Allowing Room for Change

One major growth theme for me in my co-parenting relationship this past year was:  Allow room for the change you seek.  Now, the change I’m referring to is all about the change I’m seeking in the man who parents this child with me.  Typically, you’ll find me pondering self-growth and ways that my co-parenting and parenting experiences support it.  But, like most other unmarried but human mothers, I often fall into the spirit of wanting to do a little behavioral nip-tuck on a Baby Daddy now and again.

And, when that spirit hits me, I have a tendency to do one of two things.  The first is to pseudo-humbly deliver unsolicited self-help advice that I have collected from the tomes of New Age and self-help texts I’ve consumed.  The second is to skip the self-help part and to just start telling him how to do whatever it is the right way…Step. By.  Step.  OK. I get that that could be pretty annoying.  But, in my defense, the fact is that in the past he’s demonstrated some pretty clear patterns that I’m still attached to.  For example, in the olden days, many times his plans would change on a day he was supposed to have our child, and they would change at the last minute leaving me to rearrange my schedule to accommodate whatever “important” affair had suddenly come up.  It’s a simple thing, a rescheduling exercise, except for the frequency and complete lack of consideration for my own “important” affairs.  I would find myself feeling so many different ways every single time it happened.

There was the guilt from thinking that my feelings about the lack of consideration somehow meant that I didn’t want to take care of my child.  Well, frankly, there were times when I didn’t want to. At the time, I was the sole financial provider for our son and he spent most of his time with me.  Sometimes I needed a break, but the guilt was intense, nonetheless.

Then there was the anger resulting in blame, bad mouthing and not a few arguments.  But, ultimately, the worst feeling of all was helplessness; my sense of having to just accept the situation, having the value of my time and energy determined by him and not knowing whether or not I could depend on the schedule we’d set .  I hated it…feeling helpless over something so simple.  But, the emotions that a “not going to be able to…” call aroused in me were intense.

So, flash forward a couple of years, and we are on a set schedule, our time split almost evenly.  And, he is holding up his end reliably.  But, then…the call.  “…blah…blah…blah…something important…blah…blah…blah…need to reschedule.”  And, that’s all she wrote…anger, guilt, and helplessness; it all came back with the same intensity.  And, I told him about himself, what was wrong with his parenting, what was wrong with his partnering…

But, this time, he didn’t fight back.  Instead, he acknowledged my feelings then said, “I am not that man from five years ago…not even from last year.  I know I still have things to work on, but I have grown and I have changed and I have demonstrated that to you.  I need you to acknowledge it and to deal with me based upon who I am showing you I am today.”

And, I stopped fighting.  He was right.  I had determined the “truth” about him years ago—unreliable, undependable, inconsiderate, selfish.  Frankly, I guess I also had developed at least one truth about myself, as well, “I am the better parent, because I sacrifice myself for my child.”  It made dealing with his whim much easier; it allowed me to manage my own expectations and to address my feelings of guilt for wanting a Mommy respite once in a while.  They were truths that served me when I knew no other way to cope.  And, that’s fine.  But, I had neglected to leave room for growth, for the possibility that a twenty-six-year-old (his age when our son was born) could mature, could become a better father and a better parenting partner or that I might have more power than I was willing to assert.  My emotional blinders left no room for any new truths or refinement of the old ones.

But, when I finally took them off, I saw that he was right.  He damn sure wasn’t perfect, but he also wasn’t the same.  Things had actually changed a bit in the past year.  And, on several of the dimensions that mattered to me, by my standards, he was better.  The “not going to be able to…” call of today was in actuality very different from those of yore.  It was true that the tone these days was more apologetic and less presumptuous.  Perhaps it was safe to let him out of the box in which he’d been held hostage; maybe confining him to that little space wasn’t really serving me as much as I had believed.  He was different.

And, I was different. Somehow, somewhere, I had found my own power and released those feelings of helplessness.  And with his words, I recognized that some sort of co-parenting conflict post-traumatic disorder drove my response.  I remembered that I really did have choices that I had been exercising over the past year.  Sometimes my response was, “Not a problem.”  But, on other days it was more like, “Hmmmm.  That’s a tricky situation you’re in.  I already have plans…would change them if I could…What are you going to do?”  And, then, I would go paint my nails and luxuriate in the tub…guiltlessly.

So, for you…What “truths” are holding you or your child’s other parent hostage?  What change are you ready to make room for?

Who Are You Being Called to Become?

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant.  Oh!  The drama!  As I lay there bawling on my cousin’s Vegas bathroom floor, I felt like the world as I knew it had just ended.  My personal Armageddon.

