Are we promoting the idea that love comes without responsibility?

Raising a daughter, especially alone, I am very aware of the messages I am sending her by what I say and do, and what I don’t say and do. Co-parenting has its struggles, and one of them includes comforting your child when the co-parent isn’t around. Mommy, where is daddy? Why isn’t daddy around? Is Daddy working? Mommy, WHEN is Daddy coming? There is no worse feeling for me as a Mother to see my precious daughter sitting at the window, peeking through the blinds just waiting for her father’s car to pull up…but never does. My heart breaks, and as furious as it makes me, I clench my fists for a minute, then calmly soothe my daughter’s anxiety and tell her that her daddy loves her very much and is going to see her very soon.

But, something hasn’t been adding up for a while. I often wonder how she processes what I am saying and the actions (or lack thereof) of her father. He is clearly not around consistently, but I am assuring her that he loves her. But again…he is not around. I have begun feeling like I am promoting the idea that love comes without responsibility. I am afraid that these mixed messages are actually just confusing her more. I wonder how this will affect her in the future, and it makes me scared.

While our experiences have been different, I shared my concerns with the fabulous Natasha Vianna, a fellow blogger and friend. She is also raising a young daughter on her own, and I wanted her perspective on the idea of promoting love without responsibility.

Much like Alexandra, I feel overwhelmed with sadness and anger when my daughter’s tears are provoked by her father’s lack of presence. I also realize that I have played a major role in setting her up for a possible disaster. Whether she heard conversations over the phone I had with him or saw how frustrated I became when he didn’t show. She emulated a lot of how I felt. She saw my facial expression and my disappointment even though I tried to mask my anger. As a mother, the last thing I wanted was to have her little heart feel broken when I’d have to tell her that her dad wasn’t going to show up today.

A lot of that changed when I accepted that her father was never going to be my definition of an amazing dad. Instead of pushing for more, I realized that I would have to settle for what was 100% achievable now and work my way from there. So that meant only Sundays for them. Her father could guarantee his presence and I could guarantee her availability. And so it began. No tears. No sadness.

I also feel like a lot of what I want for my daughter is directly related to my experience as a child with my father. I grew up with a dad who only saw me once a week on Sundays. I’m sure there were times when he canceled, came late, or dropped us off early, but I really don’t remember. In my teen years I didn’t get along with him, then he became my best friend for a while. But what teenager always gets along with her dad? I told him how I truly felt about him sometimes and it hurt him. And my daughter will have that opportunity too. Her father can one day feel guilty for not being more involved, or maybe he won’t. He’s only being the father that he knows how to be. Do I support it? No. All I can do is support my daughter, how she’s feeling and tell her that it’s completely okay to feel the way she does. It’s not my job to mold a man.

Although I don’t want to promote love without responsibility, I also don’t want to promote love as a duty. I don’t want to define love for her. Love shouldn’t feel forced. If I force her dad to see her when he’s not mentally or emotionally capable, I’m only setting her up for more pain. She will sense the turmoil and feel like a burden in his life. I cannot expect her dad to make a huge flip overnight and decide to take her for more than one day a week, be completely consistent and reliable if he’s never been that before. He has to want that and he has to make that change on his own.

Until then, I give my child the best love a mother can, ensure she spends time with my dad who serves as a positive male, father-figure role and encourage her to be more vocal about her feelings when she’s with her dad. I empower her to understand that she deserves the best love in the world and she has so many different variations of it – close love from mom and distant love from dad. It’s tough but my sole responsibility is raising a happy child.

Visit Natasha's blog HERE

Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy's 2010 Teen Pregnancy Institute: Expecting Success for Youth and Young Families

As a former teen parent, I love to hear about and get involved with organizations in my area whose mission is to support teen parents especially on the policy level. When I heard about the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, I knew I needed to get involved somehow. I’ve recently been added to the contributors on their blog The Pushback.

More about The Pushback:

We know the stereotypes and prejudices that teen parents have to face — but we also know the truth. We know that teen parents can be capable caregivers and fabulous role models for their children. We know that, with support, they can achieve academically and professionally. We know young families can be successful.

This space is to push back against all that ignorance, bitterness, and prejudice and show what young parenthood really looks like.

When I heard about The Alliance’s 2010 Teen Pregnancy Institute: Expecting Success for Youth and Young Families I knew I had to attend. The Alliance’s 12^th annual conference was a full day event packed with information, workshops, collaboration, and advice on how providers can better serve and aide the youth and young families they serve. The majority of attendees were those that work directly with youth and their families in teen parent services, teen pregnancy prevention, family planning, education, and early childhood education. There was also a special screening of The Gloucester 18. Remember the highly publicized suspicion of 18 girls in Gloucester, MA making a pregnancy pact to get pregnant around the same time and raise their children together? The documentary was truthful, honest, and dispelled all the rumors regarding the supposed pregnancy pact. It’s a must watch for all teens and youth and family workers.

I signed up for the following workshops: 

 

A: Helping Young Families Access Emergency Assistance Family Shelter, Prevention, and Re-housing Resources

B: Youth Activism: A Tool for Self-Empowerment

C: Teen Parent Panel

All were amazing and extremely informative and enlightening. The workshop I enjoyed most was the Teen Parent Panel. The panel of 4 former teen mothers was asked questions that came from the audience about their experience being a teen parent. The 4 all come from various backgrounds and experiences, and one, Natasha Vianna, a fellow blogger at The Pushback, has recently become a friend. I cringed hearing some of their stories, because I had such similar stories hidden away. The panel discussed reactions from their parents when they told them they were pregnant and the weight of outside influences during and after pregnancy. They also offered some advice to other teen parents, and the one I really bonded with was when one stated that we have to seek out help and become our own best advocates. We are the ones able to change ourselves and our circumstances; we cannot expect someone to change our life for us. We have to speak out for what we want and be willing to work and sacrifice for it. When asked what is the first step to a successful teen mom they agreed that an education is what is most important. 

