Creating Writing on Motherhood, Being a Woman, Surviving…

Quotes

"Making the decision to have a child--it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your
heart go walking around outside your body" ~Elizabeth Stone

"...the relationship of mother and child remains indelible and indescribable...the

strongest bond upon this earth."~Theador Reik

“A mother's love perceives no impossibilities.~ Paddock

“God cannot be everywhere , so he made mothers.” ~ Arab Proverb

“Mothers love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.”~
Marion C. Garretty

“As a mother, my job is to take care of what is possible and trust God with the
impossible.” ~ Ruth Bell Graham

“No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother's love.“~
Edwin H Chapin

“A mother's love is like a circle, it has no beginning and no ending. It keeps going
around and around ever expanding, touching everyone who comes in contact with it.
Engulfing them like the morning's mist, warming them like the noontime sun, and
covering them like a blanket of evening stars. A mother's love is like a circle, it has no
beginning and no ending.” ~Art Urban

“Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of little children.”
~William Makepeace Thackery

“There is no friendship, no love, like that of the mother for the child.”
~ Henry Ward Beecher

“Children reinvent your world for you.”~ Susan Sarandon

“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is
roots; the other is wings.” ~Hoddling Carter

“A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”

-Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt-
Creative Writing

The Miracle of Love

Before you were conceived I wanted you.

Before you were born I loved you.
Before you were here an hour I would die for you.
This is the miracle of love~

~Maureen Hawkins

WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WASN'T LOOKING

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator,
and I wanted to paint another.

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I saw you feed a stray cat,
and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I saw you make my favorite cake, just for me,
and I knew that little things are special things.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer,

and then I believed there is a God I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I felt you kiss me goodnight,
and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I saw tears come from your eyes,
and I learned that sometimes things hurt,
but its all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking,

I saw that you cared and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I looked..

and wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw
when you thought I wasn't looking.
~Mary Rita Korzan

A Woman's Prayer”

DEAR LORD:

SO FAR TODAY, I AM DOING ALL RIGHT. I HAVE NOT GOSSIPED,

LOST MY TEMPER, BEEN GREEDY, GRUMPY, NASTY, SELFISH
OR SELF INDULGENT. I HAVE NOT WHINED, CURSED OR EATEN
ANY CHOCOLATE. HOWEVER, I AM GOING TO GET OUT OF BED IN
A FEW MINUTES AND I WILL NEED A LOT MORE HELP AFTER THAT.

AMEN

Rage On Rage

First she gets angry

Then she gets sad
Then she's decided
It wasn't so bad
This is the last time
This time he swore
She forgives him
Just this once more
First he starts drinking
Then he gets cruel
He don't like her thinking
He's anyone's fool
Teach her a lesson
Silence those eyes
Silence, silence
Later he cries
Oh, my sweet one
What have I done
Turn back the page and see
All that was done to me
Rage on rage
He brings her flowers
Sweet bridal lace
She hangs the pictures
Back into place
The one of the wedding
Needs a new frame
This one can't be
Mended again...
~Beth Nielson Chapman

Moving Mountains
There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in
the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain
people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their
plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the
lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into
the mountains.

The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They

didn't know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and
they didn't know where to find the mountain people or how to
track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to bring
the baby home.
The men tried first one method of climbing and then another.
They tried one trail and then another. After several days of
effort, however, they had climbed only a couple of hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that

the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village
below.
As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the
baby's mother walking toward them. They realized that she was
coming down the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to
climb.

And then they say that she had the baby strapped to her back.
How could that be?
One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain.
How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in
the village, couldn't do it?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby."

~ Jim Stovall
For Mothers

* This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick
toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer
wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's
here."

* This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never
see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

* This is for all the Mothers who found themselves and their
children in an expensive, ugly custody battle and lost.

* This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal
bleachers at football or soccer games Friday night instead of
watching from cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see
me?" they could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for
the world," and mean it.

