Season 2, Episode 7: Raising Children Takes a Village - But What Kind?

That Social Work Lady

Episode 7, I welcome Ms. Maurita Mussawwir to the studio. Maurita is the perfect example of why #blackwomenstoriesmatter.
She is so unassuming in her mannerisms. You'd never know that she is parenting two different generations simultaneously. In our conversation, Maurita gets candid about her experience navigating potty training for one child and driver's training for the other at the same time! That alone is a major feat but in addition to parenting, Maurita is a full time engineer, volunteer, active member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, and more!
In our conversation we reminisce about our common experiences as Detroit girls. We reflect on the close knit communities of our childhood. And we recognize the ways we have both crafted communities to meet our children's unique needs. Children are for sure our greatest teachers. It is because of them that we are more intention about who we have in our lives and how we move in the world we inhabit.
Our childhood communities may have shaped us into the women we became but our children have redesigned the way we move in the communities we now inhabit. Maurita Mussawwir speaks a lot about her daughter's fearlessness and her son's ability to 'read a room.' Like many moms, she doesn't want to take credit for the unique ways her children's strengths have developed. But she agrees whole heartedly that she set the foundation from which they will build their own worlds. Just like the foundation the community of our childhood built for us.
Ms. Mussawwir is a native Detroiter, a Cass Technical High School graduate and alumna of Central State University (the midwest Historically Black College). She is a black women in engineering. Maurita is also a believer in community and defines community at it's core as people coming together to look out for each other.