I am 4 years into being a mother to these 2 kids. They were 3 and 5 when I became their mom. They are now 7 and 9. Here is what I have seen and what I want you to know and understand.
To give you some insight as to my viewpoint, I am like you. I had a horrible example for what a mother should be and so did you. Neither of us speak to the women who gave birth to us. I want you to think about why. Think about your childhood. Think about the things you saw and the things you heard.
Here is where we differ. I got extremely lucky and a woman came into my life and raised me as her own while my biological mother was completely absent for 8 years. Your mother did what she had to do to make sure you survived while you had no contact with your father. Your mother talked major crap about your father. The mother who raised me said not one single horrible word about my father or my biological mother who later made an attempt to be a part of my life. My biological mother spoke poorly about my father every chance she got while my father was silent on the matter. My father was my constant. Your mother was yours.
Our parents did what they had to do to keep us alive long enough to get to adulthood and that came sooner than it should have for both of us. We raised our siblings when we were teenagers and that shouldn’t have been our life. We then became parents in our late teens. You through the birth of our son, and me through the adoption of my oldest child. These were the moments we had to make our choice about what kind of parents we wanted to be.
These children get 9 HOURS A WEEK with you. And that has become your decision. The courts gave you a list of requirements to fulfil in order to see them more. It has been 4 years and you have not completed a single thing on that list. Instead you tell the children that it is our fault you don’t get to see them.
You get 52 days a year with them, and in the last year you have bailed on the ten times. While that may not seem like a lot, to them its been enough that they don’t believe you want them. When you don’t show up, I am the one here to dry their tears and remind them that you love them and that you will hopefully see them next week. I am the one who reminds them that it is your birthday and mothers day so they don’t forget to tell you. I am the one here when you don’t call on their birthday or show up to their birthday parties. I am the one reminding them that you love them when they get mad about you prioritizing your two younger children over them.
I have to sit here and watch you do the same thing to these children that our mothers did to us. And there is not a thing I can do about it but hold them and tell them how much they are loved.
The only thing we have ever asked of you, is for you to be the mother these kids deserve. They love you so much. Someday they will figure out who you are as a person, and I honest to
God hope that they can be proud of you.
The children come home from their visitation with you and tell us about their day, you are not usually mentioned in their recap. They tell us what everyone else did with them while you stayed in your room. They get so excited on the days when they get to come home and tell us that you played with them. On these days, we get excited with them.
We have always rooted for you to do better. For yourself and for your children. We have never and will never say anything bad about you to them even though we know you do not provide us with the same curtesy.
We are happy to be your support system. You are not alone in this even though you think you are. When all of their parents can work together and communicate with each other, the kids win. It is not you versus us. It is all of us doing what is best for the kids and doing what we need to do in order for them to have their best chance at a good childhood, and a good life.
We cheered for you when you cut your toxic mother out of your life and backed you up when she tried to get around you and go through us to see the kids. We cheered for you when you and your boyfriend got your own apartment. We cheered when your boyfriend got a drivers license. We cheered when you had another baby. We even cheered when you had your 4th child. We invite you to every holiday, and every birthday party, and when the children ask if you’re coming we let them know that you were invited and that you are always welcome in our home. We cheered for you because we are ALL a family.
You can make us out to be the bad guys. That’s fine. But one day, not to far away, these kids are going to see you for who you are and won’t want anything to do with you. I think you know that. My fear is that they will see you the way we see our mothers, and experience the trauma we inherited from them.
That is not my wish for you.
My wish is that you will break the cycle. Be the mother that you and I both deserved and didn’t get. Be the mother that fights tooth and nail for her children. Do what you need to do to spend more time with them. Be a person, and a mother, they can be proud of.
Neither of us are perfect and we never will be because nobody is. But our children deserve for us to fight for them to have a better life than we did. And that happens only when we can work together as adults to do what is best for these children.
We are two sides of the same coin. We each had a choice to make about what kind of parents, and what kind of people, we would be. Do we follow that paths that our mothers laid out for us? Or do we choose to be better?
Sincerely,
The woman raising OUR children
Being a Mom is HARD 