Category: motherhood

Signing off . . . On Leaving the Navy and Still Feeling Guilty

Dr. Mama Esq.1 Comment

By Kia Dunbar-Harris

Guilt (n):

(1) responsibility for a crime or for doing something bad or wrong; or

(2) a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something bad or wrong.

For a long time I’ve struggled to find the words to describe how, on most days, I feel. Then I stumbled upon a great article describing a term I had never heard of before: “mommy guilt.” Everything in the article explained the feelings I’ve had ever since my daughter was born. I know I’m probably late, but, well, whatever.

My daughter is the most charismatic, energetic and pleasant little girl you will ever meet. She is wise beyond her years and has the biggest heart. I can’t imagine my life without her, but before I had her I didn’t even want her.

Let me explain.

As a college student, having a baby was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I remember telling my mother that I did not want to get married and I was probably never having any children.

As a young twenty something woman, I was well on my way to having a successful career as a nurse and a naval officer. I had dreams of traveling the world and being promoted up the ranks to someday being a Navy Captain, an Admiral even. My priorities changed when I met my husband, and at 27 years old, was actually married.

Soon after we got married, I found out I was pregnant. I wondered: Do I re-enlist for another commitment with the US Navy? Or do I get out with an honorable discharge? It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

You see, when I was four months pregnant, I was ordered to go to Guantanamo Bay to give chemotherapy to Iraqi detainees. I remember boarding the small plane thinking of nothing but the safety of my child. I had no idea what to expect when I stepped off the plane. What kind of danger or harm would come to my baby or me?

At that moment I realized that being a mom was more important to me than being a sailor, as much as I loved it. I owed it to my child to provide her a stable home and environment. I did not want to leave her on while I was on deployment or force her to leave her family and friends every four years. I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted to create a home for her. Somewhere safe and comforting like the home my mom created for me.

But although I resigned from the Navy, it did not stop my ambition as a nurse. I finished grad school and was blessed to receive promotion after promotion, my own version of the Jeffersons’ “moving on up.” But the higher the position, the more responsibility. And the more responsibility, the more time spent working.

Even though I’m not in the Navy anymore, I still feel guilty.

I spend many hours at work. Some evenings, I have to bring work home and it is not unusual for me to put in a few hours on the weekends. While I am trying to be a role model of a successful woman and make a better life for her, at times, I feel like I am missing out. There have been days when I’ve come home from work only in time to tuck her in at night. When I’m not at work, I feel like all of my time should be devoted to her to make up for all of the hours I am away from home. That time adds up, but yet I still feel like it just isn’t enough.

I’m sure some people, my husband included, feel that I over indulge my daughter. It’s probably true — it’s my way of compensating for the time I’m not with her. But is there really anything wrong with that? Am I wrong to make her think the world revolves around her when we are together because I want her to know how important she is to me? I want her to know that I am present in the moment.

Because no matter how many times she tells me she loves me and that “I’m the best mom ever,” I doubt the truth of those words.

It’s likely a part of who I am; I always feel the need to be better and do better. But, in the end, I always feel guilty because, in my eyes, I am still not doing enough. With each field trip I can’t chaperone, each morning I am not able to drop her off at school, each day I am not available to greet her after school, my heart sinks lower and lower in my chest.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. The article I read is a testament to that. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad. Because, truth be told, I still wish about “what if:” “I would be further in my career if I wasn’t a mom” or “I wish I was still in the Navy.” Of course, I love my daughter with all my heart and I love being a mom.

Still…

Sigh.

Signing off . . . and feeling guilty.

Kia Dunbar- Harris, RN, MSN, ACM, was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA and is a graduate of Temple University and Walden University. Kia is married with two children, one daughter and a stepson. Kia was commissioned as a US Naval Officer in 2004 and served four years active duty as a Nurse Corps officer and four more years as a reservist. She currently resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Why I Find It Hard to “Celebrate” Roe v. Wade

Dr. Mama Esq.4 Comments

Reblogging, January 22, 2014

January 23, 2013

I am many things. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am black woman and mother to black kids. I am a Christian. I am a liberal. I am a feminist.

I am pro-choice.

I am pro-life.

I am anti-abortion….for me.

I am pro-Roe v. Wade.

