Marie Romilus

Marie Romilus, MA, CPC, is a regular contributor to Living Crue. Marie reflects on topics of diversity and inclusion through personal storytelling. Her stories are her truth.

A Typical Haitian Mother & Daughter Relationship

When I think about the relationships I have with people in my life, I think about how they began. What do they mean to me? How do they benefit me? What makes a proper relationship, anyway? Who teaches us how to have a good relationship?

The answer is in the beginning of our lives. We learn how to build proper relationships in our childhood. The relationships we build with the people that raise us helps us to build relationships with others in the outside world. But here’s the thing, what if you’re missing or lacking attachment to some of the people who are raising you? Are you able to build proper relationships with other people? At the age of 20, I finally identified that my depression stemmed from the lack of early relationship I had with my mother. I looked for  guidance and love from older female figures to take the place of the lack of support and love I felt from my mother.

My mother is a beautiful, strong, vocal Black Haitian Woman. The woman who gave birth to me is a now-healed Black Haitian woman in Port-Au-Prince Haiti. I was her first born child with my father, the best Black Haitian man I know. If you know anything about life in Haiti, I’m sure you know for many people, leaving Haiti to obtain better opportunities and provide for their family was necessary. My mother was one of 12 children, my father one of 5. Although in the eyes of most Haitians we were seen as well off, it was not enough to provide what a child needed.

Every year on my birthday, my mother and father call me and tell me the story of my birth, the struggle they went through, and their love for me. When I was born, I was a sick child. I struggled to take formula, and constantly needed breast milk. The special forms of formula needed could not be obtained in Haiti. My mother struggled to maintain breast milk supply and earn enough money for a generic form of formula that would be ok for me. My father worked several jobs in order to provide for us, but still it was not enough.

At a little over 12 months I became quite ill after catching some form of virus. Unable to obtain the nutrition or medical care I needed due to the lack of medical care available in Haiti, my mother and father described that one night I passed away in their arms. My mother described feeling as if her life was over. My father described that the family prayed over me, thinking I had passed away, however as they prayed I began to take another breath. My father describes that to be the moment he knew God was real (he is now a pastor).

It took years of therapy to realize that, that was also the moment my mother became determined to do whatever it took to be able to provide financially for her family so their lives would never be at risk again. That was the moment she made the decision to leave her almost 2 year old daughter behind as she traveled to France, and eventually America, to make a better life for her family.

I didn’t see my mother again until I was 4 years old. For a child, 3 years felt like a lifetime. So many things occurred for me in that timeframe that she was absent. Traumatic things happened to me that she wasn’t there to hold my hand for. Women in my life that were left to take care of me didn’t provide me with the love she thought they would. I’ll save those stories for a later date.

I remember when my father and I finally got our visas for America. For the past 3 years I would send tapes to my mother, telling her about my day, that I loved and missed her, but was almost forgetting her face. What did she even look like? I got on that airplane, and envisioned what she looked like, my grandmother’s eyes probably since we all have her eyes, maybe her freckles. Did we have the same lips? People always told me I was my father’s twin so did I look like her at all?

Coming off the airplane, I remember going down the escalator and looking around everywhere for a woman that looks like my grandmother, but couldn’t find her. Then my mother pops out from behind the wall screaming “Surprise!” She held balloons and a teddy bear for me. I remember holding my fathers hand so tightly, not sure if I should let go. Is this really her? I remember us walking to my mother’s car where my uncle was sitting in the front seat. My mother later explained she asked him to drive because she wanted to sit in the backseat with my father and me.

I will never forget my first car ride in America; we drove from Logan Airport to Harwich, MA, which was about an hour and 15 minutes. I remember my mother holding my hand, playing with my fingernails and twirling my hair. I remember her making a comment about how now that we are together she will make sure to take good care of my hair.

I remember feeling hungry and my mother pulling out a bag of snacks with several choices because she wasn’t sure which one I would like. I chose the cheese puffs, but this was the moment I realized American cheese puffs and ones made in Haiti don’t taste the same–we use real cheese. So it didn’t take long for those cheese puffs to end up outside my stomach and into a plastic bag.