Natasha and I at the end of the conference

There is sooo much more I can post about the workshop, but I wanted to give a brief overview of the conference and some of the information that was shared. I may write another post focusing on the workshops themselves and what I learned from them. The Massachusetts Alliance is a phenomenal organization and I encourage you all to visit them on the web and follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy Contact information:

http://www.massteenpregnancy.org/events/2010/11/17/2010-teen-pregnancy-institute

Twitter: http://twitter.com/mateenpregnancy

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MATeenPregnancy

The Pushback: http://thepushback.org

You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent

In case you didn't know, November is National Adoption Month and my newest blog post over on The Pushback outlines the grave statistics regarding children in foster care waiting for adoption and my personal struggle with adoption when I was pregnant. It may seem a bit odd to merge talking about youth in foster care and my personal story, but the theme of this month's National adoption month really stood out to me, "you dont have to be perfect to be a perfect story."

So in honor of National Adoption Month, I’d like to say to all of you considering becoming a foster parent, you don’t have to be perfect to be a parent. There are thousands of children waiting adoption in Massachusetts who need people to love them and a place to call home.

Besides my experience considering adoption when I was pregnant, adoption has affected my family. My Mother was adopted when she was a child by my wonderful loving Grandparents. When I hear my Mom talk about her journey through adoption it breaks my heart, it saddens and frustrates me that all children don't have parents to call Mom or Dad. Saddens me that they may live their life getting lost in the system and never find a home. Due to my Mother being adopted, during the course of my childhood she became a foster parent and fostered a total of 6 children. They became family. This is addition to the 4 children she already had. Talk about an Angel. Becoming a foster parent is something that I saw my Mother do effortlessly and selflessly and something that I hope to be able to do in the future. 


So please stop by The Pushback and check out my newest post!


Happy Monday

Life full of Plan B's

Plan A: Graduate from College #1

Plan B: Take a job as a Nanny then get knocked up

Plan A: Keep my job throughout my pregnancy

Plan B:  Fired not even 1/2 way through my pregnancy

Plan A: Sexy sleek black small SUV…fully loaded

Plan B: 1996 Toyota Camry

Plan A: First apartment = Complete Awesomeness

Plan B: First apartment=1 bedroom hole in the wall

Plan A: Super chipper always happy Mom

Plan B: Often annoyed aggravated- due- to –lack- of- sleep Mom

Plan A: Together Forever with my daughter’s father

Plan B: Try to have a mature understanding for the sake of our daughter

Plan A: Single life, no kids, gorgeous loft apartment, fly car, hott bod

Plan B: Kid at 19, ok apartment, crappy car, and not so hott bod

Plan A: Perfect Family = Mom, Dad, Kids

Plan B: Family = Mom + Daughter

My life has been all about Plan Bs. I’ve always had an idea of how I wanted to do things and where I wanted my life to go. Then BAM! Life instantly changes, and all I can do to try to find my balance with the new changes. And as soon as I get some stability and create new visions for my future BAM, this roller coaster of a life heads down around and to the side and I once again have to find my ground. Funny how life has a way of constantly changing. And yet, change is one of the things I fear. Funny.

What I have yet to learn and fully understand, is that these Plan Bs are not Plan Bs…they are what was meant to be, for me and my life. All that has happened all the pain I have gone through, all the bs I had to deal with, all the people I have met along the way…it’s all happened for a reason and has brought me to the place I am today. If I never would have given my daughter’s father my number, I would never been able to meet my beautiful beautiful daughter.

So I’ll still create visions for my futures, but recognize that what will be, will be.

And all I can do is prepare myself for the journey.

The challenges of Co-Parenting

Co-Parenting Hell. That is honestly how I feel sometimes. It is so frustrating parenting a child whose parents have different parenting styles.

For instance, I’m freaking out about lil mama’s transition to Kindergarten and how I am going to leave work early to pick her up from school. I’m thinking ahead and worrying about next summer and how I am going to pay for summer camp. What about school vacations? I don’t have a support system. I have to worry about these things. And I don’t like handling situations last minute. I can’t afford to do that as a single mom. I plan as much as I can. Of course there are times when things come up unexpected, but I like to be as prepared as I can.

The co-parent in question is not worrying about it at all and getting frustrated that I’m going to him with all my worries.  But I thought that we were CO-parenting? Thought we were both fully invested in making decisions about her. And sometimes I don’t think he could care less. Which thoroughly frustrates my life!! Grrrrr. I know that I can’t make him care about her transitioning to Kindergarten…and that’s because he doesn’t have to deal with it. He doesn’t have to deal with her getting up an hour earlier or if she is sick during the day. I’m the one who has to deal with it. I can’t make him care about her going to summer camp next year because I’m the one who would be filling out the paperwork and calling to find out more information. Because it doesn’t affect him directly he won’t have to drop her off or work more to cover the costs. I won’t wait around for him to care or want to be included. I would be wasting my life away.

So maybe he acts the way he does because HE KNOWS I am a capable parent. He knows that I will take care of it somehow. He knows that I will be there bright and early with her on her first day of Kindergarten snapping photos with tears in my eyes. 

Maybe its me. Maybe I worry too much. Maybe I don't know how to communicate with him. Maybe there are just too many past emotions still in play.

So how can I be ok with my role as a co-parent who basically has full responsibility of my child? Because in my head I’m screaming, this is not right, this is not right! This is his child as much as mine, but I have all the responsibility! Of course I wish I could just make this whole co-parenting situation disappear, but I am no magician. I’m just me.