And really, to get personal, I would have continued but I have a familial cholesterol problem so I have to take medication that I’m not allowed to take while breastfeeding him. I cried and cried because it was such a hard thing because I don’t know if I’m going to have another baby. When I say good, I mean they don’t get any maternity leave.Īnd to think that this country is claiming to be the best in the world but we do our mothers, especially our Black mothers, so dirty.īut Levi and I were able to do 14 months and we weaned him off and it was really sad. I’m blessed beyond compare.īut so many mothers are not in that position in this country. So that was one of the positive things about coronavirus, I didn’t feel pushed to stop my mothering in the way that I wanted to do it and go back to work, like so many mothers have to do. But we did it in our time, in a way that felt comfortable for both of us. The show that I’m currently on shoots in Atlanta and it’s a complete hot mess, disaster down there. I didn’t have to worry about going back to work. So the one silver lining from COVID was my parenting. And God was like, ‘Girl, if you don’t sit down somewhere.’ You have no idea that coronavirus is going to make you-you’re going to be in the house. But then towards the end, I got so worried that I wasn’t going to be able to continue to nurse him. So I was like, I’m going to take this time and I’m going to nurse him. I shot “Ballers” a week before I had him. Jazmyn: When I had him, I had just finished season one of “Raising Dion.” Then we shot Psych The Movie 2 when I was fully nine months pregnant. How did you navigate that and how did being quarantined help that process. MN: Jazmyn, I was on your Instagram preparing for this interview and I saw you writing about breastfeeding and the concern that you would have had to go back to work too soon and end that experience before you both were ready. She’s embracing being a beautiful Black girl in a society that doesn’t always see her as she is. We’ve been able to see that in all of its fullness. And it’s a very powerful thing to see a young girl turn into a young woman. She turned on her activism and she stands up for what she believes. And I’m telling you since then, we’ve got a little Angela Davis on our hands. Once she sat for one second to think about what’s going on. When George Floyd died, Dulé and I sat her on the couch and asked her how she felt about it. And she has all these really great opportunities that aren’t always available to children of color, to Black girls. I think in some ways we have protected her and shielded her from a lot of the injustices of this country and this world, just by nature of our business and our privilege as two actors. It has been more challenging with our daughter Kennedy during the Black Lives Matter protests. He’ll go to her room and knock on her door if she’s not up by a certain time. The only thing that breaks my heart is that she’s going to college in two years and it’s going to be so hard for all of us because he’s so attached to her. One needs a lot of mental support and one needs a lot of physical support. And like Dulé said, their needs are so different, we don’t ever feel overwhelmed with the two of them. So, there is a benefit of having an extra pair of mature hands to help us with Levi. When our hands are full doing something else, she steps right in and she’ll play with him or she’ll feed him. Jazmyn: I’ll add that having a 14-year age gap has benefitted us in a lot of ways because she loves him so much and she’s like a mini mom for him. It’s about making sure we stay alert and engaged for both of our kids, collectively but also separately. But I will say that I like him and love him just as much today as I did in March.ĭulé: I might irritate her a little bit more than normally but that’s to be expected. But I don’t think either one of us thought we would have a 15-year-old and a 10 month old and we would be relegated to spending 24/7 in our house together. Since we got together, we always made it a priority to be together. Jazmyn: I think that we learned that we can spend 24 hours a day with one another and not kill each other. MadameNoire: What have you guys learned about yourselves as a couple during quarantine? They’re way more than just pretty pictures. So we were happy to have the opportunity to speak with them about quite a few things including their relationship, how they’re explaining the current racial tensions with a teenage daughter, and even Jazmyn’s battle with prenatal sickness and depression. But we wanted to know a little bit more about them as a couple.
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