EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Growing up, Jada helped Willow feel accepted throughout her emotional, physical and sexual development (5:54-6:55)
- “When Willow was becoming a young woman, I was like, ‘Oh, no. I want her to know I’m her person to guide her through her emotional development, her physical, sexual development, her everything.’” – Jada
“The sexual and the physical development, I always felt so open and accepted.” – Willow
“Yeah.” – Jada
“’Cause you never made me feel like you hadn’t been through something, and I feel like a lot of moms want to keep this picture-perfect look of themselves even to their own daughter.” – Willow
“Well, sometimes, I think some women have a lot of shame around–” – Jada
“–There was so much taboo around sex back then. But I understand, too, for me, what my mother’s experience was, so she was just trying to keep me from making the mistakes
that she had made.” – Gammy
“And you were trying to keep me from making the mistakes that you made, and I decided
to bring you close to show you that you didn’t have to deal with our misguidance.” – Jada
Jada’s “biggest wound” is her fear of not being protected due to a lack of security after her grandmother passed away at age 13 (7:16-8:19)
- “My thing was just not having protection. That’s my biggest wound that comes out in all my relationships. And I’ve looked for [the] craziest kinds of, like–” – Jada
“–Of protection.” – Willow
“–Protection. And I don’t have a really good sense of what’s safe and what’s not. I’m either extremely protective or extremely defensive.” – Jada
“Right, and I’ll tell you why. The environment, it was my addiction. She [Jada] found her security through my mother.” – Gammy
“Yeah. Yes.” – Jada
“Right? But Mommy died when Jada was 13. When Mommy died, that’s when my addiction really took off. That’s a really important time to feel secure and safe.” – Gammy
“That’s when your womanhood starts.” – Willow
“Yeah. And that’s when she lost her security. You know, my mother was her backbone.” – Gammy
“Yeah, and her house was safe. And so once she was gone, there was no safety, so then I went into the world and created my own safety and that was crazy.” – Jada
Jada is a ‘terrified little girl’ hiding underneath a seemingly strong demeanor (8:19-8:51)
- “So I had to, like, deal with a lot of stressful adult things at a young age. I didn’t have the ability to deal with the emotions that were coming with it. I just had to buck up.” – Jada
“Right.” – Kelly
“And so those women that you see and you think are so strong, there’s this terrified little girl underneath.” – Jada
“Yeah.” – Gammy
“And that’s me.” – Jada
“Aww, Mommy. I mean, this is why we do the work.” – Willow
“It’s part of the journey.” – Jada
Jada, Gammy and Willow all felt a lack of support, shame around having emotions (8:53-9:58)
- “Willow, do you have any understanding of your mother hunger yet?” – Jada
“Obviously, I was so supported throughout my entire childhood, but there were definitely times where you had trouble looking at your anxiety and your hurt, and so when I was trying to be open about mine, there was no room for that at the time.” – Willow
“Yeah, it’s, like, a lack of emotional support.” – Jada
“100%.” – Willow
“Yeah.” – Jada
“That’s kinda how I was raised, and that’s how I raised her was, like, ‘toughen up.’” – Gammy
“Yeah, ‘toughen up.” – Jada
“I used to hold a lot of shame and thinking that something was wrong with me or I was too emotional.” – Willow
“Right.” – Jada
“Or I had a problem. But then when I asked you, like, ‘I wanna know you as Jada. Like, I don’t wanna just know you as my mom.’ And we started opening up that conversation and I learned more about her childhood and the kind of environment that you grew up in, I was like, ‘obviously me being a bleeding heart at every turn is gonna look extremely dangerous. Of course. Like, that makes all the sense to me.’” – Willow
“Well, it’s just foreign.” – Jada
“Right.” – Kelly
“Totally. But now I’m an adult, and I still come to you all the time.” – Willow
Gammy’s mom taught Jada everything she knew about sex, but would try to scare Gammy out of intimacy (11:04-12:05)
- “I was the youngest of four. I needed more touch and cuddling, and that didn’t happen. And then there was the overprotection with the guidance of just having in her mind how she wanted things to be. And her expectations. And when it came to sex, trying to scare you out of–” – Gammy
“Right.” – Jada
“You know, everything is dirty.” – Gammy
“But she guided me. Her mother taught me everything about sex.” – Jada
“In a way that was helpful?” – Kelly
“Yes!” – Jada
“You were okay with your mother helping Jada with her– with sexual guidance?” – Kelly
“I didn’t know.” – Gammy
“Yeah. That’s how it goes.” – Kelly
“I would’ve been okay with it, had I known, but just the fact that she didn’t feel the need to inform me–” – Gammy
“The mother of Jada. Right?” – Kelly
“Yeah.” – Jada
“But that was also probably her ownership of you.” – Gammy
