MamaSpeak: When a No-Parent Co-Parent Finally Makes Contact–Part 2

SPOILER ALERT: This is the second in a 2-part series.  Click here to read Part 1…

I drove to work Wednesday morning, the day I decided to make the call, struggling to imagine what the conversation would be like. Having no contact with my child for more than a decade is so incomprehensible and far removed from who I am as a person, that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. What could he possibly say? What would I say? How would I say it? Does he deserve decency and respect, or am I well within my rights to cuss him out? How do I explain this to my son? Does my son even want this? What do I expect from him? What kind of relationship would I be comfortable with them having? What if my son treats him like a “Dad”? Would I consider that a “slap in my face”? Will his father be consistent? How would I react if my son started acknowledging him on Father’s Day?

This loop of questions ran over and over in my mind and would not end. I felt tormented. I really wished he’d stayed away. Fortunately, this wasn’t about me. And further, I was confident that the young man my village and I raised was fully capable of handling this reunification, no matter how shocking, difficult or brief.

After spending the majority of my work day tortured by the thoughts of calling this man, I finally decided to do it during my drive home. When he answered the phone I felt my body tense with anger.

“Hi, this is Leida, my cousin Ken gave me your number and said you wanted me to call you.”

“Yea, um, how are you doing?”

What? How am I doing? What does it matter to you now that your son is legally grown? You didn’t care how I was doing the whole time I had the responsibility of raising him. Don’t you WORRY about how I’m doing!

After my internal 20-second rant, I continued the discussion:

“Look…do you want to talk to Toris, your ADULT son? I’m assuming this is why you wanted me to call you.”

“Um yea, how is he?”

“He’s perfectly fine. He’s starting college in a few weeks.”

“Oh, where’s he going…Is he staying in the dorm?”

“Look, this is what I am willing to do…I will talk to him and let him know you want to talk to him. I am NOT giving you his cell phone number…HE will decide whether or not you talk…NOT YOU! Goodbye.”

Later that evening I was cleaning my bathroom when my son came home. As always, he joined me where I was so that we could have our normal evening chat. He gave the usual run down of his day and I followed with mine.

“So, yea, I talked to your dad today.”

“Huh?”

“Yea, he wants to talk to you, how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know. It’s cool, I guess. He called you?”

I then explained that he’d reached out to my cousin several days ago and passed on his number, and that I’d called him.

“Oh. Well, OK.”

“Look, Toris, you do not have to call him. This is completely up to you. As far as I’m concerned, you owe him nothing and he owes you everything. Do you want to call him?”

“Yea, I’ll call.”

“OK. You don’t have to. And even if you decide to, you can change your mind. Do you have any questions for me before you call him?”

“What do I call him?”
“Whatever you want to call him. Whatever you’re comfortable with. You owe him nothing. “

I felt so relieved to have had the conversation with my son. He deserved the option. I knew he could handle whatever happened between him and his father.  More importantly, I was happy that he would finally have an opportunity to have his say.

The following day I called his father to let him know that I’d had the discussion with Toris and that he may be calling him. I also requested that he keep his word with him and not make promises he had no intentions of keeping.  As quickly as I’d made the request, I wished I could have retracted it or, better yet, that I’d never made it. Toris , now 18 not 8, could handle it. I didn’t need to.

I’m no longer part of the equation. My conscience and I are free! I could walk away with the pride of knowing that I’d never spoken a single ill word about his father to him. I could walk away knowing that I’d always kept the door open for his father and never denied him access to his son, for any reason. I could walk away trusting that, though difficult for him on multiple levels, my son was grateful for this day. I could walk away knowing that my son was armed with the most powerful compass he could possibly have for navigating the terrain he was about to embark upon: the Truth (and the full support of his Mom).

And I did…I walked away.

That chapter is finally closed.

MamaSpeak: When a No-Parent Co-Parent Finally Makes Contact–Part 1

This is the first in a 2-part series.  Enjoy Part 1 and then check out Part 2 here.

