Mama in Colour

Ode to an Almost Teenager

Filed Under: Life, Parenting //

2019 is the year that I start parenting a bonafide teenager. My oldest will be thirteen in July and the passage of time is becoming so real to me. His turning thirteen feels like more of a landmark for me than my 40th birthday coming up in about two and a half years.

I became pregnant with him when I had just turned twenty-four; I actually found out I was pregnant only three days after my birthday. It wasn’t even remotely planned and I was terrified. I weighed all my options about the decision to continue with the pregnancy and to bring a baby into this world. I ultimately decided to go for it. If I truly think about it, I can’t even really say why. I am not someone who aspired to have children. I wasn’t opposed to it, but I never gave it great thought. I am an only child. I never baby-sat, I wasn’t around babies or kids pretty much ever. Something in my heart just decided that I wanted to go for it. I don’t want it to seem that I made the choice lightly, because I didn’t. His dad and I (who I ended up marrying and we then later divorced) had a really tumultuous relationship, I was still in college, working retail, I could go on and on for the reasons it didn’t look like a good idea on paper. I am vehemently pro-choice so deciding to continue with my pregnancy wasn’t a moral or religious issue for me. I just decided to go for it. So I did.

Motherhood hit me fast and hard. I really was winging it in the beginning. I had no experience with kids like I said, so some of my trials were downright comical at best, and left me in bewildered tears at worst. The day he was born, though, something unlocked inside of me that has never been closed up again. I have never been a cold or unfeeling person at all. If anything being empathetic has gotten me in trouble too many times to count. He brought with him a softness and a joy that I had not felt before, though. I have always been a restless sort of person but this tiny little baby gave a calmness to my spirit and I would remain changed forever.

He and I have been on such an incredible journey together. For the longest time it was just the two of us since his dad and I divorced when he was three years old. He was my little buddy, my most trusted sidekick. We are now at a point where my husband has been in his life for more than half of it. He now has two tiny baby brothers that look at him like he hung the sun, moon, and stars just for them. I am so grateful that we have them in our lives now and I am even more grateful that he finds such great happiness in being the elder statesmen of the boys, as I like to call him. That he adores and admires and loves his stepfather so much, and they have a deep and phenomenal bond.

He is more like me than any other person I have ever known. I grew up without a big family and I don’t know my father and his family at all. I don’t have words to share how much wonder I have found in seeing a person I helped create that nature has deemed fit to have so much of my soul. We think so much the same, we react to things the same, we have so many of the same sorts of interests. We even share the common bond of anxiety and even though I truly wish I had not passed that onto him, I am glad that because I am who I am, I can help him navigate it.

I’m sure as this year and the coming years unfold, there will be challenges and many things that we have to navigate. He will be going through so many changes and even though I know it will seem impossible for him to imagine, I was a teenager once too and I remember how frightening it could be. I hope he maintains his sweet nature, his sense of family camaraderie, his artistic identity, and most of all his incredibly gentle heart. Come what may, whatever it is, I want him to always know that he and I have this as long as we have each other.

Balancing Being Mom & Being You

Filed Under: Life, Parenting //

Becoming a mother has for sure been one of the most brilliant things to ever happen to me. I love my three children beyond measure and I am so proud to be their mother. It is the greatest thing I will ever do with my life...but it isn’t the only thing that I will ever do with my life, either. I spent 24 years being Erica before I gave birth to my oldest son and that person still exists. Motherhood enhanced so many parts of me, it has challenged and drained me and filled me up all at once. The one thing it has done, though, is made me even more sure of who I am as an individual separate from my identity as my children’s mom.

For me, it is incredibly important that my children know me as Erica as well as Mom. I want them to see me as a multi-dimensional person with flaws and faults, and someone who has drive and passion and interests. Is it always easy? Or course not. I get lost in my children just like everyone else. I still do my best to set the example, though.

Trying to set yourself up for perfection with this parenting gig is setting yourself up for failure. Even as I write this blog, my words are not the final word in how you should be doing things. I think especially in the society that we live in now, it is really ways for a lot of folks to get caught up in social media and the ideal of what we are ‘supposed’ to be doing, based on what everyone else is doing. You have to look within and figure out what YOUR normal is for you and your family. Even with that, sometimes you are going to fail at it. You have to give yourself the grace to accept that life can be wonderful and it can be great, but stressing out over perfection doesn’t do you any good. I have seen so many lovely people have their whole personality drained because they lost who they were chasing perfection.