* This is for all those Mothers who cry each night for the child
they rarely if ever get to see or hold, because they had a custody
attorney, who wrongly believed a judge would ever take custody
from a Good Mother.

* This is for all the Good Mothers who lost custody and endure
behind the back whispers of others who say, "She must have
done something REALLY AWFUL! Even "crack mothers" get their
children!" AND for her child when those statements are overheard.

* This is for those same Mothers whose child asks, "Why can’t I
live with you Mommy?"

* This is for all the mothers who cried when God took her child early
to live in Heaven.

* This is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and
explained all about making babies. And for all the mothers who
wanted to but just couldn't.

* For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for
a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time."

* This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie
their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the
mothers who opted for Velcro instead.
* This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and
their daughters to sink a jump shot.

* This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a

little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their
own off-spring are at home.

* Who walk around the house all night with their babies when they
keep crying and won't stop.

* This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in
their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their
purse.

* For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew
Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.

* This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to school with
stomach aches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got
there, only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later
asking them to please pick them up. Right away.

* This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't
find the words to reach them.

* For all the mothers who bite their lips sometimes until they
bleed when their 14 year olds dye their hair green.

What makes a good Mother anyway?

Is it patience?
Compassion?
Broad hips?
The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a
shirt, all at the same time?

Or is it heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or
daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for
the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2
A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you
hear news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?
* For all the mothers of the victims of all these school shootings,
and the mothers of those who did the shooting. For the mothers
of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs
in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school,
safely.

* This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their
children's graves.

* This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and

sleep deprivation.

* And mature mothers learning to let go.

* For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

* Single mothers and married mothers.

* Mothers with money, mothers without.

* This is for you all.

* So hang in there.

You’ll Never Regret It

We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and her
husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says half-joking.
"Do you think I should have a baby?" "It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping
my tone neutral. "I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more
spontaneous vacations..."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her.
I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that
the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with
an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable. I consider warning her
that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, "What if that had been MY
child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees
pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching
your child die. I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no
matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level
of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a
soufflé or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation. I feel that I should warn her
that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be
professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day
she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's
sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home,
just to make sure her baby is all right. I want my daughter to know that every day
decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's
room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right
there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence
and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be
lurking in that restroom. However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-
guess herself constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to
assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel
the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once
she has a child. That she would give it up in moment to save her offspring, but will also
begin to hope for more years-not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child
accomplish theirs. I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will
become badges of honor. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but
not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a
man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I
think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now
find very unromantic. I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women
throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I hope she
will understand why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily
insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future. I want to
describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want
to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat
for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts. My daughter's
quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret
it," I finally say. Then I reached across the table, squeezed my daughter's hand and
offered a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the mere mortal women who
stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. This blessed gift from God ... that
of being a Mother.

from the book 'Everyday Miracles' by Dale Hanson Bourke

Mean Moms

Someday when my children are old enough to

understand the logic that
motivates a parent, I will tell them:

I loved you enough...to ask where you were going,

with whom, and what time
you would be home.

I loved you enough...to insist that you save your

money and buy a bike for yourself even
though we could afford to buy one for you.

I loved you enough...to be silent and let you

discover that your new best
friend was a creep.

I loved you enough...to make you go pay for the

bubble gum you had taken and tell the clerk, "I
stole this yesterday and want to pay for it."

I loved you enough...to stand over you for two

hours while you cleaned your
room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough...to let you see anger,

disappointment, and tears in my eyes.
Children must learn that their parents aren't
perfect.

I loved you enough...to let you assume the

responsibility for your actions even
when the penalties were so harsh they almost
broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough...to say NO

when I knew you would hate me for it. Those were the
most difficult battles of all.

I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won,

too. And someday when your children are
old enough to understand the logic that
motivates parents, you will tell them....

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the

meanest mother in the whole world!

While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to

have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we

had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother
fixed us a dinner that was different from what their
kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all

times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison.

She had to know who our friends were, and what we

were doing with them.

