Life Is Not a Fairy Tale by Fantasia (e book reader free TXT) 📕

feel better than all those useless conversations put together. I sat in that prayer service and promised God that I would put my clothes back on.

It was hard going back into the life that I had created with all of my girls and our hootchie uniform. They were lookin’ at me like I was crazy when I suggested wearing a longer skirt. They just kept sayin’, “You are not going to get any play,” and that scared me into thinking the way that I used to: “What was I without the attention of men?” I knew this fear well because I had seen my aunts go through the same thing. But when we were with my grandmother we all were forced to cover up, and it was remarkable how popular we became when we went to visit other churches with my grandmother. I loved the feeling of those Christian eyes on me, but those men were out of my league. They were older than me and I didn’t know how to be any other way than a hootchie mama.

Truth is, the way you dress and the way you carry yourself attracts a certain kind of man. Every woman wants good and loving attention from her man and wants to be able to say that she has a man who really cares about her. That is what I always really wanted—and still do today. In my early life, I didn’t have any good examples of the kind of man that I now want and I couldn’t admit that what I really wanted was love. I grew up seeing women and men fighting with each other, calling the police on each other, and cheating on each other. I saw them hitting each other a lot too. I thought that anger, lies, and violence were a part of what made a grown-folks relationship. That’s all I ever saw.

Every human being wants to be loved for who they are, not what they look like. This is especially true for women. We want to be loved inside and out for our conversation, our smile, our spirit. There are so many more things that make a man fall in love with a woman. Being half naked and showin’ all you got isnot the way, even though it seems like the best way to get a man. It’s the media that has set us up to think like this.

The first time a guy addressed me with “What’s up, ho?” I knew that I had to changeeverything. And I remembered that man at the church who offered to carry my bag, even though it wasn’t even heavy. He just wanted to do it to make it easier for me. Suddenly I had new view of men. “Hey, ho” is a common greeting for the girls in the neighborhood. That’s what we say to each other! Although we think it’s a cool way of saying “What’s up?” it really isn’t cool and our children shouldn’t hear us talk to each other like that and they definitely shouldn’t hear our men talk to us like that.

If you have a child, like I do, you don’t want your son or daughter to see you like that and hear you being disrespectful to anyone or disrespected by anyone, even your friends. Frankly, you have to keep your children away from all of that. You have to class up your life, especially if you have a daughter. Classing up your life means raisin’ your standards. Being stricter about what you will or won’t do. Knowing the things that you will or won’t tolerate around you and your kids. Knowing what you will or won’t say. That’s showing class—having standards. Your daughter needs to know that she doesn’t have to show her body to get attention. You have to be the good example. Let your children see you leaving something to a man’s imagination—not only for your children’s sake, but for your own sake, as well. Your man (or potential man) will wonder what you must look like under your clothes.

Mystery is what makes a man call, because he really is interested in finding outmore about you. He may even think that you could be his wife, someday. A man doesn’t really want someone who carries herself like a hootchie mama. Besides hootchie mamas are not the kind of woman he would want to introduce to his own mama. You can be a little sexy, but class it up,please.

I’m not here to give fashion advice, because every woman has her own unique style. For me, I try to wear pant-suits, because they can show some of my body—but not too much of it. I wear fitted shirts that show my femininity, but not too much of my skin. I wear stylish cuts and colors to show that I’m in music, and, of course, I wear some outrageous shoes to show that I still love to have fun and am a little rebellious. Being fully dressed can say as much about you or more than taking all your clothes off.

All I am asking of you, my sistas, is to take yourself more seriously. Set a good example for your children and their friends. It doesn’t matter how high your heels are or even if you wear short skirts from time to time. What it mostly boils down to is how you carry yourself. Look like a woman who loves and respects herself, not like a woman desperate for a man’s attention.

This chapter is dedicated to my sistas—all the women in the world. I write this chapter for all the women and the daughters who have felt that they don’t have the love in life that they want. Good love in your life doesn’t have to come in the form of a man. The best love in your life is your self-love.

MY MOMENT OF

FAITH:WHAT I LEARNED

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The