2012 Commemoration of Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court
2012 Commemoration of Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court

Roe v. Wade…abortion…life…choice… these words mean so much. And we talk about them as if they are opposites, as if life and choice and abortion cannot coexist. And I’m not sure that they can. But one thing I do know — the right to abortion cannot be disconnected from the cultural context in which it exists.

I don’t think it makes much sense to argue about when life begins. Any woman who has experienced the loss of a miscarriage – whether it happened at 8 weeks or 8 months – will tell you that the life lost began as soon as she knew the life existed. Other women will tell you that the life did not feel “real” until that child actually appeared out of the vagina. But I don’t think that really matters.

For the right to an abortion is not about the abortion at all. It’s about self-determination in a world that hates to let women have a say and hates to make sure children have a life worth living.

As much as I know in my heart that I will never have an abortion (hence my “anti-abortion”), I also know that the right to have one is a pivotal right for every woman to hold in the world in which we live. This is a world that throws food away while people – including children – starve. This is a world that does not guarantee each person clean water and fresh food and preventative health care. This is a world that uses the education system to perpetuate and exacerbate racial and class inequality. This is a world were women are blamed for sexual violence. This is a world were many women cannot earn enough to support the children they have. This is a world where our kids can’t even be safe in school.

This is a world where no one is assured a life worth living – especially if you are female and/or a child.

No woman should be forced to bring a life into this world.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t value life. Because I do. My children are the most precious thing in the world to me. They give me three reasons to live each and every day. I think I was destined, by God, to be a mother. It’s the most important thing I do. If I were to have another pregnancy, unexpected, I would birth that baby. No doubt in my mind. But I would do it because I wanted to. Not because God told me to. Not because anyone else wanted me to. Because I wanted to.

I would likely not feel that way if I didn’t have a choice.

Which also means that if the world were perfect (not sure what that would look like), I would still be pro-Roe v. Wade. Because as distasteful as abortion is to me (and to most people – I don’t think anyone takes pleasure in the loss of life), the moment we start policing how and whether and when women bring life into the world we have made life less perfect, made life less equal for some of us. As soon as we start telling women that their bodies no longer belong to them to do with them as they please in pursuit of their liberty and happiness they no longer have liberty and they are forced into someone else’s conception of happiness.

I’d rather have free, happy women than constrained, oppressed women. I’d rather trust that the person who will be responsible for nurturing that life growing inside of her as to whether she can or is willing to do that responsibly.

I think there can still be restrictions, because I still think that abortion is the taking of a life. Freedom does not mean carte blanch. But I think that should be left to a truly democratically-elected legislature, and not a court of nine individuals who are not elected. Because it is that democratically-elected legislature who determines whether an unemployed mother will be able to rely on the social safety net to feed her children. They are the ones who decide how much money we put into educating children. They are the ones who decide who is worthy of health care. And who is not. The same people who want to force women to have babies should be the same people who will make sure those babies have healthy, happy lives.

So I support Roe v. Wade, but I don’t “celebrate” it. Abortion is not a cause for celebration. But I understand that choosing to end a life often means choosing to lead a life worth living. Who is to say – other than the person making the decision and living the life – which is more important?

This Child’s Mama

Dr. Mama Esq.1 Comment

As a vocalist, and a obsessive music devourer, I cannot help but be saddened by the death of Whitney Houston. Even though I generally don’t cry and carry one about the death of someone I didn’t know personally, the death of a major icon is simply jarring. Especially an icon that means so much to something you love.

It’s been particularly unsettling to see all the images and videos of Whitney alive. Although who she’d become in more recent years is not the way many of us want to remember her, all the images speak to a simple fact: she was once here and now she isn’t. And so despite the various images of Whitney Houston that have flooded through the media and internets since her passing on Saturday, there is another image that I simply can’t get out of my mind.

That’s Bobbi Kristina, Whitney’s 18 year old daughter, being rushed to the hospital in the day or so after her mother’s death.

Let me say that I do not know the pain of losing a parent, especially losing a mother, although I know some of our writers and readers do. Two good friends both recently lost their mothers and their grief is palpable. But it is an unimaginable event to me.

But I do know that even the notion scares me at 31, so the terror of that feeling at 18…I do know what it feels like to be hopeless, to be shrouded in doubt and anxiety. I can only imagine what it means to lose your rock in the world, the person who makes you make sense.

