Co-Parenting Part 1 - He's My Child's Father
what you do? I see Alright. So welcome back to the Real Joy podcast. I'm your host, the Real Joy. And today, I have with me Ivan Jackson, formerly known as my baby daddy.
Thee Real Joy:No. I'm just playing for my father's like Kalani. Kalani's dad. Yes. Kalani's dad.
Thee Real Joy:We have a child together. Her name is Kalani. Yes. We do. She just turned 10.
Thee Real Joy:So we are here today to talk to y'all about 10 years. I feel like this is like to celebrate the anniversary of 10 years of being parents.
Ivan Jackson:Yeah. 10, like 10.
Thee Real Joy:And doing it together. Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:For sure.
Thee Real Joy:And doing it together apart for almost the full 10 years of her life, which we're gonna get into. But we're gonna take y'all down our memory lane, kinda talk about, how we got here.
Ivan Jackson:Yep. Most of the time.
Thee Real Joy:Where we met, all that good stuff. So
Ivan Jackson:How we got here 10 years later. Yes. Where we started from and kinda like where we are now.
Thee Real Joy:Okay. So we both went to a school called Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now Boston University.
Ivan Jackson:Yes. They've been absorbed.
Thee Real Joy:Yes. Yes. Which is nice because if we, like, get our transcripts, it'll say
Ivan Jackson:BU. Hopefully.
Thee Real Joy:No. I will.
Ivan Jackson:Oh, you got one?
Thee Real Joy:Yeah. It does. So my mother worked at that school, and it's funny because everybody on campus called my mom their mom. Yeah. So when they would meet me, they're like, oh, yeah.
Thee Real Joy:I'm gonna go see my mom real quick. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Me too. And they're like, oh, okay. Cool.
Thee Real Joy:And then we would get there and be like, no. But this is actually, like, my mom. They're like,
Thee Real Joy:oh, no.
Thee Real Joy:This is my mom too. I'm like, okay. Like, joke is over. Like, this lady gave birth to me. So that's kinda like what happened with us.
Thee Real Joy:He was like, oh, I'm going to see my mom. I'm like, okay. Cool. We walk over there. Already, my mom had, like, already knew you.
Thee Real Joy:She loved you. They have, like, their own relationship. And I was just kinda like, okay, cool.
Ivan Jackson:I think to add too, I'm a director of future planning, future, director of future pathways by day, so I help students plan the next 15 to 20 years of their life. Her mom showed up at a time when I was transitioning from the Bronx out of high school into college. And she was everybody's mom because, you know, a lot of time black and a lot of times black and brown kids are going to school, and they're going to school far away from their families and you kind of replace or try to find a other mother to help keep that community. And, you know, miss Sherry was definitely that community for everybody. So, as she's telling the story and I'm thinking about like her mom, I'm thinking about like the several siblings that I had on campus, like vicariously through her outside of, you know, her daughter being who she was.
Ivan Jackson:But, you know, I think of know, people I'm still in communication with today or 1 or 2 people who I talk to all the time and it become almost like family and it's because of her mother. So she's probably a very, very not probably. She's a pivotal, like, a seminal part of, you know Yeah. How she shows up in the story.
Thee Real Joy:So Yeah. Like our whole journey. And I think like right away, I had such a like liking to you because like once my mom likes you, I feel like, okay, like cool, we in there and we really have like a slow burn of a relationship. I feel like we started out like best friends, like, the best of friends. I just remember, like, the first time we hung out, it was just like we just kept hanging out.
Thee Real Joy:We just kept hanging out. We went to a predominantly white school.
Ivan Jackson:Yes. We did.
Thee Real Joy:And I
Ivan Jackson:If we could count the white kids, I mean, the black kids on campus, probably 4 times over on our heads.
Thee Real Joy:And then overall, the population of the school was like a1000 and how many No.
Ivan Jackson:It was less than a1000.
Thee Real Joy:Less than a1000.
Ivan Jackson:Like less than maybe 650.
