Becoming the Parent I long to be!

My previous entry was about healing, which lead me to the topic of parenting because being a parent is my biggest motivation to heal. But there’s a lot of pieces in parenting that can drive you even crazier than you thought you were and delay the healing process. I used to be a single mother and parenting my son alone was no walk in the park, and because I know, again, I’m not the only one so I wanted to share my experience with you guys to hopefully help someone else in the long run and also acknowledge my fuck ups and have better knowledge for my next go round.

I currently have a six-year-old, so let’s take a ride through history to get to the beginning of it all. When I found out I was pregnant I knew I was going to be a single mother, and selfishly speaking it’s kind of what I always wanted. I knew it would be hard but to not have to share that unconditional love I longed for for a long time outweighed that to me. Having anxiety didn’t make it any better, and the attacks went crazy during the pregnancy and honestly never stopped, I just learned to deal with them differently. Beyond worrying about today’s issues a black man has to face, I have automatically entered his first traumatic experience, not having a father, and it’s an ongoing experience that I have no control of. I didn’t much have my father but I’m not sure what it feels like to be a son without his dad and that’s what I gave him to deal with. I knew the conversation I was dreading wasn’t coming until Kaleb hit like five or six, so I put myself on a deadline to find him a stepfather and a good one at that, I felt like that was the least I could do providing him with the father I did. So, for me dating wasn’t about me, which also made that difficult.

I know this all my sound crazy but that’s how I thought, but with all that being said I focused on my child, his academics, and how to be a boy as much as I can, and I worked, boy oh boy did I work. I wanted to show him that there’s nothing beyond his reach and there is nothing in this world that can stop him but him. I was always working at least two jobs and taking classes, I mean I was a single mother who had a house, car, and kid to finance on her own I really didn’t have a choice. I would work overnight get off at seven in the morning, come home to do morning academic activities with Kaleb (which is why he can fluently read and write now), make him breakfast, then have him to school by 9am. Some days I had to work while he was in school and sometimes, I had the luxury to sleep during those hours depending on the day of the week. Picked him up by five, do homework with him, make dinner, put him to bed, and get ready for work all over again. Of course, my off days were dedicated homework and quality time with Kaleb, so I felt like this “deadline” of mine would not be met. So, we spent his first four years just me and him and it may not have been perfect, but I can say it’s a miraculous thing to experience, even with the hardships.

Kaleb is one of the easiest children to deal with if you’re not his mother, and most mothers know what I mean when I say that. But there were small things Kaleb would do to trigger my anger, he’s very intelligent but he has this thing about him that I know just didn’t come from me, and that’s when I realized that regardless of an absent parent, certain things are hereditary. For example, we can be having a great three days straight with the curriculum I provided for him and then the fourth day he would act completely blank as if he didn’t show me he could do it the day before, which of course bothered me. With me already struggling mentally and him doing a number like that, some mornings were very tough in our home. It became a learning process for the both of us.

My biggest obstacle or thing I had to work on was my mental health, that’s why my first two BCI entries highly stress the issue. It really was my biggest struggle and im currently struggling today just in different ways now. I suffer from anxiety and manic depression and my biggest armor against all of it was being a mother and trust those shields took some hits. Once I realized my child would be my biggest trigger I vowed to try my best to let nothing but him affect my change in emotion because I had to give him all the patience my body could allow and if I gave it to anyone else I wouldn’t have it for him. We could have a great couple of days then in one day after all the greatness he does at least four things to trigger my anxiety, and one thing that I’ve learned over the years is the connection between my anxiety and my anger.

Normally anxiety would overwhelm a different emotion where there’s tears and little sadness in the air, a feeling to just cower, which is sad for most people around them to watch. But honestly, I don’t know how to be sad or sad for long depending on the situation at hand. So as soon as I feel that small piece of vulnerability, which is a weakness in my mind, right before it takes over my body there’s a surge of uncontrollable anger. Because I refuse for the world to see me cry due to the fact that’s my most vulnerable state and I feel weak. So, the anger intensifies until rage equals the amount of sadness I acquired, and then it takes one step over and it takes control, and it has control until my body is tired. It’s crazy because I’m only 5’2 but when the rage takes over, I feel as big as the hulk and nothing can stop me, except my personal Betty Ross which was Kaleb because that’s just not how you want your child to view you.

Even with the knowledge of what needed to be done it still took time, which also was a trigger. I felt like he probably thinks I’m crazy but how could he look at me any different with the way I was behaving every now and then, at least that’s how I felt. Imagine your child watching you punch holes in walls in so much rage and they get close and you’re still screaming in rage. Now imagine actually coming back to reality and you look him in his eyes, and the reverse effect of what I spoke on earlier happens. Your sadness surges pass the anger and go over and now your crying uncontrollably sobbing through apologies and promises to be better. Once I realized the power he had to change me, I ran with it, the only one and thing that can reverse my anger barrier and allow vulnerability and it not feel weak. Breaking down those barriers and getting to the real me was something I knew that had to be done if I wanted to succeed in raising a king without the same issues I am fighting.

