JCSU graduates launch platform to help mothers
Published Wednesday, September 13, 2023
By Mayra Parrilla Guerrero | For The Charlotte Post
JCSU graduates launch platform to help mothers
Every year, millions of mothers welcome a new addition to their family.
Many of them are first-time mothers who have difficulties adjusting and two Johnson C. Smith University alumnae have created a space to help them.
Carmen Knight and Reatna Taylor are the Founders of Mama Khronicles, a group that helps mothers share parenting advice, tips, and resources. “Mama Khronicles very much blossoms into a virtual community, but it is also like an in-person community as well,” Knight said. “It’s just been a journey that has been growing. We keep adding new moms to our community and so it just continues to add to the dynamic of motherhood for us as we're experiencing it to this day.”
Though Taylor graduated from JCSU in 2015 and Knight a year after, the two formed a strong bond while pledging Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in 2014. Upon graduation, they stayed in contact though they lived in different states. Taylor is a registered dietitian in Charlotte, while Knight works in digital marketing in Houston, Texas.
Additionally, Knight recently earned a certification as a post-partum doula, a service she hopes to bring to the organization.
Taylor gave birth to her first baby, a girl, in November 2021. A few months later Knight welcomed a baby boy.
As a new mother, Knight began to rely on Taylor for parenting advice. “Reatna was pregnant first, and so I was learning a lot from her, but I didn’t understand the magnitude until I became pregnant and I was asking her a lot of questions,” Knight said.
“Once I had my baby, we had so much more that we could talk about that she wasn’t able to fully put words to because I wasn’t a mom. Through Mama Khronicles, we’ve been able to kind of marry both of our experiences and understand that other moms are having these same experiences and we might not have the spaces to have those conversations, and we do not know where to get those firsthand experience or resources.”
Mama Khronicles was founded as a simple Instagram account in 2020 and their first post was shared on Mother’s Day 2021. Over time, the group blossomed into a space where mothers got together to connect.
In the Houston area, Knight organized community meetups and events.
“I was pregnant during the pandemic in 2021, and I was new to Houston and didn’t have any friends, so I got on Peanut (an online social network for women interested in parenting topics),” she said. “I was making all these connections with different moms and so once we were able to go back outside, I started hosting meetups. We’ve been having meetups and building up this physical community here and a lot of that took place from connections peanut that I was building.”
Though both women are in different cities, Taylor and Knight manage the group together.
While raising a 2-year-old and 3-month-old alongside a full-time job, Taylor contributes toward content creation and managing the existing page.
“A lot of it’s just brainstorming,” she said. “We talk all the time anyway, so sometimes we'd just be having regular conversation. We would just start talking about our chronicles and content and things that we were looking forward to and things like that.”
With more than 600 followers on Instagram, Taylor, and Knight are looking to turn Mama Khronicles into a non-profit organization. Both women have been working to create a team, mostly in Houston, currently to continue to grow the organization and eventually reach non-profit status.
“We do hope to have a team that we can build in the short term to with Reatna,” Knight said. “I also have my younger sister in California and we’re working on her being able to facilitate the same type of meetups and building our community there.”
Knight said the goal is for the organization to provide all these elements in all three locations.
“Right now, we’re having monthly meetings every month and they change. Sometimes they're more friendly only sometimes they're kids friendly,” Knight said. “And mothers in our group that just want to drop ideas out so we can all meet up, so it’s become its community where we are getting together and connecting outside of actual meetups.”
Knight said there are eight members, primarily in Texas. Some are mothers; others are allies. Childless people can also join.
“I joined Mama Khronicles because of the mission and the philosophy that has formed the organization,” said Chandler Rockward, the group’s master storyteller and a mother of two.
“The walk of motherhood is not an easy job and it’s nice to have a supportive group who understands how you feel and what you need. I was looking for a way to give back to my community and Mama Khronicles was the perfect place for me to continue my servitude.”
Rockward, who has been with the group since 2021, said it has helped her find resources for her children by providing parenting information.
“For me personally, it has helped me connect with other mothers in the area and get out of the house every now and then when there are mom meet-ups happening,” she said.
The organizers’ goal is to grow and become essential for mothers and Knight said she hopes to go full-time in the future.
“I really do see the impact that we have on our community just from what we're doing right now,” she said. “And I know that in the community I have the capacity to do more as it pertains to my services. I’m a really big connector. I love being a part of the community outside of just what I do on a day-to-day basis.”
