Tamara Winfrey Harris, DEAR BLACK GIRL
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[0:38]Tamara Winfrey Harris is the author of Dear Black Girl,
[0:41]letters from your sisters on stepping into your power.
[0:44]Tamara is also the author of The Sisters Are All Right,
[0:48]changing the broken narrative of Black women in America,
[0:51]which won several awards, including The Harlem Book Fairs,
[0:54]Phyllis Wheatley Ward. Her work also appears in the books The Birdin,
[0:57]African-Americans, and the enduring impact of slavery, and the Lemonade Reader,
[1:01]Beyonce, Black Feminism, and Spirituality,
[1:04]as well as in publications, such as The New York Times, Cosmopolitan,
[1:08]New York Magazine, Ebony, The American Prospect, and Ms. Magazine.
[1:12]She is the vice president of community leadership and effective philanthropy
[1:15]at the Central Indiana Community Foundation.
[1:18]Tamara is a native of Gary, Indiana, and a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
[1:24]She graduated with a BA degree from the greenly score of journalism at Iowa State University.
[1:29]Welcome, Tamara. Thank you so much for coming on moms.
[1:32]Don't have time to read books to discuss Dear Black Girl
[1:35]letters from your sisters on stepping into your power.
[1:39]Thank you for having me.
[1:40]Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure.
[1:42]First of all, this was a brilliant concept to do as a book.
[1:46]It's from the start, and I know you did it because you solicited letters
[1:49]from Black women to Black girls and got so many that you made it into a book.
[1:55]Tell me about that process and how this became what I'm holding in my hands,
[2:00]and the whole inspiration for even getting the letters to begin with.
[2:04]Well, you are absolutely right.
[2:05]I was doing an intergenerational workshop with two friends,
[2:09]and I just kind of off-handedly thought, wouldn't it be great if the 12 girls
[2:14]who were part of this got to walk away with a letter from a Black woman?
[2:17]And I kind of off-handedly went on Facebook and said,
[2:21]hey, can anybody send me right me a letter and send me a letter?
[2:25]Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, did women show up?
[2:29]Like, I got more than 50 letters from around the world, and they were so beautiful.
[2:35]You know, someone sent me a stack of journals to give the girls along with it,
[2:39]and they were written on stationery, and they had sparkly things,
[2:44]and the envelope was just so beautiful.
[2:46]And I felt like this needed to be a movement and not just a moment,
[2:51]because clearly, I knew that girls were going to benefit from it,
[2:54]but I kind of felt like women wanted to do.
[2:57]Like, there's a cathartic part for women, you know?
[3:01]You could see that in their letters.
[3:03]I mean, everything from the woman whose grandfather's surprised her with a car
[3:08]in the front yard to like this bio, like the MIT woman or whoever with these,
[3:14]like this brilliant woman and the sexual abuse stuff.
[3:17]I mean, there was like, it spanned so many life moments and advice,
[3:23]and it was like peeking into the souls of so many women.
[3:27]I was surprised.
[3:29]So the whole idea behind it was that I hoped I could model the way I think
[3:35]is most useful for us to relate to our daughters and nieces,
[3:40]and that's what vulnerability and love, you know, very often we do that this.
[3:47]It's like the scolding, don't do this.
[3:50]Instead of saying, you know, here's what happened to me.
[3:54]Here's why I know this.
[3:55]Here's why I would like you to do this, because here's my experience.
[4:00]And even that you pointed out in the beginning,
[4:03]which I thought was so interesting that some of the tough times that Black girls will get
[4:09]were actually from the women themselves, right?
[4:12]And that you have to caution those women from sort of taking out what's happened to them
[4:17]and sort of passing it along.
[4:19]Tell me about that.
[4:20]Right, because we absorb, and we know this all women, but Black women in particularly,
[4:25]because they have kind of this double oppression, you know, you hear people say things about
[4:30]women, you hear people say, you know, if you wear certain clothes, you're asking for it.
[4:35]You hear people say that women are weaker than other people or, you know, Black girls hear people
[4:40]saying that they're, you know, that they're too loud or too aggressive.
[4:44]And be like, that stuff works its way into your spirit.
[4:47]And it's something that we as women have to like work to undo.
[4:51]And it just, it isn't surprising that sometimes when we're relating to other women and young girls,
[4:57]some of that comes out and we find ourselves repeating some of that negative language.
[5:03]So it's an ongoing battle for us to make sure that we're not letting that stuff out.