Thee Real Joy:And how many guys out of, like, that number? Like, 50? Maybe. Very small. So to be in a relationship on that campus was, like, groundbreaking.
Thee Real Joy:Like, everybody knew because, like, every guy, once they were accounted for, they were kinda accounted for. So it was, like, a big deal to have a relationship on the campus, but we weren't even, like, going into it, like, thinking, like, okay, you're gonna be my boyfriend. I don't even think there was a moment where, like, you're like, you're my girlfriend.
Ivan Jackson:And I think it was a full span of a full year. So we actually didn't even engage into any kind of rhetoric or conversations like that until the 2nd year of college.
Thee Real Joy:You know what it was? I think it was after that 1st year when we were packing up to go home for that summer.
Ivan Jackson:And you realized
Thee Real Joy:And I think we realized like, oh, I'm not gonna see you for this whole summer. Like, okay. This is about to be weird. Like, and I think over that summer, we grew closer to each other. And I think once we kinda came back on campus, I think it was just like a known we just like operated in a couple.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah. And I think because of the leadership positions that we held together Yeah. You being the president of the Black Student Union, me being the vice president, I think we just like fell into like this. Like, people called us, like, Michelle and Obama, like, of the campus and stuff like that. People looked up to us.
Thee Real Joy:I feel like we just naturally, like, fell into
Ivan Jackson:a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Thee Real Joy:So it was nice at first. I feel like I think that our relationship always we remain friends no matter what.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Thee Real Joy:But I think that the pressures of the campus, everything going on, the things that were going on, we kinda I felt like Olivia Pope sometimes. Like everything that was going on in campus when I had to do with, like, black or brown students
Ivan Jackson:Yeah.
Thee Real Joy:We were the face of it. So people were, like, coming to us and, like, figure this out, deal with this.
Ivan Jackson:Most definitely.
Thee Real Joy:And I think I remember us just starting to I don't know, like a wedge came between us. I feel like when it came to, like, maybe my friend group, I now look back, I think I was like a little bit more immature than you, the way I handled things,
Thee Real Joy:I was a
Thee Real Joy:little bit of a hothead. Mhmm.
Ivan Jackson:I think so to circle back to to a lot of different things, like I think when we think about going to college as, you know, 2 people of of you know, we coming from your mom went to college? Yeah. She went to college
Thee Real Joy:She has her master's too.
Ivan Jackson:Right after or she went kinda late
Thee Real Joy:Right after.
Ivan Jackson:She went right after. So my mom went to college as well, right? But for a lot of our experience, I know for me, my mom was not born here, my mom was born in Barbados, my mom is the only person in her family with her mother, the only child of her mother's children to get a degree, right. And for me, my experience felt very, very first generation anyway. Being in that everything was kinda like school was a saving grace, it was like this manifest destiny moment, like, we had to go to school.
Ivan Jackson:The idea of going to school was like being able to beat situations or the neighborhoods we grew up in, being able to change the circumstances that my family was in, my mother may have thought she would have been in, the situations my father my father worked very blue collar, and my mother made it, me going to college, 10th amount to being a difference to that. Right? And that that so coming to school, right, meeting somebody like miss Sherry, I also went to, a school, independent school, the learn and treat culture preparatory school, which was founded by a lot of the nation of Islam ideology. So it was very black nationalist, very you gonna know who you are very young, so leaving the Bronx to go to a predominantly white community, predominantly white college.
Thee Real Joy:In Brookline, Fenway.
Ivan Jackson:Yes, so borderline suburb area coming from the Bronx, predominantly black and brown, leaving there to find a smaller community or smaller family was very important. But the perils of that, right, when you're trying to figure out as 17, 18, 19, who you are, right, how you show up in spaces. For me, particularly thinking about how I show up as a man of color in spaces, how do I show up as somebody who wants to be a friend? How do I show up eventually as somebody who wants to be a partner to somebody, particularly to a woman of color, right? And how did I watch my dad do it?
Ivan Jackson:How do I watch the guys around me do it? How do I maintain all these responsibilities at one time? And I think-
Thee Real Joy:That was a lot.
