleasant Black woman who sets my watermelon back on the shelf because it isn’t ripe yet, to the moment my kid gets fussy in a long checkout line and a kind woman slips him a bag of unpaid chips, waving me away when I offer a dollar and saying, “The baby has to eat.” In those moments, community care operate outside the logic of capitalism.

“They are looking out for us”, I tell my child, “so we must look out for them as well”. 

***

The next set of helicopters fly over the house. 

Again, frequency.

“Mama, what is that?” they ask, tugging at my jacket, their frustration rising as the helicopter drifts out of sight.

I finally raise my head, looking past the pair of choppers flying by, and trace the path of the stars as the moon lights the way.

“It’s just helicopters, baby. But you see that? You see the moon. Look at the stars.” 

As my finger traces the path of the Universe, we both gasp in awe, taking in the wonder of something far bigger than ourselves, while the sound of helicopters fades in the distance.

“Now, help Mommy with these groceries.”