Lord knows I am a good mother, so why…. why do I feel like I will never have enough to give to make my kid be able to dominate and be successful in the real world.
It happens more often than not, I compare myself to other women’s situation. At 40, I know you should never do that. YOU CANNOT WALK 2 FREAKING CENTIMETERS IN ANOTHER WOMAN’S SHOES.
So why, why do I do it?
Answer: I feel inadequate.
Why: I was married. I had done all this cool stuff. I had what society told me was the perfect nuclear family. I had a beautiful baby.
I perfect hid my clinical depression, broken life and ultimately my broken heart.
Now what would I be able to give my daughter? Divorced mom, with just a bachelors and a long hyphenated-name.
Sometimes, I feel that I am not the best mom I can be … and I feel that my daughter will not be in the talented tenth and be able to compete.
Am I projecting?
Yes.
Hard.
Fast.
… and long.
I wasn’t supposed to make it. The impoverished, scrawny African American girl from the bowels of the South Side of Chicago aka 79th Street. I wasn’t supposed to want to travel the world, leave the country, have a fairy tale romance, a great education, a dynamic resume and life stories that would make you think I was a bootleg Kennedy. I guess I always knew I was special… and now that I’ve had this grand life, I want my daughter’s life to be this and more….
TENFOLD.
Yet, how can I give her the world, the oyster, the stars and moon and I have NO WEALTH. Income is not wealth. I have an income. I have no wealth. …And as a single African American woman, I am on the bottom of the totem pole for wealth distribution.
YET, SHE CANNOT LOSE.
SHE JUST CANNOT BE AT THE BOTTOM, EVER.
EVER.
I WANT HER TO BE ON TOP ACADEMICALLY, EMOTIONALLY, PHYSICALLY.
I WANT HER TO WIN AT LIFE, BECAUSE A PART OF ME FEELS I LOST.
I won’t let my daughter have a mediocre life. I didn’t birth her from my loins for mediocrity. Regular people make the world go round and us Armour girls… well we freaking make the world spin around faster when you engage us.
I just want her to be the greater me that I could have been had my parents stayed together, had society not marginalized little Black girls into being either spiritually castrated by the Black church or demoralized in the white supremacist’s slave fantasy. I want her to be the greater me had my mother stood by me during my teenage years with care and love, instead of emotionally abandoning me and reducing me a lone and lonely soul.
I just want her to be GREATER THAN ME.
Listen, I’m not a freaking ungrateful bastard of a woman. I know that I am so Blessed compared to how I grew up and how some people live now. You don’t think I know that… you’ve listened to me whinge and moan and now you want me to stop.
F*** you.
No.
Wanting excellence is not something that stops until it’s achieved.
Maybe that’s my problem.
I’ve let myself down.
Queue the Talking Heads song.
I guess this rant is a plea for help. A plea for sanity. A letter to myself to say, @Efabulous1 … you are no more worse or better than any other mother that wants the absolute best for their kid. Perhaps these words are supposed to manifest themselves into a self hug, manifest themselves into being more self aware and less self critical.
God gave me this life, one life… and I just have to make damn sure I give her all the best with all I have all the time until I call her up on the phone, smiling and say…
Babe, I gave you everything I have… and mommy is still here standing always having your back.
… Now give me my sake and turn the radio up!
[Fin]
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TwoDopeMoms 