Oddly enough, My mother felt honored to be able to clean it up. I remember wanting to lay on my dad after, because I was always daddy’s little girl. When my mother wasn’t around, my father and I were never apart unless we HAD to be. As I laid my head on my father’s chest, I peeked over and could see the disappointment in my mother’s face. “Should I lay on her instead?” I thought. I now realize that moment was the start of me wanting to do anything I can to please my mother.

I placed my head on her lap and fell asleep. I later remember my father carrying me up the stairs to our new home, and my mother changing me into my new pajamas. My first night in America, my mother was laying on one side of me as my father was laying on the other side. I was the luckiest Haitian girl.

See, it’s not abnormal in the Haitian community for one parent to leave the family while in Haiti in order to search for a better life and financial stability. Most Haitian women I speak to discuss either growing up without their mother or father but oftentimes, their mothers. Most times it is due to their mothers’ being left in Haiti while they live with their fathers in America. For me it was the opposite. But I knew so many Haitian girls back home who weren’t experiencing what I was now experiencing.

I remember waking up that next morning to the smell of the most amazing meals being cooked. At first I thought it was a dream, am I really here? I felt like we lived in the most beautiful place. Even though my mother, father, and I lived in one bedroom sharing a house with my 2 uncles and my mother’s cousin, at the time I couldn’t imagine asking for more.

My mother came upstairs to check on me as I woke up; she heard me calling for my dad but came upstairs instead. I remember being startled seeing her again, but remember to myself “oh yeah, you’re here now.” I remember her kissing me and hugging me and presenting me with several new clothes, toys, ribbons, bows–OH MY! But after showing me all that affection, she also began to tell me that as a lady I needed to get up, take a shower, fix my bed,  then go downstairs. I, of course, followed directions because I didn’t want to upset her. I didn’t want to be without a mom again so I better make sure I act right!

This feeling that I had, “better make sure I act right!” Lasted for years. It lasted at times when I felt my mother didn’t understand me. It happened at times I would get punished for my siblings actions, it happened when I was expected to come home and take care of my siblings, cook meals and still find time to do my own school work. The pressure to act right, was actually, at times, causing me to be unable to act right. Ever heard of that little thing called “self sabotage?”

As a teen, self-sabotage might as well have been my middle name. Let me explain what self-sabotage means before I dive deep into exploring. My training and Masters Education in Mental Health Counseling as well as my years of experience has provided me with a plethora (I like to throw in some big words here and there) of knowledge on self-sabotage behavior. This type of behavior limits others from accomplishing their overall goals, even when you aren’t aware of it happening. Feeling overwhelmed and having to meet unrealistic expectations causes individuals to self-sabotage. Some people can probably see my self-sabotage as regular teenage behavior, however in my culture it wasn’t regular.

In my case, an example of self-sabotaging behavior would be moments I would make what would seem to be the most unprecedented behaviors when it came to my family’s expectations. It seemed that the harder I tried to reach perfection so I could obtain a warm embrace and positive feedback from my mother, I would still end up making a mistake that would cause her to be unhappy with me–and let me tell you, when my mother is upset with you, be prepared for weeks of silence. That silence even came with less affection and warmth, how much less affection can a child who spent years without her mother deal with?

See, the women in my culture have been taught to also be strong. Don’t show signs of weakness because if you spend time focusing on weaknesses, then you will never be successful in the eyes of the Haitian culture. So we never spend more than a day grieving, we don’t talk about our emotions, we don’t understand mental health, and children should always be obedient or else you have failed as a parent. For my mother, she would constantly sacrifice her energy and sanity working long hours to provide for everything her family needed. So in her opinion, that sacrifice needs to be respected.

At that time, I never knew what it meant to experience that fear as a parent, that fear that you may have failed your child. Until I became a mother, I only understood what it felt like to fail your parents, and I hated that feeling. I also was wise enough to understand that I was lucky to be where I was instead of back in Haiti.

The Haiti I remember, seems like a fictional story now. Over the years, I watched the country I love continue to burn to the ground and there became this sense of fear that I would do whatever I needed to in order to never be FORCED to live there again in the same conditions. Parents in my culture knew that was a fear for most children who migrated to the United States and would often use it as a threat for punishment when children would “misbehave.”