Ivan Jackson:In college, I felt that plight, like I felt like there was a certain level of growing up that I had to do as a man, and I felt like I had to do that in this space, particularly in college. So that was the only space and time that I thought that I had to do it.
Thee Real Joy:And I feel like it happened overnight for you too because my mom didn't come back. We only had her for our freshman year. Yeah. She didn't come back, our sophomore year. And so the 1st year, I had housing because she worked there, so I got housing for free.
Thee Real Joy:Or did I get my either way, I was able to get housing. So the 2nd year I lived off campus. So I did have an apartment off campus, but because I had already spent that 1st year on campus, I didn't wanna be away from you guys, from, like, our friends. So I felt like my mom had this conversation with you and was kinda like, okay. You're responsible for my daughter now.
Thee Real Joy:Like, if you wanna be this man in her life, if you wanna be this, when you eat, she eats. When you go here, she goes here. And she kinda like handed you, like, these husband duties at the age of 17, 18. And I think that does have a lot to do with our relationship and the like, you all that you explained. You trying to be this black man in the space.
Thee Real Joy:You Yeah. Being the leader of this, you going to president dinners and all these things while also now I'm responsible for this girl that I'm trying to, like, figure out my relationship with. And I think at times, it was, like, very looking back now that we have, like, the language for it and with the education that we both have, I think that it was very overwhelming. Like, I feel like at times where we would go at each other or the times where we would, like, fight and argue, I think it was both of us saying, like, this is too much and we're overwhelmed. Yeah.
Thee Real Joy:Like, when you really think back to it.
Ivan Jackson:For sure.
Thee Real Joy:And I don't think that we both knew how to navigate that at the time Yeah. And how to say that, and I think it just came out in rage, anger Yeah. Nasty words. Yeah. You know?
Thee Real Joy:Because at
Ivan Jackson:the same time, you you you learning how to be a young adult. Yeah. Right, like you're learning. So, the caveat to all these guys is like, I'm in school, I have a master's from Purdue in American Studies, and we'll get to that part where that took us in
Thee Real Joy:Into Indiana.
Ivan Jackson:To Indiana. Yeah. And kind of like our parenting journey, but I'm also in school to get another degree now from Alfred University in school counseling, and then also my licensed mental health counseling as well. So thinking about this from a total therapy counseling, kinda taking a step back and looking at the whole person, like, there's so many layers to why her mom may have left me that responsibility. There's so many layers to how we may have connected with each other, but then the level of anxiety we felt about navigating college and having good grades and being able to, you know, wanna figure out what we're gonna do in the next 4 years.
Ivan Jackson:And all that kinda wheezes around to how I'm a director of, of future pathways now, which is used to be called a director of college counselor, not college counselor. Right? And thinking about the perils of having young people who I work with all the time play house too soon. Right? So in my role, right, I work with over 450 young men of color.
Ivan Jackson:Right? And talking to them about me, maybe you don't need to have a young lady or a partner, however they decide to, you know, profess their love. Like, maybe you don't need to have a partner going into college. Maybe you don't need to bring a partner with you into school. Right?
Ivan Jackson:When you get up there, you need to focus on yourself. So thinking about the powers of being able to have a dorm room, go to sleep at night, right? Go buy groceries, right? And figure out how to break bread if that's the kind of personal kid that you are, a young person that you are. And if, you know, your mom or your parents raised you a certain way, you feel a general responsibility to the people around you.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:Right? I went to school with 2 or 3 other people that I graduated high school with. So we've been together 4 years. Now we get up here, we're gonna be together another 4 years. Right?
Ivan Jackson:And the idea was the same way that we take care of each other, that's gonna kinda augment to everybody else that's around us. Yeah. Particularly because we're a cruel young black students, right? Black and brown students coming from the Bronx, and we have to hold each other down. Naturally, we gonna get up here and figure out how we gonna hold the people who look like us down too.