2008 was a great year for me. My son and I were celebrating exciting milestones: his 18^th birthday, high school graduation and entrance into college. By early August we’d already celebrated the birthday and graduation and were preparing for his move into his college dorm when I got the call. His father – who had been absent from his life entirely since the age of 5, who had never, EVER paid a single dime in child support, sent a birthday card, or even picked up the phone to call to say “hello” –  contacted my cousin requesting my telephone number.  Now understand that this is the same man who refused to help me when our 6-year-old son was sick and in need of financial support to pay for prescriptions. The same man who for the first 4 years of his son’s life lived less than 5 minutes away from him, and it would not take both hands to count the number of times he bothered to see him. The same man who, because I decided to end the relationship with him and not tolerate his constant cheating, decided to end the relationship with his son and not look back.

My cousin could tell I was shocked. It must have been the constant bumbling over phrases like “I can’t believe this,” “you have got to be kidding me,” and “are you serious?” that gave me away.  He tried to preempt my launch into anger: “Well, you have to forgive,” “Just hear him out,” “Think about Toris…” I accepted the number and ended the call still in total shock. Nonetheless, I’d made the commitment to consider making the call. That was Sunday afternoon.

By Tuesday night I was seething. I’d spent the last several days reliving the last 18 years in my mind. I’d recalled every painful discussion I’d had to have with my little boy about his father’s absence. I remembered all of the confusion his and his family’s absence created for my son and how I struggled to explain inexplicable.  So, yes, by Tuesday I was downright mad!

During my 48-hour trip down memory lane three incidents in particular stood out for me:

The first was when my son was in 4^th grade. I’d bonded with several of the parents through school-related activities, events, and our attempts to nurture our children’s friendships outside of the classroom. During one school event I was chatting with a parent who shared with me that my son had told classmates that his father was dead, and proceeded to give her condolences. I was extremely alarmed that my son had decided to deal with his father’s absence by declaring he was dead. Up until that point, I had not discussed his father’s absence with him, nor had I encouraged him to talk to me about it. That would eventually change.

The second was when my son was in 6^th grade. He was spending the night with a classmate whose parents had taken them all to a relative’s home for a gathering. The relative, who had met me before, for some odd reason, proceeded to ask my son who he looked like, insisting that he did not look like me. My son fell silent, somewhat confused by her question. She then asked him whether or not he looked like his father. My son, in his innocence, replied: “I don’t know.” After all, he had not seen him since he was 5 years old, and his memory of how he looked had faded. When Toris shared this experience with me, I was not only devastated, I felt ashamed. I was the mother of a child who didn’t even know what his father looked like. What type of woman was I?

The last incident was on Father’s Day following his 6^th grade year. With the previously described incident in mind, I asked my son if he felt he was missing out on anything by his father not being around. He said yes and that he really wanted someone to help him get better at basketball and that he didn’t like practicing in the driveway alone. I experienced an instant shift. I realized my son needed a space where he could safely express himself around this issue. I felt enlightened.

As I thought through these incidents and how I eventually decided to handle them, I realized that a beautiful tradition was born out of them. I began to use some of our “dinner dates” as an opportunity to create the space for my son to talk about his father and his absence if he wanted to.  He owned this space and began to bring his father to life, into his life, through our regular sharing.

Recalling the tradition, I realized that I’d intentionally put forth the effort to help my son create and hold a space in his life for his absent father. It was now time for me to give him the option of deciding whether or not he would allow his father to step into it. My heart still ached for the 11-year-old who deserved to know if he looked like his father.

I decided to make the call…

The story’s not over! Read Part 2…

In the meantime…
What would you do or have you done in this situation?

The Message is Clear: African-American Children Need Us

Thirty-five percent of African-American children live in poverty.  This means that more than 1 out of every 3 African-American children live with what research has confirmed is the single greatest threat to their well-being. Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty can also contribute to poor health and mental health.

The statistics paint a grim picture of the havoc poverty is wreaking on the youth in our community:  approximately 50 percent of African-American children drop out of school; African-American females account for approximately 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies; between 2002 and 2007, the number of homicides involving black male juveniles as victims grew by 31 percent and as perpetrators by 43 percent.  Clearly, our children are suffering and desperately need our HELP!

