Meet Brandi Sellerz-Jackson

Meet Brandi Sellerz-Jackson! The ever-evolving Brandi is a doula and founder of Not So Private Parts, an online platform and resource for women’s issues and lived experiences. Here Brandi opens up about the empowerment to be found in knowing our bodies, ingesting joy as a form of resistance and how, as a Black mother, hardship and celebration go hand in hand.

//

Who’s in your family and where are you based?

I’m Brandi Sellerz-Jackson. I live with my husband, John, and our three boys, Jax (16), Jedi (7) and Jupiter (4), and our dog, Chaka. We’ve recently relocated to Pasadena and we love it here, surrounded by the mountains; it’s all fresh air and green.

What’s it like having boys at such different ages?

I love it. Kids help you see and keep track of time while also reminding you how quickly it passes. I remember Jax being four years old, and now we’re looking at colleges and universities. It’s a good reminder that the things we’re navigating with our little ones are so temporary. And it reminds me to focus on the kind of humans I want to raise.

We choose to raise our kids with the intention of guiding them as kids, as opposed to raising them as adults. They will be adults far longer than they’re going to be children, so we try and put into them now, what we want to see when they grow up to be adults.

What word would you use to describe yourself as a woman, mother and partner?

I think I’m a student in all of those roles, but for different reasons. As a woman, I’m always learning who I am in this body, right now, in this space. It all continues to look different. I’m not the same person now that I was many years ago.

As a mother, I’m always learning, too. My kids always want and need something different as they change. I can’t stay with the same practices I had when they were two or three years old–not when they are fifteen. So I have to give my kids space to grow, just as they’ve given me space to grow.

And being a partner also means evolving. We’re not the same people as we were when we first met. We were eighteen and nineteen years old and then got married super young. Now we're thirty-nine and forty, so we’ve lived more of our lives together than apart. We’re not even the same as we were before the pandemic.

I think 2020 did a lot for people–clarifying what’s important, what’s needed, and all of those things. It gave people broader insight and perspective. Our personal 2020 was brutal. The year started with evaluating our partnership and marriage, then the pandemic hit and people were dying. There was racial upheaval, the Black Lives Matter movement and the riots. We would see the National Guard go by during the riots with guns drawn on the back of their trucks; it was nuts. I remember closing the curtains and trying to create some kind of haven for our family during a time that felt chaotic.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently writing a book with Penguin–it’s on thriving. It’s part memoir, part prescriptive. I draw from the natural world, looking at ourselves as plants with highly evolved feelings. I'm asking how we thrive in the rooms that we occupy, in rooms of grief, mental health, being ‘othered’, in relationships. All of these.

Why did you create your website, Not So Private Parts?

I started Not So Private Parts because I had my first miscarriage right before Jedi. I wanted to tell that story and share my experience on how I navigated my experience with miscarriage. And I also wanted to see how other people navigate that experience. But at that time, I couldn’t find many resources.

The more I shared, I realised that so many people had stories of their own. Not necessarily miscarriage stories, but other things you’re not supposed to be talking about. I wanted to share my story and share other people’s stories. I wanted to create a safe space for people to open up.

Growing up in the South, everyone went to church on Sunday mornings. The preacher would get up, preach, and then they’d have a thing called testimony service. During testimony service all people respond with “Amen”. Amen, like an affirmation. Amen, I hear you; amen, I see you. If I correlated it, an “Amen” is what we lack. We need more of that, in whatever form, whether it's a blog, forum, discussion or group. We need more of an “I see you”–we need an Amen response.

How have your subsequent pregnancies been impacted by your miscarriage?

I had to let go of control and surrender. The more I tried to hold on to control, the more I felt fear. I’d be trying to do all the right things instead of understanding it is all a roll of the dice and surrender.

What are we not talking about concerning women’s bodies?

Several things, but Black women are dying at three to four times the rate of their white counterparts during childbirth–so that’s one topic we’re not talking about enough. I believe in words and vocabulary, and we’re failing to specify not just that they’re dying, but that racism is what is killing them. The weathering of racism experienced within birth–that’s a big one that we're not talking about.

How do you advocate and fight for Black mothers dying in birth-related complications?

Being a doula is a big one, but it's tricky. I try my best to ensure that my folks who are Black are educated to know the process of birth, but more importantly, how to advocate for themselves. But there's a bigger system at hand that needs to shift dramatically– I can't fight a whole hospital, a whole system.

As a doula, are you surprised by how little people understand their body’s capacity to change, adapt and grow?

Absolutely, I feel it should be taught in school. People aren’t even versed in the names of their body parts. When someone says ‘vagina’, they think it’s the whole caboodle. Many people don’t know their bodies at all, and I wish it was taught.

I gave a period talk for my eldest son’s school. I remember they had the guys and girls in the same room, and I thought it was so great because they all need to know how bodies work. It also diffuses the taboo early on.

Why did you co-found Moms in Colour, your online collective for Black mothers?

I co-founded Moms in Colour with four other amazing women: Kelly McKnight, Ashley Chea, Candice Montgomery and Christina Brown. We founded it because there was a need.

We were tired of going to events and being in spaces where we were the only Black folks there. I thought, this doesn’t feel right so let’s shift it and create something that brings Black women together so we can celebrate and not wonder why we were invited to the party. It’s a space where we can all just be.

