What Makes A Parent A Parent?

About two years ago, I met a woman at my place employment that had two boys. The oldest little boy had just turned three and the youngest was getting ready to turn two. We became friends. I watched the boys for her a few times and fell in love with them. They were great little boys that just ate up attention from anyone that wanted to love them but there was also something underneath. A bond that began between us early on. Their mother and I were a little slower to bond on that level but when the boys would play on their own we eventually did.

When she was in need of a place to live in a very bad situation, I told her to take the boys over to my place until we could figure things out. After the boys went to sleep that night we discussed the situations long into the night. In the end, they ended up staying with me longer than originally planned. They lived with me for almost exactly a year. We were a united front with the children. She worked evenings and I worked days.

Maybe it was inevitable, but eventually our relationship went beyond friendship for a short time. The children became mine before that happened not because I loved them so much or because they loved me but because they chose me to be their second mother. On their own, they began calling me Mama and her Mom no matter how many times we tried to “correct” or change their choice of words. They knew the difference between us and understood what they were saying so we finally just let them continue. Eventually our relationship teetered towards more than just friendship but couldn’t be described as love.

At some point, she met a man that she felt she was in love with and I was more than happy for her. We cooperated still in raising the boys and taking care of what we needed to do to survive. At this point I knew that for the most part I was being taken advantage of but couldn’t just kick her out for the boys’ sake. When she got with this man, I thought maybe she would move in with him and that would be a solution but than things changed and became more complicated.

She got pregnant. The father was NOT happy. Denied that it was his and that she was most likely sleeping around because they weren’t exclusive. Told her that he wanted nothing to do with her, the baby, or any of us for that matter. Well, I of course was the one to pick up the pieces and help get her calmed down; especially after he threatened us with retaliation if we ever told anyone that he was the father.

After a few months of trying to support the three and myself, I knew that it couldn’t continue. Things were going downhill and despite me not wanting to lose my babies, I had to change something. I can’t have children and this new baby was to have my middle name as it’s middle name if it was a girl and I had picked the girl first name and the boy first and middle names out. This baby was already growing in my heart even though it wasn’t possible for it or any other baby to grow with in my belly).
Finally, things got too much and money was too tight to handle so steps were taken for her to move out and me to move out of my apartment also. We would go our own ways. She had a place to go and I would survive as I had many times before. So through tears I kissed my little boys good-bye and watched them leave.

Since that time I have been able to get them for weekend visitations and sometimes a week at a time. I had the boys for almost a month when their sister was born because she was born with spina-bifida and had to have spinal surgery as soon as she was born. After she was able to come home and I brought the boys back home, I finally got to hold her for the first time. It was something I had never felt before in my life. I have taken care of many babies and held thousands of infants of all ages but when I held this little girl, my heart stopped for a moment and expanded. She was a part of me already and I wanted to protect her and watch her grow and flourish. I was over powered by a rush of emotion. This was my little girl, I felt with this little girl like I already did with “my” two little boys. That day, I fed her through her feeding tube and I inspected her inscision scar and each toe and each finger and each eye lash and every little hair and she was perfect in every way.

Since then, I have learned to catheterize her and I know her medication schedule, her catheterization schedule, her feeding habits, her surgeries, her likes, her dislikes, her allergies, her fears, and a lot of times I know these better than her mother. I know what the boys like, dislike, fear, crave, how to get them to eat broccoli, how to get them to eat chicken, how to get them to clean their room, how to get them to listen and do what they are told, I know how to keep the younger boy from getting car sick, I know how to keep the older boy from getting his night terrors, and I know that their mother doesn’t appear to listen to any of these things that I try to share with her because I still think that if I know something about the kids I should tell her.

Recently, a paternity test proved that the baby’s father really was her father and her started coming around. In a misguided attempt to avoid child support he convinced the kids’ mom that he wanted to try and work it out and got her to tell the courts that so as of right now there is no order for him to pay any support. She acts afraid of him and he has as little to do with her as possible.

About a month and a half ago, I was asked to take the baby for the weekend so that the mom and two boys could go to a family party where there would be many children and adults but no other babies. She felt it would be easier without the baby and of course I was glad to take her and arranged to have time off of work. There was a little bit of time when we weren’t sure if it was going to work out yesterday because of the bus schedule and lack of planning on her part. When this was straightened out on my side, I let her know and was informed that all of a sudden, the baby’s dad wanted to take her for the weekend. I was under the impression that he was going to be going to the party too but apparently he would rather use his power against me. I didn’t put up a fight because he truly does have the legal and biological right that I don’t have. Up until this weekend though, he has wanted nothing to do with her and he isn’t happy about the fact that the kids are so attached to me to this day. It doesn’t bother him when he wants to hang out at the mother’s house without them to bother him but right now he is on a power trip and I was mad.

I didn’t let on my feelings but later I cried. Heartbroken, I felt as if someone had taken a part of my heart from me and shattered it on the floor in front of me. I only have so much time off of school between semesters to be able to keep them and this was going to be the last weekend for awhile. She will regret the missed opportunity this summer when the semester is in full swing but I can’t tell school to wait as much I would love to for my babies. This is the downfall of not being their “real” parent.

When they are with their mother, they are designated with their room and told to leave her be. She doesn’t want to be bothered with them but in public she puts on quite a show. She uses the baby’s “disability” to gain sympathy and her status as a single mother to gain sympathy. She still flirts with guys and tries to use them for money or what ever she can get out of them. With me though, the boys know they are safe and protected. We play together, they can run, they can be boys, they can be kids, they can be rewarded for good activity and punished for bad activity, they know that they are loved, and they know that they are accepted for who they are. The eldest boy is afraid of heights. If his mother lifts him up in the air he will scream but if I lift him he laughs. They both have nightmares/night terrors at her house but sleep soundly like angels at mine. The baby seems afraid of men when I get her but is fine with them before she leaves my house. When she has to choose between me and her own mother she chooses me to hold her and comfort her. The boys get discipline at my house and she gives in to their begging most of the time at her house but it usually takes two people to pry each child out of my car to return them to my mother.

So it comes down to the real question. Who is the “real” parent? What makes a parent a parent? Is it really DNA and carrying a child for nine months? Is it a common blood line? Is it the bond of love and caring? Is it the trust and faith and feeling of safety? Is it the knowing that even in the moment you are getting punished for a misdeed you are still loved more than anything in the world? So… the “unreal” mother must sit on the outskirts and wait for her time allotment to be granted to her. And the “real” parents have all three children with them this weekend to ignore and yell at to “leave them alone”. But what else is there for me to… I’m not a “real” parent.

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