My Jelly: Jaycina Almond
For Jaycina Almond, becoming a mother at just 20 years old was a mix of youthful naivety and deep purpose. A born caretaker and oldest sister, being a mom came naturally to her—it was navigating the isolation and stigma of being so young that proved challenging. But Jaycina rose to the occasion, forging an unconventional path that has allowed her and her now 7-year-old daughter, Syx Valentine Rose, to thrive.
If anything, being a single mom fueled her career. In addition to being a model, in 2020 Jaycina founded Tender, a non-profit that provides assistance to disadvantaged single mothers in the Atlanta area where she's based. Inspired by her own experience—including her upbringing—Tender's goal is to humanize maternal support and replace shame with empowerment.
Here, she lets us in on the sticky stuff, from going into labor on the set of a music video to navigating co-parenting to healing from a heartbreaking miscarriage.
"There's a sense of isolation and a stigma and shame that comes with being a young, unmarried mom."
If it happens, it happens
My pregnancy wasn't planned. I had been on Depo [Depo-Provera® birth control] and it takes 18 months to wear off so you can conceive again. When that time rolled around, I was like, if it happens, it happens—a 20-year-old's logic. I immediately got pregnant. I was happy. I was the first of my friends—even now, none of my friends have kids yet.
I'm the oldest sister of three, and my mom had a baby when I was 15, so I knew how to take care of a baby. When I was in high school, my mom worked over-nights as a nurse and we couldn't afford daycare, so the only way to make it work was that I cared for my sister. Her crib was in my room. So in the practical aspects, I felt super at ease and comfortable with the idea of having a baby. Also, ignorance is bliss. I frankly didn't know what I was getting into!
Single & pregnant at 20
The disadvantage of being young is your friends don't really understand what your experience is. There's a sense of isolation and a stigma and shame that comes with being a young, unmarried mom. From 12 weeks, I went through my pregnancy alone. My daughter's dad moved to LA, and I stayed in Atlanta. I mean, I was 20, so in my mind we were still together, but in his mind...it was a little bit different. There wasn't a lot of clarity around it. Of course now it's like, okay you for sure left. We were broken up, even if there was no conversation.
I have a best friend, Sienna, and we call ourselves sisters. Around the time that Syx's dad left, she DMed me like, "Hey, clearly you have no friends, you're pregnant, and your baby's dad is in LA..." We ended up going to lunch one day, and she really became my soulmate. She was my pregnancy partner—that person at the anatomy scans and in the room when I gave birth.
A natural born caretaker
Despite the setbacks of youth, I've always felt like being a mom is the one thing that I am good at. I had that feeling even at 20. I had a really different upbringing than most people, and I had to grow up super fast. Caretaking is something that I know I can do. Being a mom, Syx's mom, is my purpose—it completes me. When I was pregnant, I also researched everything. I read scholarly journals, peer-reviewed articles, anything I could read and research to figure out the optimal best choices to make regarding breastfeeding, how to sleep, how to do vaccines, literally anything and everything. I was that type of mom.
Pure euphoria
The morning I go into labor, I'm getting body painted for my friend's music video. Something's going on down there, but I didn't know if it was my mucus plug or my water breaking. We go on with the day, and I start tracking contractions on Sienna's phone, but still didn't really realize it's happening because it was 10 days early. I kept shooting the video.
I continued laboring at home, and my midwife and mom said it probably wasn't actual labor because it was my first kid and early. Meanwhile, all my friends are over getting ready to go out. This is was happens when you have a baby at 20. Just as Sienna is about to leave, I have a contraction that puts me onto the ground on all fours, and she's like, okay maybe we are going to have a baby tonight.
I get to the hospital and nobody believes that I'm in labor because I'm so calm, not screaming. They finally triaged me and I'm fully dilated. 45 minutes later, she was born. No medication or anything. Wow. I've never felt anything comparable before or since that moment she exited my body and entered the world. Pure euphoria.
"Becoming a mom is the thing that pushed me into womanhood. The experience of carrying a child and giving birth gave me more empowerment. It forced me to grow up and speak up for myself within sexual and romantic relationships. There's a different level of confidence and security. After giving birth you're just like, I can do anything."
