Through Mom's Eyes: Simple Wisdom From Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans by Sheinelle Jones - 9

Look to the Other Side…It’s Not About Where You Are Now, but Where You Want to Go

Carolyn London, Tyra Banks’s mom

I thought about my mother and grandmother a lot while talking to Carolyn London. It was not easy for her to help her daughter, Tyra Banks, pursue her dream of becoming a model at a time when casting directors and fashion editors routinely told her that black models couldn’t sell magazines or ad campaigns. They may have believed that—and because they did, there wasn’t a ton of evidence to the contrary—but, as a mother, Carolyn didn’t even entertain such thoughts. Instead, she just did everything she could to make her daughter believe in herself.

Carolyn’s response to the haters who tried to get in Tyra’s head and in her way reminded me of how the women in my own family dealt with similar assumptions, especially when it came to me and my sense of possibility about my future. From as early as I can remember, my grandmother was either preparing me for the future or talking with me about it directly. There was never any doubt about what I could do, it was just a matter of making sure I had the tools to get there.

One day, when I was around eight years old, Grandmama asked me directly what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“A hairstylist,” I told her with confidence. She didn’t bat an eye. Instead, she launched into a series of questions that got me to start cranking out a plan.

“Would you have your own salon? Where will you learn how to style hair?” She took my goal seriously. Helping me to break it into steps, she made me think seriously about it too.

A year or so later, I told my grandmother that I had a new career path in mind. She stopped what she was doing to listen.

“I’m going to be a fashion coordinator,” I said. Again, she went through the same thoughtful process, asking questions that made me think about how I could accomplish that goal. I certainly wasn’t conscious of it at the time, but her approach made me feel heard, supported, and capable—and that was everything.

Fast-forward to fifth grade and an assignment that I believe changed my life. My teacher, Ms. James, told us to draw a picture of ourselves in our future careers. I remember it vividly. On a sheet of yellow construction paper, I drew myself as a news anchor, complete with a blazer, helmet hair, and small gold hoop earrings. I even put a little box by my head with squiggly lines—the graphic, of course.

“I want to be a news reporter,” I told my class when it was my turn. Ms. James nodded her passive approval. But later, when I told my grandmother about my new career choice, her eyes lit up. This was a different reaction, and I’ll never forget it. She was obviously thrilled by this idea.

I can’t help but wonder now: Did the goal stick with me because I wanted it so much? Or did I want it so much because of Grandmama’s reaction? We’ll never know—maybe both. All I know is, that goal stuck and, from that moment on, I shared it with anyone who would listen.

My grandfather was a doctor in our small town and, years later, when I was a teenager, I often hung out in his waiting room after school. One day, one of his patients struck up a conversation, asking me that old familiar question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

“I want to be a TV news reporter,” I said, all confidence and smiles. By then, it was my stock answer—less a dream than a reality just waiting for its inevitable time to come.

He paused, looking me up and down with a critical eye. “Your cheeks are too big for TV,” he said. “And saying you want to be on TV is like saying you want to be an NBA player. What’s your backup plan?” Speechless, I just stared at him.

I was fifteen years old, and that was the first time anyone had suggested that my dream—or any dream I’d ever had—might not come true, or even make sense. Backup plan? I had no idea how to respond. It had never occurred to me that I might need one. And if it had occurred to anyone else, they hadn’t dared to mention it. No matter how far-fetched my aspirations may have been, my family, teachers, and classmates never acted like they were. Grandmama expertly prodded me to think through how I would succeed, but she never once did it in a way that made me question if I would succeed. And the two are as different as night and day.

My mom and grandmother had shored me up for this moment with a stranger. He rattled me a bit, but even his blunt rejection of my promise couldn’t rock me. I am so thankful that my family’s loving support shielded me from the cracks in confidence that conversation might have otherwise left. Meanwhile, the questions kept coming: What do you need to study to be a news reporter? Would you need to learn how to project and perform? Do you need journalism experience? Leadership training? I thought through each one of their challenges and tried to prepare myself for any opportunities that could help me get closer to my dream job.

