Black Love is not just about the day; it’s about the life of couples and all 360 degrees of it. Rev. Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes and Rev. Dr. Andrew Wilkes are the co-founding, co-lead pastors of The Double Love Experience Church in Brooklyn, New York. They met in college at Hampton University and have been together leading as ministers and living in love ever since for almost 20 years. They are respected by many but can’t help but to often feel frustration when people who love them but may not necessarily know their journey ask, “When are y’all gone have some kids?” Today, for Black Love, Pastor Gabby shared it all with me and let me in on her journey, what legacy truly means, and what women and couples who don’t have children want you to know before you ask them invasive questions.
Yasmine Jameelah: How did your love story begin?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: I met my husband in college, and we got married five years after our college graduation. So when I got married, I was two weeks away from 25, and he was 24. When I was younger, I thought I would get married around that age because I think in the 90s, people getting married in their mid-20s, things was normalized, and with movies like The Best Man, Brown Sugar, The Wood, etc., these movies gave Black professionals who were post-college, getting married and finding their career, some hope. I say that because I think now I’m 2023, it’s far more common for Black folks living in urban cities to get married in their thirties now.
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Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: Right! But I will say that I got married when I was ready. Andrew and I were certainly the first among our crew to get married, but it wasn’t unusual because we had been together for five years. So it wasn’t like, oh, you all are rushing this. I think we were probably kind of the last cohort of young adults at the time who had grown up with those visuals. I don’t want to say we were sold propaganda, but that ’90s kind of visual of what life was going to look like is what we thought we would have and so we got married in 2010. Getting married at that age seemed like it was kind of my plan, so to speak, for my personal life. One thing that I was intentional about is I recall saying to my family that I didn’t want to have children until I was in my thirties, and I think that is significant. So, I was immediately on birth control during my twenties, and that was intentional and the reason was that I come from a family with a very strong maternal gene. I am grateful for that, and I don’t mean this to be disparaging, but for many of the women in my family, we had children early. And whenever we had children, that altered the other dimensions of who we were as women, professionally and personally.
That scared me, to be really honest. So, I have a few nephews, and I have a lot of cousins. We have always had babies in our family, and I have always been the go-to person for babies. I’m very nurturing in that way as well.
I was never afraid of having children, as in, oh, I don’t know what I could do with a child, or I’m not maternal. It wasn’t that; it was the opposite. I actually was like, I worry that if I have children in my 20’s, I’m not going to get a chance to see how these other dreams for my life pan out. At the time, I was a music publicist in New York, and I was very heavy into the entertainment scene, and I wanted to give myself some space to see if that would manifest in some way that I deem successful. And my husband also was not in a rush as we both had goals we desired to hit before parenthood, and he wanted to be a very present father. He came from a two-parent home, and I came from a home of divorce, so we were intentional about what we wanted.
I think that our families, our friends, and everyone who knew us may assume that we were just kind of, like, fun and flirty. We got married in our twenties because we found each other and wanted to start our lives together, but nobody was asking us about kids because it was kind of clear, like, oh, y’all in your bag, we’re so proud of you all, and that kind of thing. And so probably around my 30th birthday when I went to Yale to get my divinity school degree was probably around that time period is when I first started feeling the community kind of being like, how are you going to do that? You’re not interested in kids? At that time, I also started to feel my own internal desire to have children. I used to always say I wanted to have two children between the ages of 30 and 35. That was my personal desire. Primarily because I had heard about geriatric pregnancy, I had heard about complications after 35. And so that, to me, was my sweet spot to have children. However, because I kind of did make this shift into a second career and went back to school and did all of that, I think I was like, well if it kind of happens naturally within that time frame, great. And if it doesn’t, maybe it’s like, God not wanting me to balance pregnancy while being in divinity school. At the time, I was serving on the staff of a megachurch, and then I graduated from Yale at 33.
At that point, I began to feel like enough of my life was in a place where I would welcome this phase of life. And I should say that having children has also been the prompt for a lot of my family, who did live away from home, to relocate back home. So my mom, who lives in Dallas, where I’m from, was always kind of like, yeah, yeah, live your best life, and when you have those grandbabies move back home, you’re not going to be in New York with these children, that whole thing. So I would say probably around that age, Andrew and I started getting a little bit more intentional with tracking ovulation, but I was always opposed to fertility drugs. Not because I had any issues with it, and it wasn’t because of anything spiritual. I am just a very practical person, and I have all the respect for loved ones and friends who have conceived through IVF. For me, I was afraid.
I’m afraid of miscarriages and on the salary of a minister, I cannot afford to spend a ton of money on fertility enhancements only for them to not work out. I’m also afraid of letting my desire to get pregnant consume my life and overwhelm my marriage. I’m a very practical person. And so I kind of got into this mindset with myself of like, as naturally as possible, I am going to track my ovulation, and if it happens that way, I’m going to be really grateful. And if it doesn’t, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. And so I’m 38, and it has never happened – and I’ve never had a pregnancy scare.
