Today, I told a relative stranger I’d be willing to be a friend because I recognized a piece of myself in her. A woman who is a casual acquaintance on Facebook posted a box emptied on the floor that had been full of toddler toys and cardboard books her ex mailed back to her. It’s one she’d sent to him hoping that he could take their young son a few days a week, and it’s the only thing he mailed back to her in a year.
I read her post several times and I read all the comments. Eventually, I left her a long message, because I wanted her to feel seen. I didn’t want her to feel invisible. Like me. I have been there too. Technically, I’m still there because my kids aren’t yet grown.
I told her that it’s unfair when men fail as parents because they aren’t just failing their kids. Men who fail as parents fail women by placing more weight on them to carry. Raising children is mostly hard, thankless work. Yes. I love my kids. Sometimes, they make me laugh. Having kids is the best choice I ever made. However, raising kids is hard, thankless work that nobody will ever acknowledge or reward or even know.
I can’t stand it when people say they had no other choice other than to be strong. My kids’ dad chose not to be strong, and he continues to choose to be weak every day, and he’s never paid a dime of child support. We all have a choice. I bought my son a new pair of glasses a week before Christmas because he accidentally broke his. Less than a month before Christmas my heater broke and cost nearly $1,000 to fix. Is my ex-husband aware that in order to make sure my kids have winter coats, and heat, and food and Christmas presents that I make personal financial sacrifices? Most of my clothes are from secondhand stores. I work six or seven days a week. Sometimes, I come home and I fall asleep on the couch with my contacts in and my work clothes on because I’m so exhausted.
Raising kids is hard. That’s why some men don’t want to do it. It’s work. Being a mom takes up most of the free time I have. I could choose to check out. I could choose to text my kids once a month or let them fend for themselves, but I choose to take care of them because I love them. I choose to take care of them because despite how hard it is, I want to take care of my kids.
I’m amazed at how many women are in the same kind of situation. There is a woman in a yoga class I used to take who is a yoga teacher and without makeup, she looks like a movie star. I assumed she was somehow privileged. After class one day, we casually chatted and she’s like me. A single mom who works several jobs to make ends meet because her kids’ dad checked out.
There are so many of us silently doing extra because someone else has made a choice to do less, so today, I gave my cell number to a relative stranger because I didn’t want her to feel alone. She’s not alone. There are too many of us like her. There are too many of us like me.
I know the loss she feels. It’s hard to give up on another human especially one you once loved enough to bring a child into the world with. I know how much it hurts to realize someone we thought we could depend on has failed our kids and us and will they will never make it right, not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. I know that kind of grief that feels like swimming in an ocean of black sadness with no land in sight.
I know how much this kind of disappointment hurts and what it takes to do the laundry anyway and to buy new kid glasses anyway, and to keep moving forward. Not because someone has to get dinner on the table but because I choose to be strong and not weak. I choose to love my kids, and I choose to take care of them because I want to.
I chose to see other woman like me because we are not alone. I chose to see other women like me because each and every one of us deserves to be seen, to be heard.
