“There are times when I ask God what did I do wrong? It is like I tried to do my best and things just kept getting from bad to worse. As a mother I have failed miserably and that for me is the worst possible thing. How you do get back from something like that? I live but every day I am tormented by this fact.”
There was not much I could tell this sister to make her feel better because were I in her position, I would have felt the same way. Maybe a part of me (I didn’t tell her this of course) agreed a little that she ‘failed miserably’. I had to remind myself that she did not have an easy life and was not prepared for motherhood. I mean most of us are not fully prepared, but being a teenage mother is especially difficult.
“I got my daughter young, but I pledged to myself that I would be a good mother and ensure that she grew up well. I struggled and finished school even after I had her because I just didn’t want her to punish; and I knew without an education I couldn’t give her much,” this sister told me recently.
“It didn’t do too badly with my studies but it was not like I was a scholar or anything. I managed to get a job and I really thought this was it. Look, for me, living for this child and providing for her was my everything.”
I met this sister recently and we got to talking. She is not a sharer so I was surprised when she opened up to me. I knew she had a daughter but was not aware she was her only child and from the outside looking in I thought she had it together.
“There were days when I wanted so much and wanted to go and so but because of her I denied myself. It is not like I am complaining or anything because that is what mothers are supposed to do, but you know it is like I said I tried my best.
“I still don’t know where I went wrong. But is like when this child hit teenage years I couldn’t do nothing about it. Maybe because me and her father not together, I don’t know what it is but this child stop wanting to go to school, she didn’t want to do anything in the house and she didn’t want to even talk to me anymore,” she said sadly.
“It was like from one to the next and it was me there trying to make sure she didn’t make the same mistakes I made and the more I tried the more things was not working out.
“One day she came home and just like that she said she didn’t want to go to school anymore. It was after the COVID-19, you know, we struggle to keep her in the online classes. When I had had to go to work, her grandmother couldn’t get her to stay in the classes. So when classes open up back I was so happy.
“But it was like this child didn’t want to go back to school. Every day she came home it was a problem with school and then it was her asking why school is important. The grades got worse. They dropped since with the pandemic but you know you put it down to the online learning and I thought she would picked up back with physical school.”
The sister told me that for the first time she felt that she was at her wits’ end when it came to her child and she sought her father’s intervention.
“Her father and I never really had a relationship. I don’t even want to talk about what happened when I was a teenager and got pregnant. But let’s just say it was something that didn’t last and we got a child out of it. He was older and it happened. It was not statutory rape but to be honest I don’t even know what it was.
“My mother was a single parent and I was the second of her daughters to follow in her footsteps and it was like by then she was tired so the most she told me is to try and finish school so I can take care of the child. She give me whatever support she could and that was it,” the sister said.
I did not ask more questions about this part of her life as she seemed to have closed off speaking about it.
We got back to talking about her daughter.
“So like I said I asked the father… and to be fair to him I think he genuinely tried. He did not keep his end of the bargain when it came to the finances but I think he cared and I was happy that he didn’t seem to like blame me for what was happening.
“You know at first I thought he would have used the opportunity to turn her against me and I hesitated for a while but when it was more than me I had to ask for help because I just didn’t know what else to do. He talked to her, he even start dropping and picking her up from school and he would come over and spend time. I have someone else and I was grateful that he didn’t mind the father coming over.
“But it was like the more we did the more this child became rebellious. She started staying out late and then wanting to put on her clothes and go and when I talk is a tantrum,” she related.
“It became so bad that I was crying all the time and she didn’t care. One day she packed her bags and told me she is going to live with her father and how school was not for her. He opened his door to her and I was upset at first because I felt if he didn’t she would have come home back. But he asked me what I wanted him to do and pointed out that it was his child too.
“For a while she was there and he got her to go to school for a few days and then she just stopped. No matter what we did, I got people to talk to her but the child did not go back. She was in CXC class and had started doing SBAs and all that and then it was like the child said no and it was no,” she said, this time she was close to tears.
“Of course her father and her did not last long and she came back home but it was never the same. She has not gone back to school and she spends her days doing nothing really. I go to work and leave her and when I come home she is just there. She wants to go out with friends and now she is 18 she says she is an adult. She even got a job but that did not last long because of course she is not disciplined.
“Most days I am asking where did I go wrong, did I spoil her? I don’t know but I can’t give up on her. After a long time I now got someone that she is talking with, I don’t know how it is going because none of the two are saying anything to me but at least she is talking to someone. I hope that things would get better and that she would want to go back to her studies. So I am still hopeful but I feel so bad most days, like how did I fail at the one thing that really matters?”
I couldn’t answer the sister’s question. Parenting is never easy and it is not for me to pass judgement, even though sometimes the human in us wants to. We all have parenting struggles, some we talk about some we don’t. What I did tell the sister was that all was not over and to keep loving and supporting her daughter. As parents sometimes that is all we can do.
