**Warning, this is a flaming post**

Apparently, Savannah Brinson thinks she is more than a Baby Mama to Lebron James.  In her exact words:

“I’m the mother of his children. I’m not a baby mama. There’s a lot more to me than that.”

Hmmm. So are you his side kick?  That is how the man refers to her and if so then does that mean she is the Robin to his Batman?  Girl. Bye.  That’s where Bosh and Wade come in.

I’ll make a disclaimer now so you can decide if you want to read more and hate me later or just hate me now and close the window.  I love everything about marriage, especially for African-Americans.  We can’t keep doing this baby mama stuff and think we won’t get our cards pulled.  So when I read articles like these rationalizing her position in his life it makes me irritated.  No, I truly don’t believe that everyone will get married or should get married to the person they have children with, right?  Life happens, but what I do expect is that you not try to rationalize it like we’re all dunces sitting in a corner reading the article.  Boo, we know.

Furthermore, the baby mama tag doesnt apply to women (in my estimation) that were once married or were intending to be married and things fell apart.  I don’t advocate marrying just because you get pregnant, that usually doesn’t work out unless that was the plan all along and the baby’s arrival sped things up.  That’s another animal altogether, pardon the use of animal but you get what Im saying.

Lebron isn’t saying that he will one day marry her, or that she is the love of his life and that they are planning on making it official, no. He said she is his sidekick and I will be d@mned if after two babies I am now relegated to being your “sidekick”:

A person like myself always needs a great sidekick and a person you can rely on no matter the circumstances. And she’s that, She’s got my back, and I love her for that.

Nope, sorry, can’t do it.  He is willing to sign a  multi-million dollar contract more than he is to create stability and security for his boys and the woman in his life.

And, before you get your comments out of line, there are many benefits, legal and otherwise to a good marriage, here are a few:

Legal and Economic Benefits of Marriage (read: good, healthy marriage)

On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:

	Status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
	joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
	dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
	immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
	inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
	joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
	inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
	benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare;
	spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
	veterans’ discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
	joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
	wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
	bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
	decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
	crime victims’ recovery benefits;
	loss of consortium tort benefits;
	domestic violence protection orders;
	judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;

Physical/Emotional Benefits of Marriage

“If it is a good marriage, the benefits are equally as great for women as for men; for men, just being married confers a tremendous amount of benefits,” Gottman says. “One of the major ways in which marriage confers effects is to reduce risk: Men stop engaging in risky behavior like bungee jumping and driving drunk. … [They start] getting their health looked at on a regular basis and eating well.

Single men really don’t do that; they sort of fall apart. “Women are less prone to risky behavior, more likely to go to doctor when they are sick, and they take care of themselves better,” he says. “The other big, big difference is men have lousy social support systems, and women have great support systems.”

This just goes to show you how much men get taken care of in a marriage, says David Woodsfellow, PhD, director of the Center for Relationship Therapy in Atlanta. “While the traditional role has man as the provider, that role is really as the provider of money,” he says. “In that traditional role … the woman is the provider of nurturing comfort, home, and often food, clothing, and furnishings.

I freely admit marriage isn’t for everyone, but Savannah needs to come back down to earth.  Still, I understand that she is in a bit of a pickle wit this one.  Hold on to him LaLa style and get the ring…one day.  Or stick it out and maintain her current lifestyle which I am not mad at all about.  Ball!  But what I don’t like is more and more black women having more children out of wedlock at the rate of 70%(sometimes on purpose) and then rationalizing it.

It does nothing to help young girls coming up who look at the generation before them wondering whether they should hold out for the stability of a read–>healthy marriage or lay down and keep having babies by a man rich or poor like some alley cat in heat.  This does not apply to all “baby mamas” but it applies to the ones who purposely have children with men out of wedlock with no intentions of a long term legalized union.  I just feel we need to do better, tis all.

I just hope that if they intend to carry on like this then she at least has some legal document in place that protects her financially should they split up.  If she is smart, she will treat this like a business and not lead with her heart, because certainly, he must be thinking along the same lines as well.

What are your thoughts?  Is she delusional or justified in her “sidekick/babymama” status being than just that?  Is being a sidekick better than a baby mama?