We’re a community in crisis. If we’re to reverse these frightening trends, African-American adults must step up our game and come together to rally around our youth. We must be honest about the truth behind the quantitative data: too many broken families; an alarming number of absent fathers; far too many uneducated, low-wage earning single-mothers trying to lead families with limited financial, emotional, and social resources. Simply put, the story behind the numbers is that too many of our children are failing at life because of poor leadership in their lives and homes. Our children are failing because far too often they live in families that are barely surviving, let alone thriving.

As dire as the situation appears, all is not lost. There is plenty that we can all do, individually and collectively, to turn things around for our youth and our community as a whole. While there are a lot of intellectuals and social scientists sitting in think tanks pondering this issue, there are sages who’ve come before and shared their wisdom as guidance on what we can do:

“Be the change you want to see in the world” -Ghandi

Start with ourselves. Set high standards and expectations of our own efforts and ability. Accept no less from ourselves than we’d like to see from others: value education, hard work and strong families. Hold our own children to high standards of academic and behavioral performance. Work at being healthy, loving and committed romantic and life partners and hold our partners to the same standards. A rising tide lifts all  boats; allow ourselves and our families to be part of a rising tide.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In addition to focusing on lifting ourselves and families, consider what we can do to directly impact the lives of others. Our communities are full of nonprofit and community-based organizations that always need help building and strengthening their operational and fiscal infrastructure and serving their clients. Call a few who serve causes you care about and offer your time, talent and treasure. You would be surprised at the huge impact it would make on both you and the organization.

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year…” – W.E.B. DuBois

Act now! Decide today to make a slightly bigger difference in the lives of those you love and your community than you did yesterday. Add an extra hug or “I love you” when interacting with loved ones; add a “hello” to the casual smile you offer the stranger you pass on the street; offer to volunteer 2 hours of your time to a small nonprofit or tutoring or mentoring program; donate a small amount of money to help improve the fiscal health of a community based organization serving the less fortunate. There are many, many things that we all can do NOW, TODAY, that cost us very little but mean so much.

Each of us must look around and take note of how much our youth need us; and then decide what small thing we will do today to make a difference.  Our children are screaming for HELP! Do we hear them?

MamaSpeak: Stop Wishing Me “Happy Father’s Day!”

It’s a blessing to have loved ones who support and encourage you through life’s biggest challenges. My gratitude for this blessing runs deep. My understanding of how sincere and well-intentioned their actions have been – complete. Nonetheless, there is one day of the year when well-meaning gestures create such dissonance within me that I dread to see it coming: Father’s Day.

It never fails. Every Father’s Day at least three people will wish me a Happy Father’s Day. I am not a father. I can’t ever be a father. There is nothing I could ever do to completely take the place of my son’s absent father. And I’ve never tried. I simply accepted the fact that my co-parent chose to be an absent father, and vowed to be the best mother I could be. I also prayed that, in terms of developing my son into a healthy, productive contributor to society, everything I and others who cared for him could give him would be sufficient.

Looking back on it now, raising a son with an absent father has been a chronically painful experience. While there wasn’t an urgent, intrusive or even daily awareness of it, the hurt was always there – subtly woven into the backdrop of my experience as a mom. We all want our children to have everything necessary to support their healthy development, and I knew my son didn’t have a father. I also knew that on some level he had to hurt, too; which was at the root of my own pain. He grew up with a diverse group of classmates and friends and most of their fathers were present and active. The same was true for the friendships developed through athletic and extracurricular activities. I was always fearful of how he felt, and to be honest, how they felt about him. I never wanted him to feel as though he was lacking because of what his father chose not to give him. Nor did I want him to be judged as “missing something in his home” by the parents of his friends and peers because he was being raised by a single mother. A lot of fear and pain colored my experience as a mother with an absent co-parent. But, fortunately, love, commitment and determination dominated it.

I’ve been many things to my son: mom, tutor, confidant, friend, etc.; but never a father. I hated the fact that my son was growing up without one. However, I refused to hide from it and, instead, acknowledged the void it created in his life and knew there had to be alternatives to filling it. The value that having a loving and engaged father adds to a child’s life is priceless and irreplaceable; however, I’ve learned that there are alternatives that offer some of the “essence” of that experience for children with absent fathers.