[5:08]And we're instead speaking to girls with love.
[5:11]One of the things I say in the book is that we can't afford to look at each other
[5:15]with the same kind of skewed eyes that like society will look at us.
[5:20]Right.
[5:21]Beautiful.
[5:22]And you could have just like put the letters in here, right?
[5:25]It could have just been letters, but you peppered it with definitions and history and all sorts
[5:30]of other things, even down to, you know, how this cover came to be and the importance of
[5:36]Black artists and young, fostering young talent and all of that.
[5:40]So tell me a little bit about how you formatted it and, you know, how you even picked
[5:45]for all of your know this passages, how you picked what we should know.
[5:49]And PS, as I was reading it, my husband is my stepdad to my kids.
[5:54]And I was like, hey, you know, in this book, they call it a bonus dad instead of a stepdad.
[5:58]And he's like, oh, I like that so much more.
[6:02]I'm a bonus mom and I love that language.
[6:06]Like, so I gave in to the nerdy little Tammy and me because I wasn't her school kid.
[6:12]And there's so much in this world to learn.
[6:14]And, you know, some of the women who are super smart mentioned like people,
[6:20]Polly Murray and Marsha P Johnson and women that girls may not know yet at 15.
[6:26]And I wanted to give them a window to kind of dig further into that stuff.
[6:31]I also wanted to challenge them to write a letter to themselves because I think self-reflection
[6:37]is really important, especially last year I got my 200 hour yoga certification.
[6:43]So I was all about the like self-reflection important.
[6:47]And then I also, there is some tough stuff in the book, right?
[6:50]And so I wanted girls, if they read about mental health and recognize that they're struggling,
[6:55]I want them to know where to call. If they need more information about something, if they need
[7:01]to know more about sexual assault and they don't have anyone to talk to, I wanted them to have
[7:05]some resources. Well, the introduction you wrote to this book was so powerful, like reliving history
[7:13]and pointing out all the things like, you know, people thought that black women were tougher.
[7:18]And so they put us in the field. I mean, the way you told it was just like, oh, I don't know,
[7:23]it was so powerful. So just like bravo on sort of rewriting history from the way that it should
[7:30]be told really. I mean, this is an empathetic, like completely accurate description of like all the
[7:38]the ways that people made these faulty assumptions and ended up sort of like subjugating an entire
[7:43]group of people. It's horrific. So anyway, you're, I just loved how you did it.
[7:49]Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I worried about that part because I was like,
[7:53]I thought of myself being 15 and going, Oh, not, not history, not, you know, not history. But I hope
[8:01]I did it well in a way that girls will go, you know, when they see some negative meme on Instagram
[8:07]or something, they'll go, oh, that's that that's that scary. I know where that comes from. That's
[8:12]not about me. That's about something else. Yeah, you're so funny. You're like, I'm going to talk
[8:16]about history. Listen up. This is important. But there are all these great letters. I thought
[8:22]maybe I could just read a couple of passages that I loved. One is from who is this by Celeste.
[8:27]It's dear one. Where is your light? What is the one shining thing that makes you yourself?
[8:32]Is it the way you walk, the way you talk? Is it the way your lip curls when you smile? Do you have
[8:36]a mole in your cheekbone? And then she goes down and says, I ask these things because I urge you
[8:41]to know, know your light, know where it resides. That is the key to everything. The dictionary defines
[8:46]light is the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible when you begin to see
[8:50]your own light. That special thing that makes you like no other guarded do not let anyone steal
[8:55]or dim your lights. There are times when you won't feel so special and your light won't feel so
[9:00]bright. There are times when you don't want to shine and you will pray that no one notices you
[9:04]you just want to fade into the beige background and hide your light from everyone so they won't
[9:08]see you. I know this because I have felt those things too. And then of course she keeps going at
[9:12]the end. She says, your light is your superpower. Hold it high for all to behold. Let it shine. Let it
[9:18]shine. Let it shine. With love, your sister and light Celeste. Ah, it's so amazing. Who are these women
[9:24]are so poetic? It's like I love it. Right? They're amazing. So who are who are all these women?
