New Economy of a Single Black Mother: Investment & Material Gains
I may be the most grateful about being a mother.
I cannot separate the difference between being M's mother from just being a mother because I can't compare being her mom to anything, no feeling nor experience compares.
I love my baby. I pour myself, often graciously, into nurturing her well-being and development.
I believe in and invest in her ability to live fully. The thought of her can bring tears of reverence and joy to my eyes- Having met her, I know that I have nothing to prove and nothing more to ask.
I am not self-less. This material life has fulfilled me beyond my own comprehension; I am caregiver to a child. It is opulent to cradle this child when she is well or ill. When she sits with me in our car, my compact feels more like a luxury SUV. Our songs sung laughingly together sound angelic. So many compliment her beauty; I feel myself exquisite beside her.
And my ideas about success have completely shifted from what they were before M. Success is picking her up at from school at 3:30 and spending the rest of the afternoon and evening available to her and able to nourish her.
She doesn't often tell me what I need to do or give me benchmarks.
Besides getting housing, she has named not one expectation. And even in the travail towards our very own home, she joins me as a willing participant and oft-times partner in ideas and work needed to make home happen for us.
My ideas of wealth are different for even a home does not compare to the value of spending time with my child whenever, at any time of the day or night.
Though it is true that it suits me to be my own director, I'm tremendously challenged by self-employment. My faith was stretched to almost breaking before it expanded. It's hard and we are well below the poverty line but I work for myself because of the freedom and ease I'm afforded in parenting.
Gone are the days when I have to submit a request to a third party to reserve time for my child, time to rest, have a spiritual experience or study something that is confounding or constricting my family or something that will make us more free. I no longer ask for permission to care for my own and that suits me more than the sensible resume.
Now I will myself to believe that my choices are translating into the kind of conventional material success that houses, feeds, and educates us without sacrificing our well-being.
Sometimes I see the way that she grows toward a certain direction and I get fearful. Will she be unhappy or stifled because she has not mastered a lesson now that I am only know learning? Ultimately I know that she is not me or mine though it is my joy and honor to care for her until she is more practiced at caring for herself, until she realizes how firmly she is rooted, until she asks for help more consistently, until she understands that only the sun is the sun and that she has everything she needs, until I learn all of that for myself and know how to really parent . . . until someone, maybe her, is carrying me.
I cannot separate the difference between being M's mother from just being a mother because I can't compare being her mom to anything, no feeling nor experience compares.
I love my baby. I pour myself, often graciously, into nurturing her well-being and development.
I believe in and invest in her ability to live fully. The thought of her can bring tears of reverence and joy to my eyes- Having met her, I know that I have nothing to prove and nothing more to ask.
I am not self-less. This material life has fulfilled me beyond my own comprehension; I am caregiver to a child. It is opulent to cradle this child when she is well or ill. When she sits with me in our car, my compact feels more like a luxury SUV. Our songs sung laughingly together sound angelic. So many compliment her beauty; I feel myself exquisite beside her.
And my ideas about success have completely shifted from what they were before M. Success is picking her up at from school at 3:30 and spending the rest of the afternoon and evening available to her and able to nourish her.
She doesn't often tell me what I need to do or give me benchmarks.
Besides getting housing, she has named not one expectation. And even in the travail towards our very own home, she joins me as a willing participant and oft-times partner in ideas and work needed to make home happen for us.
My ideas of wealth are different for even a home does not compare to the value of spending time with my child whenever, at any time of the day or night.
Though it is true that it suits me to be my own director, I'm tremendously challenged by self-employment. My faith was stretched to almost breaking before it expanded. It's hard and we are well below the poverty line but I work for myself because of the freedom and ease I'm afforded in parenting.
Gone are the days when I have to submit a request to a third party to reserve time for my child, time to rest, have a spiritual experience or study something that is confounding or constricting my family or something that will make us more free. I no longer ask for permission to care for my own and that suits me more than the sensible resume.
Now I will myself to believe that my choices are translating into the kind of conventional material success that houses, feeds, and educates us without sacrificing our well-being.
Sometimes I see the way that she grows toward a certain direction and I get fearful. Will she be unhappy or stifled because she has not mastered a lesson now that I am only know learning? Ultimately I know that she is not me or mine though it is my joy and honor to care for her until she is more practiced at caring for herself, until she realizes how firmly she is rooted, until she asks for help more consistently, until she understands that only the sun is the sun and that she has everything she needs, until I learn all of that for myself and know how to really parent . . . until someone, maybe her, is carrying me.
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