A Mother Who’s Had EnougH

 I don’t think people really understand what it does to a mother when she’s pushed out of her own child’s life. And I don’t mean slowly, or over time, or through some kind of mutual falling out. I mean ripped away. Gone. Shut out when he was barely a month old — before I even had the chance to memorize the way his face changed when he woke up, before I learned the little sounds he makes when he’s trying to laugh, before I even got to settle into motherhood for real.

I barely know who my own son is. And that breaks something in me every single day.

People see the texts, the arguments, the “co-parenting issues,” but they don’t see the way my heart drops when someone asks me a normal mom question:

“What’s his favorite toy?”

“What foods does he love?”

“What does he do when he’s excited?”

And I have to sit there and swallow the truth — I don’t know. I don’t get told. I don’t get included. I get the scraps of parenting, the little crumbs someone chooses to hand me when they feel like it.

And then, when I ask for holidays, birthdays, visits — I get treated like I’m asking for the moon. As if being present in my son’s life is some huge inconvenience instead of a basic right that was ripped out of my hands before he even knew who I was.

I’m tired of pretending I’m okay with that. I’m tired of acting like this is normal. It’s not normal for a mother to feel like she’s parenting through a locked door. It’s not normal to be told when you can speak, what you’re allowed to know, or whether you can show up to celebrate your own child.

I shouldn’t have to beg to be part of his Christmas. I shouldn’t have to “request permission” to stand in the same room as my son. I shouldn’t have to fight to be recognized as his mother.

But here I am — fighting anyway.

Because he deserves to know me, and I deserve to know him.

Because he is my son.

Because I love him.

Because this should never have happened in the first place.

And because I’m done staying quiet about the pain of being erased from my own child’s life.