Every time I identified a new tool that I’d need to achieve my goal, they helped me figure out ways to get it, clearing a path for that little construction paper drawing to come to life. My first “big break” came when my grandmother connected me with a friend of hers from church, who was a secretary at our local CBS affiliate in Wichita, Kansas. After hearing me talk about all the ways I’d been working toward a career in TV news, she arranged an internship for me through a special program they had for high school students. Several days after school and cheerleading practice, I’d race down the street in my Ford Escort to the local TV station. Walking through those shiny doors, I just couldn’t have been happier. I would run the teleprompter, arrange scripts, and sometimes get to ride in the live truck and shadow reporters as they covered our local breaking news. I’d come home every day brimming with stories to share.

Over the years, I’ve worked hard at creating my career, and it might sound cliché but it’s true: I wouldn’t be here if my mom and grandmother hadn’t taken me seriously. More importantly, they showed me how to take myself seriously. Their gentle prodding helped shape not only my goals but my drive (which some might say is overdrive!) and work ethic. By the time I got to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, I was a small fish in a big pond—a lot of our industry’s best are alums of that journalism program—but I knew I belonged in those waters.

Tyra Banks was a beneficiary of that same kind of nurturing and steady care. Raising kids isn’t easy, but raising a young black girl who wanted to be a supermodel—particularly in the early 1990s—was really hard. Not to mention doing it as a single mom. Divorced when Tyra was just five years old, Carolyn London knew that it would be largely on her to help Tyra and her older brother, Devin, develop the ability to achieve success for themselves. Carolyn also knew what my mother and grandmother knew—that the world beyond her home was not built to believe in them the way she did. So she needed to fortify them with enough confidence to face down the doubters and those who, for whatever reason, would not want them to thrive.

“I would get up at five a.m., prepare breakfast for the kids, and drop one or both at school,” Carolyn tells me. “Then I’d drive to work in an hour of heavy traffic, work all day, drive back through that heavy traffic, and pick the kids up from school. Then I’d cook dinner, help with homework, run the household, go to sleep, and get up in the morning and do it all over again. If there were hiccups or problems, I would come up with a strategic plan.” Tyra’s God-given looks opened doors, but she ultimately succeeded—wildly, crushing the odds—thanks, in part, to always having a plan.

When you see a supermodel fully formed, it’s tempting to think that her life is perfect and that someone so tall, fierce, and beautiful had it easy. That’s rarely the case, especially for a trailblazer. It certainly wasn’t for Tyra. Today her résumé includes one of the most lucrative modeling careers in the world, along with a string of TV shows and entrepreneurial successes. But what it would take to achieve all of that was anything but obvious when Tyra was a child.

When she was small, Tyra was an introvert compared to her life-of-the-party older brother. She liked to play alone and was so shy that she would bury her face in Carolyn’s shoulder whenever a stranger approached, even if it was to compliment her striking green eyes. And in middle school, Tyra was bullied relentlessly by kids who called her names—like giraffe and ugly duckling—that left her feeling isolated and insecure.

“How did you help her get through that?” I ask Carolyn, desperately wanting to know for my own kids’ sake.

“I concentrated less on her appearance and more on her abilities and character,” Carolyn explains. “If she was feeling really bad or insecure because she didn’t look like the other girls, we would take trips to the bookstore, art exhibits, or a museum—things she loved doing. This way, I put an emphasis on the fact that it’s her interests, abilities, talent, and how much her family loves her that makes her special.”

Carolyn’s message sank in, helping Tyra develop the self-confidence she needed to create an unconventional path to the career of her dreams. It also became part of how she carried herself as she emerged from that middle-school awkwardness, blossoming into not only a self-assured teen, but a role model for her peers. “The thing that I’m most proud of is that, from her going through that, she became an inspiration to other girls at school,” Carolyn says.

Carolyn celebrated Tyra’s victories with her, but she also offered a safe haven to talk through the tough stuff. “I strongly believe in being open, honest, and truthful with your children,” Carolyn explains. “I didn’t want them to go outside to find answers. If they had a question—no matter what it was—I wanted them to come to me.” That included conversations about complicated topics like sex.

I was reminded of this recently when I was with a few friends, and one brought up how she was struggling to explain the birds and the bees to her kids.