Ivan Jackson:Right? So I think our story is so interesting because this idea of playing house too early when you're trying to figure out yourself as a young adult, not that there's any single line of regret, but if I was your age again, kid, this is how I would have thought about, you know, every decision that I made in in process, and I wouldn't have been trying to be, how you say, an adult so soon, or I would have tried to, in a for lack of a better term, pray for broader shoulders, and this idea that I don't always know that our parents or folks older than us know that they're leaving the things with us that they're leaving us. Right? So they're unmet traumas.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:Their unmet, like, insecurities that they kinda just left with us. Like, if I don't if I can't get I don't wanna be too tangential and and go too off track, but I remember sitting on a porch with your mom. Right? And we're talking about death. Right?
Ivan Jackson:Death for me, my first big death in my life happened when I was 6 years old. And for me, I remember everything. I remember my mother's tears. I remember how I felt. I remember going to the funeral, particularly because my aunt died on my birthday, my 6th birthday.
Ivan Jackson:And I remember this always being something that I brought up. I even bring it up now. Right? And I was talking to my mom about it, and we were all outside sitting on the porch, and I'm just like I think I used to have a weird way of trying to test if Ebony was ready for certain things based on how her mother viewed me. So her mother viewed me almost way more experienced in life than her daughter, and expected me to kinda steward her through a lot of the things that she hasn't learned yet.
Ivan Jackson:Right? And I think that when we were having that conversation, we were talking about deaf and how it shows up and how it impacted me, and how would she how would she get through it. Right? What would happen? And I think about that moment so much because I remember almost everything your mother said, but I remember a level of apprehension.
Ivan Jackson:Right? She was nervous, but she felt okay that I had been prepared with those things. Right? Not even really considering, like, he's 17, 18, 19, he's going through all these things already.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:Right? I'm expecting him to do this, and I don't it's no malice that she expected me to do that because I felt that responsibility anyway. Right? But the idea that there was an expectation for me to counsel you through that without a level of counseling or understanding.
Thee Real Joy:She was saying if that would ever happen for me?
Ivan Jackson:Yes, like, you know, he's prepared, he has a level of knowing how to deal with it, and I think my level of questioning was around like, just asking like, have you ever had any really big deaths? And at the time, your grandfather was still alive, so it wasn't really no Oh, absolutely.
Thee Real Joy:Nothing has.
Ivan Jackson:No thing, but he was sick.
Thee Real Joy:Okay.
Ivan Jackson:You know, so as he passed, there was kind of this level of understanding, like, this is what this feels like. And when I think about the nature of our relationship, it's wrapped in a lot of those anecdotes and vignettes where I get to unpack now
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:As an adult. And it was like, we can't always fault people for being human. Yeah. Right? For the for the things that they leave with us here.
Thee Real Joy:I think it was a lot. And like how you just said, I think you said something, like, you don't regret it. But I think I used to get so angry in the past when you say that because I will automatically feel guilty, and I will automatically feel like you started to resent me. And we'll talk about that more kinda in Indiana. I think I really started to feel that way when we moved to Indiana.
Thee Real Joy:But I really felt like senior year and then, like, when we broke up, that there was, like, this resentment, like, this anger. Like, I stole like, I used to get so mad too when you were like, I wish I didn't come to this college. Remember when we would, like, talk about that? Like, I wish I went to a HBCU. I wish I didn't come here.
Thee Real Joy:And I felt like a lot of you saying that was, like, because of our you know, like, because you didn't get a chance to go party. You didn't like, we weren't the type that, like, would just go out on the weekend. Like, we were always, like, up under each other and, like, I feel like you didn't get the college experience. We made the most of it, you know, with our people, but we didn't. When you think about this this college experience, you were just, you know, not your typical average that you see on TV.