[9:30]They just literally sent them in randomly or did you get to know some of these women or
[9:35]I mean, you should have a party for them. I feel like they I'm thinking about that like
[9:40]so some of them were like random letters that came in. But you know, once I decided to make a book
[9:45]and that I wanted to cover several topics that were important, I had to solicit some of those
[9:51]letters because it was important that I had a trans woman in and I had an executive in and a
[9:56]biracial woman in. So some of them, you know,
[10:00]or people might recognize as writers
[10:02]who are awesome, Disha Filia,
[10:05]who has this award-winning book out now,
[10:07]Rochelle Riley, who's a columnist,
[10:10]but some are just everyday women that you've not heard of.
[10:15]Some are educators, some are psychologists,
[10:17]some are, they're women who just wanted to share something
[10:21]with girls.
[10:22]So nice.
[10:23]Can I read another one about the body image piece of it,
[10:26]which I thought was great.
[10:27]This is from Erica, who says,
[10:29]people will tell you that being active
[10:30]is about looking great or it's about losing weight.
[10:33]But I wanna suggest that you already look good now,
[10:35]regardless of whatever size you are.
[10:37]I want you to know that it's okay to love your body
[10:39]as it is in this moment.
[10:41]And I want you to know that there are more reasons
[10:43]to love your body beyond how appealing it is to others.
[10:46]If you are finally able to get even halfway
[10:47]up that rock climbing wall and you break down into tears
[10:50]because it's so hard, but you really made it halfway
[10:52]and it feels that much more possible now,
[10:54]that's a reason to love your body.
[10:56]It got you somewhere, it couldn't before.
[10:58]That's amazing, these messages are so universally awesome,
[11:02]by the way, just messages from women.
[11:05]I love this whole idea of women sharing knowledge.
[11:08]I have a girlfriend who every five years
[11:11]she has all her friends send letters to her daughter.
[11:14]Like, what is it like to be 10?
[11:16]What is it like to be 15?
[11:17]What is it like to be 15?
[11:18]I know, it's so nice.
[11:19]So every five years I'm writing this girl who like,
[11:21]she doesn't probably even,
[11:22]she's not like even a close, close friend.
[11:24]I doubt her daughter even remembers who I am at this point.
[11:28]But anytime she asks, I'm like, I'm in, let me write,
[11:30]let me help.
[11:31]And it's just like, I don't know, these essays are just like,
[11:34]if it isn't there's something,
[11:36]I think even from you, like when you're the letter writer
[11:39]and I think also the person on the other end,
[11:41]there's just something especially now
[11:43]that's particularly caring about writing a letter,
[11:46]especially when so much of our communication is,
[11:49]I'm just, you know, I'm texting,
[11:51]I'm gonna answer UK, right?
[11:53]Like, you don't even type in full sentences
[11:55]so to like sit down and actually be thoughtful
[11:59]about the paper and thoughtful about what you say
[12:02]and find a stamp and like it's,
[12:04]there's some extra care in it that I think is really neat.
[12:08]So true.
[12:09]I know, I love how you were like,
[12:10]do you know what a letter is?
[12:11]It's like you put it in an envelope
[12:14]and like gather round children.
[12:17]I know, you tell you about the time before.
[12:20]Oh my God.
[12:21]My son's kindergarten just did a whole unit
[12:23]on the postal service, right?
[12:25]And they had to write letters to people.
[12:27]And they were saying he was just like,
[12:28]so excited because he's like, I'm yelling a letter.
[12:32]Dr. Punds, list together who we would send it to.
[12:35]And then of course, like they came,
[12:36]he wrote one to his sister and then she got the letter.
[12:39]It was like the cute, I got a letter from it.
[12:41]It was fine.
[12:42]Anyway, it's something so special.
[12:44]And it is such a lost art.
[12:46]This whole like epistolary, you know, tradition
[12:48]that I feel like is falling by the way side.
[12:50]So I do not get that excited when I get an email.
[12:54]No, and I never save emails every so often.
[12:58]I'm like, I'm going to slide it into this folder
[13:00]because this one I'm going to save.
[13:01]And then of course like, where do those even go?
[13:03]So sometimes I'm like, I'll print it out.
[13:05]But then I'm like, where do I put the print out?
[13:07]I need like a folder and where do I put the fold?
[13:09]I don't know.
[13:10]There's like no good way.
[13:12]I think you got it something.
[13:13]Like there is a universality.
[13:15]Like it was important to me that I centered
[13:17]the experiences of black girls and women
[13:20]because they don't get centered a lot.
[13:21]When we talk about womanhood and girlhood.
