Babies look to their mothers as a way to decide what is safe in this world and what isn't.  Our mother's facial expressions, the tone of their voice, their willingness to hold us and love us.  Without it, what do we become?  

How I must have ached for her.  For all of them.  How I must have rolled around in my crib all alone and wondered where those people who raised me went.  It wasn't just my mother; it was my aunt, my uncle, and my grandmother, too.  I was ripped from their house at six months old and abandoned to strangers.  How I must have wondered where all those warm bodies and loving hugs went.  Maybe my mother didn't have those things for me, but my aunt did, as did my grandmother.  I wonder if a six-month-old baby is capable of thinking they did something wrong to cause something like that?  I wouldn't assume they could, but then again, we don't exactly how and what babies think of at that age.  I know we may not think in words yet, though maybe we do somewhat.  But what I can assume is that we do think in feelings.  And how abandoned and lonely I must have felt.  Only to be given to a set of strangers who soon after gave me to another set of strangers, who then soon after that also gave me to yet another set of strangers, like a conveyor belt for unwanted children.  All before I was two years old.  What I must have thought of myself back then.  What I must have thought of the world.  How really nobody on this earth even wanted me.  It's very odd that I didn't develop attachment issues as a child.  Or, if I did, that they didn't carry over into the rest of my life.  Or maybe they did?  I got a book on attachment theory to review, so once I read that, maybe I'll figure something out.

Can you do me a favor?  If you, or someone you know, doesn't want to be a mom, can you give up your babies at birth, please?  Do not try to raise them and then abandon them or give them away later in life.  Just cut it off at the pass.  If you are not ready to be a parent, then don't even try.  And don't feel guilty about it.  Because babies do not remember that.  But older ones do.  Ones who have had time to get to know you first.  You do way more harm than good that way.  It's so much better off to not wreck your kids' life and emotional state by letting them get used to your shitty parenting in the first place and then hving them missing it when you're gone.  

I wish all mothers were like me.  Sure, I wasn't a perfect mom, nor am I still.  I made a slew of mistakes, and will probably make a ton more.  But I love the ever-loving shit out of my kids.  They never had to grow up without a mother who didn't love them.  They never had to experience a mother who chose a man over them.  Or chose to party instead of putting them to bed.  Or chose to anything of the sort instead of being a parent.  My love for my children is as wide and endless as the sky and there is nothing that would ever make that go away.  Too many mothers' loves are conditional.  Too many women out there having babies who have no right to be having them and no right to call themselves mothers.  The ones like me, the ones who actually love their kids and want the best for them in life, even if that best is being 100% the opposite of me, we are rarer.  But we are the actual mothers of the world.  Not all these jerks who call themselves a word that doesn't belong to them.  Damn hijackers.

Mine fought my grandmother (who happens to be a flaming narcissist) about custody of me, as she didn't want my grandmother to raise me (and ended up winning, then promptly abandoned me to strangers--almost on the same day).  But today refuses to believe her mother is "that bad".  I don't get it.  Because of my grandmother's bad behavior as mother to my mother, I was given to people who abused me.  And somehow, her mother is "not that bad"--codependent much?  Also, my mother refuses to own responsibility for what happened to me after she abandoned me.  Possibly out of guilt.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But she refuses to even acknowledge my abuse, and never asks me about it.  If that were me, I'd be wracked with guilt and would beg my child to forgive me.  Not that I think she should, but she should at least admit to me how horrible it makes her feel to know that's what my fate was.  But she barely even acknowledges my existence as it is.  So, what else would I expect?  

A birthmother is a woman who wants her child but cannot raise it herself.  My mother was a woman who abandoned me at six months old.  What kind of name describes that?  A progenitor?  A jerk?  She ripped me away from people who loved me and from people who I loved, the only people I even knew.  My aunt even tried to commit suicide over it.  She was only sixteen.  My aunt, that is.  My progenitor was twenty, the same age I was when I first became a mother (funny, my sister's mother was also twenty, as was my brother's--my sperm donor father really loved him some twenty-year-olds, and he was thirty! fucking pervert).  And all she was thinking about was her anger towards her mother (who threw her out of the house, but told her to leave me there).  So instead, she got rid of me, because if she couldn't have me, then nobody in her family would.  And not only that, nobody in her family would ever see me again.  How could they forgive her for that?  And how could she forgive her mother for throwing her out and causing all of that?  Or for her mother having her take me home in the first place? 

