I could have stayed in my dysfunctional relationships.
I could have made the decision to stick it out for the sake of the kids.
I could have decided I didn’t deserve any better and that was it for me – I made my bed so I have to lie in it kinda thing.
I could have done all those things but my soul knew my star was brighter and that my sons deserved better.
Let me say that again – my sons deserved better.
You see, I fully understand the stigma associated with my situation and that of women like me, women who have children with multiple men. From the outside looking in I look ratchet, desperate, dishonest stupid, classless, promiscuous, and a host of other degrading, damaging words. What we as a culture fail to understand is that most women don’t want to raise their children alone – this includes me. I never set out to be a baby mama, I didn’t grow up with dreams of child support and broken families, I actually wanted a loving marriage and relationship.
But the reality of the situation is my relationships were neither loving nor healthy, and raising my boys in those unhealthy relationships would have caused a cancer – a cancer that would have festered in the soul of my sons and set them up for failure by providing them with the unhealthy version of a relationship. I wanted more for my sons, so instead of staying in soul crushing relationships that would have eventually ruined us all – I actively chose to leave.
Yes, I made the decision to leave and put my sons’ emotional well-being first and chose to be a baby mama – best decision I ever made.
For this last and final time I chose to leave a house I helped create, one that my boys loved, to move back into my mother’s house at 30 years old – with my four boys. I knew what it meant for me and I didn’t do it lightly. I knew it meant starting over, again, and I understood the perception it was going to create. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sometimes get to me – the fact that I have been in three failed relationships and my sons have witnessed them all – because it sure the hell does.
But on the days it gets to me I remember the gift I have given my sons. I’ve given them the chance to have a home life filled with love, strength, and stability. They don’t have to see their mother’s tears. They don’t have to be awaken by arguments. They don’t have to dread going to their home. They don’t have to wonder who is going to be angry and why. They get to know our home will always be the safe place. The place of peace, comfort, rejuvenation and where they can always be without worry. We’ve had enough worry.
So yes I call myself a baby mama.
I own it.
Because for me it represents the decision to put my sons before any other and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
