About This Episode

We bring Moms together for the ultimate delivery debate! Natural birth verses a cesarean section also known as a C-section. Some moms-to-be are able to choose their birthing method, some don’t have an option. To ensure a fair and balanced discussion we have Moms who have had vaginal births and moms who have had c-sections to share their birthing experiences with us!

Be sure to share your birthing experiences in our comments section below!

About Our Moms

Taiia Smart Young is the Executive Editor of Juicy magazine. If she isn’t interviewing celebs like Kelly Rowland, Jada Pinkett Smith, Melanie Fiona, The-Dream and Chris Rock, she’s busy being a Mom to her 12 year old son, Shateek. Taiia delivered her son naturally

Chrisandra Wells is a Mom of four. Her children’s ages range from an 11 year old, 8 year old and 4 year old twins. As a Mom Chrisandra is always busy but fully of energy. She is also a freelance plus size model, hair model and makeup artist and is currently pursuing her dreams in fashion.

Karen Sanchez is Mom to two girls, and wife for the past 15 years. She is currently a freelance talent manager in TV production and she also has her own blog.

About Karyn Parsons

Source: Shutterstock

Maternity leave for a new parent averages usually up to 12 weeks after giving birth, leaving time for bonding with your child, getting adapted to a new role as a mother and time to heal physically (and maybe emotionally) after the process of childbirth. As those weeks wind down, you may find yourself unprepared to pick up where you left off at work.

Use these ten tips to help you get back on the bandwagon at work post-baby without all the strain, stress, and shock of leaving your newborn.

Image: My Good Nanny

Any working mom can remember the day they were faced with one of the most dreaded moments of parenthood: The day they had to return to the working world. Moms become engulfed with guilt for having to (or even wanting to) return to work.

I became a new mom 11 months ago and I remember carrying around this terrible sense of dread through the last few weeks of my 14-week maternity leave. I went from cursing the domestic maternity laws — “Why can’t we get a year off like Canada!” — to all out cry fests at night on my husband’s shoulder. Like many moms I was forced to bite the bullet and take my little one to a nearby daycare facility, which thankfully my daughter did quite well in.

A few family members who spoke to me during those worrisome last few weeks of my leave asked if I ever considered a home nanny. Honestly I did, but I felt as if the task of screening potential candidates and finding a perfect fit for my hectic, multicultural home was just too daunting, especially during my first weeks as a mother. My other concern was that nannies just simply cost too much! I equated having a home nanny as a product of uber-wealthy Park Avenue housewives; a perk that comes at a price that was out of the budget of a North Jersey upper middle class mom like myself.  Little did I know I was wrong on both counts. Atlanta-based nanny agency My Good Nanny is here to set the record straight.

My Good Nanny is a Christian-based, culturally diverse nanny agency that helps parents with the overwhelming task of finding a nanny that fits perfectly in their home and with their family. Created by Alpharetta, G.A. mom Tosi Ufodike, the nanny agency completes background testing, extensive interviews, personality discovery, and other screening processes that allow them to strategically place nannies.

The agency also prides itself on offering nannies from all types of ethnic backgrounds, from Asian to Caribbean. This factor is important for many families who would like their children to be in the care of a professional who speaks their language and understands the cultural background of the client.

Source: blakparent.com

With the economy not quite at its strongest, finding work still remains a difficult task for some.

Nationally, the unemployment rate is still above 8.3 percent, with unemployment rate among blacks at 14.4 percent. In Philadelphia, there are four people per every job available. The unemployment rate is around 9 percent, with blacks and Hispanics making up a large chunk of that figure. Philly’s public sector has shed approximately 9,000 jobs over the past year, which used to be the bread and butter of most blacks. Of course the official unemployment numbers do not include the unemployable (i.e. those with criminal records) and those folks who have been out of work for more than a year, thus no longer qualify for unemployment benefits. When you factor in those numbers, the real figure is somewhere in the double digits.

Yet it seems that the fastest growing industry in the city are daycare facilities. Walk down any Philadelphia street within black and Hispanic neighborhoods and you will see a plethora of child care choices. They are in old renovated warehouses, storefronts and operating out of residential homes. Sometimes there are daycare facilities opened on the same block – in some cases across the street from each other.  These facilities run from 8 hours, five days a week to up to 23 hours/7 days a week serving all sorts of children from infants all the way up to first graders.

Most ironically, most of these daycare facilities are housed in communities with high unemployment and unemployable rates. Which makes me ask: if the people ain’t working then why are there so many daycare facilities in low-income communities?

What got me thinking on this dichotomy was a film I had watched a couple of weeks ago called the Pruitt-Igoe Myth, which was about the failure of one of the first housing projects in the country. As explained in the documentary, the projects came about as a way to deal with the slums, which were occupied by poor working class folks, who mainly worked in downtown St. Louis, thus needed residency close to their employment. Believing that the slums deterred growth within the St. Louis, the city came up with a plan to tear down the slums and move the working poor to public housing.  At first the projects were declared a victory in the war on poverty. However neither the city, nor the state, ever properly funded the project, thus basic maintenance within the facilities was ignored and eventually the high rises began to fall in disarray.

There is more to this story including how the Housing Development Act, which was used to fund the creation of the projects, also contributed to white flight out of the city, thus creating a further void in tax dollars, to support this project.  However, the most interesting part of the film is an interview, with one former tenant of Priutt-Igoe, who recalled an incident, where the city’s welfare came to her slum and told her mother that they would give the family free housing plus food allotment but the only stipulation was that the kids’ fathers, couldn’t come.  According to the film, this practice was commonplace for many families in the projects.  And as many black intellectuals have long suspected, it was this practice of removing the father from the household for financial security, which has contributed to the destruction of black families, particularly those in the lower rungs of society.