on being a mom

[anvilhead]

while my daughter, 27, to date has never developed addictions, she is still my child, my only child, and i fight all the time to remember she is not a baby anymore....

back when i was 19, in college, i sorta oopsie got pregnant, by tom the cowboy.....i found this out when i was just starting my jr year at college....after finally revealing this to my mother, the dominating alcoholic single mom, she convinced me to come home. so i dropped out of college and went home.

i was kept in seclusion. NONE of our family knew, or were ever over. i was a huge shame. my mom did talk me into signing up for cooking school at the local comm college and i worked thru the last six months or so being in the front of the house and back of the house.

the question was......what the hell was i gonna do???? my mother flat out told me she would NOT support me, would NOT help me with the baby....i was on my own. she did hook me up with catholic children services...and i started a weekly visit with a counselor, so i could consider adoption.

karen hallaway....there is a special place waiting in heaven for that woman!!! i was her first adoption case, she was obviously my first and only. my mother and i never spoke about it....i had been hidden away and had no friends, no family, no support. just me and karen, once a week.....

karen asked me to think about MY life, what i thought i might want...at the ripe old age of 19. be selfish she told me....think about just ME...and THEN add in the possible reality...me as a mom, at 19, with no job, and no means of support, and no clue....i could not see putting a child thru that....us at the projects, living on food stamps, in assistance.....if she were adopted, that family had much better means, much more DESIRE to BE parents, than i had...or would have i never wanted to look at her and feel like she TOOK something from me...and i never wanted her to look at me and say, THIS is the best you got????

so i gave miss jessica leigh up for adoption.....beautiful healthy baby girl, that went to parents who showered her with love and adopted a baby sister a few years later....

it was not that much later that my mom kicked me out the house. i'd been gone all weekend, hadn't called, and when i got home her littel 5"4" frame (i'm 5'10"!!) grabbed me by the back of my shirt and hauled me down the hallway to my room, crying the whole time, and said....you have 15 minutes to get your sh!t and get out.........

that was the BEST thing my mom EVER did for me. the BEST life lesson. i did fine. within a week i had housing....i also met my first ex husband there. she never kicked me another dime, never cushioned my @ss, until that future husband left me with a baby on my shoulder.....our daughter renee...i moved back in with mom for a year..........

before she was born, brian and i agreed she would never DO public school, we would make sure she had the best education our funds could afford. she WOULD go to college.....end of discussion. we would do whatever it took to provide that for her....

i still owe 2 years of her college education at Loyola Marymount in LA....where she graduated *** laude with a double major and a minor.....brian got out of HIS obligaton by dying on us 4 years ago, to cancer. what some men will do to get out of a debt!

i'm 50. i'm the only parent she has left. my mom died back in 92. i was basically an adult orphan. "my" family has long since scattered, altho we did try recently to reconnect.....yet it seems easier for all of us to go to our respective corners and leave each other alone.

nobody ever cushioned my fall.......and i fell alot....it rains and i WANT to run and hold my hand over renee's head so not a single drop falls upon her precious head. but that's not my job. her life is today absolutely hers.....my mother gave me a gift.....that i did not SEE at the time....when she said, it's all YOU now darling........

[jamdls]

Raising our kids to be independent and self sufficient is perhaps the greates gift we can offer.

[sampar]

Thank you so so much for your post, i'm an alcoholic in recovery & a mother to 3 children & a wife. I am also an adopted child & to hear you talk about ure decisions has helped me more than u will ever know, as soberity has brought some of these issues up for me.
I say Thank YOu again from the bottom of my heart, Your honesty is heart lifting.

[LuvinMe]

Thanks for sharing it reinforces that I made the right decision with kicking my disrespectful 20 year old out. It's all her...