But here is the issue with my mother’s expectations and what they were doing to me:

1. The pressure to always do the right thing caused me to question my decisions and thoughts constantly and triggered behaviors such as indecisiveness.

2. The pressure to not disappoint my parents would cause severe anxiety and depression. Stress is a contributor to anxiety and depressive thoughts.

3. The lack of emotional connection often made me feel alone, misunderstood, worthless and hopeless. A hopeless teen, left alone to her thoughts is never a good thing. The teenage mind is not fully formed: the frontal lobe doesn’t fully form until you are between the ages of 21 and 25. So this means that naturally teens and young adults struggle with consistently making the most rational decision, especially when other contributors are in place such as stress and peer pressure.

4. Trying to constantly please someone by sacrificing my happiness caused me to behave this way in relationships with friends and romantic relationships–at times sacrificing my morals, lowering my self-esteem, and failing to acknowledge my worth.

In college I experienced a horrible dating interaction that took me down the road of self-blame. I began doing poorly on my coursework, and my professors would pull me aside to ask if I was doing ok. I remember my only Black Professor at the time asking me if I needed a hug. Normally, I would have said no, but this day, I remember thinking to myself, “I wish I could hug my mom,” and began to cry. She reached in and gave me a hug and walked me over to the counseling center. I remember before she walked away she said, “You know, we can’t always be the strong ones.” I didn’t understand then what she meant, but now I get it. I get it now… Black woman, I not only get it, but I feel it now.

After years of therapy, I understand now why it’s important culturally for me to allow myself to not always live up to this “Strong Black Woman” narrative. My mother has been the “Strong Black Woman” her whole life. What choice did she really have? Taking a moment to focus on her feelings meant time not focusing on work or the needs of her family and extended family who depended on her. She never got mental health support for trauma that may have occurred from living in a 3rd world country and experiencing natural disasters, gang wars, and more.

But, I learned that I couldn’t allow my mother’s hurt to also be my hurt. The reality is, I didn’t ask to be conceived. My mother is allowed to have her own happiness and so am I. Basing my happiness on her level of acceptance was causing me emotional turmoil.

Now that I am a mother, I have reframed my way of thinking when it comes to building a relationship with my mother. I have learned that I do need to protect that little girl inside of me still desiring a close, emotional relationship with her mother by putting in boundaries based on understanding who my mother is as a person.

You see, normally as a child you can’t see your parents as adults with their own lives, their own traumas, triggers, flaws, and more. Naturally, you expect them to live up to your own, unrealistic expectations. An example can be a child who always wants to play with mom when she comes home from work. The child doesn’t understand that their mother is exhausted from her day and really wants to sit down, maybe watch some trashy TV. On Monday, mom plays, on Tuesday mom plays and now on Wednesday mom is so overly stressed that she snaps at her kid who is only asking to play. Kid now feels mom hates him/her, mom feels guilty and goes into deeper depression and the cycle continues. I am kid, kid is me, I am also now mom. I relate to mom, I now relate to my mom.

One of the things I have learned is that I was seeking behaviors from my mother that were completely unrealistic based on her upbringing, traumas, and other factors completely out of her control.

In the United States, mental health care became acknowledged in the 1800s; The National Mental Health Act was created in 1946 by Harry Truman. In the 1960s, although controversial, mental health care became available to Black Americans. While this may have been the case in the United States, in Haiti however, my mother knew nothing about mental health care. Research on mental health illnesses and services did not begin until the 2005 Earthquake. So to make this clear, it took over a million people to die from a natural disaster that only caused greater poverty and stress, in order for mental health care to become important. So how could I expect my mother to address her traumas?

I needed to practice more patience with my mother, just as I was asking of her. I also needed to stop connecting my happiness with her happiness and level of acceptance. It was also time that I accepted my mother for who she was, understood her ways of communicating, and acknowledged that although I may not agree with her, I now trusted that her opinions came from a place of love. I now take the initiative to communicate the things I need instead of expecting it from her. So if I want a hug, I just reach for a hug, my mother will never turn me away.

