let's start from the beginning, quite literally, with my conception. my mom was 15, my dad was 17 - i was, without doubt, unplanned and with only little doubt, unwanted. the very statistic or unalterable consequence that is the stuff of every parent's worst nightmare for their child. i don't remember at what age i was exactly or the precise moment in which i figured out that i was the result of "teenage pregnancy." i'm equally as unsure about when i found out the real ramifications of that term. i do, however, remember quite clearly being on the monkey bars at day care, meaning sometime during grade school, and telling, for whatever reason, one of the older kids how old my mom was. i remember this moment so clearly for some reason - i know the position that i was in and looking at her with the sun shining so clearly off to my right and her saying, "That would mean that your Mom was only 16 when you were born." I don't recall her saying anything else - but I do remember knowing with certainty that whatever that meant, it wasn't good.

Perhaps I remember that b/c it suddenly made things make sense. I'm a fairly perceptive person and can usually read situations and people well - so, it isn't shocking that as a child I had picked up on the gargantuan size chip on my mother's shoulder, very clearly labeled resentment. am i saying that my mother didn't love me, didn't want me? Not exactly. My mother is many things, unstable just being one of them. But I do know that she loves me and always has loved me as much as she can. However, I also know what i represented to my mother as i was growing up. i was the walking, living, breathing evidence of her worst mistakes. i was the constant reminder of why she was inferior to the members of her pretentious father's second family. i was the constant responsibility that no-one that young is prepared for - that even older, responsible, mature, planning parents are overwhelmed by. (yes, i'm ending with sentences with prepositions, but just work with me here - it's stream of consciousness and i don't feel like editing).

i can't look back and say that my mother was a good mom. i can look back and appreciate the fact that she was absurdly young and inexperienced. i can only imagine, given comments made by various members of my family over the years, that the announcement of my impending arrival was the worst thing imaginable to all concerned. i know that i was often seen, during my more turbulent years, as this awful thing that just continued to happen to my mother. and i can see the huge chip of resentment that then began to form on my own shoulder - quite similar to the one under which my mother labored.

like i said, i can't say that she was a good mother. the fact is that she wasn't. and i recognize the whole, "considering how young she was" theory and that many, including my family members, will embrace that thought and end it with "she didn't do so badly." however, children born to young parents don't enter the world with less needs than those that are born into "ideal" situations, or at least, closer to the ideal than mine.

my mother resented the responsibility i represented. she resented the claim that i inevitably made on her and her life just by my existence. she resented the suffocation that comes with single parenthood, although it was that latter one i didn't truly recognize until later. which brings me more to my point.

i grew up believing that i was that 'awful thing that happened to my mother.' i was, in essence, a horrible unwanted catastrophic event in the eyes of those that were supposed to love me. my mother was the victim of my being, in everyone's eyes and in my own. it isn't something that is easy to overcome. as much as i know my mother loved me, and i do know that, she also hated me with equal fervor, and i know that as well. she was violent and clinically moody and there are endless examples of the manifestation of her hatred.

i am honest enough with myself to recognize that a lot of the reason that i had my daughter in the manner i did is because i could say to her and to me, i CHOSE to have you. you didn't just happen one day and take us all by surprise. i CHOSE to have you in my life, to be your mother, i picked you and i picked motherhood b/c it was what i WANTED, b/c you were wanted, cherished and adored - and b/c of that your existence is a daily celebration, something to revel in. this was not, of course, something i fully recognized at the time. oh, i knew the whole "i wanted you so badly that i chose to have you" was something i would of course tell her constantly as she grew ... but it was the ties to my own scars that i didn't see fully until much later.

and now, here i am, a single mom. and my worst nightmares have somehow, on some level, come to fruition. unless and until you are a single mom in the real sense of the word, you don't REALLY know the suffocation of parenthood. that no matter how much you love your child, there just aren't words for the degree of loneliness, isolation and despair you can experience. there is a recognizable stone forming on my shoulder ... the great irony being that i actually did CHOOSE this, unlike the one before me. and yet, its foundation on my shoulder is a little heavier every day.

i suppose that there is some healing in that i can so easily see that the resentment and suffocation have nothing in the world to do with my daughter. it isn't a matter of her existence being somehow flawed or ominous in and of itself. the fact that i cannot aptly handle the demands of single parenthood without crumbling in the face of it does not in any way diminish her person or her value but rather only serves as evidence of my own shortcomings ... and humanity. and yet, there is always a voice in the back of my head whispering about the inevitable consequences she will suffer as a result, having played her role already. and there is a great failure in that - perhaps a defining one for me. i don't know how to shield her from that and frighteningly, there are times that my resentment doesn't allow me to care. and it reminds me of all the reasons i hate and despise the concept of irony.

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