A Reader’s Story…..
You see that woman in that pic? That is my mom. I am not sure how old I am in the that picture, but I know my mother is 20. My sister and I were both raised by our single mother. I was born 16 days before my mother turned 20, and she raised us on her own until she married when I was in high school. Luckily, we had an incredible extended family and community to support us along the way (we were also both in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program).
A few days ago, someone sent this story to me privately on Facebook. I receive lots of stories that people email me, or leave as comments, and I’ve never really thought about sharing them before. Something about this woman’s story hit a nerve. I am keeping her anonymous, but found this story quite moving and think we could all benefit from it.
“Hi Jamie,
I know you wanted us to post something about us on the last day of your giveaway, but I haven’t really shared my story with anyone in a long time…and by long time, I mean like anyone that wasn’t there doesn’t really know what happened before my daughter was born. I know a lot of people mistake me for a teen mom, but I’m not a teenager, I am 23, I just got stuck somewhere around 16 haha. On your giveaway I said I was a single mom, but sitting here thinking about it, I feel like my daughter actually has about 80 moms and a dozen dads.
I found out I was pregnant January of my senior year of college, ie last January. My boyfriend and I had been going through a bit of a rough patch, so I hid it from him for a few weeks while I figured out what I wanted to do. I went in to get an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay and it was love at first sight. From the moment I saw her tiny heartbeat on that screen I loved her more than I have loved anything in my entire life. When I first told my boyfriend I was pregnant, he was great, he called every day to check in, texted me all the time, took me out on extra special date nights and it was like all of the issues from before had just vanished. Until something changed, he tried to talk me into getting an abortion and was much less than friendly about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the freedom of choice, and I respect women’s reproductive rights but it wasn’t the right choice for me, something he never understood. He then started referring to our daughter as an array of horrible things, including ‘Little Bastard’. I tried to ignore it, and tell myself that it was just nerves getting to him and maybe it would all get better.
It didn’t. One night in February one of my sorority sisters told me that he was dating someone else. Of course I was like “yeah right” but when I confronted him about it, he told me that it was true. That he had been sleeping with her for a while behind my back. And to make matters worse, she knew about me and he had told her that I was pregnant. So things obviously got ugly from there, and I do admit that I was much less than pleasant, but I tried so hard to keep my cool. I guess all along I knew he was going to leave me. But then our families got involved, and his parents started demanding a paternity test, and he started telling people that the baby wasn’t actually his. He started to point fingers at every one of my guy friends. I haven’t heard from him despite my efforts to contact him since February 16.
You know that saying? ‘It takes a village to raise a baby’, well I don’t know how I would have faired without my sorority sisters. When I fell apart as it all went down, they were there to pick me up. Some of them even sat and cried with me as it all happened. They corrected people who were spreading false information, weren’t ashamed to sit with me, jumped to my aid on those days I felt like I had been hit by a bus. A whopping 23 of them crowded into the room for the big gender reveal, and one of them was always at my doctors visits. They even spent weekends in with me watching movies and reading girlie magazines. A lot of my guy friends were beyond awesome as well, running to get me food in the middle of the night, fighting over who got to be the godfather and cracking ‘Who’s baby is it anyways?’ jokes. So, although I am technically “single”, there are 79 amazing young women who held my hand every step of the way, and roughly 12 incredible guy friends who love me unconditionally. That is my story, in a medium sized nutshell.
Happy New Year!”
just some food for thought…..what kind of community and support has helped you to become better parents??
5 Responses to “A Reader’s Story…..”
Post A Comment
Archives
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
Our “village” subscribes to this!! We founded an organization based on it. It does take a village, we MUST support each other, and help each other. We were meant to raise our children together. We would love you in ours <3
https://www.facebook.com/KaisVillage
What an amazing story, thank you so much for sharing it!
Community support is what it is all about. I have to say, as a woman who decided late in life, I wanted to start a family, and had very little child caring experience, Facebook has been a wonderful community resource for me as a parent.
From the days of pregnancy; to 3 months of ‘what the hell am I doing with this ting being??? How do I care for her?!?’; to the first year of The Chicklet’s life when I worked 60+ hrs a week in Manhattan; to the next 4 being a stay at home Mum while my husband works and moving to places far from family and friends. Facebook has been my constant. Support groups, community pages; friends and family…. many people have helped me raise my child.
They’ve been through the moments of panic; joy; frustration; tears and smiles. They have assisted me through infertility, troubles breastfeeding; food allergies and possible selective mutism.
They’ve been there for it all. They inspire me and I am trying to pay-it-back through my blog (which I really need to update more often).
It does take a village. Just, sometimes that village is physical and in person, and sometimes it is virtual.
Peace love and hugs!
I
Wow what an amazing story. I was a sophomore in college when I became pregnant with our first son. I was dating a guy (now my husband) who was/ is a bit older than I am. My parents did NOT approve and I was living at home so it was very discouraging. As many young people do we snuck around (for almost two years) and continued our relationship. I was 19 at the time. I remember the day of having to tell my parents I was pregnant. It was the hardest day of my life and I feared the worst. I was completely wrong about the whole situation. My parents were soooo understanding about it and gave my boyfriend a chance (after a short time). My son was born 2 months before my 20th birthday. My now husband proposed to me and we were married when our son was 3 months old. We have been married four years; we have a four year old outgoing little boy and this past April we welcomed our second son into the world. I am forever grateful for my parents, my in laws, my extended family who helped me though my rapidly changing life four years ago and still today will do anything they can for me, my husband and my kids.
Beautiful. So glad this precious mama and baby have a community to support them. I was raised by my mom, even when my parents were together since my dad wasn’t really hands-on until I was a teenager. I was parented by my whole church community, and even when I went to college, I was “adopted” by families there since I was 2000 miles away from home. My son has a ton of “extended family” to help me keep an eye on him and teach him as he grows, and I am so thankful that there are people in my life that cared enough to help raise me, and others who will be there to help raise my son. It TRULY takes a village!
That’s awesome. I had an amazing community of mothers who helped keep me calm and semi-sane when we lived in NV. Some of them I went to church with and others were from a Bible study group of moms that were all involved with the same midwife. We all loved her and she’d delivered most of our babies. It was awesome.
Sadly we had to move away from them a few years ago and I hate that I have to be around my family and all the impatience and bad examples I was raised with now influencing my children once again. I desperately want… no NEED to get back to NV where people were mostly sane and knew how to act around and treat children and had at least a some control over their own behavior.
Seriously, these people here have affected my marriage in a really bad way and my relationships with my children are suffering too. I just hope I can get out of here before my marriage ends and my children all hate me.
I’ve tried to get involved in local churches but I just don’t fit in here like I did in the area we used to live in. 