[13:25]But I also think that a lot of the wisdom
[13:28]that women shared is good for any girl, any boy,
[13:32]I mean, any woman, like the letter that starts you
[13:36]or what is it?
[13:36]Your magic, light and stars in the universe.
[13:39]I wake up and read that.
[13:40]And I'm like, I am.
[13:42]I am magic, like everyone deserves.
[13:47]Yeah, yeah, let's take these letters.
[13:49]And I didn't mean to suggest in my sort of talking
[13:53]about the universality that, to in any way,
[13:55]diminish the one black woman to a black girl element.
[14:00]Because that's what really makes this book so unique
[14:02]and so awesome.
[14:03]I mean, I learned a lot of things.
[14:05]I mean, I'm obviously not a black woman.
[14:06]I'm a white woman and I learned and I was never a black girl.
[14:10]So when I read this, it shed light for me
[14:13]on what that experience was like.
[14:14]And maybe some things I hadn't thought about.
[14:16]And that was also really useful and helpful for me.
[14:18]And just in letting hearing about some of those particular
[14:22]things, so that it was.
[14:23]No, I think you were dead on.
[14:26]Yeah, I think it's both.
[14:27]I think there's power in the direct black woman
[14:30]to black girl conversation.
[14:32]And I think there's universality because their experiences
[14:36]that we as femmes, we just have.
[14:40]We just get it.
[14:41]Yeah, we didn't have this whole section on daughtering
[14:45]that was from the dear little sis piece by Brandy.
[14:48]And how daughtering ain't easy.
[14:50]We ended, she's right, or she writes, we daughter,
[14:52]more than relationship, it's a thing we do, we daughter.
[14:55]And I just love that whole thing,
[14:57]like sort of empowering all the daughters out there
[15:00]to like be active in our roles.
[15:03]Tell me a little more about your thoughts on that.
[15:05]I loved that because I never thought of my role
[15:09]as a daughter as being an active thing,
[15:12]as opposed to just what I am.
[15:15]And the idea that you can choose how you daughter.
[15:20]And then I also love how she just talked about the line
[15:23]of women, kept trying to give their daughters
[15:28]what they thought their daughters needed,
[15:31]which was really what they needed.
[15:33]Like I thought that was so powerful.
[15:36]And in the breaking of the cycle,
[15:38]where you realize that you can be your own self
[15:42]and give your children what they need.
[15:44]and then but fill your own whole.
[15:47]And you're going to be different.
[15:48]I loved that.
[15:50]Amazing.
[15:51]Well, there are just so many more.
[15:53]I feel like I just wanted to, oh my gosh,
[15:55]the daughter of the engineer and crack addict
[15:58]to the child of two parents infected with HIV.
[16:01]I mean, they're just like all these essays are just amazing.
[16:04]So I wanna know more if you don't mind me prying now
[16:07]about like you said you were a nerd growing up,
[16:09]which I highly doubt, tell me about like your background
[16:13]and like how we got on this Zoom together.
[16:16]I was definitely, I promise you a little nerdy kid
[16:21]who loved to, you know, when my first book came out,
[16:24]my mother reminded me just like you were always in the corner
[16:28]talking to yourself, making out books and magazines.
[16:32]She's like that was your thing.
[16:34]You loved, you loved to read and you loved books.
[16:36]I'm a native of Gary and Deanna.
[16:38]So grew up on Lake Michigan right outside of Chicago.
[16:42]I have two awesome parents that were educators.
[16:46]My mom is still teaching after more than 50 years.
[16:51]Wow.
[16:52]And a brother and a sister.
[16:53]And I have just always been drawn to
[16:58]since I've been writing telling the stories of,
[17:01]you're talking about race and gender
[17:02]and kind of how they intersect with politics
[17:05]and pop culture and current events and those kind of things.
[17:09]So, you know, I have written a lot of essays
[17:13]and opinion for New York Times and the Atlantic
[17:16]and places like that.
[17:17]But writing a book has always been my ultimate holy grail
[17:22]goal in my life.
[17:24]And so I did that in 2015.
[17:26]My first book was The Sisters All Right,
[17:29]changing the broken narrative of Black women in America.
[17:32]But this was also like a labor, a labor of love.
[17:36]And I think when I do this,
[17:38]the first one I felt like was for me
[17:40]because it was for women.
[17:42]And now this one is for, I have three beautiful nieces,
[17:46]Kennedy, Kaya, and Nina.
