Tika Sumpter Is Down for Some Enjoyable

Hello, it’s Grace, Editor-in-Chief of Dad and mom. Welcome to my bi-weekly column, the place I’ll carry you conversations with well-known personalities sharing their experiences on this experience referred to as parenthood.

Grace Bastidas, Editor-in-Chief

Tika Sumpter is giving me mother pal vibes. Though we’ve simply met, the actress and I instantly join over having been raised by resilient girls. Each of whom needed to push ahead after they immediately discovered themselves divorced and heads of households. “My mother went from being a stay-at-home mother to having to get a job as a corrections officer at Rikers Island,” Tika says. “It was sink or swim, however she swam.”

I’m conversant in that grit and perseverance as a result of I noticed it in my mom, who, like Tika’s, didn’t fiddle. “She tried her greatest to maintain us youngsters in line,” says the star of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, who has a extra relaxed relationship together with her personal daughter, Ella, 8, with husband Nicholas James. “I assumed I’d be a troublesome dad or mum due to my mother however I’m not. I’m down for the enjoyable. If she needs to get on a curler coaster, I’ll go together with her!” Tika says. “Now we have this playfulness that enables her to be herself. My capability to [instill] that in her is my superpower.”

Ella was the inspiration behind your new youngsters’s podcast, Adventures of Curiosity Cove, a collection of magical tales exploring social emotional studying. What has she taught you?

After I get slightly hyper, she’ll put her hand on my coronary heart and say, “Mother, breathe.” She’ll do it in such a soulful approach. She’s the one girl who can inform me to loosen up in a approach that isn’t condescending. I inform her on a regular basis that she’s so a lot better than me. The opposite day, she stated, “You’re a extremely good mother.” Typically I really feel like I’m such a failure as a result of I’m all the time working. However she simply began rattling off all of the issues that I’m to her, and my eyes began watering. I assumed, I’m doing job. It validated all of the issues that I poured into her.

We may be so laborious on ourselves, however our kids see us a lot in a different way. I’m certain the identical was true for you and your mother.

Seeing my mother work so laborious made me need to be a greater daughter. I’m the center little one out of seven youngsters, two of whom have been adopted. I keep in mind all the time wanting to maintain the home clear for her as a result of she got here residence exhausted. I used to be like, “What can I do to make this higher?” I used to work at a movie show as a teen when my mother was retiring, and I’d have her come to the films and keep all day. I’d give her popcorn and sweet. I used to be so joyful that she bought reduction watching motion pictures free of charge. It was slightly escape.

What’s your escape? How do you unwind?

I prefer to take plenty of baths. I actually get pleasure from sizzling water and I prefer to torture myself. I can even put my cellphone away, get in e book, and switch off my mind. So, it’s the conventional stuff. Simply give me a second on my own with a closed door.

Identical. As mothers, we’re consistently desirous about all of the issues. How do you speak to Ella about being biracial?  

She is aware of we’ve totally different pores and skin tones and that she’s blended race. I don’t assume it’s honest to place any of my stuff on her since our experiences will fluctuate. Proper now, we’re homeschooling her. We’ll discuss Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights period, and the March on Washington. She loves historical past and has so many questions. She was in a personal faculty earlier than, however the bullying pushed me over the sting. I additionally felt like she was getting misplaced. She didn’t perceive sure ideas. My husband and I comply with a complete curriculum, and he or she additionally goes to a co-op. She’s already gentle years forward. For me, it’s about giving her extra catered time and suppleness.

You’ve talked about wanting one other little one earlier than. Is that one thing you’re nonetheless desirous about?

I did need a second little one and tried IVF as soon as. I do know they are saying it is best to do it a number of instances, however I didn’t have the vitality for it. Whereas having one other child didn’t work out for me, I pray that it really works out for different folks. The threads of motherhood are so interconnected that we generally overlook that everyone is simply attempting to determine it out and dwell their greatest lives. I’m you and you’re me.

A Remaining Thought

As Tika says, we’re all attempting our greatest. That’s why I really like the premise of her upcoming youngsters’s e book, I Bought It from My Mama (out April 2025), a few woman who learns that nobody is ideal, together with her mother, whom she idolizes. Can’t wait to learn!

Till subsequent time,

Grace

grace.bastidas@mother and father.com