When 18-year-old India Williams was a freshman at Louisiana's
Grambling State University, she never imagined she'd meet the love of her life. But that's exactly what happened. Four years later, not only did Williams have a B.S. in Computer Science, but also a beautiful baby girl, Amina, who attended her graduation.
Amina's father, Ahmeid, also attended Grambling, and left his family after graduation to find a job in his native New York. Seven months later, Ahmeid sent for his girlfriend and young daughter to live with him, and three years after that, India bore a son, Kasson. The couple and their two children lived as a young family in Brooklyn -- India with her "baby daddy" and Ahmeid with his "baby mama."
Like so much else in the black vernacular, the words "baby mama" and "baby daddy" crept in the lexicon as a by-product of the fact that today, over 70 percent of black children are born to unwed parents. We've all probably been to more baby showers than wedding showers: The result is that families are embroiled in serious issues such as
child support and visitation, and sometimes, as
Jaheim so eloquently put it, lots of "baby mama drama." What set India and Ahmeid apart is that they lived in the same household -- something of a rarity among unwed parents.
"I was never really one to push the issue, saying you have to marry me or else," says India, 28. "We always had intentions of being married, but there were things that came into play that unfortunately stopped us from having a wedding."
Money was one factor that prevented the couple from a traditional wedding -- she was a stay-at-home mom. Their different religious backgrounds did not help. It also was not a priority. In their eyes, the couple did the next best thing: they signed up for a domestic partnership (which gives couples living together many of the same rights as married people) and left it at that.
Fast forward several years. One evening, Ahmeid shows India an article about author Maryann Reid's upcoming brainchild,
"Marry Your Baby Daddy Day," an all-expense paid mass wedding for unmarried couples sharing at least one biological child. The couple applied for the event in January 2005, and was accepted a month later. They wed on Sept. 27, 2005.
"Marry Your Baby Daddy" Day, which the single, childless Reid came up with because she wanted to change some of the familial dynamics in the black community, is also the title of Reid's latest novel, about three sisters in New York who have a significant incentive to marry the fathers of their children.
Reid, the author of four books including a soon-to-be released novel, 'Mrs. Big,' said that she did a significant amount of research for 'Marry Your Baby Daddy.' In essence, she says that there is no longer disgrace in having children out of wedlock.
"No one really cares," she says. "The stigma we had 30 years ago with taking the girl out of school, sending her down South and making the boy marry her is not happening. And so now marriage is an option but it's not the rule."
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