I am not the mother who fathers my children

I am not the mother who fathered my children
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My children, who I mothered

My children, who I mothered

In the early 1970s, my teen years, I overheard my mother and aunt discussing the book “My Mother Who Fathered Me” a study of family life in rural Jamaica by Edith Clarke, a Jamaican Social Anthropologist. In my middle-class upbringing in Jamaica, complete with mother, father, a brother and a sister, and surrounded by friends who flourished in similar families, this was my introduction to the reality of families without fathers.

Fast forward many years, when my children’s father and I separated, and he returned to his home country. My two birth children were 5 and 3 years old, and my stepson, who remained with us, was 18. In the last 19 years, since his leaving, my children have seen their father 5 times.

His leaving was sudden, but not really, as it had taken at least 2 years for our marriage to disintegrate to that point. He left 4 days before Christmas. And I realized that no matter what, I had 2 children, nay 3, as my stepson is very much my son, to parent. By myself.

For the first year, I was mother and father. Or I tried to be. My father had been very involved with his children’s upbringing, so this was the father-model I viewed as normal. I did “daddy stuff” with them, like kite-flying at Easter, which was a big event when I was growing up, a bonding between Daddy and his daughters. He would spend weeks constructing the kites from bamboo and tissue paper, with extensive cloth tails. Then we would pile in the car with our cousins, and he would drive us to an open lot absent of electricity lines, where he would make the kites soar. He did most of the flying. My sister, cousins and I soon got bored, and took off running in the open field, picking buttercups and chasing yellow butterflies. I barely remember the boredom though. I just remember how much love there was. And so I bought a kite and took my children to an open field. I flew the kite. They ran around picking buttercups. I hope they remember the love.

There were things like helping my daughter build a model car for her science project. That’s something that I put in the “daddy box” reinforced when we walked into her school the next day, swept in a sea of daddies proudly carrying their children’s cars. Not a mom in sight. Was I ever proud when my daughter shared the news that our car, constructed from a plastic container, straws and bottle caps, had beaten all the fancy daddy cars in a speed race! Yes, my daughter, this mom could do daddy stuff too!

A year after he left, I placed two gifts under the Christmas tree “from Daddy.” I fooled no-one except myself.

“I know Daddy didn’t send these” declared my daughter. “You did.”

And that was the moment when I gave up being father and decided to just be the best mother I could be.

I look at them now, my young adults, good, kind, loving and smart human beings. This wasn’t how I envisioned their upbringing, but they have grown strong and resilient from it.

My children have a father. Their relationship with him is theirs to define, create, sort out, work on, resolve and yes, forgive. Perhaps they will call or email him on Father’s Day. I will remind them, as I always do, but if they don’t, it will be fine with me.

On this Father’s Day, I say a simple “Thank you” to him. I am the mother who mothers my children.

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