Bomb Wife, Bomb MomMy Words. My Truth. | Blog writings of Raven J.
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In American society, women are almost required to have children to be fully considered a woman. If a woman doesn’t want children she’s looked down upon and secretly called selfish. People ask themselves, “What kind of woman wouldn’t want children?!” Then there are women who decided they wanted children when they were 5 years old. She’s applauded for wanting to be a mom and a caregiver. She’s seen as nurturing and selfless. To everyone- she’s seen as living her "fullest potential". However, because America is an “unsatisfied-with-what-we-have,” society- a year after the child is born, the dreaded “when are you going to have another?!” question arises. Like, DAAAAMMNNN, I had one, how many y’all need me to have? - that’s me as of right now.
My son turned 2 in March, 6 months before then people were asking me when my husband and I would have more children. I’m always baffled at the question each time it’s asked. Internally I ask myself, “Why?! Why do you want ME to have another child?” My answer to their question is always 5 years. However, 5 years is too long for almost everyone who’s asking. The rebuttal is, “oh he needs a sibling! He needs someone to grow up with.” Well then he better start making friends! I take having children very seriously. Even more so, I take the child that I have very seriously. There’s numerous reasonings I don’t want another child right now or any time soon. The most important reason is, my son needs my attention. It’s no secret my child is behind developmentally with his speech and his independence. I expected nothing less when he was born 3 months early. For this reason, I can’t rob him of my attention. He needs me to talk and explain everything. He needs me to teach him what a spoon is and how to properly use it. My child needs me to brush his teeth, change his pamper and clothes in his crib, give him his inhaler, let him turn off the light and stand over his crib fanning him when it’s too hot (because he’s hot bodied like his father) for him to go to sleep at night. He needs me to teach him sign language so he can communicate effectively. I don’t have time for another child. I want to give Cegan the attention he deserves and I love giving it to him. Bringing another child in his world at such a crucial time in his development is robbery. Secondly, I want to WANT my next child. I wanted Cegan almost a year before he was conceived. The excitement was unmatched! My next child deserves that. My next child deserve for me to fan him or her at night because (s)he is hot bodied like “Daddy.” I never want any of my children to feel neglected by me. Currently, Cegan is a loner like I am, but my next child may be more demanding- I need to be up for that task and free to do so. Honestly, I could step up to the challenge if I needed to right now because that’s what mothers do- but I don’t want to right now. I want to be able to give my next child everything I couldn’t give Cegan. I want to be settled when I have another child. I want to be able to provide for my child by myself (including my husband obviously). Miraculously- people forget children cost money. I will never forget that and I will not rely on government assistance to help me with my children- or at least I don’t want to. Lastly, I still want to be selfish. I want to accomplish more of my educational goals and physical goals before having another child. I want to travel more and be able to randomly go out with my friends when I’m feeling up to it. Those are things I can do with one child. If I were to have a second child- those things would be much harder. I wouldn’t want to leave both of my children alone because I want them both to get the attention Mommy would give them. It took a year for my to feel like myself again after having my first child. I deserve to feel good again, to be vibrant again and to be focused on my dreams again. Now, in no way am I bashing women who have multiple children back to back- everyone has their preference. Some women would like to “get it over with” and others don’t mind starting over. Either way it’s that woman’s choice (and her husband) if she wants to have another child or not and when. We should not keep asking women when they’re going to have more children. Children are great- but children are work! Children are the greatest joy but they are also our biggest stressors. Moms don’t talk about the stressors of having children- for reasons society has set in place (which will be a different blog post all together), but it’s stressful. Allow women to have children on their time. Stop pressuring women to keep having children. Allow moms the opportunity to adjust to motherhood. My son is 2 years old and I am still adjusting to being a mom. I love my son and I love the children I’ll have in the future, but this time right here is for the child I have now and I won’t be having any other children until I feel he is completely ready to share me with someone else. -Attentive Mom, Raven J.
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I read an article a year or two ago that said, we only fall in love with three people in our lifetime. The first love is the young love usually referred to as puppy love. Our second love is the hard love. This is where we learn who we are and grow the most. The third love is the love we never see coming. I can agree with this but I don’t think they have to be three different people.