Mothers, we have to build a village. We have to create a network of support around us and our children that includes family, friends, neighbors, educators, mentors, coaches…the list goes on. We have to expose our children to positive male figures who genuinely care about their well-being and success, and who are willing to invest something in our children to prove it: The uncle who talks to and embraces him as his own; the basketball coach who is committed to showing up for practice every day because he is passionate about the sport and the young boys who want to learn it; The friend’s dad who invites him to a movie and a day of refining his basketball skills with them; the science teacher who tells him he’s smart and should consider a career in science. All of these, and countless others, are examples of small deposits men have made into my son that have made a big difference in his life and mine.

But I had to show up. I had to make the effort to expose him to the passionate coach by signing him up for the sport and getting him to practice and games. I had to help facilitate the friendships with classmates and peers whose parents served as positive role models and took an interest in him. I had to show up for teacher “meet and greets” and PTA meetings and show teachers and administrators that I was an engaged parent and expected the same from them as educators. And I just happened to be blessed with the best brother any single mother could have who has invested so much love, time and money in my son that I could never repay him.

I’m not a father, so please don’t wish me Happy Father’s Day. I praise the men who are loving and committed fathers and know that I could never be them. I’m just a mother who recognized the void an absent father created in her son’s life and invited a village to stand with me in the gap. A mother who made sure there was no shortage of love.

MamaSpeak: Let the Celebration Begin!

Mother’s Day afternoon I was sitting in my living room working when my son marched in with a small bouquet of flowers, a balloon, and a card wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. As I read the card, I was completely overcome by a deep sense of joy, gratitude and accomplishment. It was the first time I had ever thought such words could apply to me. I had never before felt so valued and appreciated. I could barely handle the volume of emotion building inside me all at once. The card read as follows:

You’ve always been the one to take care of me,
To guide me through all of life’s twists and turns,
To let me know I was completely and unconditionally loved.
I will never be able to thank you enough for all you’ve done for me.

He went on to add:

Mom,
Thanks for being the perfect mother and putting my needs before yours.
I can never repay you for all you’ve done. I love you so much!

Happy Mother’s Day!!

P.S. I’ll buy you a Range Rover one day LOL!

While literally inaccurate (I’m definitely not a perfect mother, and I know that I haven’t always put his needs before my own–I am human), the “spirit” of his message rang true and resonated deeply. I sensed that what he wanted to convey was that he recognizes all of my hard work; all of the sacrifices; and he recognizes that, at the end of every day, he has always been my highest priority. Not only was I deeply moved by his words, but for the first time in my son’s 20 years on earth, I allowed myself to receive acknowledgement. I accepted the compliment, in so many words, of being a “good” mother. It could not have come from a better source.

I’ve rarely given myself enough, if any, credit. It is through God’s grace and mercy that my son is alive and well and thriving; but as the steward God entrusted as his earthly guide and nurturer, I’ve played a vital role in his development. And while I don’t believe it’s necessary or even appropriate to go around constantly singing my own praises as a mother; my praises also should not go completely unsung. It is perfectly OK to have the value I’ve brought to my son’s experience on earth acknowledged and celebrated and to even acknowledge and celebrate it myself. Unfortunately, it took me 20 years of being a mom to finally embrace this idea. It took me 20 years of being a mom to finally feel worthy.

Clearly, the late arrival to the celebration of me as a mom has a lot to do with my late arrival to the celebration of me as me. But the important thing is that I’ve arrived and I’m ready to celebrate! I’m ready to celebrate my level of commitment for all these years; I’m ready to celebrate my willingness to make so many sacrifices – big and small – on my son’s behalf; I’m ready to celebrate the successes that he and I have realized, and continue to realize on our journey together as mother and son. I’m ready to celebrate by living life more fully than I ever imagined as a young, struggling single mom. I’ve earned it. I deserve it. I wish I’d known that 20 years ago. Nonetheless, I have not a single regret. I believe very deeply that my steps were ordered to enable me to inspire other single mothers, even in the midst of their sacrificing and struggles, to remember that their own lives are still worthy of full expression; even if it’s a dream deferred. And while on our individual and unique journeys through motherhood, we all deserve the acknowledgement that others feel compelled to bestow upon us for giving our children the best of who we are. Just let it all land. Graciously accept the compliment.

