Hello, welcome to my blog.
I grew up knowing my late grandmother as my mother and father. I lived with her all through my childhood till the early stage of my adulthood.
Since I attained early adult age, i had to leave home for school to ease my educational pursuit and i have been by myself and never bother to return home except for few days visitation which does not usually go beyond four to five days.
If you ask my parents they will tell you what they did for me is co- parenting but if you ask me I will call it parenting from a distance.
I really can not talk about what made my parents to part ways but what I can say is that I never had the opportunity of being around them while growing up because mum remarried and dad also remarried. Their new marriages brought forth children and they concentrated on the children (my siblings) or so I thought.
Although my needs were usually meet after alot of back and forth from the both of they but I can remember the days I needed someone to tell me Welldon and I was all by myself, the days I felt cheated and needed an adult voice to speak for me and all I heard was total silence, the days i needed a shoulder to cry on and my parents were not available or the day i call my mother for an advice and she told me she have nothing to say to me.
Though my father regrets his actions on his dying bed and we reconciled even though we could not make up for the lost years before he past on but my mother who is still here seems like a stranger to me.
She feels like a stranger because she was not present when I needed her at my formative age and when I needed her to be there for me physically, psychologicaly, mentality and emotionally so she does not understand my struggle which makes us fight often.
This constant miss understanding made me to put her at arm length but i still respect and adore her as my mum because i have made peace with the fact that I am an adult and should be responsible for myself.
I do not want this kind of relationship with my children now or in the future. I do not want them to have the kind of traumatic childhood I had so I make sure to be present for them in every possible way.
I make sure not to miss out on every important movement of their life like the movement they took their first step, the movement They celebrated their first birthdays, for every hospital visit, open days in school and every family time.
I am a present mum not because it is convenient but because I want my boys to see my commitment to them. Even if they do not understand it now, I am very sure it will make sense to them as they grow older.
I am always present not because I am idle but because I do not want story of what was between my parents and I to repeat itself through my children and I.
Do I dislike my mum because she left me for my grandmother to raise? No. Am I ready to listen to her if she is ready to talk even though she hardly listened to me? Yes but not to blame or judge her.
Thank you for reading till the end.
Images used are Ai generated.