Numerous of women have asked me how I got over my ex after being together for so long, how I met my husband and how I knew I was ready to get married. Of course I gave them all individual answers that I thought were true but those answers now seem trivial, as I’ve been able to recap on my love life and see where my growth has stemmed from. In regards to my ex, I allowed my self to love him and forgive him for any and all the mistakes he made a long the way. He was my “puppy love.” I had boyfriends before him but he was the first one I fell in love with and I didn’t fight it. Even after getting continuous phone calls, Facebook messages and even catching him up cheating, I forgave him and loved him. I wasn’t hurt by his actions, but each new encounter with another girl showed me he didn’t mind hurting me. In my loving him, I knew I loved myself and deserved more. I knew my value as a young woman who had a lot going for herself. I saw how much effort I put into him and realized I could give that same love and effort to someone else more deserving, or at least ready for it. I stayed with him so long because I was comfortable with him. I mean he was the one I gave my virginity to. After spending all of my vowing “I wouldn’t have sex until I was married”; I for sure thought he was the one. I saw his potential. But I wasn’t willing to wait for him to be ready anymore. Then I met my husband. My husband came out of nowhere. I heard about him a few times, we were Facebook friends and followed each other on Twitter. I even let him invite me out to a club once and it was horrible. I knew for sure we would never be anything because he was boring, didn’t dance and was too popular. A year later, there I was, still in a dying relationship and looking for a way out. At a college party my husband finally made his move, thee BOLDEST move, and asked me, “When you gone break up with your boyfriend for me?” This man had just finished strolling, bringing all this attention to himself and came up to me and asked this crazy question! And I was shook. I can’t remember what I said. I think it was something like, “What did you just ask me?!” He just smirked, walked away, came back and danced with me. I had never felt more wanted in my life. So, I had to explore it. My best friend ran interference for me and warned me he was a serious guy. I told her I was serious too. I had been trying to get married since I was 10 years old! The relationship took off so fast you wouldn’t believe it! I broke up with my boyfriend five days after my husband approached me and we were exclusive that same day. I wasn’t expecting to like him so fast but just like before, I allowed myself to feel whatever it was my heart wanted to feel with him. He even showed me effort I showed my ex. He stayed on the phone with me for an hour to be the first to tell me Happy Birthday at midnight, surprised me for Valentine’s Day 2 weeks after “talking” and spent the weekend with me. I knew he would be different because he showed me he was different. He told me he was in love with me and let me know I didn’t have to say it back if I didn’t mean it yet- and I didn’t. When I did fall in love with him though, I fell so hard...I doubted if I ever loved my ex. There was no way I could have loved my ex because I didn’t love him how I loved my husband (which is probably why he’s my husband lol). However, I’ve experienced the most hurt being with my husband because I love him so much. I hurt when he hurts. When he hurts himself or when I hurt him, I’m hurting too. This is the relationship where I learned who I am. I learned what my flaws were and what makes me special. I never had anyone teach me anything. I was always the one teaching someone else how to be better. I fell more in love just because of that. Any hurt or hardships I experience with my husband only make me fall more in love with him. Unlike my ex, our hardships made me stray away. This is how I knew I was ready to get married. If I could experience the worst hurt with one man and fall more in love with him after, then why would I want anyone else. My husband also fell more in love with me through our hardships. We had broken up many of times and for a longtime at one point. When we finally saw each other again, we couldn’t control the love we had for each other. We don’t have to fall in love with three different people in our lifetime, but we will fall in love 3 or more times in our lifetime and still learn the same lessons. If there’s nothing else you can take from this article, let it be this...learn to let yourself love. Often we become guarded and try to protect ourselves from hurt, but we don’t need to. Falling in love is one of the most beautiful experiences of your life- even if it turns out bad. I cherish the moments I’ve been able to grow close with someone and love them because I’m not usually interested for long. I feel like my husband is the sh*t because he’s kept me interested for seven years! I continue to fall in love with him because I’m not afraid or guarded by past hurt with him or anyone else. This has been my biggest tool to being able to leave one relationship, find my husband and realize he was the one for me. I hope at some point, you, whoever you are, will be able to love without fear and be resilient after heartbreak. There’s someone out there for all of us, we just have to be ready to love him or her when they come. Bomb Wife Bomb Mom, Raven J I’m a wife, mom, and full time working-woman. I have a small hair business on the side and soon I’ll be back in school (God willing), but nonetheless I’m busy enough as it is. In the past, I remember talking to my husband for hours about how much he and I wanted to have our first child after getting married. I made sure everyone knew it too. My Instagram bio was, “Married: 08/22/2015 Pregnant: 08/23/2015.”