It is so important to take time for yourself. Seriously. I know you’re going to say you can’t. I know you’re going to say there are dishes to be done. I know you’re going to say you can’t leave your kids. I know all of the reasons. I was a single mom for a really long time after my first marriage was over and I didn’t have a lot of help, so it isn’t like I could hop in the car and go get a coffee if I didn’t have someone to watch my son. I did sometimes just stand in my kitchen for five minutes and breathe. I did escape to my bathroom and listen to a song that grounded me. When I could, I would take time outside of my home but I think we often get caught up in trying to make moments into these huge events when really taking time doesn’t have to be that way. When I say taking time for yourself, I mean simply being within your own thoughts, thinking about yourself, your needs, your desires. You don’t need to go to Starbucks to do that (even though that is always welcome if you are able).

Sharing your passions with your children opens up so many doors. My littlest ones are a bit young for it to sink in just yet, but my oldest is twelve so I am able to do this in a really full, rich way. I have always shared with him my love of music, of reading, of writing, of cooking. Not only does it open him up to new experiences and could possibly show him things he is interested in (he is a passionate reader like me which makes me so happy), it also shows them that you have your own interests that do not just have to do with them. It shows them a different facet of your personality. I know a lot of folks say you shouldn’t be your children’s friend but I think that term gets twisted a lot. I am my children’s mother, no doubt about it, but I do also want to be their friend. Being their friend doesn’t mean that I let them get away with murder or they don’t have respect for me. I don’t handle my adult friendships that way, so why would I do that with my children who are incredibly precious to me?

Especially because I am raising what appear to be three black sons who will grow up to be black men, I want to show them that their mom was someone who loved them endlessly and would do anything for them, but also was completely herself in a world that doesn’t value black women. By having confidence in myself and my own individuality, I truly believe that I can show my children what they are able to achieve and that they can wear many hats and still be authentically themselves. That is one of the greatest gifts I feel like I can give them.

Bathtub Confessions

Filed Under: Life, Parenting //

Being a mother and an introvert is an interesting juxtaposition. I am someone that has always greatly valued having time and space to myself. I truly need it to recharge and rejuvenate my spirit. It has nothing to do with the feelings that I have for my husband or my children; it is just the way my brain is made up. I often wonder if it has anything to with the fact that I grew up as an only child because like a lot of only children I grew up quickly learning how to occupy myself and I very much enjoyed being solitary.

There are a lot of times that I have to jump outside of myself because it benefits my children. I’m not going to pretend that isn’t hard. There are moments when I am talked out, touched out, and I simply just want a few moments of solitude. There are plenty of times where I don’t really want to reach out and speak to teachers, when I don’t want to make phone calls, when I don’t want to try to make small talk with other parents when I quickly see I have nothing in common with them. My introverted nature as well as my anxiety start talking and everything inside of me wants to just not do it.

And you know what? That’s okay.

There are plenty of times that I will leave certain tasks to my husband. He understands and gets those parts of me and he will carry the weight on certain things that are hard for me but not for him. I’m glad that I have a partner that balances me out and I know that I do the same for him.

There are the times when I look into my kids’ eyes and I draw strength from them. I look at them and I want to advocate for them, I want to fight for them, I want to do everything in my power to dig deep and work past my fears. And a lot of the times I do, and I am happy and proud of myself for putting in the work.

My two babies are too little at this point but I am very honest with my oldest, especially considering he has proven to be so much like me in personality and a lot of the time needs his own freedom and space to recharge. He knows that there are times that I might just need a moment but I will always be right here for him. I don’t want my children to see me as someone who martyred myself at all times, saying that it was for their benefit. I don’t feel like that is realistic and I also don’t feel like that is fair to put on them. I want them to know that I’m flappable, that I’m flawed, that I’m not a perfect person, but no matter what I tried the best that I could and I loved them dearly. I want them to see in me that you don’t have to be perfect to be good so they will not be ashamed of their own imperfections.

These are the sorts of things I think about when I am in my bathtub soaking, taking a much needed break. When I am done I will rise and be ready for a million questions and a million hugs and a million pieces of love transferred across the current of my family back and forth.