Mother Credits Her Success to Strong Family Bonds

Ava Hart attributes her success — as a mother, a wife, a social worker, a community volunteer and leader — to achieving a balance in life.

Which may sound like an easy prescription for happiness, but as any mother knows, especially this Mother’s Day, it takes work.

In fact, Hart, married to her high-school sweetheart, mother of two girls and a boy, nurturing parenting coordinator at Middlesex Hospital and education chair of the Middlesex County NAACP, became a mother at 19.

“We were young parents, [her husband Harold Hart Jr.] was in college at Villanova and I was at Middlesex Community College and we stayed in a long-distance relationship for about a year and half until he graduated college,” Hart explains. Harold had to parent from afar.

“I had to be single mom because he was away at school. He played football for Villanova [in Pennsylvania], so he had responsibilities to the team. He had to be there not only for the team but for a scholarship.”

Growing up, Hart’s mother was a strong role model. “As a single mom, she raised me, she made sacrifices for me, that’s how I learned to be independent.”

And when her mother — and mother-in-law — discovered their son and daughter, both recent high school graduates, would soon be young parents themselves, Hart says, “they were completely the opposite of what you would expect.”

“They were totally financially and emotionally supportive, they would attend doctors’ appointments and nurtured us through that whole process,” Hart says.

And were non-judgmental. “They were really good about things, despite how things could be perceived. They were always kind and dealt with things as they came.”

Now she and Harold, a self-employed private contractor, are the proud parents of three children: Atia, 18, enrolled in the five-year social work path at Springfield College; Alexander, 16, who goes to Capitol Prepatory Magnet School in Hartford; and Alexa, 12, a sixth-grader at Keigwin Middle School.

Hart is vice president of the Capital Prep PTO and works full-time for Middlesex Hospital's Nuturing Parent Program, an initiative between the hospital, Middletown Public Schools and the Ministerial Alliance.

She also spends time working with children at Bielefield Elementary School for the Intervening with Children At-Risk Early program.

The Alliance is a group founded seven years ago in Middletown by African-American pastors and focuses on projects of community concern — housing, education, public safety and employment.

Formerly vice president of the Middlesex County NAACP, and now its education chair, Hart says, “I feel like I’m the liason between what happens in Middletown for kids in Middlesex County and the NAACP. We are currently looking at attendance rates and graduation rates for minority children and things that impact those rates.”

From early on, Atia echoed her parents’ community involvement.

“Growing up,” Atia says, “I was always in day cares, helping, or volunteering for programs like the Nurturing Family Program, so it’s kind of like I grew up with it and just decided to stick with it because I liked it.”

Harold helped found the Middletown United Fathers in 2008, which addresses the absent father crisis and its effect on children. One component, the Men at School program, combines resources with the Youth Services Bureau and Middletown Public Schools to initiate boys into responsible manhood.

Alexa is part of Keigwin’s Scholars in Action and Alexander is on the Capitol Prep track team, so evenings at the Hart home are pretty full.

“My husband makes dinner … he cooked all the food for the banquet the other night. Without his support, I wouldn’t be able to do all the other volunteer things,” Hart says.

And she’s proud of their approach to parenting.

“We don’t always see eye to eye because we’re both headstrong individuals, but in terms of our parenting, I feel like we’re a really good team,” Hart says. “Collaborating around things that we want to get involved in in the community, we are a solid team in that respect.”

Here’s where the yin and yang of her marriage is most apparent.

“I’m the creative; he’s the left brain, I’m the right,” Hart says.

And although the couple has been together 20 years, they’ve only been married for 12. “We did everything backwards,” Hart says. “We had all three children, bought a house and then got married.”

Hart says one of the most important parts of her life is family dinners.

“We call it get-togethers, where my husband, my aunts, his mom, my best friend, we all just come together; we make fun of each other. It keeps everything in perspective. We get together once a month for birthdays, that’s the stuff that keeps me grounded — always having my family and friends to keep things in perspective. We talk about everything, politics, from what’s going on in our little community to Princess Diana’s dress.”

Now that Atia is away at college, Hart says, she can reflect on her strengths — and weaknesses — as a parent.

“As a mom, I think the one thing that I’ve grown to appreciate is that I’m in a position now that I can share with people the mistakes I’ve made as a parent and some of the things I’ve done as a parent that my family and my children have benefited from.”

Atia echoes the sentiment. “I do think that she’s a good person to talk to and also to learn from.”

Now away at college, Atia knows the importance of networking, meeting new people and getting new opportunities — the very things her parents have emulated all along.

“I’ve seen how that benefits me now and how I’m more apt to get involved even if I am at school. I’ve still found myself extremely involved not only in my school, but in the Springfield community.”

Which will serve her well when she completes her masters degree in social work a year early, thanks to college credits she earned at Middletown High School.

Perhaps one day she’ll too combine strong familial support with social work — like her mother does now.

“When I work with families in the community, I bring them with me,” Hart says.

It’s all a part of the Hart family ambition.

“It’s my goal to move myself and my family closer to the people that we want to be and the values that we hold close to us,” Hart says, “that is, really helping others, but helping ourselves, too.”

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