She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an

hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve

to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work.
We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to
cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash
and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie
awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the time we were teenagers, she could read our

minds. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn

when they drove up. They had to come up to the door
so she could meet them.

While everyone else could date when they were 12 or

13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of

things other kids experienced.
None of us have ever been caught shoplifting,
vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for
any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated,

honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean
parents just like Mom was.

I think that is what's wrong with the world today.

It just doesn't have enough mean moms.

Why Mothers Cry

Why are you crying?" he asked his mom. "Because I'm a

mother," she told him. "I don't understand," he said.
His mom just hugged him and said, "You never will!"
Later the little boy asked his father why Mother
seemed to cry for no reason. "All mothers cry for no
reason," was all his dad could say. The little boy
grew up and became a man, still wondering why mothers
cry. So he finally put in a call to God and when God
got on the phone the man said, "God, why do mothers
cry so easily." God said, "You see son, when I made
mothers they had to be special. I made their shoulders
strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet
gentle enough to give comfort. I gave them an inner
strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that
many times come from their children. "I gave them a
hardiness that allows them to keep going when everyone
else gives up, and to take care of their families
through sickness and fatigue without complaining. "I
gave them the sensitivity to love their children under
all circumstances, even when their child has hurt them
very badly. This same sensitivity helps them to make a
child's boo-boo feel better and helps them share a
teenager's anxieties and fears. "I gave them a tear to
shed. It's theirs exclusively to use whenever it's
needed. It's their only weakness. It's a tear for
mankind."

By Erma Bombeck
A CHILD'S ANGEL

Once upon a time there was a child ready to be born. The child asked God,
"They tell me you are sending me to earth today, but how am I going to
live there, being so small and helpless?" God said, "My child, from all my
many angels, I chose a special one just for you. She will be waiting for
you and will take care of you." The child said, "But God, here in heaven,
I don't do anything else but sing and smile, and it makes me happy." God
said, "Your angel will sing for you and smile for you, and you will feel
your angel's love, and that will make you happy." The child said, "And how
will I understand when people talk to me, if I don't know the language
that men talk on Earth?" God replied, "Your angel will tell you the most
beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and
care, your angel will teach you how to speak." "And God," said the child,
"What am I going to do when I want to talk to you?" God said, "Your angel
will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray, and I will
hear you." The child said, "I've heard that on earth there are bad people
and many evil things. Who will protect me?" "Your angel will defend you,"
said God, "Even if it means risking her life. You are more precious than
anything to her." The child said, "But I will always be sad, because I
will not see you anymore." God smiled and said, "Your angel will teach you
the way for you to be good and come back to me, and through her you will
know that I am always watching over you." Then they heard voices calling
from Earth, and the child knew it was time to go. "God," the child asked
softly, "If I am about to leave now, could you please tell me my angel's
name, so I will know her?" And God said, "Your angel's real name is of no
importance... You will call your angel: "MOMMY".
It’s Not Nice to Fool with the Mothering Nature!

~By Maritha Gan

I have to admit that I have an acute prejudice. It comes from being a mother, or more
accurately, a mother who believes in “Attachment Parenting”. I actually made a study of
“attachment parenting” before I had my first child. Reading the La Leche Handbook and
several other books on how to become a great mother, I became a strong advocate for
my beliefs. I rarely had my child babysat, and became a dedicated breast-feeder and
also had a family bed, as well as, being a home-birther. This was no light decision. I
read volumes about creating a strong bond between myself and my children. As a
practicing feminist, I believed that when I chose to be a mother, I was going to do it full
force—the best way I could ever possibly know how. It became more than my career, it
was my whole life.

