Growing up everyone judged my one Auntie who was only married for a few, and who never remarried or had any babies. My mother & her oldest Sister talked bad on her name, I remember hearing it as a child. But when my Mom put me out in the street as a teen, it was THAT auntie ...
who took up the slack and took me in from going to one friend's house to the other, essentially homeless as a teen. When my cousin Vee turned up with a Mexican woman who was pregnant (he met her there & she didn't speak English) his family was foul. It was "single" Auntie to ...
the rescue once again, eventually Vee married her & they became what everyone accepted as a family - but it was my Auntie who took them in and she damn near raised that baby. To this day they live next door to her in a place she rents to them. I NEVER, EVER thought I'd be her.
My life was very different. I've been married more than once. I've been pregnant 4 times, she never was in her whole life. I think she was/is queer but just never came out. Different stories but here I am, the single Auntie, the childless one, and the only woman in my generation.
So my nieces are EVERYTHING to me. I try to be there for them within the parameters of their families, and I try to be there as a friend too. I want them to be able to come to me with hard questions when they want a perspective outside their Moms' thoughts, or their Dads'.
Yes I've been a "stepmom" and heaven knows I have helped raise a boatload of y'alls children. Like, no load so heavy should ever be put upon a woman with no rights, no benefits, and no blood tie - but here I am. I had the chance to help raise some as infants, others I got much...
later, in their preteens or teens. A lot of my "nieces" and "nephews" are old enough now that they're finding me online, outside of my relationship with one or both of their parents. Some ask for help with career or finding jobs, some want advice, a couple have needed money. ...
I do what I can because even if I don't keep in touch with their parents any more, I changed their diapers, made their baby food from scratch, cooked them their first fill-in-the-blank, bandaged their cuts and scrapes when I was babysitting them or child sitting them... I'll not
know what it is like to have a child from my womb. That's a hard pill to swallow when everyone tags me as the "type" to be a good Mom, & people often ask me why I don't have children. I usually just say "I don't know" because no one wants to hear the truth. I have four. All dead.
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