Helen Finner remembers the autumn day two years ago when she was strolling outside the Ida B. Wells housing project, where she lives. A teenage mother was walking toward her. “One baby in her arms, one baby in the stroller, and one baby dragging behind. I saw the frustration in her face. She was cussing the baby walking behind her. And I said, ‘Sweetheart, don’t do that.’ And she said, ‘I’m tired. I’m just tired.’ I told her, ‘You should have thought about that before you decided to have these babies. Now they’re here, and you have to take care of them.’”
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“You can’t baby these girls,” says the 60-year-old Finner, the mother of six and grandmother of four. “You have to tell them just like you see it.” The lecture she repeats practically every day is the same one she gave the teenage mother two years ago. “I told that girl, ‘None of these babies asked to come here, and you’re just 17 years old. You should be enjoying high school, having friends, going roller skating or to the show with your friends. You can’t do that now because you don’t have anybody to keep your kids. Don’t dog them because you didn’t have anybody dog you.’”
Finner has been a resident of Ida B. Wells for the past 25 years and is president of its advisory board. After she had the idea for Mama Said, she combed the project for women who would agree to spend time with the young girls Finner knew were desperate for advice and someone to just listen. “These girls didn’t have anybody who seemed to care, and that’s what they needed.”
The young mothers stop by Finner’s apartment to chat when she isn’t in her office. “I show them how to do their food stamps. I tell them, “The first thing you do when you get your public-aid check, before you leave the currency exchange, make you out a money order and pay your rent. If you got insurance, pay your insurance. If you’re fortunate enough to have a phone, pay your bills. Then what is left, put it on you and your children’s backs. With your food stamps, buy your food. That way you don’t have to look back and beg nobody, because you have become independent.
