MY DRIVE TO BE A DAD
“I am a protected Black dad. “
My name is Darren Graham. I am a content creator and contributing writer for a lot of your favorite blogs. I am a proud black dad of a two-and-a-half-year-old. I am West Indian. The only boy, middle child of three, and a proud Black and Brown man with visibility. I grew up in a space of no dads in the home. I was raised by the uncles of the village.
In 2018, I picked up the phone and told only two friends of my plans to adopt. I started the process, and then the pandemic happened. Initially, I did lose hope because I just knew that I had this journey to begin. There were so many children, especially Black and Brown kids, who were up for adoption. I knew that I wanted to give love, unconditional and consistent love, to a son specifically. In 2022, I got the call and had 24 hours to make the decision.
A FATHER’S PRESENCE
I come from a very strict background of single moms. My grandmother had 11 kids, nine girls and two boys. One passed on. One boy living with a bunch of sisters, all successful single mothers. Every single one of them. Bless their hearts. We were raised to understand that men do laundry. Men cook, men clean. Men pay the bills.
I didn't grow up with my dad. I grew up with a single mom of two. We grew up in Saint Vincent, a very tiny town in the Caribbean. It was not easy for my mom, being a single mother, having to support us. She worked very hard. She was very consistent and very loving.
We didn't have much, but we did have love. We did have consistency. We did have each other. And I just saw what the example of parenting could look like. Fast forward to now, my siblings and I are all still so filled with love for each other. That upbringing showed me what the possibilities were, and I said, “You know what, with or without a partner, I can make this happen. I can be a loving present parent.”
My mother also taught me, if you're going to do it, do it! Have it with intention and do it after you have healed, so you can be the best version of yourself for that child. My mom still is teaching me a lot. She's teaching me to be a student every single day
EMOTIONAL COMPASS
I grew up in the 80s, with a bunch of unhealed support, so emotions were not allowed. Their version of playing was spanking you and making you climb a coconut tree. There were no hugs. There were no kisses. There were no conversations about emotion. Because of this, I'm very, very transparent with my emotions around him. I feel like he needs that. He needs to know that it's okay to cry.
Healing is a process. I'm still healing. Where I'm right now. I think the adoption really pushed my healing. It was my first step towards getting that healing done. I wanted to heal the little boy in me. I wanted to experience what true, healthy love looked like -to know what it is like to give it. I wanted to show my son an example of what a life complete without trauma felt like because we were all given trauma without our consent.
PREPARATION and FOSTERING
I worked in education for 13 years before I adopted my son. I worked with the age group 3 to 11. I counseled them for a while. I became a parent advocate. I became the liaison for the school, and then I transitioned to being a community director. A lot of them were in foster care.
Because of my work, I was very connected to the foster care system, was very connected to the adoption side of things. And I was just like, whoa, wait a minute. We, especially within the Black and Brown communities, have all these hang-ups about adoption, but there's this beautiful side of it. And I just knew that was my journey. So I made a decision. I'm going to adopt.
FIRST THEY CALL YOU, THEN GIVE YOU A SON
He was born May 30, 2022. I got the call on June 1st. ‘Hey, your paperwork looks great. We've done all the checks and balances. But you have 24 hours because we have a baby boy for you.’
I was like, Is this a prank? Like, are you are we for real? I call my mom, and I only called my mom, and I was like, “Mom, what do you think? Do you think I'm ready?” She said, “Don't ask me. Ask God, are you ready?”
No one prepares you for the flood of emotions. Seeing my son for the first time at Presbyterian. He was a mere 2 pounds. He was born severely premature. I was told he might not live past two weeks. I was like, okay. Energy goes where energy flows, I thought to myself. If it's my kid and if he's ordained, he's going to be here. From that moment on, every single day, I had conversations with him. Encouraging him. Letting him know that I knew we were going to be out of here.
Every day, I left my job at noon, went directly to the hospital to sit with him, hold him, talk to him, and left at midnight Sunday through Monday for two months. On July 19th, he came home.
WHERE’S HIS MOM?
I had a lady at the supermarket ask me this. I was like, oh, there's no mom. It's just a healthy man raising a kid. I know you're not accustomed to seeing it, but we're visible.
I always tell people, do not paint me as a queer dad. I am queer, but I'm also a dad. So let's differentiate. I feel like queer men are so accustomed to just fighting constantly to protect their names and protect their identity, and to prove their identity. I'm not doing that. The way you feel is the way you feel, the way I feel, the way I feel. But I'm still here, and we're just going to have to work through that together because I'm not leaving.
I have learned how to have those tough conversations because you need them. My intention is to consistently be visible. And I want to say that again, my intention is to consistently be visible. I think as Black men, forget me being queer for a second, I think as Black and Brown men were, we were conditioned to with the notion that we should stand firm and always be militant.
ADOPTION
Visibility is essential. I want to talk more about what the process looks like. Especially for queer people, that don't really have the option sometimes for biological, you know, simulation. So that is a lot of process that people don't understand.
There are so many steps that people don't understand. There's still a year during which you are not allowed to leave the country with your child. You're not allowed to apply for a Social Security card. The endless amounts of paperwork that continue long after the child is in your full-time care. I've signed stacks of paperwork like every month for 12 months after he came home. We just finalized our adoption last year!
MY DRIVE …
Love drives me. Waking up in the morning drives me. Watching my son play again drives me. The simplest things, like sitting at a table with him, which we didn't have when I was growing up, drives me. My journey drives me. My healing drives me. My clothing with personality drives me as crazy as that might sound. I just think that life, being gifted the opportunity to wake up and see another day, drives me.
CREDITS:
Interview: Cori Murray @corimurra
Photography: Kadeem Johnson @kjohn_lasoul
Creative Direction: Andrew Dosunmu @shot_by_andrew_dosunmu
Editor: Oriana Soddu
ICON MANN thanks Toyota USA and HOT 97 for their support and partnership.
