What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

I’m one of the lucky ones who got pregnant right after high school and at 18 my belly grew but my self did not. Who at 18 is ready to be a parent?

After he was born… things changed for me. In a red neck world family help is either all in, we will take your child or you get the hell out, and so I did.

I had another mouth to feed and the word bastard kept running around. It was hard without support and I didn’t like it, it was a much different time being a single mom was loser shit. So, I found a husband who said he’d take on my kid, liar liar pants on fire, and hey why not, I got pregnant 3 more times and had 2 more babies, Irish twins, now I’m a real mom to 3 kids at 23. A family!

In what seemed like a minute oh look what cute kids we have, moved to these are live beings who will turn into selves and I’m responsible for that..ME

How they will be on this planet, that’s me. What truths they use to move through their lives were the ones the so called parents would give them. Holy shit!

Who among you could direct lives in your early 20’s.? My own parents also who were in their 20’s when they raised kids, did a miserable job. So self centered, Often showing us the door we would walk out of at 18, go on now your times up. That’s not a role model.

And that’s how it started. I didn’t want to be an ignorant person and a stupid mother. I took the job seriously and when my first husband divorced, he went after my children because he knew that job meant something to me, and I was awarded the privilege of paying a college professor child support, petty petty man. He tried like hell to separate us, I went from a full time mother to every other weekend and 6 weeks in the summer. Can you hate more than I hated him…nope

So I saw my kids on the sly, never let them know what their father had done. Until they were old enough to ask. I got custody of my eldest at 15 meaning he ran away and dad didn’t fight it.

My story is hideous and ugly and so I became bitter and ugly, until I remembered these were beings that needed moming whether full time or part time and I went back to doing that job.

Standing in a world where our “friends” didn’t know he had gone after custody and didn’t know how badly he made my life. I kept that shit quiet and then I found out he was physically abusing my eldest son. And like I said he ran away and the damage was done he’s in prison right now! He was in prison at 19, not jail! He’s in his 40’s trauma is a bitch!

The story goes on and on…but each hit to my heart and soul, I contained and used it as food. I will not be that! I will not teach them that!

Learning to live and be a mom to the children apart from me, stretched me in ways I never thought possible. We as a group learned love cannot be broken if it’s true. I told them I was always with them, I felt them inside of me. And a mom is a mom no matter what.

And so I mom-ed and I grew. My children, who are now grown, and I have a very close relationship. I will not be stopped and if you are a parent neither should you!