Mom Not Mom a step-mothers story

[chattykathy]

This is for all those moms out there that are mothers to children that are not their own by birth and yet are still mothers nonetheless. I feel your pain! This goes for fathers too.

Mom not Mom

I look around the room and I see people that in my heart are my daughters and son. In reality, they are not and will never be. They are my step-daughters and children I adopted with my heart the first my son at the age of 14 when my best friends wife left him. I would go to school and go to their house to care for his son.

I am barren. I am a woman that was blessed with only the goodness of being married a man with children. I dreamed the dream of all little girls, the dream that begins for some marrying, becoming pregnant with a baby created with the love you have for you husband. I then watch them grow into adults and see that follow their hearts and listen to your sage advice.

I hear the words mom, ma, mama, mommy, and I feel sorrow that they will never be meant for me. Why ? I could have been a great mother!

I look over at my adopted children and see a young man in his prime ready to take on the world. A man, my son Raven, that at the age of 18, after under going eye surgery, went to another state to get his sister, Winter’s Dawn that was being abused, to raise her out of the Hell she was in. He is a man that never really knew his mother because she abandoned him when he was 2 weeks old. She chose to leave due to the fact he was blind and would be the rest of his life. She did not stick around to see the magnificent man that paid for his own surgery to correct his eyes. He is now 27 and holds his head high. A father to his sister, a man with his own business in land scaping, and one day will be married.

I first met him on a spring day when I was 14 just before his mother left right after giving birth. He was squished in the face and had a full head of dark black hair. I was in love. Not the romantic kind, but the kind that fills your heart when you see something that was so precious and dear that you wanted to hold it forever. I arrived 2 weeks later to see his mother gone and he in a crib crying. His father I knew was out working on the farm and would not be in until after it got dark. How could I leave when I was needed? So I stayed. This became the norm for me. I went to school during the day and went to the cabin after to care for this innocent boy who stole my heart and became my son. I walked the floor when he had croup, chicken pox, and the flu. I cheered him on when he was learning to eat in a dark world. When he wanted to learn more of his heritage, I helped him to gain that knowledge by learning about it myself. I wept when he called me in the middle of the night to tell me I was loved, and until the day I died I was, and forever will be, his mother. This was after his father told me that the only reason I was allowed to hang around the cabin and be with the children was because I was a cheap babysitter. I wept not with sorrow, but with a heart over flowing! I had a son! He was 16 at the time and mine.

As my thoughts wonder I gaze again across the room in the present and I see his sister, my adopted daughter Winter‘s Dawn, and take note that the darkness she once lived in and felt with her every breath, no longer surrounds her! She has become strong, loved, and once again a giggling child. I did not know of her Hell until after it happened. When I did find out I cried "Why her? She is innocent". She was a new born when I first saw her. The next day her “mother” too was gone. She was left to fend for herself with a man that cringed from thoughts and smells of Vietnam, no mother or even a woman in the house to teach her how to be a girl, uncles that once she was old enough caused her the hell that she needed to escape, and a brother who was then only an 11 year old and was becoming a teenager when she was born. This brother that was her savior from uncles looking to a child at the age of 5 as a wife until he could get out 3 years later.

She is now 17 and lightens up any room and the hardest of hearts. I remember when she too had chicken pox and came out of the room covered in calamine lotion crying because she could not be apart of the Pow Wow because she looked like a “spekkled pepto egg!” I am glad that once again she can be that child.

I see my step-daughters Chelsee and Buffee, and the fact that their mother doesn’t call, come to see them, and that we pay for all their visits to see her, she remembers nothing in their life. They try to call her and "she can’t talk now she is on a date or busy". They write and all letters are not answered. They send her things and not even a thank you is given showing that it was appreciated, or hell even that it got there.

I hear them cry and they ask me "does their mother hate them so much? What did they do to deserve this treatment?"

Now all their responses are that of numbness. Blank stares meet the conversation when their friends are talking about how great their moms are, they retreat into themselves. “Whatever” becomes not just a statement, but an attitude that is a shield against the pain. Showing the world it is ok that their mom doesn’t have time for them. Inside I can hear their hearts breaking.

I remember Jo-Anna and Shyann and the fact that though they are with this “woman” and are being treated the same. Jo-Anna at the age of 12 is a mother to Shyann who is only 5. They are left alone at night to stay up as late as they want doing whatever they want. The house is not clean but so filthy that the dirt is ground in and possibly will not be able to be removed. The food is whatever they can get at the convenience store down the road. We have called and got surprise inspections by DFS/Police and they do not work because this “woman” is tipped off by an aunt that works there and avoids them.

I see all these children being treated as nothing! Tossed away like garbage! Now that they are here cherish them! Hold them! Mold them! They are wonderful people that can teach us so much! They can love and be loved!

I am mom to these! Yet I am not mom.

I am a mom wanna-be!

A step-Mother.

An adopted mom.

A free baby sitter.

I help to mold them, I walk the floor with them when they are sick, I dry their eyes,I cheer them on in all they do and yet I still am not a mom. I am a step-mother, and a wanna be, a bank, a maid, whatever.

I am confused. Just when I start to feel like a mom reality steps in and I get smacked with that reality; that I am just a stand-in. Their real mother calls( finally), texts, or some how they talk with their other sisters and I am once again on the back burner.

I can do no right,

they need not listen to me,

I am nothing,

I am the means for them to get what they want.

The maid.

The rug in which to be walked on.

I am not their mom.

I cry because I see them hurting and I want to hold them yet they wont let me. I chose them and they see this not.

I am mom not mom.

I am told I am their mother. But I do not feel it.

I see the other women who gave birth to these wonderful beings and I want to shake her. How could you leave these innocents to the four winds? How could you call yourself a mother if you are never there for your children? How can you shoot down the one thing in your children lives’ that wants to be you and be there for your children? Someone who wants them. Someone who needs them as much as they need her. How? Why?

I am mom not mom.

[DATo]

I feel it is as certain as night follows day that one day, perhaps not tomorrow but one day, these children will understand that their one, true, and only mother is the narrator of this story.

[chattykathy]

I feel it is as certain as night follows day that one day, perhaps not tomorrow but one day, these children will understand that their one, true, and only mother is the narrator of this story.

That is in truth the feeling and hope this mother clings too. I also wanted to express appreciation for all those fathers out there too that deal with this issue. Some step-parents are welcomed and have great relationships with the kids and even the exes. Many however receive this treatment.

This was written as a non-fiction from my point of view about my kids.

[bobRas]

"Blood is thicker than water" - No. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." I sincerely hope that adopted children realize that the acts of procreation, pregnancy and giving birth are all peanuts compared to actually being a parent.

This story felt incredibly heartwrenching and sincere. I could surely nitpick through it, but the impact is so much more important here. Great job!

[chattykathy]

"Blood is thicker than water" - No. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." I sincerely hope that adopted children realize that the acts of procreation, pregnancy and giving birth are all peanuts compared to actually being a parent.

This story felt incredibly heartwrenching and sincere. I could surely nitpick through it, but the impact is so much more important here. Great job!

I know it needed nitpicking. It was written after one of the youngest tirades over her mother calling. I wanted to get it all written down while the feelings were fresh.