No drama, Marry Mama

Charlotte joins national movement to tighten family ties

Published Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:00 am
by Herbert L. White>

It’s never too late to tie the knot after starting a family.
Marry Your Baby Daddy Day, a national movement to promote family commitment through marriage, is spreading to Charlotte. Organizers are recruiting five couples with children for a free mass wedding Sept. 24 at Charlotte Museum of History. MYBDD started in New York five years ago to strengthen African families through traditional matrimony.


“To change this issue, black women need to get themselves together,” said Maryann Reid, an author and founder of MYBDD. “We need to say as a community no more out of wedlock births and make it
happen.”


Amanda Sherman, owner of Gala Affairs by At Ur Best, is organizing the Charlotte weddings. She said interviews are underway for prospective couples, and sponsors have been lined up to provide wedding essentials from catering to gowns and tuxedoes.


“I thought it would be a wonderful idea in Charlotte,” Sherman said. “I thought it would work well here. I’d like to move up next year to 10 like Maryann does in New York. It’ll be an annual thing and we’ll be looking for more families.”


Reid, who has organized the weddings of 40 couples in New York and plans to add another 10 this year, said families benefit from marriage, especially kids. More than 6 of every 10 black children in the U.S. (64 percent) are born to unwed parents, and the social costs rival the economic price tag of poverty through government-sponsored programs.


“I realized there are so many out of wedlock children, I thought it was a threat not only to women, but to their children,” Reid said. “They are so worried about being with someone so badly they get pregnant and don’t make good decisions with their bodies. It’s a very convoluted situation.”


Marry Your Baby Daddy Day is also good for the bottom line. Married families are in better position to leverage assets as opposed to being split, which is also manifesting itself during the recession.


“It’s not an issue of marriage and staying together,” Reid said. “It’s an economic issue because couples are now trying to stay together.”


For information, call (212) 946-5164.


On the Net:
Marry Your Baby Daddy Day
www.marryyourbabydaddy.com