Ivan Jackson:Yeah. For sure. So to to address it, because, you know, we hear the cameras is here. I think at a young age, like, that level of resentment is real. It's very real.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:Right? And to say that it wasn't resentment Yeah. It would be a disservice to to where we are as adults. Like, there was there was a to hear. Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:It was a heavy level of resentment, and it wasn't always directly at you. So just thinking about, I think so I was saying to be fair, like, we're calling a ace ace is your mother who say ace ace
Thee Real Joy:ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace
Ivan Jackson:ace ace ace ace
Thee Real Joy:ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace
Ivan Jackson:ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace
Thee Real Joy:ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace ace. A spade.
Ivan Jackson:A spade. There was a level of resentment. Yeah. Having been in a relationship at 18. Right?
Ivan Jackson:Not really 17, but 18. And not being able to experience certain level of college qualities because I felt an obligation to be a certain type of represent a certain type of thing on campus, represent a certain type of love to you. Yeah. Right? Whether we were in a relationship or not, there was a certain way I wanted to show up as a black man who the closest person that I found on this campus to me was of color, where every other brother on campus wasn't really dipping and dabbing in that direction for me.
Thee Real Joy:I was gonna say too, and, like, not that you need this, but to commend you for being on a campus where I was the minor like, you know, like, you were with a tall, black, bigger woman, and I think you were, like, the only guy on campus that had a girl that looked like me. Like, now that I think back to it, like, that, I think, spoke volumes in itself. And I think that the, attention that you got because of that. Right? Like, I feel like a lot of people looked at us and was like, but she's taller than you.
Thee Real Joy:But she's I think that you got a lot of attention for that. I think that a lot of girls, were envious because of our bond because I don't think it was necessarily a thing of, like, aesthetics for us. I don't think we looked at each other and was like, okay, you're my type, I'm your type. But it was more of like this, like, we just clicked and it worked. So I think that we did get attacked a lot because of that.
Thee Real Joy:And I just wanna commend you because I'm pretty sure that wasn't the easiest way to, like, navigate that space. So
Ivan Jackson:No. I appreciate that.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah. I
Ivan Jackson:appreciate that. Yeah. And I think to that resentment, I appreciate you and commend you just for being able to host this space to have this conversation. Right? And to be able to have other people listen to it.
Ivan Jackson:Right? Because I work with students. I work with young people. I got mentees, 25, 26, 2, 3 kids, you know, and trying to navigate this space. And I felt like they used me as they Polaris, almost North Star when trying to figuring that out.
Ivan Jackson:Yeah. And it's a part in the podcast where we're gonna get to the village around being able to have, you know, fathers who went through similar situations as me and, you know, ideally, women examples around me who were telling me how to see it, how they saw me from their perspective or the things that I was doing in the future, really helped me. But even then, right, us I became the Black Student Union president. My I was the 1st black male, 1, to be the president. 2, I was the 1st underclassman to win the nomination.
Ivan Jackson:And even winning the nomination was scandalous because everything that they had to say about me for winning, right, just just for a small club nomination only added to what they already say about, 1, boys from the Bronx, black men from the Bronx, and how they say black men show up. So out the gate, I was if you guys have seen Higher Learning, remember Ice Cube of Higher Learning? Like, out the gate, I got the I got the Ice Cube treatment from Higher Learning. Like, he was just aggressive. He showed up as this.
Ivan Jackson:He's a supreme advocate on campus, but there's there's an inherent idea that he might hit women.
Thee Real Joy:But all the black girls loved you.
Ivan Jackson:But all the black girls loved me.
Thee Real Joy:And all the older black girls loved you.
Ivan Jackson:There's this inherent idea that, you know, he's angry. He's this person on campus, but, you know, I was the first person they call when when excuse my when shit went left on campus. Whether it was gangster shit, hard, it's people coming to campus moving funny, or, you know, there's some things that we need to address with faculty. Like, the role we played as leadership groups in the e ball for the Black Student Union amalgamated to, like, we social workers. Right?
Ivan Jackson:We counselors. Yeah. We advocates on campus. Exactly what it turns
Thee Real Joy:to. Like Olivia Pope, like I said.