We’ve watched, from the periphery, Bobbi Kristina grow up. We’ve seen the dysfunction of her parents’ relationship. We’ve seen both of her parents seemingly self-destruct in front of our eyes. But we don’t know her. We don’t know her pain.

But what we should know if that more than a pop idol, more than a sometimes media disaster, Whitney Houston was this child’s mama.

I hope the media can be sensitive to this fact as the story continues to unfold.

 

 

Let Go?

Dr. Mama Esq.7 Comments

Thursday evening, my recently-turned-six-year-old was vomiting bright green bile. The bright green was a progression from the yellow of earlier in the day. At about six o’clock, as he lay in his bed with his clothes still on, I noticed his breathing was awful. He lay on his back with his mouth open, and as he inhaled, his chest collapsed – the opposite of one’s chest should be doing. He’s ridiculously skinny, so it’s hard to tell sometimes with his ribs already being exposed. But his whole body was moving as he breathed. Something just didn’t seem right.

Long story short, I took him to the ER and after waiting 2.5 hours, they said he had pneumonia. As they prodded him with x-rays and IVs, sticking wires all over him and swabs up his nose, and as he screamed and cried, “Mommy, I’m scared,” I realized that there is no job more important to me than being that child’s (and his sister’s, and this baby-to-be’s) mother. As I tried to keep my tears in and just repeat to him over and over that it was all so that he could get better and that I was not going anywhere, I realized how empty my life would be without this child. For the second time in his short life (the first was when he was 13 months old and had internal bleeding), I felt like his life and his health was out of my hands and that out of control feeling over this being who depends on me to be in control was…unreal.

He’s much better now, although still on antibiotics and a steroid and an inhaler. I kept him home from school today, even though he was better, because a part of me could not bear to let him go, to let him be out of my sight. I cannot get his scared little face, with his big eyes and huge tears, out of my mind. I’ve been bawling about it every night since it happened, even though I know pneumonia is not a death sentence and he really is okay. But it was an emergency that I could not fix except to bring him to people who could.

Obviously God knew what he was doing when he designed to have my children grow inside my body before their introduction to the world. The bond between me and them created through this process of growing and loving is one that I needed to experience, a bond that transcends what could be considered rational or common sense. I know the biological/evolutionary story is that we care about our genes living on through the generations, I don’t know if I buy that for me. Instead, there is something supernatural about hearing them call my name – “Mommy.”

This love is both strengthening – I would do anything for them – but also weakening. They say “let go and let God,” but…wow – how do you do that? What do you do when you feel like your whole world, in this little tiny package, might be falling away from you? I want to be ready, but I’m not. I’m not ready to give my children over to God.

she’s always in my head

Dr. Mama Esq.4 Comments

The mommy wars are battling in my head. They sound something like this:

he's not really choking her...lol

I can’t believe you chose to work this summer. You hardly get to see your children. I enjoy working. The two hours I spend with my kids in the morning are really great. It’s true that I don’t always get to see them before they go to bed…What kind of mother are you? You don’t get to see them go to bed, read them that story, even tell them you love them? That’s just a shame. Well, yes, it is sad that I don’t do that during the week, but by working, I’m bringing in much needed income so they can have other things…What is more needed than a mother’s love and time? Money can’t…Yes, but, they spend the majority of their time in preschool anyway, where they are very happy, happier, I think, than if they were sitting at home with me all day. And they are really well adjusted kids, who have tons of friends but still are attached to their parents. I think we have a great balance…Balance? You think it’s balanced to have other people – strangers really – raising your kids? Haven’t you noticed some of the bad habits they’ve picked up from these so-called friends? Well, yes, but…But nothing! You’ve abdicated the responsibility of raising your children to someone else, who isn’t necessarily doing a good job! And you didn’t have to – you chose to! Didn’t your son just ask the other night if you could come home earlier so you could read him a book before he goes to sleep? How did that make you feel?? Well, awful…

The lady in red has a lot to say.

When I decided I wanted to go from my PhD and JD and become an academic, it was for a myriad of reasons. Primarily it was for the lifestyle – the ability to do what I wanted as a career – study what I wanted, make my own life. It was also because I’m generally not a good employee. I don’t respect authority the way I “should,” I don’t like bureaucracy, I don’t kiss a$$, I don’t like small talk, I don’t do face time.