In that experience, I’m unique in my friend group and my family, but I don’t think I’m unique in the world of Black women whom I’ve never met and who have never had a pregnancy scare, but you don’t always hear this narrative. So I was like, well, this is a part of me, too. I know that people have questions about being pastors and family dynamics. Foundation is very important to the church, and I always imagined I would have children. That’s how I made my decisions around children, and now I’m 38 without a child.
Yasmine Jameelah: This conversation is so beautifully layered, because I’m hearing a few stories at once and one being this timeline that is important to note. For women, it doesn’t seem like the window of time is very big, right? To achieve your goals, to be productive, to be focused on the things that are passionate to you, and meet your husband, get married, and have kids. I have also seen women that I went to school with who had children immediately after college or had them and dropped out have all of these regrets of what they didn’t accomplish, of feeling stagnant, etc. All of these different things, and so I say all that, you had the opportunity to pursue a second career, like, these things that are not impossible with children, but it does make it hard to say, like, hey, I don’t know if I want to do this thing anymore when you have people that are depending on me.
I want to go back to something that you just said about church. And the concept of family and how important family is to church. And my thought is, well, you are a family; you two are a complete family. But do you think that the church, or just even not beyond the church, that society doesn’t see a person that is married and see a complete family, or do you think that that is something that is changing?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: Yeah, that’s a great question. It has been my experience that folks who are without children, society seems to think that we are not fully at our full stage of adulthood right? Like ima be 40 in two years, I’m good and grown. I’ve been living in New York for 15 years, the cost of living alone gets you prepared for adulthood (laughs) I’m grown. I’m very grown.
I’m a supportive wife. I have in-laws, I have my family, and I have nieces and nephews. I have good friends for whom I’ve become like an aunt to their children. But there is this kind of, oh, you’re in this phase of life energy that we receive that’s not spoken, but that I feel around people. Especially when comments come like you can travel because you don’t have children or you can move up in your career because you have children, but wait till you have kids, and then you all will really understand the real, real. Right? Yeah. I would say there are people in my life who believe that Andrew and I are family and are complete. But I would say a lot of folks have just been conditioned this way. Interestingly enough, if I wasn’t married but I had kids, I think people would be more like, yeah, you’re an adult.
Yasmine Jameelah: Isn’t that something?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: People kind of see us as like a cute bubble of romance that we’ve been able to preserve all these years because we don’t have children. And there’s this some that feel because you don’t have children, you haven’t faced some degree of hardship or choice or what have you. That without children, you haven’t arrived into the fullest version of adulting. I think the other thing, as it relates to just my profession as a pastor, I have a lot of families in my church who obviously have children, and so I think that they would love it if we did, too. But I don’t really feel it from my members because they chose our church knowing who we are. But there is, I think, this kind of in the back of their mind I present a little bit younger than I actually am, just like my whole family; we all age slowly. Black don’t crack. But I’m closer to 30 than 40. So I think there’s this assumption that it just hasn’t happened yet. And I think that some of the sensitivity is from that pain, for example when Mother’s Day and Father’s Day where people say “It’s coming” not realizing my age. Some years it’s cool, and it rolls off my back. Other years, I’m kind of like, how dare you? You don’t know what my situation is, and you don’t have to feel like you have to say that to me. To answer your question, I do see myself as a family with Andrew as a complete family. But then I also think about our siblings and our parents. We’re blessed to both have our mothers and fathers still living. I didn’t grow up with my father, he’s still living. And so I think about my immediate family as that wingspan of my nephews, my siblings, my mother, and my in-law; that’s my unit, but none of them live in New York. So New Yorkers that we engage with don’t know that unless they’re on social media they think it’s just Andrew and me. And for a lot of people, I think they’re just waiting for us to have children. And if we never have children, I don’t know what that means for people and what that brings up for people but it seems to make a lot of folks uncomfortable.
