I’ve been writing this piece for years.
From the moment we learned we were having boys, I started thinking not about clothes or names but about the world they were coming into. About what it would mean to raise brown boys with softness, strength, and self-awareness in a world that often gives them too little space to be fully themselves.
This isn’t just about nail polish. It’s about power, protection, and unlearning. It’s about giving our boys room to feel, to question, and to be more than the limits placed on them.
It’s about raising boys who aren’t afraid to love openly, who understand the harms of patriarchy, and who learn to stand beside—not in front of—their peers.
I’m proud to finally share this essay with @brownhistory . I hope it sparks reflection, conversation, and maybe even a little unlearning of our own.
📖 “Raising Brown Boys in America Beyond the Gender Binary” — link in bio.
#deeptisharma #raisingboys #motherhood #boymom
I wrote about what it’s been like wearing a #bindi everyday for the past 8 years & growing up #hindu in @teenvogue Link in bio.
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Growing up, there was a hurtful song that kids in my school would sing to tease me: “I have a dot on my head, and the color is red. I’m a hindu.” I hated that song. As an Indian kid living in America, I went through all of the phases of rejecting, accepting, and ultimately embracing my culture. But a few years ago, I made a decision that makes me even more visibly Indian: I decided to wear a bindi every single day.
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The bindi is not only a beloved connection to my culture, it's become something of a political statement. Wearing a bindi is an act of resistance, particularly at a time when the Trump administration regularly enforces xenophobic policies and violent right-wingers target immigrant communities. By simply embracing my own culture, I’m normalizing a cultural practice that is often maligned in America.
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My bindi is a part of my identity, one that I grew to love despite being teased a child. It's a connection to my religion, my ethnicity, my family and some of my earliest childhood memories. As long as people respect and honor that rich history and current cultural significance, I have no issue with them embracing the bindi, too.
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Thank you @thesamhita & @dressupwithjess for giving me the opportunity to tell my story. @teenvogue
Solo all week. Activity after activity. Running on love and sheer will.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, another mom chose to be judgmental. On a day when I was already running on fumes driving the kids to 5 different activities, birthdays…. Of all days.
I responded with as much grace as I had in me. And I said what needed to be said: we can do better for each other. Moms are already carrying so much…did you really have to shame me?
Bless the angry women who give us hope. Who build a better world with their fury.
Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers. Even on the hard weeks.
And then there’s always one more thing on the list. 🧺
#soloparenting #motherhood #nycmom
I’ll be honest this one was hard to put together. Because every day in the last few weeks something new happened. And most people have no idea how fast this is moving.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is what the Brennan Center calls one of the most successful civil rights measures in history. The law that made sure your vote couldn’t be drawn out of existence by the people in power.
This week the Supreme Court eviscerated it. 6-3.
And Tennessee didn’t wait. Neither did the people who fought back — Rep. Justin Jones and Sen. Charlane Oliver showed us exactly what resistance looks like in 2026.
This is not staying in Tennessee. Alabama. Mississippi. Georgia. South Carolina. They’re all next.
Want to go deeper?
→ @blairimani breaks it down in her Smarter in Seconds reel
→ @feminist and @whenweallvote have the full receipts on what’s happening state by state
Part 2 coming next: what this means for our community and what we can all do right now.
🔗 Full Voting Rights Act explainer from the Brennan Center — link in bio.
#votingrights #votingrightsact #votevotevote #votingmatters
We don’t talk enough about this par of building.
The part where everything changes overnight.
Where the plan no longer works.
Where you have to choose between holding on and starting over.
Sometimes the business doesn’t survive.
But you do.
And what you build next carries everything you learned.
Women in business. Founder tip. Entrepreneur journey. Building in public. Founder life. Startup reality.
#entreprenuer #entrepreneurlife #founderjourney
Two women who have poured into me in ways I am still discovering.
I watch them and I’m still learning what motherhood really means. Still figuring it out. Still in awe of the way they keep giving — through love, through presence, through the quiet ways they carry the world and show up for everyone around them. Thank
Our hearts hold so much. And somehow we keep finding more room.
Happy Mother’s Day to every mama, every mom friend, every caretaker, every auntie, every member of the village who keeps showing up and to everyone who has ever lifted a mother up so she could keep going.
This Mother’s Day I don’t want flowers. I can buy and/or grow them myself.
I want my sons to grow up in a world where children aren’t being killed. Where policy protects people instead of punishing them. Where boys are free to be every version of themselves…soft and strong, brave and tender without toxic masculinity telling them who they’re supposed to be.
That’s what mothers actually want. Not brunch. Not a card. A safer, more just world for every child in it.
#mothersday #motherhood #parenting
I found an email from 2018. May 10th. 9:17pm.
I was going into labor and I was emailing to reschedule a call.
Not because anyone asked me to. Because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Because somewhere along the way I had internalized that my worth was tied to my output.
Even in the most sacred moments of my life.
And the worst part? Everyone celebrated it.
We have built a culture that applauds women for running themselves into the ground. That calls exhaustion dedication. That mistakes burnout for ambition. And nowhere is that more true than in entrepreneurship — where there is no policy, no protection, no safety net. You just figure it out. You push through. You perform resilience until your body stops letting you.
I crashed. Hard. And it took years to come back.
I wrote about it in Fast Company two years ago. And nothing has changed. The US is still the only wealthy nation with no national paid parental leave. Fourteen million women-owned businesses generating $2.7 trillion and we are still completely on our own.
This Mother’s Day I don’t want to be celebrated for doing it all.
I want us to finally start questioning why doing it all was ever the only option.
Link in bio.
#mothersday #entrepreneurship #motherhood #happymothersday
Women in business. Female founder. Hustle culture. Working mom life. Parental leave. Maternal health. Mom entrepreneur. Motherhood and ambition. Gender equity. Burnout.
Solo parenting food edition because there is no coming home between martial arts and soccer. 🙋🏽‍♀️
We pack it all. Snacks. Protein. Fresh fruit. Hydration. Homework gets done in between. And because I refuse to let a busy schedule mean a bad meal…khichdi and tofu also happened today, not pictured.
A little of what I’m eating. A little of what they love. Fruit non-negotiable and our biggest expense iykyk. And yes I’m EXHAUSTED.
#nycmom #parenting #motherhood #soloparenting #momlife