But I also knew that I wanted to work. Being a stay-at-home mom was never an option for me. From the perspective that I grew up with, a black woman who didn’t work was lazy, no matter how many kids she had or how much money her partner made. “Leave It To Beaver”‘s mom was not our reality; Claire Huxtable was. And furthermore, if you didn’t work as a black mother, then you thought you were “better than” the rest of us, with your nose turned up and all. Truth be told, it was not until I moved here, to this very wealthy suburb, that I even knew black mothers who didn’t work. I did not know any black mothers who had nannies or au pairs. And for me, even if the money was flowing copiously, as fascinating as they could be, being immersed in little people’s lives constantly is not engaging or enriching enough for me. And planning charity events would not be either.

This summer, I’m working a 9-to-5 to get a sense of what I might be missing by only going academic. And while I thought I would really not like it so much because of the bureaucracy, face time requirements, and other general BS, it’s really been the lack of time that I can spend with my kids that has really been the largest drawback.

And that’s a huge surprise to me.

At least in grad school, I’ve been a quasi-stay-at-home mom. Working around my class schedule, I can co-op at the preschool, pick my kids up from school in the middle of the day, be available to pick up a sick kid, skip class if I really need to. While I know being an academic is more structured than my life currently, I still see that lifestyle as much more flexible than being an associate at a law firm or working a 9-to-5.

But I’m still working. And hence the mommy wars are constantly going at it in my head.

The mommy wars are partly about privilege, and I think no woman can see the gift and the curse of working and having children more than a black woman. For me, being in this profession as a huge privilege, a privilege that feels uncomfortable. There are very few female law professors. There are even fewer black female law professors. And there are even fewer black female law professors with PhDs. I am (or will be) a rarity. And being rare, in academia sometimes, is a privilege. It’s hard to admit your privilege, especially when you understand the structure of opportunity in our society. Especially when you do not come from a historical place of privilege, and most of your family is not there with you. Yes, I’ve worked hard and yes, I’m bright, but I also had opportunities that had nothing to do with who I am but everything to do with where I happened to be, the chance of being born to certain parents and interacting with certain people who gave me a chance.

It seems that sometimes the meme of being Black in America is that we have to live the life that’s been handed to us. Especially for black women, especially for black mothers, not working a 9-to-5, or a 8-to-6, or a 7-to-7, as I remember my mom doing, is not an option. We, as black women, pride ourselves on working, pride ourselves on doing everything, pride ourselves on not being indulgent or lazy – sometimes taking that to mean that we should be at the bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to taking care of needs. And at one point this was our only reality. We had no choice.

These messages taught me to believe that even if I wanted to not work, being able to live the life that I’ve fashioned for myself feels…wrong. That to decide to use my talents to make life a little easier on myself is somehow…lazy.  And being on the “side” of the mommy wars that favors being at home more than being at work, well, that just feels like being a traitor.

I didn’t write this because I have an answer. Five years into this mommy thing and thirty into this black woman thing, and I’m still just trying to ask the right questions.

Yeah, I’m Young. So What?

Dr. Mama Esq.3 Comments

Something that’s really been bothering me lately is all the youth-bashing that has been going on around me lately. Not the typical “teenagers are young and dumb” type of thing, but the subtle dismissal of the around-30 crowd from the above-40 crowd. I suppose every generation feels this way about the generation above them. But when these people are actually your peers, when they are the people you work with, or the other parents you socialize with, it’s actually hurtful and really counterproductive.

Where I live and work, the trend is for parents to be relatively older. Women have generally established their careers in their 20s and early 30s, and had children in their mid-30s. They are now in their 40s, raising their kids. Cool.

In public education, administrators also tend to be older. I suppose working up the bureaucratic ladder takes time.  That’s cool too.

I’m different, which is okay, at least it is with me and my close friends, regardless of age. I had Big A when I was 24, before I had really decided what I wanted to do as a career. I had Little A at 26, right when I was starting my grad school career. I’m 30 now, still working toward my degrees. I have a baby face and am often mistaken for a high schooler. Everyone says I’ll love it in 10 years 🙂

But in any case, no matter what I look like, the truth is – when I start talking about my stuff, my research, my experiences – one QUICKLY understands that I know. my. Ish. I’m not at one of the top graduate schools getting a dual PhD and JD off of my looks (although I’m pretty cute if I say so myself. Just kidding.) I’ve been in graduate school for the past five years doing nothing but studying and perfecting and becoming an expert at what I do. THAT has been my career, my full-time job.