“I know there are some moms who are good at talking about that embarrassing stuff,” my friend said. “They can come right out and say it, but not me.” I winced, because I struggle with the same thing. I blush easily, and I worry about finding the right words for the right age. (My own mother waited until I was in college to say anything on the topic at all!) So, I took what Carolyn said to heart. I want my children to feel like they can talk to me about anything. This was easy when they were little, and they were all too happy to tell me about the goal they scored at soccer practice or the cool rock they found in the park. But with my oldest entering the teen phase, getting him to open up is sometimes a challenge. Channeling Carolyn’s advice, I make it clear that the lines of communication are always open. And, like my grandmother, I am as present as possible when my kids share anything with me—even if it means they see me awkwardly fumble over my own words sometimes.

Carolyn had a mantra for her kids: “Look to the other side.” By that, she meant that it’s not about where you are now, but where you want to go. Envision yourself there. Feel yourself there. And before you know it, you’ll be there. That mindset put Tyra on a path to prosperity. It occurred to me that it was a great mantra for us moms too. We need to balance being present for our children with not getting so caught up in the messiness of some moments that we lose sight of the end goals we’re moving toward.

Tyra had always loved fashion, TV, and entertainment but, as a student at her Catholic all-girls high school, her goal was to work on the other side of the camera. She planned to major in film and television production in college and hoped for a career behind the scenes, which would be both exciting and a good fit for her introverted personality.

That all changed when Carolyn got a phone call from a friend who needed last-minute help. As a photographer who specialized in biological/medical photos, Carolyn took pictures of patients, surgeries, dissections, and even did photography through a microscope to be used for continuing education or medical textbooks. But when a friend in the fashion industry asked if she could handle a very different kind of photo shoot, Carolyn jumped at the chance. She was so good at it that this became the first of several fashion assignments.

Sweet sixteen at the time and a willowy five feet, ten inches, Tyra would occasionally go with her mom to fashion shoots and help. Seeing her, the models would often ask if she’d ever thought about being a model. At first Tyra brushed off the idea but, eventually, it caught hold. She saw how modeling might help pay for college.

Carolyn had heard some shady, even scary, things about the industry, so at first she was against it. To plead her case, Tyra presented her mother with information on the top ten modeling agencies in Los Angeles that were licensed and reputable, according to the Better Business Bureau and other sources. Impressed by her initiative, Carolyn relented and helped her daughter assemble a portfolio. But Carolyn’s green light didn’t mean all systems were go. Tyra was rejected by six agencies before the seventh, Elite Model Management—one of the most prestigious at the time—said yes. Still leery of the industry’s reputation, Carolyn was anything but starstruck.

“I told her she could only model after school and on weekends, and if her grades faltered at all, it was all done,” Carolyn recalled.

“Wow,” I said, quietly impressed by what I call her “mom-fidence.”

One day, Tyra’s agency called to say that a scout visiting from Paris was impressed with her photos and wanted her to come to Paris to walk fashion’s most famous runways. Tyra was a high school senior celebrating her college acceptances and set on continuing her education. Normally rock-sure, Carolyn went back and forth: Should she let Tyra go to Paris alone at such a young age? Would she be safe? Who would look out for her there? What about college?

The questions that ran through Carolyn’s mind echoed in mine as she told the story—except I was over here wondering if I could even handle sending my kids to two weeks of sleepaway camp.

Carolyn’s dilemma was an example of something we face a lot as moms: How do you walk the tightrope between supporting and encouraging your child’s dreams and sharing the harsh realities around how tough it can be to make it? Do you teach your child to have a backup dream, like that patient in my grandfather’s office suggested I needed? Or teach them to go full steam ahead with their eyes on the prize—even though you know they might not ever get there? What I had been taught as a child worked for me. But, as a parent, I was still unsure. After dealing with her own uncertainty, Carolyn landed on a third option, a way to parent without being a killjoy or a cheerleader: She let Tyra answer those questions herself.

“I told her I would support whatever decision she made because it was her life—not mine,” Carolyn says, tapping into her feelings about her own discarded dreams for guidance. “Growing up, I wanted to be a professional dancer, but my parents told me I couldn’t make a decent living that way. I needed to get a more secure job with the city that had a pension, benefits, etc.” Carolyn followed her parents’ vision for her, and decades later she still wondered if that had been the right choice. She didn’t want to make that kind of decision for her daughter.