Quickly though, after I recovered from the shock, I realized that this “tragedy” was, in fact, a miracle, a gift, a moment beckoning me to rise to a higher level.  This was a call for me to step into a role I hadn’t bothered to imagine yet, to become a person I hadn’t met yet, and to find within me a well of strength, faith, compassion and commitment I didn’t know existed in this body I wear.

Fast forward a few years, and, once again…drama.  My relationship with my son’s father ended, and any dream I’d had of the three of us doing the Cosby thing was shattered.  Fortunately, our drama was mild compared to many of the stories I hear.  But, we created drama nonetheless.  I acknowledge my unique contributions.  I played the blame game, the I’m-the better-parent game, the how-can-you-treat-me-this-way-game.  But, eventually, just like the Day of the Two Dip Sticks, I had to stop.  Press pause on the woe-is-me victim script I was reading to myself, look for the miracle, the gift in all of this and recognize that the beckoning was once again upon me.

See, I believe that these experiences we call “struggle” or “challenge” or “drama” are moments calling us to connect with the best in ourselves.  Our parenting partnerships or lack thereof are no exception.  We all have our stories when it comes to our challenges with “the other parent”.  That’s real.  Sometimes they mistreat us, take us for granted, shortchange us.  True.  But, we can’t change them.  That’s real, too. 

What we can do is trust that somewhere in the drama there is a voice asking us to claim these challenges as tools to transform ourselves or just to discover what is best in us.

These days, my son’s father and I still have bouts of our special brand of drama.  They are typically brief and even laughable sometimes—a five-minute dispute over who really has the soccer uniform or whether I told him the teacher conference was at 4 or 4:30.   But even then, every once in a while, when I want to poke him in the eye just for emphasis…I stop.  I imagine him one-eyed, and then I hear that voice hollering at me, “Who is this moment calling you to become?”  I answer…and his sight is spared.

I’m curious.  Do the challenges you experience in your parenting relationships ever lift you up instead of bring you down?  Who do you think you are being called to become?

Talibah Mbonisi

Talibah Mbonisi, founder of WeParent, is a Marketer by trade, a problem solver by nature and a mother by grace.  She is also an unmarried co-parent navigating the path that will lead to a happy, healthy son, and a fulfilled, balanced Mama and Daddy.

Inspired by the challenges she and her son’s father experienced as they tried to sort through disagreements in their parenting relationship and by their determination not to give up on figuring it out, Talibah decided to try to build the type of resource she thought would support their efforts.  And, as she talked with other single, bonus and co-parents about her vision, it became clear that her family wasn’t the only one seeking this type of resource.  So began a mission to be part of a co-parenting “revolution”  through WeParent.

In addition to being the Chief Mom Officer of WeParent and Mama to her son, Talibah is a life coach and a blogger.

My Journey to WeParent

I can’t begin to articulate how excited I am to finally share WeParent with you.  For most of my life, I’ve found myself passionate about one idea or another only to let it flicker out because of my inaction.

That hasn’t happened with WeParent, though.  Perhaps because, like many of you, I recognize the importance of sorting this thing out with my son’s father.  As a mother, I want to do right by my child, and I know that finding my way to the best parenting partnership we can manage is part of that.  And, as a woman, I know that finding myself and finally unleashing her onto the world in her most magnificent form requires some healing.  Maybe this light hasn’t fizzled, because more than anything right now, navigating my way along this journey as a parent is key to my growth and happiness.  For the first time in my life, I truly feel called to build something and to make sure this fire in me does not become extinguished.

So, that’s part of the story that has brought me to WeParent.  The rest of the story is that almost eight years ago, I got pregnant by a man I had only known for three months.  Yes, we were digging each other, but no, we didn’t have an official, exclusive commitment to one another…and we definitely didn’t have any plans to go half on a baby.  It certainly wasn’t my most responsible moment.  His either.  But, we made lemonade, and for more than three years, we lived together creating some really wonderful memories and facing some challenges.  Ultimately, forever didn’t meet us in that relationship, and we transitioned into a co-parenting partnership and friendship.

Yes.  We are friends…most of the time.  But, all of the time, we are family.  And, that has been key to our being able to co-parent through the hot and critical times.  We decided early on that no matter what, our son made us family and that failure in this co-parenting endeavor was not an option.

It’s been a bumpy road at times.  That’s for sure.  But we are proud of what we have built, and we continue to get better.  Still, we need support.  I needed support, and I wasn’t finding what I thought I needed; so I decided to build it and to share the process with you.

And, here we are, mothers, fathers, experts and amateurs, co-creating the support we need…Tapping into that thing called hope, acting on some glimmer of faith that we can heal ourselves, our families and create the change our kids need to be happy, healthy children who grow into happy, healthy adults.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.  I look forward to growing with you.

P.S.  That’s me on the home page!

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