Nontraditional co-parenting
Her dad and I don't have a traditional co-parenting situation. He primarily lives in LA, and we live in Atlanta. He is a musician, so there's two worlds to work around. When I gave birth, he was in the middle of a show at a festival. It's different when you have parents in a creative industry not working a nine-to-five. Co-parenting for me has been releasing expectations of how it should look. What I've learned is that I can only be my parent. I can't make somebody parent a certain way—I can only show up and do my best. And when you release that pressure from yourself—to make something else show up how you want them to show up—it's liberating.
Also, everything has a flipside. I don't know what I would do if I had to share my kid every fucking weekend! Sure, it would be nice if I wasn't the only person doing this every day...if I wasn't the only person waking up at night for two years, but there's always this flip side.
"I can do anything"
For a long time, I'd only date people in New York and LA, where I often traveled for work. I liked the boundary. Didn't have to introduce anyone to my kid. It was nice because I was still able to be a 20-year-old and explore. It wasn't hard to get back into being a sexual woman after having Syx. I just needed to distance between us, the separation of being in another state.
Becoming a mom is the thing that pushed me into womanhood. The experience of carrying a child and giving birth gave me more empowerment. It forced me to grow up and speak up for myself within sexual and romantic relationships. There's a different level of confidence and security. After giving birth you're just like, I can do anything.
I met somebody in Atlanta and just threw all of those boundaries out the window. We were on and off at first, but have been together five years. He packs her lunch for school every day. That's her dad, just as much as her biological dad, and his family has become a huge support in our life. It's very much a blended family, a solid foundation.
Experiencing loss
We've always wanted another baby. We weren't explicitly trying. I haven't been on birth control since I had Syx, I just track my cycle. So we got pregnant. Our second daughter was due February 14th, and Syx was born February 19th.
She ended up having Turner Syndrome, which is a chromosomal abnormality. Some babies survive, but she had fluid in her stomach and on the back of her neck. We eventually found out there was pretty much only a 1% chance of her surviving, but we live in Georgia and there's an abortion ban. I had to carry until her heart stopped or go through these tests to prove that the pregnancy is not viable and when she eventually passes, have a DNC. We had conversations, but there was really no choice. I was a little over 15 weeks along when her heart stopped. Once it happened and the doctors could prove that the pregnancy would not be viable, and only then were we able to get the DNC scheduled and had to wait a week after she passed to go in for the surgery.
"The Tender Foundation is about building a safety net for single moms living on the margins here in Atlanta so that they can invest in what they need."
Grieving as a family
Elevated HCG level is a marker for Turner Syndrome. I was sick from the moment I found out I was pregnant until even after her heart stopped. I went from cooking dinner every night to not for 15 weeks, so Syx knew there was a change. We told her, Mommy is growing a baby and explained morning sickness. Syx was there at the appointment when we found out about the fluid in her body. Luckily, her grandma was there too, but there was no shielding her from it. And she has her own grieving process. Some days she talks about how much she wants to be a big sister. She's had moments where she's broken down and cried and said, I'm angry that the baby is not alive, and I'm sad that I'm not going to have the baby. We experienced it together.
Kids are so resilient, but of course you want to protect them from everything. And so that's a conversation we have moving forward—is Syx going to come to appointments in the future? Do we do anything differently? For us, it's been something that we experienced as three. Even our family and friends don't really know how to talk about it. I felt very isolated after it happened because I was devastated and heartbroken, and everybody around us, our friends and family, were kind of tiptoeing around it and wouldn't talk about it. I think it is hard for people to sit in that discomfort with you though, so they avoid it. Her name is Moss. In our house, we still honor her and talk about her. My boyfriend got me a necklace with a moss leaf pendant, and on her due date he got a birthday cake and we just talked as a family and ate cake and worked through all our emotions.
Building a network of support
The Tender Foundation is about building a safety net for single moms living on the margins here in Atlanta so that they can invest in what they need. Our financial help is immediate and includes bill assistance with rent and utilities, groceries, and a diaper bank that provides free diapers, wipes, and formula. My mom was a single mom for half of my life and then she was in a domestic violence relationship. A lot of women can't leave because, you know, you have three kids and what are you going to do? Tender is about trust-based solutions that put power, autonomy, and agency back into single mothers' hands—that is ultimately going to be the best thing for folks to live a flourishing and meaningful life.
Words: Anna Deutsch
Photography: Piera Moore
