Jeannie Mai Breaks Silence On Co-Parenting Experience

Jeannie Mai is not having it easy, and she is not holding back about it either!

The media personality’s postcards from her time apart from her daughter reveal her struggles with co-parenting alongside ex-husband, Jeezy, and how she is drawing strength from her situation.

Jeannie Mai welcomed her daughter, Monaco Mai Jenkins, with her estranged husband, Jeezy, in 2022. Her baby girl came years after the show host publicly declared that she was content with never having kids.

The 46-year-old did a vacay dump, but not without using it as a means to detail some of her struggles behind closed doors and lessons learned from these low moments.

In the first picture, Mai acknowledges that every time Monaco is away from her and with Jeezy, she uses that opportunity to take a break and reflect on how co-parenting is going. In her words in the next slide, Mai wrote:

“It’s harder than I ever imagined – loving her so much, but loving her from far away. There is no guidebook for this part of motherhood.”

She noted that despite the crumbling feeling of missing her child, she understands that it is part of the “job” and that it is essential to continue loving herself to give Monaco all the love in return.

Her time alone from her daughter reminds her that she is also a woman with needs and deserves happiness. Mai concluded her touching post with these golden words:

“To every mama sharing her child, this is your reminder; your happiness is not separate from theirs. When you shine, they feel it too.”

Mai’s well-curated content reached the appropriate audience who detailed their reality in the comments and thanked the host for giving words to the emotions they had carried for so long.

Her colleague and pal, Adrienne Bailon, gushed about Mai’s story writing, “Shining. She will learn from your happiness, your wisdom & your strength. You got this & God’s got you!”

Another commenter noted that, as a child from divorced parents, seeing her mother happy brought her happiness. Singer Tamar Braxton left loads of heart emojis under the post.

“Enjoy the ME time when you can get it,” a third user advised the media personality on how to make the most of her time away from Monaco.

“Co-parenting and sharing our kid is very hard, but our kids grow up to be independent, problem solvers, and we can take pride in not being the clingy parent,” this commenter declared, encouraging Mai that her feelings are valid, but everything is for the best.

Becoming a single mother was never in the cards for Mai when she married her estranged husband, whom she had fallen in love with hard enough to reconsider her decision never to have a child.

As shared by Complex in March, she revealed some details about finding balance in life as a single mother after her divorce from Jeezy was finalized.

She lauded the single mothers who have gone through the experience and still find a way to move forward with life despite their reality being different from what they had envisioned.

“You don’t ideally think to have a child and have that whole responsibility to yourself. But I realized that the gift of being a single mom is that you learn how to trust yourself,” Mai explained on the Sherri show.

Being a single parent does not diminish the joys or experiences of motherhood in any way, according to Mai; the feeling is still the same. Mothers still instinctively know what to do and can be completely independent with their babies.

Mai noted that she is surprisingly “reparenting” herself through Monaco and realizing that she has everything she needs and that is enough. “You know exactly what your daughter needs in love; you know exactly how your children need to be seen and heard,” she added.

Sure, the struggles of being a single mom hit sometimes, and maybe the loneliness, but aside from that, Mai is having the time of her life as an unmarried woman right now.

The Blast shared that the fashion expert revealed the benefits of being single, without emotional ties to anyone; a status she has no interest in changing anytime soon. She raved about living life on her terms and not having to share her time, diet, or space with anyone.

Mai goes to bed when she wants, or ditches sleep and doom-scrolls through her phone all night long with absolutely no one to check on her. Now she is well-versed in navigating life safely and avoiding pitfalls.

On when the occasional “tingles” come, Mai told Sheri that she knows how to fix them. In her words, “But wait… Sherri, we didn’t say that we can’t have friends. We can have friends.”