Without fail, every year the days leading up to Mother’s Day bring my usual mantra: “Toris, please don’t buy me anything for Mother’s Day…I prefer that you save your money or spend it on something you need. The best Mother’s Day gift you can give me is to continue to move toward building a beautiful adult life for yourself.” While I do want and expect my son to exhibit this progress, I now realize that I actually look for this every day, not just Mother’s Day. My excusing him from buying me gifts for Mother’s Day (and my birthday and Christmas) has been more about me not feeling worthy of acknowledgement than anything else. I am lucky he’s smart enough to never honor this request.

From now own, the days leading up to Mother’s Day will bring a revised mantra: “Toris, I can’t wait to see what you’ll get me for Mother’s Day. I hope it will be the Range Rover you promised in 2010!”

MamaSpeak: Setting Single Moms Up for Success

I believe that the most important step in moving forward is accepting where you are. In the mid-1990’s, as a young African-American single mother, I found myself having to do just that. I was twenty-something with limited education, income and resources, caring for a young son whose father was largely absent. Fed up with constantly trying to force my ex to accept his share of the responsibility, and frustrated with trying, unsuccessfully, to secure child support in a system several states away, I felt that there had to be a better way. Sitting in my tiny apartment one night, crying and overwhelmed after another fruitless attempt to track down my son’s father for help, I finally accepted the painful truth: I was alone in accepting the responsibility of raising and providing for my son. What began as one of the most frightening moments of my life became one of the most empowering. The decision to accept full responsibility for the parenting and well-being of my son caused an immediate shift in how I viewed my situation: I was no longer a victim “left holding the bag”; I was now the owner of a set of personal circumstances that I had the power to overcome.

If acceptance is the first step in moving forward, then knowing where you’re headed is the second. Along with accepting sole responsibility came the commitment to providing my son with the upbringing every child deserves. I felt strongly that being raised by an African-American single mother did not mean that my son was damned to becoming a statistic. Instead, I would guide him to becoming a well-adjusted, focused, and educated young man with hopes of a bright future and the determination to get there. I believed that in order to get him to where he deserved to be, I had to be able to consistently provide the love, safety, stability and healthy-parenting that enable children to thrive. Chartering my son to a future filled with hope and promise meant giving myself a better present.

The chasm between life as I knew it and the life I wanted was abysmal; but I decided that building a bridge between the two was my only option. If the first step is acceptance, and the second is direction, then the critical third step is belief in one’s ability to reach her destination. Not knowing how I would do so, I knew that I had to expand my capacity to care for my child. I had to transform the emotionally fragile, depression-prone, uneducated, low-to-moderate-income-earning young mother into a healthy, focused, and disciplined woman to whom education and livelihood were paramount. Though the task appeared daunting, and the woman I envisioned becoming a complete stranger, I knew deep inside that I could do it; and that the woman who seemed like a distant stranger was just a more mature, future version of myself that I could one day meet if I were willing to put in the hard work.

Committing to doing the hard work was the first step in what has now become my life’s purpose: the capacity building of the African-American single mother. Almost a decade-and-a-half after the heartening acceptance of my role as a single mother, my goal is to help other young mothers begin the same journey that changed my life and has placed my son on a path to becoming a success instead of a statistic. My non-profit organization, Single Mothers for Success, and its flagship program, DumaVillage, aim to ensure that single mothers have the tools, information, resources and networks of support necessary for success.

Single-parenting is far from the ideal situation for any child or parent. I pray that the work my organization does will one day render it unnecessary. The ultimate goal is that all African-American children will have access to the development and opportunities that condition them to make life choices that move them away from lives of poverty and struggle and toward prosperity and fulfillment, making single parenting the exception and not the rule. But, as with the organization’s clients, we as a community have to take the first step: acceptance. We first have to accept the fact that close to 70 percent of African-American children are born to unwed mothers. We then have to (step two) decide where we’re heading. I’d venture to say that most prefer a place where African-American single mothers are not the norm. And (step three), we all have to believe that as a community we can get there.