So it truly pisses me off when I’m at a meeting and the over 40 crowd starts talking about how young everyone is and starts pretty much dismissing the 30-something crowd based solely on age, even when the 30-somethings have positions and titles that deserve respect because they worked to get there and have demonstrated superior skills and performance. In education, this is particularly irritating because it is the younger people that are bringing the innovation, that are bringing the fresh perspectives, that are trying to work with folks for the betterment of educating children.

In advocacy groups, especially those wanting to advocate for black and brown children, I think one of the reasons it hard to mobilize parents is that younger parents don’t want to be treated like second-class citizens. If I go to one more meeting where 30-somethings or younger are talked about like they couldn’t possibly know how to do their jobs, or have cogent opinions, or just have anything of value to add, I really might blow.

And when it comes to parenting – UGH. That REALLY gets my goat. I’m young, yes. But PLEASE don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m a lesser-than parent because of it. My mother was 19 and my dad 20 when they had me, and then had my brother 11 months later. Fast forward 17 years and I had a full scholarship to an Ivy-League university and my brother behind me went to college too. I learned everything about being a great mother from a teenage mother, so at 24 I felt OLD. I’m not perfect, but neither are the 40-something parents I know. We all have the same struggles, and go through the same issues.

I don’t know what this is all about, whether older folks feel threatened or what, but it needs to stop. I want to learn from people who have lived life more than me, but I don’t want my perspectives, my ideas, my expertise to be dismissed solely on account of my age or what I look like.

What is going on? What do y’all think I need to do or say to get these folks to quit it?

Mothering Without Shame

Dr. Mama Esq.4 Comments
Photo credit: thinkloud65

Written by CocoaMamas contributor Rachel B.

“I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

There is not a black mother on Earth who has not said those words to her daughter.  They are said in anger, resignation, frustration and guilt.  We, like any and all mothers, want the very best for our daughters.  We want them to explore every possibility and to experience things that were beyond our reach.  We also want them to avoid the pitfalls, the traps and the trick doors that we befell us.  Instead of imparting to our daughters wisdom, we often give to them our shame and regrets.  We tell them if only we had listened to so-and-so, not gone to that place, stayed there, or hung out with those people, our lives would be radically different.  We are so quick and so sure that the blame lies entirely with us despite many of us being aware of our unique position at the intersections of gender, race and class.  If we had turned left instead of right or had looked up instead of down, life as we know would not be so hard.

We say these words to our daughters knowing that both black and white spaces endanger a black girls’ journey to self-fulfillment.  We know we are judged by a different set of rules.  Our actions, whether positive or negative, acquire a supernatural ability to exalt or demote the entire black race.  We are also keenly aware of the pervasive double standard that still in full effect in our own communities regarding the actions of black men/boys and black women/girls.  Black respectability politics have placed black women as the gate keepers of our culture although many of us resent it.  While teaching our daughters how to navigate a world that has a morbid fascination with our degradation, we seem to follow one of two paths; hanging our heads in shame or distancing ourselves from our pasts.

“I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

What are those mistakes?  More often than not, they are sexual in nature.  We feel that we gave it up too soon, too easily, to the wrong person at the wrong time.  We tell our daughters’ we were hard headed, naïve, foolish, stupid and spiteful.  We found ourselves in a position where our private vulnerabilities became public shame.  We are so quick to assume and claim responsibility; we ignore the other very real circumstances that lead to make those choices in the first place.  It is painful to even remember that we had to have sex for survival, that those were in positions of power and authority took advantage of our lesser position.  If we had just listened, we never would have been in that car, in that room, at that party, with that boy, with those men.  If we had just listened, everything would have been ok.

If we are not using our shame to deter our daughters, then we are holding up as an admonition to our daughters those who seem to shamelessly embody the loose morals and decay of our culture.  The baby mamas, poor women, junkies, and the sex workers are plentiful and disposable warnings to keep our girls on the straight and narrow.  We point to them to illustrate what will happen if they don’t heed our warnings.  We may have pity, arrogance, condensation, disgust in our voice but the end result is that for our daughters these women and girls cease to be complex and complicated people and become caricatures.  Their “mess” highlights our accomplishments, refinements, education and position.

