Strong Black Mothers Do They Help or Hurt Their Kids?

This is from a post by Lorrie Irby Jackson (who also writes for DallasSouthNews.org) that was posted at Chick Talk Dallas.  Visit ChickTalkDallas.com to read this entire post.

• It was 1999. I was only 27 years old, but I was worn-down, weary and depressed. I was working full-time at a job that I despised and coming home to two kids, only one of which I gave birth to. One was a sweet toddler, and the other was my so-called husband. We’d just had another ferocious fight over the finances, and instead of paying his share of the bills, the man I’ll call “Marvin” pretended they didn’t exist, allowed things to get cut off or repossessed and thought he could smooth things over this time by leaving a bouquet of roses and a card waiting for me in the bedroom.

• I decided that it was no longer enough. The following year I filed for divorce. It was hard to be the one to accelerate my descent into becoming yet another tired statistic—that of a ‘black single mother’—but to spare my sanity, I had no other choice. I had a life to live and a child to raise.

• What did concern me, after getting the legalities handled, was keeping a stable household for my fragile, impressionable three-year-old. I needed to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table and childcare in place in order for me to work. I needed life to be as drama-free as possible to show him that parents could still love and care for him even from separate addresses, and most of all, I had to prove to him with my actions that instead of languishing as part of a couple, it was better for me to struggle on my own.

Read more at ChickTalkDallas.com