Parenthood
I got married in 2009. I had never really thought about being anyone's mom but within two years I had given birth to my daughter, Khloe. Three years after that Kingsley was born and I had become a wife and mother of two children. Currently, my children are ages 7 and 10. I love them. They are quite spoiled and entitled but I love them. I couldn't see my life without them and my husband feels the same. He's more attached to them than I am and I gave birth to them. It baffles me but it's true. He's the total opposite of what my dad was and what his dad wishes he could be. It makes me wonder how could a person create a child and not take care of it.
Can I vent? I mean everyone that knows me knows that my biological dad was a horrible parent (God bless his soul). I'm not bashing him. I'm just telling the truth. Too many of us are afraid of the truth. We stand up at funerals and speak of people as if they were angels and leave out all the of the details that really made the person who they were. I digress. You know what... no I don't. This is how I really feel. In my line of work, as a Foster Care Case Manager I see it first hand. I met a 6 month old baby that was born in the hospital and left at the hospital without a name. WITHOUT A NAME. The mom walked in the hospital, already in labor; gave birth and just walked out. No one knows who the baby belongs to. I met another baby....8 months old; born with drugs in her system. The parents visit the baby twice a month but refuse to submit to random drug tests in order to get their baby back. I met a sibling group of 5 who were placed into foster care voluntarily by their mother. She would rather get high everyday then take care of her children. The list just goes on and on.
I worry that these children will grow up like me. That they will grow up and find themselves 40 years old still trying to put the pieces of their identity together. I mean, I know who I am to a certain extent but I often feel a void. I don't know my father's side of the family. I don't know what traits and characteristics that I get from them. I don't know anything about them. And now that my father is dead, I'm afraid that I'll never know. Georgia is the closest state to South Carolina but yet so far away. The only thing I have left of my father is his last name that is tattooed on my chest. But how does a able bodied parent just decide not to take care of their seed? How do they wake up everyday and go on without wondering about their child's well-being? Oh and we have this thing where we always drag the daddies down but some mom's are just as terrible. Most kids come into foster care because of something that the mom is not doing to provide safety and permanency for their children.
I have a friend who wants to take her child on an international vacation. She can't obtain her daughter's passport because her child's father has refused to sign the passport application. The kicker is that her child's father does NOTHING for the child. He doesn't visit. He doesn't pay child support. He doesn't help with school supplies (clothes), Christmas gifts or anything. But yet he is making a point to hinder his child from taking a vacation. It's ridiculous. I have another friend who is an excellent father but his children's mom refused to let him see them due to her bitterness. In the end, he took her behind to court and got shared custody.
But why tho? Why does it take all of that? Why do some parents let the bad blood they may have towards one another effect their kids? The kids are innocent. They didn't ask to be here. It's sad. And then there are women who are unable to carry to term, who are unable to get pregnant. There are men who have a low sperm count and are unable to produce. It's quite unfair. Being parents is the best job that my husband and I have ever done. But no one taught us how to do it and we weren't born with the skills needed. It just became the most important thing to us. Our number one purpose in life is to be better parents than what we experienced as kids. Ultimately ALL parents are imperfect but the problem lies when they aren’t willing to learn from their mistakes and/or to put their children's wants/needs above their own.
Bottom line, it's hard to live in a world without parents once they've died. It's even harder to know that your parent/parents exist and are fine existing without you. Okay...I'm done venting. I miss my mom.