A Message To Single Moms
This is interesting timing...to no one else but me, but it is also a cautionary tale for young mothers of today. I've not wanted to share this story with anyone outside my immediate family, but today's news brought back a time, a story, that added to my conviction that I should write about this long ago chapter in my life. My oldest son's recent hospitalization dregged up some long-time stuffed down in the depths memories from his first years of life, and my first years as a mom.
My youngest son was not privy to the events of that time, because he was not yet a part of my life. He is nearly 6 years younger than his brother. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done when I wrote the following e-mail to him, but I knew I had to do it;
"I wanted to tell you a few things that you were not around, as "in this world" to know, and what kind of pressure was on me during [my oldest son's] recent hospitalization. As a mom, his hospitalization brought up some things in my past that I was not very proud of, and the consequences my choices had for my oldest son.
My youngest son was not privy to the events of that time, because he was not yet a part of my life. He is nearly 6 years younger than his brother. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done when I wrote the following e-mail to him, but I knew I had to do it;
"I wanted to tell you a few things that you were not around, as "in this world" to know, and what kind of pressure was on me during [my oldest son's] recent hospitalization. As a mom, his hospitalization brought up some things in my past that I was not very proud of, and the consequences my choices had for my oldest son.
When he was a toddler, I started living with a man. This man had no children, and was not prepared for fatherhood. He was laid off of his job (after working there for 6 years), and because I had to work, he kept my toddler for me while I worked. This was not a smart move for any mother; to leave her child with someone who is basically a stranger to the child. During the time this man was "taking care" of him, he fell and broke his leg. Some months later he "fell off my motorcycle" and injured his head. Right about that time, my company transferred me to Phoenix. This man and I had married by then, and he still didn't have a job. We moved to Phoenix, rented a house, and again, I left [my baby] with this man. One day I came home to find my son with a huge knot on his forehead. I was told that he'd fallen out of bed, and that's what caused it. Within a few days, I got a call from this man saying that [my baby] had fallen off the toilet (we'd forgotten to bring his potty chair from California, and he'd left him alone on the "big people potty"), and had hit his head again, against the bathtub. This time, he was unconscious, and the man called an ambulance who took him to the hospital.
I believed everything the man told me about what had happened to him, all of those times. I backed him when the police investigated him for child abuse having found bruises on his legs from the man's ring, and evidence of the broken leg and other head injuries. But the bottom line is that I'd left my son, my baby, with a man who was not his father. That guilt has stayed with me all of these years, and it came back to haunt me unbelievably during [his] recent hospitalization. A mother should never abandon her child, under any circumstances, to anyone who is a stranger to that child. For months after [he] got out of the hospital in Phoenix, and even after my company moved me back to LA, he was frightened to be left alone with that man. He would cry, and cling to me when I even left him in a room with the man. It was heart wrenching.
The man later redeemed himself when he gave me my 2nd son and turned into a pretty good dad once he had a child of his own, but that didn't relieve me of the guilt I had over leaving my baby."
While my 2nd son took this as a condemnation of his father, it was nothing of the sort. I just hoped that he would have understood my feelings during this recent episode. His father, my ex [the man] and I had joint custody and have remained friends for the 33 years my youngest son has been on this planet. He's proved to be a great "dad" to my eldest son, as well as his own son.
What this was meant to be is a cautionary tale to single mothers. In San Antonio, we have had at least one murder trial per year since I moved here, of children beaten to death, scalded to death, or worse, by the boyfriends of their mothers.
Back in the "day", I left my son with someone who had no clue as to what to do with a child. He wasn't a father. His "father bear instinct" was born the same day he saw his son born. I'll never forget his reaction to a news story shortly after he became a daddy, about an inmate who picked up his own son, and smashed him against the bars of his cell. He was totally aghast, furious, and utterly appalled that anyone could do that to their own child. He became an exceptional father to both of my sons, having learned first hand what fatherhood was supposed to be like.
Does that excuse me leaving my child with a virtual stranger? NO, it certainly does NOT! I was fortunate. He was and is, a good man who was clueless about children, but learned what fatherhood was all about. My tale is being told here and now, for the sake of children of single mothers, in hope that they will think twice before they leave their children with strangers...whether or not they sleep with them, they are still strangers to the child.
[Thank you, Linda, for reminding me of my duty, and why this story might help save even one child.]
While my 2nd son took this as a condemnation of his father, it was nothing of the sort. I just hoped that he would have understood my feelings during this recent episode. His father, my ex [the man] and I had joint custody and have remained friends for the 33 years my youngest son has been on this planet. He's proved to be a great "dad" to my eldest son, as well as his own son.
What this was meant to be is a cautionary tale to single mothers. In San Antonio, we have had at least one murder trial per year since I moved here, of children beaten to death, scalded to death, or worse, by the boyfriends of their mothers.
Back in the "day", I left my son with someone who had no clue as to what to do with a child. He wasn't a father. His "father bear instinct" was born the same day he saw his son born. I'll never forget his reaction to a news story shortly after he became a daddy, about an inmate who picked up his own son, and smashed him against the bars of his cell. He was totally aghast, furious, and utterly appalled that anyone could do that to their own child. He became an exceptional father to both of my sons, having learned first hand what fatherhood was supposed to be like.
Does that excuse me leaving my child with a virtual stranger? NO, it certainly does NOT! I was fortunate. He was and is, a good man who was clueless about children, but learned what fatherhood was all about. My tale is being told here and now, for the sake of children of single mothers, in hope that they will think twice before they leave their children with strangers...whether or not they sleep with them, they are still strangers to the child.
[Thank you, Linda, for reminding me of my duty, and why this story might help save even one child.]
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