Tina Knowles remembers growing up in a loving, loud family of nine. She was the youngest of seven children. Adding her cousins was the force to be considered every time they left the house.
At a very young age, Knowles says he was taught not to draw attention to himself. “Beautiful is beautiful,” her mother said.
In other words, quietly know your location.
Luckily for all of us, she didn’t listen. On a book tour of her new memoir, “Matriark,” an Oprah book club selection, she spoke to CNN’s office in New York about what she learned from her childhood and her choices while raising her daughters Beyoncé and Solange Knowles.
There’s something that the mothers of two of the world’s most famous entertainers wanted to share on Mother’s Day weekend.
When “Mamatina” grew up in Galveston, Texas during quarantine, teaching her children not to be seen and heard was a common way of parenting. Her mother, her Catholic school teacher, and all the adults around her revealed what role she plays.
For knowledge, it was translated into trying to make itself small and insignificant. However, Knowles simply could not follow the quiet rules and was quickly given a nickname. B.”
“That wasn’t a word of affection when I was little,” Knowles told me in a recent conversation. “They once said, here’s that bad tenny b I was a hyper so I spoke. “Now she says she is aware of her will and harsh behavior.
Knowles attended a school where nuns ruled the roost. She said she didn’t belong, she had a teacher who told her she couldn’t delve into and was a bad species. The words inspired her soul and sent her hatred to school.
“I thought they were doing the best,” Knowles said, but it hurt so badly.
She went home and told her mother, and couldn’t understand why her mother wasn’t taking her side. She didn’t know that her mother was working for bones to educate Knowles and her brothers.
From her own experiences in school and in early childhood communities, Knowles said it’s very important to really think about what you’re saying to your child. Labels can affect your lifetime.
“I’m still fighting that,” she said.
Those words are still cut, so she advises her parents to do things differently. “I defend your child. You have to protect your child,” Knowles said. “The message they’re giving to your kids is that they can do whatever they want to do and make sure they belong where they want to be.”
That’s exactly the message she conveyed to her girl.
Your kids see how you treat yourself, Knowles told me.
But Knowles also saw her mother make exquisite clothes for all her children, and despite their poor they were the best dressed children in town. (Knowles learned a great lesson from her work as a mother’s tailor, and ended up creating most of the costumes for Destiny’s children, Beyoncé’s singing group and Kelly Roland and Michelle Williams.)
“Like us, we were always the sharpest kids, and we had a lot of pride in fashion and our appearance. “I told my daughter that… They’re extremely talented at putting things together. They don’t sew as I sew, but they can wear buttons and they can hem and incorporate darts and that type of thing.”
Knowles says she quickly knew that Beyoncé had found the passion for her life when she first saw her daughter on stage. That was clear. However, Knowles said her young daughter could have done anything, and she really didn’t want Solange to enter the music business.
“When Beyoncé turned 10, I was terrified,” Knowles said.
According to Knowles, children in Beyoncé’s singing group would tell Solange every day, “‘Quiet, Solange’, she tried to choreography (group) so she knew she was the boss and wanted to get involved.”
“I’ve started to realize that Beyoncé allows them to talk to her like that,” she said. “I saw a wall coming between them, so I got them in treatment.”
Although her family and community thought treatment could be problematic or even dangerous, she found a “great” child therapist. As a result, the two sisters “were now as close as possible. There is no wedge between them.”
Knowles encourages other parents to do the same if they see unhealthy sibling competition occurring among your children.
Knowles was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and she struggled with whether or not she would mention it publicly. She decided to make a statement that others will also be screened, especially if they missed a medical checkup.
“You’re busy doing everything for everyone else,” she said. “And everything else comes first over your health at some point in our lives.
“I would like to share it in the hope that the women take a little time and that they’ll say… I’m going,” she added.