CHAPEL HILL - It was a Tuesday morning at the Chapel Hill Bible Church, and for the Mocha Moms, that means another opportunity to talk about their lives.

Today, that means how to cook plantains.

"You have to fry them, girl," said one woman.

"And you have to wait until the plantains go black. Like, completely black," chimed in another. "There can't be any green or yellow on them."

"Does anybody know how to cook Jamaican food?" asked a third. "I've always wanted to learn to cook Jamaican."

"Girl, Jamaican food's hard to make."

For the members of Mocha Moms, this twice-monthly meeting is part information exchange, part girl talk, part social event -- much like other groups of stay-at-home moms.

But this is no coffee klatch; the "mocha" in the title describes skin color, and the women say they have issues that diverge from other groups: issues particular to raising black or racially mixed children.

There are issues of hair, for instance. Of how to manage their little girls' locks. Coaxing it. Using the right products. To go natural or not to go natural?

"[Our daughters] have curly hair, kinky hair. And I just can't talk about that with other women," said member Kia Rahman, 27.

"And we talk about schooling," she continued. "What we think would be the best environment to raise young, black kids so they could have a good sense of self -- raising black children in a country that's not predominantly black."

There have always been black, stay-at-home moms, said Mark Anthony Neal, assistant professor of black popular culture at Duke University. But in the past 20 or so years, "there has been this questioning of whether these professional ambitions create a context where they're giving something up in order to raise their families."

In other words, the women wonder whether trading one for the other is "giving something up."

So if black, at-home mothers have always been around, why the recent prevalence of support groups for them?

"Many of these women are imports from the Northeast, and many of these women need to build a network," Neal said, speaking from his own experience in Durham as a husband of a black, stay-at-home mom. "Especially when you're a black professional or are from the black middle class, there's a need to connect with black folks who have experiences in the same social class."

Census Bureau figures show a slight increase in the number of black stay-at-home married mothers, from 217,000 in 2003 to 232,000 in 2005. The number of all stay-at-home married parents (both sexes and all races) went from 5.5 million in 2003 to 5.6 million in 2005.

Besides Mocha Moms, which has 100 chapters in about 30 states, and more than 2,000 active members, there is perhaps one other group, Sistermoms that began in 1999, according to its Web site.

Looking for relevance

Tia Hall, co-president of the Durham chapter of Mocha Moms, had previously belonged to a stay-at-home moms group that wasn't geared toward women of color, she said.

"While it was wonderful, there were a lot of things that I found culturally relevant to me -- that if I mentioned it or brought it up -- wasn't necessarily a concern or important to the group," Hall said. "They heard me out, but it's just not their issue."

Deyna Hardison, a 35-year-old co-president of the Durham group, grew up in a single-parent home. Since her parents were divorced, she lived with her mother, who had to work a lot.

"Maybe that's why I'm so vigilant about wanting to raise my kids and wanting to be available," said the mother of 2 1/2-year-old Makenna and 1 1/2-year-old Maya. She did go back to work soon after having her daughters, but found that being gone 10 to 12 hours a day left her only two hours to spend with them before they went to bed.

"And I didn't have babies just to spend two hours with them every day!" she exclaimed.

So she decided to stay at home and make them her top priority.

Coincidentally, the Raleigh Mocha Moms chapter has recently formed a Working Mochas subgroup, geared toward women who went back to work after their children got older but who still wanted to be part of the group, said Katrina Wiggins, the chapter's president.

Because a lot of people living in the Triangle aren't from here, they may not have a lot of family around them. Like their children going to school for the first time, these moms have to build an entirely new network of friends.

"Especially these days, to prosper, families are moving away from their hometowns," Hardison said. "And joining a group kind of helps you get a family."

"There are people to call if you need a baby sitter. If you're sick, we'll bring meals to you," she continued. "It's almost as if you had a sister in town. It gives you a sense of community."

They have moms-only gatherings, where they can just be girlfriends and just be silly. And they have couples-only events, where they can "date their husbands."

"Everyone's so smart and funny and interesting. It's definitely changed my life in this last year in terms of making me happy," Rahman said. "Sometimes, you can kind of forget what it's like talking to adults [when you're around your children all day]," she said. "And you can also remember you're a person with interests and thoughts."

Though Hardison is moving to Baltimore soon to join her husband, she's not quite ready to leave her new family behind.

"You know, when I move, I expect them to visit."