“Yeah.” – Jada
“Like, ‘Adrienne is her mother, but she’s my responsibility.’“ – Gammy
Gammy told Jada to pursue Hollywood instead of law school (12:08-13:21)
- “Gam did show up at some really pivotal moments. The day-to-day guidance was really not great, but when it came to some real life-changing experiences– whether I was gonna stay in college or go to law school, she was like, ‘Oh, no, you meant to– we going to Hollywood, girl.’ You know, who–what mother tells a child that?” – Jada
“I love that. That’s some beautiful guidance.” – Kelly
“Yeah, it was gorgeous guidance. ‘Cause I felt all the confidence in the world. Because if she had said to me everything else that other people were telling me, like, ‘That’s a waste of time,
you need to stay in school.’ My mother was like, ‘Oh, no. We’re gonna go to California, and we’re gonna figure this out.’” – Jada
“Okay, then you feel like you can do anything.” – Kelly
“Exactly.” – Jada
“Yeah.” – Kelly
“So it was moments like that– got into some real difficulty in Baltimore.” – Jada
“Got you out of Baltimore. That was–” – Gammy
“And she got me–she was like, ’Pack your…right now. Get in this car.’ And so that put me on the trajectory that I needed.” – Jada
“I feel like you saw her in a way that like –”- Willow
“Oh, absolutely.” – Gammy
“No parent just says that to a child if they don’t see something special in them that they’re like, ‘Okay, there’s a spark there that I don’t feel like is gonna get ignited in a courtroom.’” – Willow
Gammy saved Jada from potentially being trafficked when she was alone in Italy (13:23-14:40)
- “You know what, there was another time, too, Gam, when I was in Italy by myself. And I called you. ‘Cause remember when the valet said to me,’I have a boat. I wanna take you out to dinner?’” – Jada
“Oh, geez.” – Kelly
“And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’m in Italy. I’m 20.’ You know what I’m saying? Yeah, exactly. So I called my mother. I was like, ‘Mom, the valet wants to take me on this boat.’ She said, ‘Well, first of all, if he has a boat, what’s he doing parking cars? And second of all, you are not getting on no boat with nobody. If something happens to you, nobody’s gonna hear you. You’re gonna be in the middle of nowhere. Do not Jada.’And I said, ‘Oh, snap, Mom. You right.’ And let me tell you– ’cause I was ’bout to get on that boat.” – Jada
“How old were you?” – Kelly
“I was 20.” – Jada
“20? See? Still need a mom. That’s beautiful and speaks to the bond. Even though the bond had been through periods of times that had broken points, a daughter always wants her mother. And if a mother’s ready to receive and be there then, there’s always time for repair.” – Kelly
“Yeah, ’cause for all I know, I could’ve been trafficked. Straight up. ‘Cause they knew I was alone. I think to that day, I’m like, ‘She saved my life again.’” – Jada
Gammy dropped everything and moved to Australia to help Jada raise Willow and Jaden during The Matrix filming (14:45-15:28)
- “Another moment for me was when you asked me to go to Australia with you.” – Gammy
“Oh, yeah, when I got ‘The Matrix,’ and I literally just had Willow. We were gonna be in Australia for like a year and a half. And I called my mom and I was like, ‘I need some help.’“ – Jada
“And I did not hesitate. I did not have a conversation with my husband at the time. She asked me and I immediately said, ‘Absolutely.’ Because I knew that it was an opportunity for us to heal.” – Gammy
“There was this healing in watching her give to them what we didn’t have. But we were having it through them.” – Jada
Touch was a major part missing in Jada and Gammy’s relationship as the two rarely hug (15:43-16:31)
- “Because one of the things that was so missing in my relationship with my mother and with Jada was just touch. Very rarely will you see Jada and I even touch, Hug, you know.” – Gammy
“And if we do, it’s awkward.” – Jada
“Yeah, it is awkward.” – Gammy
“Because we didn’t hug in our family. We knew we were loved.” – Gammy
“Yeah.” – Jada
“But it just wasn’t that kind of nurturing touch. And you remember how you always wanted to–” – Gammy
“Cuddle.” – Willow
“–Cuddle and sleep with us and–” – Gammy
“I mean, you let me sleep with you.” – Willow
“Oh, I know. That’s what I’m saying. We cuddled a lot.” – Gammy
“We cuddled a lot.” – Willow
“But that was different for her. She never cuddled with me.” – Jada
“Yeah. And it felt so good. It felt so good to be able to have that, and I never had it. When I had it with you, then I missed it with Jada. I realized how much I missed with her.” – Gammy
No love in her household made Tanika Ray start drinking at age 14 (17:40-18:14)
Born into grief, Tanika Ray was never told ‘I love you’ by her mother (20:50-21:25)
25-year-old Katrice Newell from Atlanta joins the table to share her struggles with Mother Hunger (24:42)
Mother of two, Rachelle Kelln of Saskatoon who lost her mother at age two, shares her story of how a lack of nurturing played out in her life (28:23)