Then came the divorce. It blind-sided me. I had a nine year old (weaned at 4 ½) and a
four year old still nursing now and then. I was a stay-at-home mom and had to go
through an incredible, painful mourning process just to be away from my children nine
hours a day. (This included travel time.) I went from being around my children 24/7 to
being able to truly mother my children some ten hours two weekends a month. That was
after a year of that absolutely horrid decision by my ex’s lawyers for joint custody, every
other week. That arrangement lasted the first year, until I could prove that the Ex did not
have the children’s best interest at heart. (Mind you, he thought he did, but he rarely
took my son to his sporting events and they did not even own a toothbrush for that
entire year and left my second son with 8 cavities and one extraction. There were also
many other incidents, which helped me get custody, (But that is another story.) Suffice it
to say, I got primary custody and he got visitation. However, while I was waiting for a
decision from the judge my reactions at not having my children in my sight were pure
animalistic.

This was the first time in my life I had such raging instinctual feelings. I constantly paced
the floor. Anger was my middle name. I went to M.O.M. (Mothers on the Move)
meetings and talked with other women who felt like I did. They were fighting the same
heinous custody battles, and some of the women had actually lost their children. It was
enlightening. The leader of the group, DeDe, was a Godsend. She always had the right
words. When I talked to her about my almost uncontrollable rage, she was the first who
completely understood. The courts were taking my children, and I was supposed to be
calm and trust that they were making the right decision for MY babies! She said that my
anger was justified. That if you took a bear cub from a mamma bear, you would have an
angry mamma bear. I could really identify with that. I have said it many times to other
women going through this since then.

The feelings I was having were soooo powerful. I felt caged without any understanding
from my friends. No one seemed empathetic except those who had gone through this.
The only people with whom to relate were those women who had lost their children or
who were going through the process of loosing them. My friends who had not had this
happen to them seemed trite and lame. My family tried desperately to understand.
When I talked with my older brother about this, because he had also gone through a
divorce, he could sympathize with me and had that pain, but as hard as I tried, he never
could understand the levels of desperation, depression and mourning I was having to
overcome. Going to work every day and acting like everything was normal was
impossible. I was stressing wildly. My hair lost all color. I had gray and shimmering
brown hair, within a year it had turned gray and matt/dull black. My skin had painful
acne from the worry. I would wake at night in cold sweats and cry uncontrollably, then
start pacing. Physically I was a total mess. A doctor had put me on Zoloft thinking that I
was crying too much. That was a horrible mistake and distraction. It hurt my liver and
after three months, I completely stopped as it was doing no good but making me dizzy
at work. I truly feel that you cannot and should not medicate mourning. I was having
situational depression and that can only be worked through and not numbed away with
drugs.

Recently, two years after my divorce, I had a nice catharsis. My older brother called me
after he had purchased some horses. He had gone up to Arkansas and bought a
pregnant horse and her young colt. I congratulated him and asked him why he had
called. He said he wanted to tell me something, he sounded serious. He said that the
trip to Texas with the horses was a difficult experience and that what I had said to him a
few years back he really believed and understood, now. The mother horse would
literally rock the horse trailer (2,000 lbs) to almost fall over because she could not see
her colt. My brother and family had to stop many times and take out the colt and so she
could see him and settle down. These horses were almost a salvage because the
former owners were bankrupt and the mother was under weight. When they got home
and fed the horses, the mother horse kept eating the baby colts food. So my brother
decided to feed the colt away from the mother, but the minute they took the colt out of
the sight of the mother, the mother stampeded and scared the tar out of my brother. He
had to take a day off from work for exhaustion.