I now think of my relationship with my mother as similar to a relationship you may have with a hard coach. They are constantly making you do drills, single you out  at times in front of others, on you about your GPA and more. Maybe you feel frustrated, then you reach that goal, win that game or whatever and realize, “Wow, that’s why my coach was so hard on me so I can do better.”

I know my mother’s goal is always wanting the best for me. She has never given up on me; I will never give up on her.

Dear Mommy, I Love you.

Meet Marie Romilus, MA, CPC, and founder of Bel Lavi Life Coaching. Bel (meaning beautiful) and Lavi (meaning life) has a mission to provide guidance and partnership to a diverse community of individuals who want to overcome their obstacles and achieve true happiness and success.

Korri Piper

Korri Piper fights the propaganda in advertising

Beauty and the Advertising Beast

What’s more maddening than not remembering important information like the date of your anniversary, state capitals, or how to help your kids with third grade math? Yet somehow you can word-for-word sing the jingle of a tire store from your youth.

I always imagined a career in marketing would be very much like a “Mad Men” episode—a bunch of brilliant, beautiful folks sitting around a table banging out genius campaigns over the course of a meeting. I thought subject matter experts would advise on copy with facts and confirm appropriate representation in art direction. That childhood naiveté was reinforced by adults extolling the virtues of right and wrong, truths and lies, telling us “Be smart enough to discern between them.” It’s a hefty weight to carry, but I was armed with facts.

I came of age at the tail end of GenX just before the analog to digital switch occurred and a massive deluge of content became accessible to everyone. On the 3 channels we had in my youth, I was assured daily by the tone and timber of Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Diane Sawyer’s voices that I was safe and informed.

Then a whole bunch of things happened; The World Wide Web was born. Libraries transitioned to electronic catalogs and research methodologies. Access to the internet and a computer enabled you to ostensibly figure out anything. Now people carry around pocket computers. For a kid who grew up in heated debates over misheard lyrics, this was my chance to be Right. All. The. Time.

That didn’t happen. What eventually transpired was distinctly capitalistic. The potential for advertising dollars offered a much shinier pile of lucrative gold than sharing boring old information. What was that glimmering beacon of playing-field-leveling-messaging going to bring to the global citizens of the world? Penis pills and hair loss treatments. We shouldn’t be surprised that “alternative facts” followed shortly thereafter.

As with most lessons in acquiring wisdom, motherhood helped me wrap my head around the effects of a lifetime of advertising bombardment. The 24-hour news and commercial cycle are energy-depleting, nerve- frazzling, and pervasively toxic—add to that overprogramming is more of a sport of necessity than a lifestyle choice and you find yourself with folks who simply can’t keep up with mining facts for the health and betterment of future generations.

So much of that noise makes its way into our daily lives. Are you buying organic food? Is the distributor fair to farmers? Are you cleaning with nontoxic detergents? Are those containers recyclable? Are the recyclers recycling? Are you on the right meds? Are your parents on the right meds? Is your dog on the right meds? Why are commercials telling us which medications to ask doctors for? Why are our foods, transportation methods, and products full of poisons? Can somebody please introduce me to the “9 out of 10 dentists recommend” cohort? I have questions.

Amid the information hurricane that exists in my brain, I watched my tween daughter walk away from me at the grocery store. I selected the items I needed and headed to exactly where I knew I’d find her: the health and beauty aisle. She was jockeying for me to purchase another “volumizing” shampoo and “calming” conditioner (because real fun is shopping contradictions). She knew these products would deliver because it says so on the bottles.

Do you remember the marketing brilliance that was Salon Selectives? (There’s a jingle I can still sing to you). I remember thinking this is
the magical elixir. Surely if I’m clever enough to pick the correct combination it will revolutionize my life... [entrée product graveyard, stage right]. Spoiler alert: the revolution never came.

What did come was a whiplash flipbook of women throughout time using nightshade belladonna to achieve anime eyes, blanching their faces with lead-based ceruse for a perfect complexion, applying mercury to eliminate blemishes, and baby oil to soak up UV rays. Literally dying in the name of “beauty.” Now me. Next my daughter.