We didn’t care about “having time as a married couple,” because we had time. We’d been together since 2011 and lived together since 2014. We HAD time together. I got pregnant 2 weeks after our wedding- we were so excited! During my pregnancy, I took care of my husband! I cooked almost every day (except the days when I craved Applebee’s fries), I worked full time, did hair on the weekends and was a full time student! He didn’t have to ask for anything because I was doing it all. He did get mad at me for not folding clothes one day and I got in his @$$ so he straightened up. Fast-forward to now, our son is almost 2 years old (20 months to be exact for THOSE mothers). In these almost 2 years, my husband and I had our first heart to heart after an estranged period in our marriage. Honestly, since having our child there hasn’t been much to argue about or disagree on. Our focus was to take care of our son and as long as he was good, then we were good. WRONG. So with that, my motherly instincts kicked in. My son was born a micro-preemie (born 1 lb. 10 oz.). For that reason, I wanted to make sure he was stimulated, breastfed, and nurtured more than normal. My husband constantly told me how good of a mom I was and that added to my self-worth. During our heart-to-heart it became clear that we weren’t living as the happily married couple we wanted to be. We were living like roommates. I work days, he works nights. He hangs out with his friends and I hang out with mine, under the impression, “as long as Cegan (Sea-gan) is good, I’m good.” So I stopped cooking all the time, the house wasn’t clean like how I know my husband likes it, we didn’t talk much, but I was happy because my child was happy. I forgot to keep my husband satisfied with the little things I know he appreciated about me before I had his child. As we were having our conversation he said, “I think you’re more focused on being a great mom, but not a great wife,” and I cried- because he was right. I forgot about him (essentially we forgot about each other, but this is about ME). My response to him was a heart-felt “I’m sorry. I want to be a great wife to you.” And I do! I don’t want to just be his fine wife or the mother of his child. I want him to be able to say I take care of him AND our child because he’s my baby too. It’s so easy to lose focus on the number one man in your life when he’s blessed you with the other number one person in your life. I needed to find the balance between keeping and making them both my priority. I can’t put being a mom over being a wife or vise versa. Both roles mean that much to me! So I take my time and try to give them what they both want. I make them both dinners almost everyday- even if that means making 2 different meals because a grown man and toddler cannot eat the same thing all the time. My son gets my undivided attention while my husband is at work and by the time I pick my husband up- he has my undivided attention. I take time to shower my husband with hugs and kisses as much as I do our son. I know there has to be times when he might get jealous of how excited I am to see our son when I come home because I’m jealous sometimes when he kisses our son before he kisses me. Sounds bad when you say it aloud, but I’m sure other couples with small children understand. Additionally, I let my husband know I want alone time with him and that I need him. One of the reasons I knew he was the man for me was because of how much I needed him and I had never needed a man in my life! He adored that, and he deserves to always feel that. I refuse to make myself comfortable in only playing one role as a mother or a wife, because I am both. I have to put all of my energy in fostering these two relationships I have been blessed with. I may be even more tired now because of how much I am giving myself to them but it’s worth it because nothing is lacking in my family and my babies are happy. Furthermore, whether we want to believe it or not, our children grow up and don’t need us. They leave the nest and start their own families. When that time comes I want to be able to celebrate with my husband about being kid free instead of looking at him and realizing he’s been in an empty marriage for 20 years. I want to and will be a great mom AND a great wife because my husband needs me too. Signed, Bomb Wife, Bomb Mom Raven J |
AuthorRaven J., also a native of St. Louis, is our newest Content Writer for KeeedsArt! She has her Masters in Psychology and is a graduate of the University of Missouri. We welcome her with loving arms! Archives
July 2018
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