Yasmine Jameelah: So people might say that married couples who have children might be more invested in their marriage because they have these kids, because they have this life — but you and Andrew have said, I choose you regardless. How does that feel for you?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: I love that question. It feels great. And I think that’s where I am in my life right now, where I’m even letting myself adjust to, what if it’s just us? What if the kids don’t come and adjusting even my expectations of myself and what my body will or will not produce for the child. And I’m starting to be okay with that. I’m starting to be like, you know what? That’ll be cool. We have a good life. And I think in terms of the fairy tale, like storybook life, that young kids get presented at a young age, I think I have that in my head. So we still have those jokes of like man, y’alls kids are going to be this way or that way, and we do it too. And so I think I’m just starting to release that being, like, this cloud over even me of like, that’s our next. And just kind of being like, okay. I do feel, like, parented a lot of movements, a lot of people, a lot for the culture. I don’t. We’ve been selfish in our time and our gifts because it all goes back to legacy, right so if you don’t have kids, what’s your legacy? Or who’s going to care for you when you’re older? All these ways that we talk about children, like, who’s going to have your back? Who’s going to be there for you regardless? And so I’m starting to expand my definition of community, of family, starting to try to release those fears of who will be there for me and just kind of trying to live my life in a way that’s faithful. And I seen people without children still have folks that love their old age. They’ll have folks that pull up for them, show up for them. And so I’m trying to readjust my own thinking of like, okay, there are other ways that I can build this legacy in this community in ways that matter to me, apart from slowly.
Yasmine Jameelah: On days where you feel great, like you said, you feel good, you feel fine, but on days that you don’t, what gets you through, because this is not just something in terms of what you shared, why you feel like your story is different in your family. There’s so many black women, right, that have had experiences, whether it is they’re not having a scare or maybe they’ve done rounds of infertility and fertility drugs, have been unsuccessful or whatever the case may be, or miscarriage, et cetera. How do you get yourself through on those days? And do you have support in that aspect? Do you have a supportive OBGYN? Of course, like your husband. But in terms of reproductive wise, have you had support through this journey?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: I will say this, I need a more consistent OBGYN. That’s an immediate goal of mine, even just for my own health and wellness. Support is tricky on this specific journey. I had a conversation with a really good friend, about two years ago. She was pushing me to have children because she was pushing herself. And so she wanted a comrade in the struggle of trying to have children. And I told her, I was like, listen, one thing that I’m clear about is, even if I get pregnant, I’m really concerned about the cost of living in New York to raise a child. I live on the top floor of a brownstone, a two-bedroom brownstone, which is tiny enough, it’s tiny for my husband. Imagine with a child. The truth of the matter is, at this point in my life, if I got pregnant, yes, I would jump for joy. But I’m not in the kind of place where I really feel like I could afford the private preschool and the private school, or if it’s public schools, the home that I need to buy in the right school district, and then they’re going to public schools and the ongoing cost of child care and not having a community care, meaning kind of raising this child almost in silo or has to be on a plane on time. And so there are those moments where I’m kind of like, maybe it’s a God thing that I’m not. Because after you all throw me that baby shower and after you all Facetime me every now and again, it’s just going to be me, this baby, and Drew. Having said all that, support from my community is tough. They want me to have a child, but I don’t think I have built-in support to help me raise that child. And so that also causes me to be okay with wherever this lands because I know that it’s going to be a massive change in my life, and I don’t have all the resources or connections to help.
Nobody has the right answer. I don’t even know the right answer to myself half the time. But I think sensitivity would be welcomed. For example, when people make suggestions for fertility doctors, you’re asking someone to not take a health risk and also a financial risk. You’re not being sensitive to the fact that someone might not have the $20,000 to $40,000 that IVF costs as it usually takes several rounds for it to be successful. I want people to acknowledge that it’s as simple as they think and how much of an investment that it is. It is an Investment of emotion. It is an investment of finance. It is an investment of rigor and continuity.
Which is why I celebrate celebs like Gabrielle Union who talk about the number of miscarriages, the number of tries that it can take and the rejections of those that have tried to go the adoption route and how complicated that process can be, especially if you desire a Black child and a child that’s younger so you can raise the baby. So I would say to anyone who is giving those kinds of suggestions, my ask of them is to do the research of what you’re suggesting and understand how this process can do harm to relationships. While this is something that you desire, if you are in a happy marriage, you don’t want to essentially interrupt your life for something that may or may not go well and could potentially bankrupt you as a couple.
Yasmine Jameelah: As a pastor on this journey, what has that been like for you to encourage yourself and also maybe even other women that you might come across or other families? How has that journey played a part and this story? And what is your greatest prayer to come out of all of this?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: Wow, what a question. I think not having children at this phase of my life and being a pastor as I’ve been a pastor for ten years, it’s really freed me up to allow me to put more into my passion. It’s allowed me to be on the road more, to build different kinds of connections, and to see that dimension of my professional life flourish. And I don’t say this disparagingly for women who are doing both. I’m just saying, in a strange sense, it’s giving me the freedom of a male pastor. But if I ever do have children, then I’ll figure out that balance.
Yasmine Jameelah: And your greatest prayer that you hope to come out of all of this?
Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes: My greatest prayer is for Black women like me who have not had children, who are closer to 40 than 30, married or single, to recognize that we are enough. We’re not selfish; we are loving, and we deserve to be happy on our journey. And if we become moms later, great. But if we never do, we’re still enough.
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