My first step was vulnerability, the biggest control my anger and anxiety had over me was my pride and that was something I learned to strop from me before I talked to my son. This was extremely difficult, I didn’t even like crying in front of my mother, but my very first time it happened he consoled me and hugged me and told me it was ok, it felt kind of good but with the anxiety I have of course it killed the moment. My mind ran with the ‘what kind of mother cries in front of their child’ and the repetition of weakness but I fought it and held on to my baby and that moment for as long as I could regardless of how it hurt because this was the first time I knew someone actually meant it. After that it was kind of smooth sailing, my consistency led to his consistency and we were a working team.

Everyone’s biggest obstacle is parenting isn’t the same, and even when you think you’ve conquered the worst of it there’s something else. Now everyone that knows me personally or read my websites mission statement, knows my plans on moving away from my hometown, but for some reason everyone always talks about my son and my baby brother (they are the same age) growing up together and basically being brothers. With my intent on moving I knew this wasn’t going to happen, so I decided along with my mother for them to attend pre-k together at her house. Her reasoning was to help out, give me a break, and her a break because they would entertain each other. Mine was that I’m leaving next year, and I didn’t want to just snatch my child from his family so young without any bonds formed.

In the beginning, he was happy, and I was hurting. He was excited to start school with my brother and be attending the same school that meant drop offs and pick- ups together. I was jealous because he wasn’t missing me and hurting because I basically only seen him on the weekends. But by time November he was less enthusiastic and I trained myself to become comfortable with the situation, we both learned something from it, he learned about decision making and responsibility of sticking with your decisions (because although we decided as parents I let my son decide which is why I dealt with the pain because this is what he wanted). I learned a piece of decision making also, deciphering whether to listen to heart or brain when it comes to certain situation.

At the end of it we both changed and held expectations towards each other. I expected for him to come home and still be the same child I raised and we could continue where we left off, not realizing that school year he spent with my mother was a heavy influence, from him switching to being in a two parent household and watching how a child is disciplined there, to less expectations on his daily routine. Him expecting me to be only a mother (which he just came from in a two parent household and something a single mother can not do) and how only love and no discipline and also expecting me not to be on him academically like I used to because he hasn’t been doing it. This became really frustrating for us and I had to figure out how to fix this.

When he returned to me, he was wetting the bed again, like he wasn’t potty trained at two years old. His handwriting was worse than it was before he started school and he began to think so much on every move he made that it effected his confidence. He didn’t talk to me like he used too, our bond felt broken to me. I even for a while battled with his love for me, I just felt like it wasn’t there. His behavior on top of it all was so not him and negative. With just the listed things being said I was hurting and crying just about every night because I tried several method’s, and nothing was working. I also felt like my personal life such as bills and what not, began to affect him when he came home due to our change in location which he wasn’t used to or probably ready for. I felt so much guilt for everything that was going on and kept thinking about the decisions and how I shouldn’t have made them and how I’m going to make sure it doesn’t repeat itself next time. instead of focusing on the past and how to fix that, I focused on the present and what can we do from here to fix the damage.

Once I did that things began to change for the both of us, honestly for the better but my anxiety wouldn’t allow me not to still feel something negative and I felt like I wasn’t loving my child enough now, trying to deinstall someone else’s teachings and reinstall my knowledge can feel so robotic because of consistency and it wasn’t a great pair with my anxiety. So, I tried adding museum, park, date days with Kaleb so things didn’t seem so robotic but that feeling doesn’t just go away overnight.

On April 28, 2019 coming out of a beautiful weekend with my son and significant other, joined my sister and her family for an outing on Sunday with our boys. Still, for me everything felt forced, I think my ancestors showed me the very next day how much I love my child. He had a doctor’s appointment that morning and during the visit I’m struggling with not getting so angry with him while I taught him cursive while we waited for the doctor. I’m silently arguing with myself to be patient, he is six and it is cursive, you cant love him that much you keep throwing anger his way, and six more ways to Sunday on how I’m fucking up, but I fought that. I still smiled and we left and stopped to see my stepmother on the way home so that he can chill and bond with them because I’m only on in that area for his doctors, I also needed a second to clear my head.

We said our hello’s to everyone when we got in, chatted and laughed I decided to go to the store for snacks for the children and I asked Kaleb If he wanted to walk me, I wanted him to enjoy my presence while I was in better spirits. On the walk my girlfriend called my phone and said she was in the area I was in and was going to come see me, I responded that’s great you can take me home afterwards. I told her my exact location and she verified how close she was meaning she should get there before I get back from the store. By time we got back from the store she was parked in front of the location on the opposite side of the street. Because I didn’t want to get kids excited to have to depart, I told Kaleb to get in the car while I take the snacks for them in the house. I told him to cross the street and get in the car and of course I was right there watching while I was walking in the direction of the house. When I hit the first step, I watched him barely look both ways but that’s what I’m here for, so as he steps in the street, I see a car coming from the very beginning of the block. By time I hit the second step, I saw the speed on it. I thought so many things in so little time, I breathed in to say Kaleb but then I saw his life flash before my eyes if I did, at the same time in seeing this my mind said ‘bitch move’, while my head is still spiraling I’m already there. What snapped me back into reality and the moment was that first touch that truck made to me and my son, I threw him and thought ‘awe fuck!’, in that same moment before fuck was complete, I was hit by that truck. That moment I realized and was able to feel how much I love my son. The number one thing I knew at that time was I could die and that might be ok, but I can’t have let that go any other way because I knew I couldn’t live a day on this earth without him, he is my everything.

Happy reading! See you guys soon!