[17:48]And I think about them and doing it for them
[17:51]so that they can be, I mean, I'm pretty awesome.
[17:54]But so that they can be better than me in the future,
[17:56]which I think is what we all want for our kids
[17:59]and our daughters, that they be better
[18:01]and they're happy, better and easier.
[18:04]So are you their bonus mom, your nieces?
[18:07]Or are you, I'm not, I'm their cool aunt.
[18:11]Okay.
[18:12]But I also have a wonderful husband
[18:15]and two awesome bonus step kids,
[18:17]Dasha and Jonathan.
[18:19]Amazing.
[18:20]Wow.
[18:21]You know, I don't view that as being,
[18:23]so back to the nerdiness comment.
[18:25]Like I was also like that as a child.
[18:27]I don't think that loving books and learning
[18:29]to start and write books and read things
[18:31]and all that makes you nerdy.
[18:32]I'm just gonna say that.
[18:34]I think that makes you awesome.
[18:36]I was using nerdy in the most awesome way possible.
[18:39]Okay, good.
[18:40]Third that has it on.
[18:42]And I honestly have a shirt that says, you know,
[18:45]black nerds rule or something.
[18:47]I love that.
[18:48]I have raped it.
[18:50]But awesome.
[18:52]So what was it like after setting that as your goal
[18:55]to accomplish writing a book?
[18:57]What was that, what did it feel like?
[18:59]Oh my gosh.
[19:00]It was, I just want it like I wanted to cry
[19:05]when that, when the first like the boxes of books show up
[19:09]when they send you your author copies and you rip it open
[19:12]and there are all these books there with your name on it.
[19:15]It like, oh my gosh.
[19:17]It felt like it's like this way,
[19:20]this dam of emotion breaking open.
[19:23]Cause it was like, I did it.
[19:25]I did the thing that I always wanted to do,
[19:29]which is another reason for this book
[19:32]is cause I want girls to feel that.
[19:35]I want boys to feel that.
[19:36]I want everyone should feel that, you know?
[19:39]So true.
[19:40]I was walking down the street.
[19:42]I live in New York City and I was walking down
[19:44]with my brother, my brother, my son and his buddy.
[19:47]We were talking about like goals in life.
[19:48]And I was like, you know, my goal, my whole goal in life
[19:52]since I've been a kid is to like write a book.
[19:54]And he was like, that's it.
[19:56]He feels like, you know,
[19:58]there Ty, I was like, well, what are you guys?
[20:00]school is one of them's like you know I want to be a professional tennis player and I want to be like
[20:03]you know I want to they have these like outlandish things. I just want to write a book and they're like
[20:09]okay well you know it's something that like for me felt so important and for some people
[20:15]might not seem like such a big deal right but it's like I don't know maybe it's a certain just
[20:20]type of book lover or something but it's just so important to do. I think it like because it's your
[20:27]thing. I think whatever your thing is whether it's writing books or tennis or whatever
[20:32]your thing feels like the big mountain and the big important thing that once you get sort of like
[20:39]Erica wrote in her letter once you get halfway up there and you you know or to the top of the
[20:44]mountain and you just feel like oh my gosh even if to someone else it's like yeah a book yeah
[20:51]the rest of us are like a book. Yeah enough people are like a book that I can give enough people
[20:59]in this community. So what's coming next what what are you going to do one for boys just wondering
[21:05]after so after I take a nap. The next thing I'm actually I just turned in a manuscript this week
[21:14]for the second edition the second expanded edition of the sisters are all right because so much
[21:21]has happened to like women and black women in the last six years. Oh my gosh like there's Kamala Harris
[21:28]in the White House. So I did a lot more interviews because that book had interviews with like 100
[21:34]women from across the country. So I did more interviews touched on some more like issues that have
[21:40]come to the fore in the last few years and added a chapter on power that looks at community
[21:46]activism and politics which has been a space where women are really rocking it over the last five
[21:53]to six years and then actually like I focused on girls and women because I feel like you know black
[22:01]girls and black women get a lot of people talking at us and about us instead of to us which is
[22:06]why I focus there and I think black men and boys get that too. And so I hope that there's a
[22:13]black man writer who will take up that banner. I was kind of thinking what's intriguing me now
[22:20]is kind of what happens with senior women. You know it's almost like a trifecta like sisters I
[22:28]talk to a lot of women in their 30s and 40s you know this is about girls but what happens do you
[22:35]come into your own do you feel more all rights when you are over 60 how does that transition and
[22:42]life look like I don't know what to do with that but it's just something I've been playing with a
[22:48]lot. No I love that I actually years ago I mean maybe I don't know five years ago something
[22:54]anyway I was really interested because my grandmother who at the time was in her 80s late 80s or
