Claiming autonomy; Moving toward agency

As a Reproductive Justice informed framework, FBM sees Autonomy, or the self granted permission to choose how we want to live our lives, as the foundation of every liberation movement. However, without agency, the ability to act out the lives we want amid personal, familial, and structural barriers, the benefit of autonomy is greatly limited. We see the acknowledgment and reclamation of our autonomy as the first of many steps toward organizing our lives on our own terms.

 

We know/ We teach / We grow

FBM is rooted in Black feminist epistemology, specifically in the lives and experiences of Black mothers and caregivers. Our knowledge is often a fortune-telling way of seeing the world that others miss, shaped by many things, including our position at the intersection of multiple matrices of oppression. FBM rejects narratives of resilience and is not a deficit-based perspective. It acknowledges that we continue to exercise creativity and knowing that others try to steal, replicate, and commodify while excluding us from the benefits of what's produced.

 

I Find Myself In “Us”

FBM is designed in the “call and response” tradition of Black communities, which allows us to sharpen our wisdom and knowledge together, taking what we’ve experienced and bringing “us” together to form a more representative whole. “Us” is determined by the people and environments where we see and feel seen and have space to grow and expand.

 

The Myth Of Failure

FBM asserts that imperfection is the key to our growth. We seek out opportunities to miss the mark and fall short. Whereas perfection and conflicting demands are hallmarks of modern mothering traditions, pleasure and playfulness are essential parts of FBM. Still, we acknowledge that pleasure and playfulness can be elusive and inaccessible without a sense of safety, vulnerability, grounding, or presence.

 

The Power of the Pause

“The moment between when something happens and when you make a decision is where your power lies.” - Dr. Angelina Nortey. When our founder first heard this quote from Dr. Nortey, it changed her life. It was a necessary reminder that intuition and self-trust don’t develop overnight. In the moment, this can look like showing down before choosing to act; in the long term, it’s an intentionally crafted quiet time, reflection, judgment-free curiosity, and self-acceptance.