Ivan Jackson:Kehlani's godmother, who's gracious to still be a part of our village today, like, she came to work in a diversity position at the school, and she almost had her own little task force, for lack of better words, henchmen. Like, there were certain things that we were gonna address that was gonna make people feel comfortable on campus. Yeah. People who look like us. And I think that level of responsibility, I've carried
Thee Real Joy:It was a lot.
Ivan Jackson:Throughout my life. Right? It was a lot. I think I was taught at a certain point to be that way. Right?
Ivan Jackson:I told you guys the schools that I went to, but then there was a level of I went to high school. I went to all male public school. Right? I went to all male public school, and the focus was on excellence for us. Right?
Ivan Jackson:I went to a predominantly white college and found a circle to recreate everything that I was taught for everybody else. I went to school with my high school friends. I'm not saying I was the most popular guy on campus, but there was a certain point where everybody knew I was gonna stand on business. And living with that became tough. It impacted everything around me, including my relationship with people, right?
Ivan Jackson:My relationship with her, whether we were friends, in a relationship, or not, right? There was a level of me feeling like I had to carry the world, and I didn't necessarily I knew where the burden came from, but I didn't know how to mitigate it or even talk about it. Right? So I think that's all really have come full circle with the job that I do now, and even us sitting right here. Right?
Thee Real Joy:You like, there's something that you keep saying that I think is really important to our story. Like, I keep hearing you repeat, like, whether we were friends, whether we were in a relationship. And I think that that is very important because there were so many parts of our journey where we say, like, we were together. When I when people ask me, I say we're together for, like, 5 or 6 years. But there is a lot of time in that where we would not be together, but, like, still be together.
Ivan Jackson:Making sure I
Thee Real Joy:Yeah. So when I got pregnant, we actually weren't
Ivan Jackson:It's not together.
Thee Real Joy:We weren't together. No. And it was 2 weeks aft that was 2 weeks before we were leaving college. And I remember we had this conversation. We had no plans on being together after college.
Ivan Jackson:I didn't wanna see her at all.
Thee Real Joy:No. For sure. Like, we really like it got to the point.
Ivan Jackson:My time, I'm done. Alright? For real though.
Thee Real Joy:Like you said, when we were leaving school, we did not have a plan of seeing each other after things had gotten really ugly with us. I remember we both kind of ruined, like, our senior week where we were, like, supposed to be going out. Our arguments were just getting worse. People were getting involved in our arguments. Kehlani's godmother.
Thee Real Joy:I remember, like, one time, like, we tore up her office, like, fighting with each other. Like, it was just getting really bad. Like you said, I didn't wanna see you after we grabbed like, it was, like, to the point where we're like, it was bad. I remember, like, rumors were starting, like, people telling me that you were, like, with other people, different RAs and stuff like that. It was getting really, really bad.
Thee Real Joy:And I think that we had this one night with all of our friends, and we were kinda like celebrating. I think it was like spring break, but some of us didn't leave. We were on campus with all of our friends, and we ended up partying for maybe, like, 3 weeks. I'm sorry. Like, 3 days.
Thee Real Joy:Like, 3 days. Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:But it's 3 weeks.
Thee Real Joy:But like 3 days back to back. We were all just hanging out. We were, like, all sleeping in the same dorm or whatever. And the result of that ended up me finding out I was pregnant 2 weeks before we graduated. So like I said, we weren't talking.
Thee Real Joy:I remember I was, like, feeling sick. I don't even think I had told you.
Ivan Jackson:At first, though. At first. But I didn't sure want to go buy that test.
Thee Real Joy:But the test was negative.
Ivan Jackson:Oh, yeah. It was.
Thee Real Joy:So he bought the test. The test was negative.
Ivan Jackson:No. One of them wasn't though. I think the first time you did it, it was, and we went and got another one. Because I remember looking at them being like, no. That shit is fake.
Ivan Jackson:Ain't no way. And you're like, no. That shit is just
Thee Real Joy:I just can't remember I felt a certain way that I never felt before. So I remember I went to go take a blood test. You didn't go with me. I went by myself. I took a blood test, and I came back on campus.
