Because I’m a fan of Beyoncé and her entire family of talented individuals, I pre-ordered her mother, Ms. Tina Knowles’ memoir, Matriarch, as soon as it was announced a few months ago.
Though this review won’t be exhaustive, I’ll share some takeaways that I found relevant.
- Ms. Tina suspects that she may have had ADHD as a child, but they weren’t diagnosing for that back then.
- Beyoncé was an introspective child but was initially labeled as “slow” by her teachers. Ms. Tina wasn’t having that!
- She speaks of the stigma of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 90s and how people often suffered in silence.
As an avid reader, I found it interesting that Solange was very bookish as a child. Later in life, Ms. Tina had accumulated a collection of books written by Black writers, but was so busy ripping and running that she hadn’t gotten around to reading them. She’d end up binge-reading the collection to cope with her first divorce. I resonate with that because when times are tough in life, I tend to read even more voraciously. For example, with all that’s going on in the world right now, I’ve read 15 books so far this month.
I admire that Ms. Tina had her daughters in therapy at a young age. Solange, Beyoncé’s younger sister, has endured recurrent loss; more specifically, her therapist died of AIDS, her Uncle Johnny died of AIDS, and her best friend died to gun violence. Ms. Tina went to EMDR therapy recently, and she talks about how it helped her gain awareness of childhood abuse and helped her to unlock levels of healing that she didn’t know were possible.
Ms. Tina mentions medical mistreatment for Black women a few times throughout the book, which is especially relevant considering that it’s 2025 and there are still significantly worse health outcomes for Black women, regardless of socioeconomic status. Ms. Tina speaks of her own medical trauma; more specifically, a painful skin graft surgery she received after a cooking accident that resulted in a severe burn injury. I admire how she clapped back at the cookie-cutter methods doctors suggested when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.
My favorite quotes:
Matriarch is jam-packed full of life lessons and wisdom that we can all benefit from:
- Experiences of living in the Jim Crow South
- The norm of Ms. Tina’s youth that expected “pretty girls” to “marry well’ versus pursuing a career
- Homophobia towards her cousin, Johnny
- Racist police harassment, which included the beating of her brother
- Dealing with infidelity and financial mismanagement in marriage
- Entrepreneurship while parenting
- Racism and respectability politics
- Example: Ms. Tina advocated for Maxwell and Beyoncé to wear their natural hair out at a photo shoot when the stylist tried to silence them with a hat and a slick back bun, respectively.
- “Your hair is your trademark, your crown and glory,” she told Maxwell, before taking off the hat and picking out his afro in defiance of what the stylist was telling them to do.
- Example: Ms. Tina advocated for Maxwell and Beyoncé to wear their natural hair out at a photo shoot when the stylist tried to silence them with a hat and a slick back bun, respectively.
- Codependency
- Making lemonade from lemons (IYKYK)
- Example: Ms. Tina had a knack for whipping together stunning outfits for her children within minutes of a deadline.
Conclusion
I loved Matriarch by Ms. Tina Knowles and I highly recommend it.
Thanks for reading!
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