I feel vindicated, at least within my family, because my brother made a point at the last
gathering to say that he now understood the levels of distress that most mothers go
through when they are separated UN-NATURALLY from their young. I sincerely believe
that when a judge decides to take a small child away from a mother, that mother should
have immediate, on the spot, stress management counseling. (In Dallas County, when
they won’t even let the mother say good bye to the child, and the mother goes ballistic
over the loss of her child, the court bailiff puts her in a holding cell for several hours until
she settles down with threats of imprisonment. And they call our society civilized.) Most
people who have never gone through a separation like this will not come close to
understanding just what is triggered in the minds and hearts of an attached mother. This
is just so far from natural instinct, so horrible an action for a mother to endure, that she
must not be left alone to try and manage a loss of this magnitude. For most of the
readers reading this, my prejudice towards mothers is hard to comprehend, but if you
are a mother and have had this happen to you, you will understand. (This is the main
thrust of the movies Sophie’s Choice and Beloved.) Judges and Father’s Rights
advocates totally ignore this natural phenomenon. These people keep touting equality in
parenting, however this goes beyond gender equality...it is physiological anomaly. I say
anomaly because this kind of cruel separation does to happen often. However, in Dallas
County this scenario of taking children/babies from mothers without warning is
unfortunately a daily occurrence. One afternoon, while visiting the Family Courts, I
overheard a Bailiff coldly say, “Shew! We have had a bunch of wailing mothers today!”
Some mothers actually break under the stress and I hold the courts responsible for this.
My heart goes out to these women. I was only able to hold on because I had my family.
My mother and two brothers who stood by me and listened and supported me
financially. If a mother does not have that, she is in grave, grave danger, in my opinion.

My ex always was able to leave the house and not miss his children much. He chose to
move to California for five months and only minimally missed them. He did not call on a
regular basis and often went weeks without communicating even a hello. I, on the other
hand, pine for my children all the time. I would have never even considered leaving my
children for a job out of town. The ex and his mother relentlessly asked to have me
baby-sit my youngest child. I always felt uneasy to leave them until they understood the
concept of time. If they are six or older, and understand what a few hours or days are,
then it is ok. But to tell a child you will be back in a few hours, or that you will come back
from dads in 3 days, and he does not know what the word “hour” or “tomorrow” means,
great distress is had by both child and mother. So many times I had to say over the
phone, I will see you in five days. My son would say, “How many is that?” I would have
to say when the sun comes up and goes down in the sky five times, then you can come
home. Or I would say hold your hand up and see your five fingers, that is how many
days. He had a hard time with this and I mourned and paced and fretted until I could
hold him again. I believe this is very different than what most fathers feel. (Not all of
them, but most. If the father was a primary care-giver, then he comes very close to this
feeling.) In our group, when a father got custody, he promptly left the children with the
new step-mother and went to work as usual. Several fathers had second jobs and the
child would be primarily raised by someone other than a biological parent. I work six
hours at an office and speed home to be with my kids and loose precious promotions
and money. But, I sill feel my primary meaning in life is to be a mother to these children
and be there to raise them and hold them and talk with them as much as the courts will
allow. I will have plenty of time to do other things when they grow up. My mothering my
children is more than desire, it is a precious instinct that took eons to develop. Family
Courts should never ignore the inherent truths of mothering, else they break a law of
nature.
BUSTING THE FATHERHOOD MYTH

By Lily Devilliers

Every now and then in your life, you meet with a statement or opinion from
somebody else which runs counter to every belief that you've ever held. But
it lies around in your mind anyway, and if you ever want or need to do
processing that goes beyond your existing system of thought, there it is
providing a bridge for your mind to walk over into different turf. The
statement opens a door in your mind, and even though you don't choose or
want to go through it at the time, sometimes there are later moments when an
open door makes an important difference.

I was lucky enough when I left my son's dad to meet a counselor who broke a
lot of that ground and opened a lot of those doors for me. She was this
marvelous, mild old Dutch grandmother, and she always seemed to be knitting
when I went to see her. She'd just seen too much life, and thought things
through too clearly, to be the least bit bothered by the unconventionality
of some of her own conclusions. And I remember two things she said, both of
them entirely matter of fact, and neither of them entirely assimilable to me
at the time.

It was about the myth and bugabear of fatherhood. I wish we talked more
sensibly about this aspect of abuse, because I had a lot of trouble when I
left my son's dad, first with him using my son as the only button he had
left to push in me, and second with the deeply ambivalent attitude society
has about abusive men and their 'rights' to fatherhood, not to mention my
own son's 'right' to a relationship with his father.

