Any woman who willingly delivers her baby in a harsh and dilapidated hospital in Djibouti is a brave mom. That was Rachel Pieh Jones’s experience on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 when she delivered her daughter. Rachel wrote about her incredible story for The New York Times earlier this year (“A Child of Two Worlds”).

But Rachel will be the first to tell you she is not brave to raise her three kids in Africa. She’s no tiger mom, or brave mom, but a “desperate, breathless, dependent” mom.

While Rachel was stateside, we asked her about parenting in Africa, and she explained why “brave” is not the right word for what she does.