My head is spinning.
On April 18, 2006 a little boy was born. He weighed 6lbs 13 oz and besides having a slight heart murmur he is fine. Both he and his mother are doing fine. The mother is 21 years old. A grown woman. Just not too bright. How could I say something so mean?
Well,
When this girl was 17 she ran away from home. Her mother and I searched high and low for her and after some very clever detective work we were able to locate her. She was in a questionable part of town in an apartment with three men. I knocked on the door and some thugged out looking dude came to the door. I said, “Send_______ to the door!" I’m 5’7” and at the time probably weighed a good 120 lbs … but I put a whole lot of bass in my voice and stuck my chest out and I acted like I wanted that mofo to say something to me. (It's okay if you're laughing at me). Thankfully, he didn’t want any trouble – because I don’t know what I would have done if he did.
She came to the door looking all kinds of pitiful and I told her to get her ish and get her behind in the car. She complied. I brought her home and her mother (of course) tried to talk to her and reason with her and wanted to understand her … blah blah blah … I would have just whooped that ass. But that’s just me.
During the years that followed I received many calls from the mother detailing the activities of her wayward daughter. Stealing money, credit cards, skipping school and just plain ole cuttin’ up. Somehow this child managed to graduate high school (barely) and gets accepted to college. She planned to attend a university that was in our state but about an hour away from her parents. Okay.
There was too much drama during her brief tenure at school for me to document here. Needless to say she was kicked out of school in the middle of her freshman year. And guess what else? She was pregnant when she left school. Very pregnant. Apparently, she was pregnant when she started school in the fall and never said a word. Her mother decided that it was in her daughter’s best interest to send her to a home for teenaged mothers and arrange for an adoption. In my opinion, I think this was against the daughter’s will – but what do I know?
To make an already long story short – the daughter had the baby, the baby-daddy’s mama got involved and convinced the girl that she would take care of the baby while she joined the military and begged her not to place the baby up for adoption. She listened to the grandmother and pulled out of the adoption. Now, the grandmother has full and complete custody of the little one and refuses to give the girl any visitation whatsoever.
Still with me?
The girl has been going through. Refusing to live with her mama. Deciding that she’s a lesbian. Moving from place to place without any direction at all. The mother talks to me about it sometimes because she is so distraught … but what does she want me say? The girl is grown. At some point in time we have to let go and let our kids make their mistakes.
Fast forward to the present.
Last week the mother called me and said that her child had a baby. My first reaction (because I had two cosmopolitans) was, “I thought she was off men!” Well, apparently she’s not off men. This baby-daddy is not in the picture and quite frankly I’m not sure she knows who the father is. Here’s the kicker: The girl didn’t tell her mama about the pregnancy or the baby until six weeks after he was born.
WTH?
This girl is smart. Book smart, that is. But she is sorely lacking in the common sense arena. Why do kids think that it’s okay to procreate when they don’t have any means to support themselves let alone another human being? Please don’t tell me, that things just happen. Please don’t say that. Because every time a woman lies down with a man she knows there is a possibility that she will get up with a baby … or worse. This shit doesn’t just happen.
What kills me is that this girl concealed her pregnancy from her parents and she went into labor and had her baby alone. She was all alone. Can you imagine that? I can’t. It breaks my heart that she somehow convinced herself that she’d be better off going through this thing all by herself than to reach out to her mother for help. I thank God that she chose to go to a hospital and have the baby because you hear so many stories of babies being found in dumpsters or left in bushes somewhere. She has a tough road ahead of her.
I said all this to ask the question: What can we do to help our kids feel more comfortable with talking to us? I would never forgive myself if my daughter went off and had a baby by herself because she felt like she couldn’t talk to me. She’s already extremely secretive (or at least she tries to be...I end up finding out everything) even though I tell her all the time that she can talk to me about anything.
What is meant to be will be
Does She Need Therapy or a Kick in the Butt?
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Blessed by chele at 2:08 PM
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