What I Want My Daughters to Know

Photo by Kesha Lambert Photography via @triciasmithbrown

All this talk about Beyoncé and empowering women has got me thinking about future generations. If you didn't know, I'm crazy about kids. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted seven--it's my favorite number, after all. I'm much older and wiser than I was when I first decided that, but somehow that number hasn't changed through the years. I think of my children often: how I want to raise them, what I want to teach them, what instruments they'll take up, sports they'll play...essentially who I want them to become. So I made this list to remind me of all the things I want them to know when they're no longer figments of my imagination but actual humans walking the earth.

Nubian Skin Matters

(Photo courtesy of Nubian Skin)

As a pageant contestant for more than ten years, I am no stranger to the term "nude." The only issue is: nude has never really known my name. From underwear to shoes to mesh on a gown, there has never really been a nude that appeared nude on me. All I can come up with is designers often create the color with a much more fair skin tone in mind than mine, perhaps because of their largest demographic is white women. That I am not, so when I heard of brand that had designed nude underwear specifically for women of color, I was over the moon.