It is tempting to believe that if you just follow the rules, somehow you will be protected or at the very least buffered from the sexualized racism that is so omnipresent now.  We see the billboards stating that we are a danger to our children, read the “studies” that declare with  authority that we are not desirable, hear at any given time “hoe” and “bitch” out of thumping cars, while walking down the street, or as a “joke”.  We feel the pain, hurt, confusion, and helplessness though we do our best to be as dignified as possible.  We have to be dignified because we know that we are always being watched.  We look into our daughters’ eyes and see sweetness, innocence, intelligence and curiosity.  We watch them as they run and laugh impervious at the moment to the harsh realities of the world.  We as mothers want nothing more than to let our daughters have those moments but we also know the world will not allow such frivolity.  We don’t mean come off as harsh.  We don’t mean to be so judgmental or to suck our teeth at the girls who we determine to be “ghetto”.  We really don’t mean to hiss that “she” is a “fast ass” and predict she’ll end up in “trouble”.  When communications between ourselves and our daughters is at its worst, we yell out in frustration “You want to end up like her?!”

The reality is that no matter what we do or don’t do, black women and girls will continue to be under attack.  Although Mrs. Obama is accomplished in her own right, she continues to be exposed to some of the most vicious racist and sexist attacks.  A maid who was recently sexually assaulted in New York by one of the most powerful men in the world, bravely reported the attack, and underwent an invasive exam afterward has had her honesty questioned, her identity and that of her daughter exposed in French media and her role as the victim questioned.  Even where she resides has been tarnished as an AIDS building.  Even in death, black women and girls have to prove our worth to have justice served.

Our daughters will be the next generation that will be under attack.  They will be the ones who march, speak, protest, write, dance, paint, sing, and pray in creative protest.  They will have at their disposal their own talents that will enable future generations of black women to reclaim their narrative.  What will not help is shame or separation from their sisters.  When we insist that the fault was all ours, they internalize our shame.  When we use those who are the most vulnerable to as a deterrent, we make those girls the other.  What our daughters need is for us to be tender with ourselves.  When we look at our past with soft eyes, we do the same to others.  Our daughters will see that and not accept debts that they did not incur.  When our daughters are witnesses to our healing, they in turn will learn to do the same for themselves and others.

“No One Can Say Anything To Me…”

Dr. Mama Esq.39 Comments

So….Ellen Pompeo is running around giving her opinion on race relations, and what black people need.

(h/t @daowens44 on twitter)

The relevant parts are between 45 seconds and 2:45.

As you can see in the video, Whoopi asks her about her plans to adopt a baby of color, and what people have said about that. Ellen Pompeo says, with a certain amount of what she must of thought was black girl sass, “No one can say anything to me cause I had a baby of color…” [Yeah. I paused too.] Then she goes on her rant about HBCUs and the NAACP. She doesn’t think we need “black schools and white schools,” referring to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She doesn’t think we need the NAACP awards; we only need “People Awards.” And I don’t think she is referring to the magazine.

What makes Meredith Ellen feel this way, let alone think she has a legitimate voice on these issues, that actually don’t affect her, considering she would have never even attended an HBCU or would get an award from the NAACP**?

Cuz can’t nobody say nuthin’ to her cause she already has a black baby. And a black husband. And who really cares what Jill Scott has to say, right? The experiences of black mothers can’t really be worth as much as those of a white mother of a black child, huh?

Hm. Continue reading ““No One Can Say Anything To Me…”” →

From the Crates: These Are My Confessions

Dr. Mama Esq.3 Comments

originally posted January 2010

The following is an abridged and edited version of a post I wrote more than a year ago, but I thought it was fitting for a Mother’s Day post.

I am not a good mother. At least not by the standards that have been set up for the current generation of a certain ilk of  mothers. A generation who is expected to place their children at the center of their universe, and make all decisions about their adult life revolve around what is supposedly best for the child. A generation that is expected to sacrifice their own happiness to make sure their children are happy. A generation that has been fed the idea that having children is a choice, therefore if you choose to do it, you must accept all the self-sacrificing consequences that go along with it. Continue reading “From the Crates: These Are My Confessions” →