Thee Real Joy:And I was telling everyone I told, like,
Ivan Jackson:I was hot.
Thee Real Joy:I told She told
Thee Real Joy:you telling everybody. I told, like, this lady that I was really close to in the cafeteria. I told Jamie. And then I think I, like, ran into you, made her a text you, like, I have to tell you something. And I was like, I'm pregnant.
Ivan Jackson:That shit is all so crazy because and this is speaking transparently. The year before senior year, I did a summer research opportunity program. Never in my mind did I thought kid from the Bronx was gonna do research at Ohio State. There was some professors there who was like, yo, you have a way with words. You engage the content a certain way.
Ivan Jackson:You wanna create knowledge. You wanna be an instructor, or you at least wanna engage in this. Whatever it is that you think into your brain, you wanna get deeper than where you are. So I applied to a program. I went to Ohio State for a summer, the summer before my senior year of college.
Ivan Jackson:At Ohio State, I made a big transformation. I might have lost, like, £85. This is the first time that I had access to a library that was always open, access to a gym that was always open.
Thee Real Joy:He was living his best life.
Ivan Jackson:Wheelock just wasn't Ohio State.
Thee Real Joy:He was living his best life. He was like, I'm about to graduate. I'm done with her, like Yeah.
Ivan Jackson:I got in shape.
Thee Real Joy:Got in shape.
Ivan Jackson:I think that, you know, when I think about, I just didn't Ebony stopped being in a future plan for me because I felt like having to worry about her and other people around me stopped with these new visions of myself that I believed I had. So never did I thought I wanted to get a PhD. Right? Never did I think that I wanted to be a doctor, but to go engage at Ohio State, do research on I believe my research is based in looking at black male collegiate, so looking at black college students, particularly men, and their experience with feeling like they belong on campus. Right?
Ivan Jackson:Wow. I'm talking about that, but I was one of those students. Right? Being able to engage in how we think about helping others this is the work that we've done. Right?
Ivan Jackson:How to make other students feel like they belong on campus. And so the idea of her having a kid, the idea of you walking on campus telling everybody, that just seemed like it's slowing me down. And at this point, to be it seemed like everything you doing is slowing me down. And where I'm trying to go, you're not trying to go. Right?
Ivan Jackson:And
Thee Real Joy:And that was felt, and I think that that kinda made me insecure because as quiet as it's kept, I think that you made me feel small, and and very incompetent, a lot of times. Apologies. Yeah. So I think that going into it, like, me being, like, oh, I'm pregnant. I think I was very delusional.
Thee Real Joy:I don't think that I had, like, a a clear thought process to, like, what this meant for me at the time because you're talking about someone who, like, always did what their mother told them to do. This was out of the norm. This wasn't something that was planned. This wasn't anything that was on my radar. I didn't have a plan.
Thee Real Joy:Like, kind of what he's saying that he had for himself, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I left college. I was very much still immature. But I think it was because that's what I was told I was, so I kinda fell into it. Yeah. So I remember after college graduation, I remember, like, being on the river way, and we had just finished cleaning out your room.
Thee Real Joy:And your mom is, like, walking down the path, and she's, like, giving me this look. And I'm like, oh, he must have told her. And she's, like, walking up to me. And I'm, like, I have this stupid grin on my face. And she was, like, you think this is cute?
Thee Real Joy:Like, you think this is, like
Ivan Jackson:I ain't know that.
Thee Real Joy:Yeah. She was just, like, what you gonna do? Are you pregnant? Like and I think that that kinda set the tone for me for, like, how things are gonna be. So thank you so much for tuning in to this episode, and we'll see you on part 2.
Thee Real Joy:Thank you so much for tuning in to the Real Joy podcast. I hope today's conversation brought you closer to finding your own joy and left you feeling inspired. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you like what you heard, share it with your circle. It might be just the thing they need.
Thee Real Joy:Let's keep growing, glowing and finding joy together. Until next time. Take care of yourself and remember to keep it relaxed, relatable and real. See you soon.
