Careful Confrontation™

I am the elder daughter—and the only daughter—of Afro-Antillean Panamanian U.S. immigrants.

As a Black daughter, I know what it is to be labeled as capable so early that no one thought to ask if you were okay. I know what it looks like to become the mother in a household that already has one. I know what it feels like to be given responsibilities you did not ask for and to feel compelled to take them on because that is what a good daughter owes her parents. I know what it means to believe you have to earn the right to be loved and protected by being useful because, “your only responsibility is to do well in school so what do you even have to complain about?”

I first tried to solve my internal sense of unworthiness with academic and professional credentials. I earned a B.A. in English and American Literature from New York University, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from Vanderbilt University, an M.A. in Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness from New York University, and I have a doctorate, in progress, from Vanderbilt University. The Ivy League job and employment at premier New York City independent schools came in the midst of all that schooling. I believed that if I was credentialed enough, I would finally be permitted to matter. I was wrong.

The truth is no credential has ever made a Black woman feel she was allowed to stop. I did not find my worth in those institutions or workplaces. I found it in therapy, healing from my own relational trauma. I declared my authority by helping other Black women do the same.

As a Black daughter, you already know what you owe. You have known since childhood. What you have never had is someone who will sit across from you and say, “you are not her parent, partner, or provider; you don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.”

So let me be the first. Whatever she used to collect on this fraudulent debt—guilt, scripture, silence, the story of everything she gave up for you—was a tool. It worked and it was never love. My work is not to help you make peace with the debt. It is to help you stop paying a debt that is costing you financial, emotional, psychological, and spiritual freedom.

I will also tell you something no one else has. In my therapeutic space, she does not automatically get called “mother.” That is a title and titles are earned. As a Black woman who has earned every credential, title, access to a room, and paycheck, you already know this. If it is easier for you to call your mother by her first name, you are invited to do exactly that.

The Black woman in the corporate role and the Black girl in the independent school are the same person at different hours. One is parenting her mother. The other is learning how. Both are waiting for the achievement that will finally make them worth loving and protecting and both are paying for that wait with their mental health. It does not have to be this way.

Choosing to be witnessed is a radical act and creates new possibilities in your life. Dare to be radical. Dare to see what's possible. Dare to be witnessed™.

With love,

Francesca Walker, LMHC-D, NCC
Founder, Radical Possibility Mental Health Counseling, PLLC
New York State License #016636 | National Certified Counselor #1743343