Are you a feminist?

From what I know, a feminist advocates for equal rights for women. So in that sense, yes, I'm a feminist. But I also advocate for equity. If the feminist movement focused more on equity, we’d be better off. We need to think about equity, the different levels of oppression and how they all intersect. So if anything, I’m an intersectional feminist.

Moving through the portal from maidenhood to motherhood, what surprised you most?

The shift from maiden to mother with my first child was gnarly. I was young, I wasn’t expecting it, and it caught me entirely by surprise. I remember feeling this need to get back to what I was like before. But I didn’t know just to sit in it and understand that I wouldn't be the same person again. I think with my other two sons, I learnt that you’re forever changed with every pregnancy. You’re forever different. Your baby leaves traces of themselves with you.

Transitions–pregnancy, birth, postpartum. How are you preparing for the next big one–menopause?

I’m definitely thinking about menopause. I love my kids and am so complete so we’re not having anymore. So that’s the next frontier and honestly, I’m looking forward to it. I have good friends that have started going through menopause, and I’m excited.

I think many people don’t talk about menopause because it relates to the end of our reproductive capacity and our value as women. Like all things, it’s a transition. Menopause is a phase that we go through and the more we prepare ourselves, the better off we are. But I think a lot of people don’t prepare themselves. We don’t prepare ourselves for birth, and we also don’t prepare for postpartum. I think postpartum, in a way, can prepare us for menopause because postpartum is a prerequisite of the awareness we should operate within menopause.

You were raised among girls and now you’re raising sons, what's that like?

It’s different in every way. I thought for sure I would have girls because that’s all I knew and now I can't see it any other way. I think the way they communicate is so different. My house always sounds like WWF play wrestling. The way they communicate is just loud and they’re very physical.

My mother, my sister and I–our communication was emotionally driven. Such different energy. There’s also the part where my childhood was riddled with loud noises but not happy loud noises. Up until age ten, it was violent. Now, the loud noises in my house are filled with laughter and toys flying through the air.

You lost your mum a few years after becoming a mum. How did you continue to connect with her?

Jax was five years old and I didn’t see it coming. As a mother and daughter, I still had questions. I had no choice but to lean into my own motherhood because the way my mother and I parent was always going to be different. Neither bad nor good, but just different.

I loved the way my mother mothered. I think she mothered the best she knew how and the best she could. But I also think she would want me to look at her mothering, take out the pieces that worked and leave the pieces that didn’t. Put them to the side. I know she would want me to do that.

If she were here now, she’d be like, “Listen, there are certain things that you can tell them over and over again and they’re just not going to get it until they get it. Let them get it when they get it.” This is one thing that I've strived to adapt and honour with my boys.

As the woman in the house, are you conscious of what you mirror for the boys?

We have a lot of open conversations. I’m always aware that, as their mother, I’m the first relationship they’ll have with a woman. I try to model all the things I want them to see. And I’m very transparent with them, so they see me in my womanhood, my humanity, as much as they can take, that is. They see me in the bathroom, rinsing out my period underwear, and they’re not fazed. Instead, Jedi was wondering when he would get his period.

Also, Jax was there for Jupiter’s birth–he was the one who caught Jupiter. He was at both his brothers’ births but he caught Jupiter. For so many men, the first time they see a baby being born it’s their own baby, and that's not my boys’ reality. I feel like I can say, “You’re welcome!” to whoever partners with our boys.

How do you support your boys to connect with their bodies? Are you and your partner intentional in supporting your boys to shed conventions and toxic masculinity? 

Transparency is a big thing for us. We try to talk about all the subjects. Pre-teen boys are nuts⏤they're discovering themselves and discovering their bodies, so we have lots of conversations around that.

One of the biggest things we try to do is allow them space to talk about their feelings. I don’t think a lot of men talk about feelings or give each other space to talk about feelings. Also, my husband tries to talk to them about ensuring they’re creating a safe space for women. Not just, “Don’t be an asshole,“ but be anti-those things. It's the same with racism: it’s not enough to say I’m not racist; you need to be an antiracist.

Raising Black boys who will become Black men in America–how does that feel to navigate as a mother and a family?

I have three boys. I have one that’s going to be out in the world in less than two years, so we’re almost there. It gets tricky because you just have to hope that what you’ve given them is enough. We’re at the place where Jax can learn to drive, but he’s afraid. He’s afraid of what happens if he gets pulled over. We’ve always had those conversations, but it’s different now he’s at the place where he actually could drive but isn’t sure if he wants to. It’s tough, but at the same time, you have to teach them to live.

How do you help them learn to live?

I think it comes back to modelling. We know what’s out there, but we have to live and we have to have joy. We have to find joy and thrive. Joy is how we resist, because if we’re always feeding ourselves trauma after trauma, we can’t live that way. It’s not sustainable.

And let’s be real, a lot of Black folks know what’s happening. We know. We know what happened to those who came long before us. I know it and I feel it. I feel it when I go to the ocean⏤I feel the vastness and the journey of being taken from one point to another. So you don’t have to tell us–we know. It’s in our DNA.

Black trauma is weathering for Black people, and that’s why we have to feed ourselves joy. Not only for ourselves but also for our children, so we can be here with them long term. Then also for the folks who came before us, so we can our ancestors. I ingest joy for all of them.

///