[23:00]something and she is never stopped worrying about her weight like ever and she just passed away
[23:06]sadly but like until the day she died she would like feel bad eating cake and still eat it right
[23:11]and so I did like a whole survey of her nursing home like not nursing her old age home or whatever
[23:16]we call it and my other grandmother when she was still alive and I talked to all these women who
[23:22]about their relationship with their bodies and eating and weight and it was fascinating and I'm
[23:28]so glad I did it back then when they were both alive and vibrant and whatever because I learned so
[23:33]much and the basic takeaway is like if you don't solve your issues now they don't go away like I
[23:38]mean it sounds so obvious but I always thought like oh I can't wait to be older so people can I
[23:43]can stop worrying about what I look like you know and it just you know it does that does not happen
[23:48]you know it just like you like if you if you haven't eating disorder like you're gonna you know
[23:54]especially you all those women who like reported having eating disorders like they were still
[23:59]like really conflicted about food and even just like not an eating disorder but you know just a
[24:05]preoccupation or just like a concern it didn't go away so anyway I love the idea of diving more into
[24:13]what the experience is like for older women because you'll stop assuming that it's any different
[24:18]than it is now right and it's in that I feel like older women are another forgotten book like
[24:24]this like a forgotten group like society tends to like disappear women when they get like
[24:32]over a certain age yeah very true yeah well I can't wait to read that one sorry to have gone
[24:38]off about my random article from years ago but no I will I'll just say I'm just fascinating
[24:44]so what advice would you have for aspiring authors oh gosh just do it like I run into so many
[24:55]women who are like oh I wish I could but I don't know and I'm not that great and I haven't done
[24:59]it in a long time and just do it just sit down carve out time for yourself if you can and
[25:07]write and just start there even if you never get published but just start writing I um I had lunch
[25:13]once with Tanana Reeve do I don't know if you know or she's like a spec fiction writer and she
[25:21]said just what if you just say you're gonna write a word every day and you make that your commitment
[25:28]I mean you're probably not gonna sit down and just write a word if you bother to sit down you're
[25:33]probably gonna write more than one word but if all you can get out is a the then you've done it
[25:40]you've met your commitment and I think you know writing is part of as women we very often don't
[25:47]carve out time for ourselves we feel guilty about it so making space for that I think can be helpful
[25:54]in so many ways both creatively but also just being restorative I found a few years ago I got into doing
[26:02]genealogy and I found out that my one of my maternal great grandmothers wrote poetry so this is a
[26:11]woman who was raising 10 kids on a farm in Alabama in the early 20th century and I have this stack
[26:22]of all this poetry that she wrote and so I'm like and that's kind of stuck with me and carried
[26:27]me because if she can carve out time to do that and thought that was important then well then
[26:33]that's something that I'm going to carry forward from Maddie so everybody carry that forward
[26:38]from Maddie and carve out your time and just write that is beautiful I feel like that's another book
[26:44]for you yeah her poems poems from younger I don't know there's something there I'll let you
[26:52]take it well that's beautiful and that's so inspiring I just love thinking about women in the
[26:59]past at all like how did they do their writing like what did that look like for everyone I mean
[27:04]so much of that writing is lost right we'll never know I know lucky that you have that I mean
[27:09]what was everybody thinking but I don't know there's only anyway back to the files and folders
[27:15]organization well also I'm like I just you know I know how my house is a shambles now after writing
[27:23]two manuscripts and two months like considering all the load that like our mothers and grandmothers
[27:29]and the cooking and the cleaning and the child rearing that we don't do what we do in a different
[27:34]way and we have more help from husbands and things like that they found time to do the things that
[27:40]they loved should be an inspiration test totally agree I love that amazing well thank you so much
[27:48]Tamara this has been so nice I feel like I'm so awesome so thank you and I am totally inspired
[27:55]by Maddie and I'm gonna carry her with me today thank you all right we'll have a great day and
[28:02]thanks again bye bye thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[28:09]don't forget to follow me on instagram at zebioans and at moms don't have time to read books
[28:14]also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of
[28:20]authors on zoom every other week thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the
[28:24]sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[28:29]now trim music