Didn’t women share knowledge with the community through song before we were allowed to read and write? We literally transferred information via quilting patterns and hairstyles. Why can’t we cut through the propaganda to disseminate what’s healthiest for us and our families now?

I told my daughter the words on the bottles were the livelihood of a copywriter and not a scientist or hair expert. I explained that genetics and diet are where you’re getting your hair from and although a bottle can mitigate some “issues,” it’ll never deliver the picture of perfection in your mind. (It’s a stupid picture: it’s also not you.) I put a moratorium on buying additional products until she educated herself on ingredients and their efficacies.

She outlearned me in a nanosecond. Suddenly she could pronounce 6-syllable chemical words and explain if they contained carcinogens or not. In fear of losing all credibility, and in a complete lack of time and resources, I sat down with her to watch a four-part documentary series on HBOMax called “Not so Pretty.” It covers the skincare, makeup, nail care, and haircare industries.

It’s not fun. It’s not a celebration of girl-power. It’s not a big hurrah moment that affirms we’ve taken advantage of all the knowledge at our literal fingertips and made women feel like the best version of ourselves with product offerings that are safe and good for the world. It is a guidebook however, serving a potent reminder that even in the age of easy access to information we can’t always believe what we’re told because the onus is on us to research everything we put into ourselves and our families. There are plenty of apps out there like Think Dirty, Healthy Living, and Detox Me to meet our need for information at-a- glance and somewhat mitigate the issue at hand.

Just exercise caution and patience when you find them plastered with advertising. Until then, make like the young gals and wear sneakers with your dresses—redefine beauty that’s healthy for you.

Candy O’Terry

Relationships. Are. Everything.

Three simple words.  Huge meaning.  Don’t you agree?

Of course, relationships are the foundation of our personal lives, but they are also at the core of our professional success stories, too.

Over the past 28 years, I’ve had the absolute honor of interviewing nearly 1000 women from every walk of life, first as the creator and host of Magic 106.7’s weekly Exceptional Women program and now as the host of The Story Behind Her Success podcast and radio series.  Without exception, when I ask women how they got to where they are today, they end up telling me about their village, their circle of support.  And you know what else they say? “I’m a relationship person.”

As a communications coach (yes, I do that, too) clients often ask me how to develop their business relationships in a memorable, authentic way.  This can be especially difficult in a post-pandemic environment where so many of us work from home. The answer is simple, but it requires intention:  be a connector. Make no mistake about it, being a connector requires time and energy.  It means being the kind of person who makes the extra effort to connect one person to another in the hopes that something good will happen.

The truth is, friendships at work matter just as much as they do in our personal lives. Relationships in business create in-roads and opportunities that lead toward success.

Trusted relationships give us a wealth of knowledge when we need advice. They also give us a support network when we need a safety net.  Like a jewel at the bottom of the ocean, relationships are a treasure.  They expand our sphere of influence and enrich our lives.

And here’s the secret to building lasting relationships:

It’s not about you.  It’s about them.

When we do something large or small for someone else, we build what I call “karma equity” and good karma attracts great results.  Good goes around. I have lived my life by this mantra.

In his ground-breaking book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie wrote: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people to be interested in you.”

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10 Essential Relationship Building Blocks

1. Make sure your daily To Do List includes engaging with at least 1 person you don’t know very well or reaching out to a client, just to re-connect.

2. Small talk is BIG tal

3. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

4. Listen with intention and put away your phone.

5. Ask questions like: “What can I do for you” or “If there is ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

6. Strive to be a connector, a problem solver and a resource.

7. Attend virtual and or in-person networking events regularly. Do this because you will always learn something new and/or meet someone new to add to your list of valued connections.

8. In the words of my mentor, Don Kelley: “do what you said you were going to do when you said you were going to do it.”

9. Never forget to return a favor and send a thank you note!

10. Remember:  when people are deciding who they want to work with, chances are:  they want to work with their friends.

For a weekly dose of inspiration, please download my podcast series, The Story Behind Her Success, available on all podcast platforms.  If you know someone I should feature on the show, I’d love to hear about her, just go to candyoterry.com.