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Who to Blame

It's not always who'd you assume.

By Cassandra TapiaPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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I grew up with my grandparents as my parents. My mom wanted to only be a part-time parent and my dad got sent to jail when I was four. So rather than force my mother to be a mother, my grandmother just took me in. My childhood was a very gifted childhood...materialistically. But emotionally, it wasn't the best. Grandma and grandpa did their best, knowing mom wasn't the best person, nor was she fit; they did everything in their power to keep me happy. I went to good schools, I had good clothing, I had no needs unmet; but what I didn't have was my mom.

So skip three years down the line. Dad gets out of jail and I feel like he's someone I still need to get to know, but at the same time, he's a piece of me, and rather than focus on just me and him, he goes looking for a step-mom for me. And grandma, being the enabler that she is, encourages his actions rather than opening his eyes to the six-year-old who could benefit from gaining a healthy relationship with her father. Not even a year later, dad has a steady girlfriend who also has kids. They get serious and dad moves in with her, leaving me with grandma and grandpa because of school. Little do I know that grandma and grandpa are retiring after this year and plan on moving to Florida. Of course dad wants me to live with him and his new "family," so I start spending weekends with them, like I actually had a choice on where I got to live. I was seven.

The saddest day of my life was the day I had to pick up my clothes and say goodbye to my grandparents. I've never felt as broken as I did that day. And where was mom? Oh yeah, that's right, she was living with her abusive boyfriend who didn't like me because I wasn't his child. So my grandparents are moving basically across the country, my mom has chosen her boyfriend over me, and I have to move to a new state and start school with new kids. And I don't get asked my feelings on any of this because my dad is still young-minded and is too focused on making his relationship work. So at seven years old, I learned to bottle my feelings because they wouldn't make a difference. I didn't get a relationship with my mom until I was 16, and note that my mom wasn't ever really in my life to begin with, so I basically went 16 years without her. And my childhood wasn't bad as I've mentioned before. I went on cruises and vacations. I was beyond spoiled; but this was all materialistic. I didn't really care for it, although I appreciated it. I know, living with my mom, I wouldn't have had any of those experiences, but I didn't NEED them. I NEEDED my mom.

So after junior year, I moved in with my mom because of problems with my step sisters and step mom. And the whole time, she's going on and on about how my grandparents kept me from her and my dad tricked her into signing full-custody over to him. And it made me mad. Like furious at them for blocking my relationship with her and that whole side of my family. I had a brother and sister and a whole lot of cousins and aunts and uncles I basically had to get to know when I was 16 that I felt I should've known by then. But life wasn't horrible living with mom. Dad was still in the picture and our relationship was actually improving, but I still had that anger inside me, and it led me to be very angry in life. I was angry all the time and I would fight with people for it. And it affected my life a lot, and not for the better. Bottling up anger is so dangerous and so unhealthy, and it took me having my own kids to make me realize that being angry with my dad and grandparents was stupid and pointless.

As a mother, there's NO way ANYBODY can keep me from my children. So why was it so easy for my mother to stay away? I know my grandparents did make it difficult for her to see me, and they had every right to. They were doing HER job, they were raising HER child, so THEY shouldn't have had to clean up the mess SHE left when SHE decided to be in and out of my life. Younger me didn't understand. Younger me resented them for making my mother and I become estranged, but mom-me realized that they did it in my best interest. They knew I needed stability that she could not provide me. And yes, dad was heart-broken when he came home from prison and she had moved on and had other kids, but he was selfish, too. He could've worked some sort of co-parenting agreement with my mother for MY sake. But at the same time, you can't force someone to be a parent. I see how she mothered my siblings and I still have some jealousy towards them. Why wasn't I good enough for her to mother me the way she mothered them? She likes to blame it on the divorce; says my dad "tricked" her into signing her rights away because she didn't read English well, being born in Puerto Rico. But now that I'm a mother who's been to family court for one of her children, I know it's not that simple. I also know how easy it is to file a petition for simple visitation. So once again, why wasn't I good enough for her to mother me the way she mothered my siblings?

All these years blaming my father and grandparents, victimizing her, and I was wrong. I wasn't completely their fault; SHE could have fought harder, SHE should have came back for me once she realized what she was "tricked" into signing. SHE was my mother, NOT them. And now that I'm older and I have children of my own, I no longer hold that anger inside. I no longer ask why I wasn't good enough, because it taught me how to be the mother I always wanted. My kids will always know that they ARE good enough and nothing and nobody can keep me from them. I will fight until I have no fight left in me to ensure that my kids know their mother loves them.

immediate family
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About the Creator

Cassandra Tapia

26 year old mother to three beautiful kids.

Love to write but never had the push to become a published author.

Let's change that!!

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