Tyra decided to defer college for a year so she could see what Paris might hold for her. With that, both mother and daughter poured themselves into learning the modeling business. This included a deep dive into the most famous photographers, art directors, and editors-in-chief of every fashion magazine. Tyra studied each designer to understand what they wanted in their models. Whether it was putting her hair in a bun or applying a red lip, she would transform herself into the look she thought they liked and trek to auditions, or “go-sees,” from sunup to sundown. To prep for Paris, the mom-and-daughter duo spent hours analyzing videotapes of runway models and soon realized that each one had something unique about the way she presented herself. So, they worked diligently to create a signature Tyra walk.

“She would put on my flowy nightgowns and heels and walk back and forth across the living room,” Carolyn remembers with a sparkle in her eyes.

I was struck by how innately skillful Carolyn had been at knowing when to jump in and when to stand back and observe. Like my mom and grandma, she didn’t push Tyra, but she also didn’t try to slow her down. Instead, she listened to what her daughter wanted and helped anticipate problems and work through solutions. She offered guidance as a sort of career consultant, not a boss. I recognized the pattern from my own life, but it took meeting Carolyn for me to understand what that must have looked like from a parent’s perspective. Only in reflecting on those early years did Carolyn realize how much Tyra had embraced her advice to “look to the other side,” believing that “if you can envision it, you can do it.”

Tyra had to push through a lot to get there, especially as a young woman of color trying to break into the fashion industry. She and her mom pressed on, despite being repeatedly told that Black models had no real shot at the kind of success she wanted. At seventeen years old, an age when most models were getting booked for just four or five fashion shows in a season, Tyra was booked for more than twenty, including the top fashion houses in the industry.

It was more than she’d even hoped for, but having five jobs in four countries in one week, along with the rush of attention that went with it, was a lot to manage at such a young age. So, Tyra reached out to her mom.

“I took a six-month leave of absence from my job to go to Paris to help her,” Carolyn says, smiling. “And that leave lasted twenty years.”

Carolyn didn’t hesitate to manage her daughter’s early career—mothering, nurturing, and protecting—because she says when you’re that popular in that business, claws come at you from every direction and it’s hard to know who to trust. Their partnership helped make fashion history. In 1996, Tyra became the first African American woman on the cover of GQ magazine as well as Sports Illustrated ’s legendary swimwear issue a year later. In 2019, she graced SI ’s cover in a bikini again—at age forty-five. She was also one of the first African American models to sign a contract with Victoria’s Secret, becoming one of the lingerie brand’s original Angels. She would go on to act, write, produce, and host TV shows, eventually satisfying her early dreams of a career behind the camera in addition to becoming one of the most famous photographed faces in the world.

Despite all the successes, for Carolyn, the thrill of her daughter’s first Sports Illustrated cover is still unmatched. “I just sat still and quiet,” Carolyn remembers wistfully. “They told me that a Black woman couldn’t be on the cover and sell magazines, and yet Tyra did it, and she continued to do it over and over and over again on so many levels. As a mother, it was a feeling of accomplishment to know you instilled that much in your child that she’s truly a trailblazer, an independent thinker, and she inspires—all the things that mommies want of their children.”

“Can you exhale now?” I ask her. It’s something I think about often: Do parents ever really get fully to the other side? Is our job, as mothers, ever actually done?

“She didn’t give me a chance to exhale, ever, to this day.” Carolyn laughs. “It just keeps rolling. The other thing I want to say is that everything was not a success. You bump into walls. There are things she wanted to do—like singing, for example—and she bumped into a wall. Sometimes you have to let your kids bump. You can’t protect them from every single thing. You learn so much in life out of your mistakes as well as your successes.”

Now that Tyra is a mom herself, Carolyn enjoys every moment of being “Nana” to both of her kids’ children. I totally take to heart the one piece of advice she passes along to her kids as they parent: “Be truthful and honest with your children,” she says. “Create a relationship where they feel comfortable enough to come to you for anything. To this day, even as adults, both my kids call me in the middle of the night for whatever.” As mothers, our work may never be finished, but if there’s a moment that says you’ve done your job well, I’d say that’s it.

My mom always told me: Let off the gas heading into a curve and accelerate on the way out. Don’t overpluck your eyebrows, and keep your ears clean. Make dinner and eat together as a family. Sing along to the music in the car so your kids know you’re in a good mood. Grammar is important. Sometimes a bottle of beer is better than a bottle of water. It’s okay to work hard, you’re being a role model to your children. Tuck your kids into bed at night and make sure they know how much you love them.

—Dylan Dreyer, meteorologist and cohost, The Today Show