Now, I am in my forties.  I know better than to just say some black and white story of how things went down.  I get there is more to the story that I will never know.  I do have plans to go to the court system and retrieve my files from the court case (yes, they fought in court) so I will have a little more to go on.  But at the same time, I cannot see into their heads.  I don't know how either one felt.  But I don't care.  It was selfish to keep me.  And it was selfish to rip me away from my family and abandon me at six months old just to spite her mother.  I do not regret it one bit, as I have my family that I adore today (meaning my kids and my husband), but that doesn't let her off.  Just because something good came out of something horrible, it doesn't mean that the horrible thing was justified.  We can be grateful for how things turn out in life without being grateful for why they came about in the first place.  My progenitor has a penchant for saying shit like that to me.  Tell me some fake-ass bullshit toxic platitude about "Well everything turned out, so you're okay!"  The fuck I am.  But one day I will be.  No thanks to her.  

I am so tired of being angry at these horrible women who fucked up my life.  My mother.  My progenitor.  My grandmother.  I want to say fuck them all, but the sad part is, most of the world is like them.  Even though TV shows and Hallmark movies would have you believe that most mothers love their children, I that's just not true.  I think most women who give birth see us as objects because they just aren't humans.  They are some alien species incapable of human emotion.  Or, like I said before, they're just potatoes.   Just some things with skin filled with starch.  I think most of the world is made up of these potatoes and us humans are few and far between.  Which makes me sad.  And makes me worrisome for humanity's future.  

We humans need to stick together.  I wanted to create a space just for us actual humans, but I am scared it will attract potatoes and I will have to kick all the potatoes out.  And who wants that drama?  Not me.  As I am just so very tired of it.  I am so tired of making friends, realizing they're narcissists, and then "breaking up" with them.  Over and over again, rinse, lather, repeat.  My humble beginnings as an unwanted baby (which I actually was, she never wanted me and only took me home because her mother told her to--she actually told me this) and now as an adult who's dealing with the choices all these idiots made for me as a baby, it just doesn't do much for my trust in humanity.  I used to trust.  Too much.  But then I learned what narcissism looks like and now I see it everywhere.  I haven't met a single family yet who doesn't have it in their family tree.  And that's why I'm scared to reach out to others.  I just don't trust them.  I am so freaking tired of that game.  I'd rather just write my words, make my art, read my books, watch my Netflix, and take naps.  Oh, and spend time with my kickass husband and kids.  And whatever else I like to do.  Rather than worry about all the crazy potatoes out there.  I am honestly all potatoed out (yesterday I baked 10lbs of potatoes to make double-stuffed potato skins to freeze, so I am really all potatoed out).  

My progenitor still calls me her daughter.  It's sick.  She's met me a few times in person, and once we stayed with her for about a week many, many years ago while on vacation (it started out nice, but got old really quickly--she started getting super crabby).  But mostly, she has zero contact with me (she even forgot my 40th birthday, who does that?) and yet she feels she has the right to tell others that she's a mother.  That she's my mother.  And she's just not.  Not in one single minuscule way.  Giving birth means you're a baby machine.  It's what you do with that child after it's born that makes you an actual mother.  And literally abandoning it when it's a half a year old?  So not a motherly thing to do (not only that, when she had custody of me, she really didn't want me and would let me cry and cry and cry until someone else came and took care of me).  I am such a better mother than both of these women (my mother and my progenitor) combined.  And that's something to be proud of.  But at the same time, I wish I had more time to myself at times to process all this shit.  I wish I had a circle of other women and men who's goal was to heal from their mother and father wounds.  That's what I want to create.  And I think I still will try to do this.  Because I do feel that it would be beneficial.  And I believe I've finally found a way to make a group work, but only in person.  No more online groups.  Online groups are easier to manage and attend, but in person is where healing truly takes place.  But only if I can weed out those damn potatoes first.