February 2021 Founders Note
What I remember is this: In second grade, I had all “satisfactory” marks on my report card and one lonely “needs improvement.” I remember my mother immediately setting up a parent-teacher conference for the next day and then saying to me, “Simmone, your teacher says that you talk too much. But,” (and here she paused), “you don’t talk too much. You just have to be respectful and not talk over other people.”
As I recalled this memory recently, while lying in my bed before I fell asleep, I realized that it was highly likely that my seven-year-old self would have experienced this moment differently than my mother, so I called her to ask for help in recalling the fuzzy details.
Yes, my mother confirmed that I had a low mark on my second grade report card and, yes, she did immediately go to the school to understand why “needs improvement” was typed under the “behavior” column. Her daughter, the youngest of three, had lots of personality (actually my mom didn’t say that part, I did), but was a well-mannered child and had never had any complaints about her behavior. My teacher confirmed that it wasn’t my behavior, but rather, that I loved talking - a little too much - and I was asking my classmates what was on their minds a little too often, too.
As my mother recounted this memory, and I laughed hysterically on the other line, I was reminded that without stories, where would we be? How many times have you sat around at family gatherings and heard different versions of the same story from Auntie X and Uncle Y who could never agree on the same version?
We crave family history and often, that’s storytelling and oral history. There are companies founded with the sole purpose of helping us discover our origin story. If the 30 million people using 23&Me and Ancestry don’t prove there’s an appetite to understand where we came from, I don’t know what does.
This month, we are celebrating Black History Month and the importance of storytelling and oral history. The long and powerful tradition of passing down stories from generation to generation has been critical for BIPOC people, many of whom have limited or sometimes no paper trail to connect them to their family history, because of slavery.
Studies show that it is primarily the matriarchs of a family that preserve the oral history and pass down the stories, recipes and secrets. But it is also the writing of history that has erased the voices of women along the way, too.
Our spotlight with Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, dives deep into the lives of three extraordinary mothers who raised Black sons and pushed them toward greatness.
Speaking of generations, make sure to also check out our new audio series, “Generations by Poppy” where we listen in on conversations between birthing people and their children about their birth stories. We hear about the joy, pain and taboos around giving birth, and listen as these stories are shared across generations, because we believe these stories deserve a place in history, too.
With Love,
Simmone