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 journey referred to as parenthood.

Grace Bastidas, Editor-in-Chief

Tika Sumpter is giving me mother good friend vibes. Although 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 out of the blue 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 children 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 believed I might be a troublesome mother or father due to my mother however I’m not. I’m down for the enjoyable. If she desires to get on a curler coaster, I’ll go together with her!” Tika says. “We’ve this playfulness that permits her to be herself. My capacity to [instill] that in her is my superpower.”

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

Once I get a little bit hyper, she’ll put her hand on my coronary heart and say, “Mother, breathe.” She’ll do it in such a soulful method. She’s the one lady who can inform me to calm down in a method that isn’t condescending. I inform her on a regular basis that she’s so a lot better than me. The opposite day, she mentioned, “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 believed, I’m doing a great job. It validated all of the issues that I poured into her.

We will be so laborious on ourselves, however our youngsters see us a lot in a different way. I’m positive 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 baby out of seven children, 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 dwelling 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 flicks and keep all day. I might give her popcorn and sweet. I used to be so blissful that she obtained reduction watching motion pictures totally free. It was a little bit escape.

What’s your escape? How do you unwind?

I wish to take quite a lot of baths. I actually take pleasure in scorching water and I wish to torture myself. I may also put my telephone away, get in a great guide, and switch off my mind. So, it’s the traditional stuff. Simply give me a second on my own with a closed door.

Identical. As mothers, we’re continuously excited about all of the issues. How do you discuss to Ella about being biracial?  

She is aware of we’ve totally different pores and skin tones and that she’s combined 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 speak about 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 non-public 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 observe a complete curriculum, and she or he additionally goes to a co-op. She’s already mild years forward. For me, it’s about giving her extra catered time and suppleness.

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

I did need a second baby and tried IVF as soon as. I do know they are saying you need to do it a number of occasions, 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 individuals. The threads of motherhood are so interconnected that we typically overlook that everyone is simply attempting to determine it out and dwell their greatest lives. I’m you and you might be me.

A Closing Thought

As Tika says, we’re all attempting our greatest. That’s why I really like the premise of her upcoming kids’s guide, I Obtained 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@dad and mom.com