My counselor said two marvelous things. She said, on the subject of my

ex-partner's purported 'love' for our son, and his stated intention of being
a great dad to him: 'It may be unconventional, but I believe that when a man
has four children and he's not supporting any of them, he should be
castrated'. And she said, about the familiar yank of
be-nice-to-me-or-I'll-make-sure-the-child-suffers (which I'll get to in a
moment): 'Personally, I think a lot of children would be better off if we
encouraged and allowed them to view their fathers as more like uncle
figures.'

That second statement let me off an enormous hook, and I believe it's saved
my son's life and the lives of people he'll meet in his adult life. In the
first six or eight months after I left my son's dad, he went through a very
common abusive pattern, and arrived at a very common abusive tactic. It
works like this.
When you live with an abuser, and an abuser has the ability to affect your
life and your well-being simply as a side-effect of the fact that you DO
share a life, it's like he has this huge switchboard of buttons available to
him that he can push. And when you leave him, it's like you gather all those
wires together in one hand and yank them out of the wall. Most abusers don't
register this, because they're not quite normal in their thinking: cause and
effect are a little blurred in their minds, and to them, people really are
nothing but collections of springs and wires connected to the central
control panel inside their heads.

You don't realize how truly abnormal they are until you leave them, and you
realize that they're incapable of adjusting their button-pushing to adapt to
the new circumstances. From a distance of half a city, I watched with
amazement as my own abuser went through all the motions of controlling a
human robot just like he'd been doing for almost three years - even though
he realized on an intellectual level that I wasn't in a position where I had
to care anymore.

It was one of the strangest collections of human behavior I've ever seen,
and it convinced me irrevocably that the man was insane. Maybe not the kind
of insane that anyone could ever lock up, but disconnected from reality,
living inside his head, so far round the bend he's on the return journey -
absolutely. He was an unpleasant feature of our lives for about two years
after we left, and the last I heard of him he was still dealing with all of
life by pointing his remote-control device at the world and punching
buttons. If he's still alive at this time, I doubt very much that he's
changed his M. O. one bit. I don't think he's able to, quite honestly. He
looks to me like someone who's not only hardwired that way, but has had the
panel over the wiring welded shut forever. And with the dull intelligence of
insanity, my abuser finally figured out that our son was the only button
left with any life in it.

When I left him, it was amazing to me how many people applauded me for
leaving him and dropping him off the edge of my personal world, but had the
screaming hab-dabs at the idea that I wasn't going to go out of my way to
foster a 'relationship' between him and my son.

I can't pretend there was ever any logic in the discussions that arose
around this issue. I could never understand how it made sense. The man's bad
for me, I'd explain. He's dangerous and insane and unhealthy, and you think
it's great that I'm never going to see him again - so what makes you think
he'd be 'good for' a two-year-old? I heard some pretty weird answers to
that.

A child needs a father.

Even more than a father, a child needs to not be abused, or witness abuse,
or given the message that abuse is okay, inevitable, or somehow redeemed by
the position the abuser holds in the victim's life. I'd even say that a
child needs to be able to choose ALL their relationships based on who's good
for them or not - including fathers. There's really no difference between
saying 'A child needs a father' and saying 'A woman needs a partner'.
Fathers and partners are nice to have - but they're less important than some
other things.

When you value parenthood above personal safety and integrity on a child's
behalf, you send a very mixed message. The message says: 'We don't choose
who we love based on who makes us feel safe, confident, open, happy. We
don't choose the most trustworthy people to be closest to us. We're just
stuck with whoever happens to be born in a certain relationship to us.'
Great message for adult life. You might as well just stamp the poor kid with
a sticker that says 'Property of [father's name]' and box them up right
away.

Children need someone to look up to.

Sure, and because it's a need, all the more reason to make sure the people
available for them to look up to are worthy of it. Otherwise you condemn
them to admiring and emulating the mediocre, the shoddy, the commonplace.

You'll destroy the child's faith in his dad.

My take on that is pretty simple. Abusers are the people who destroy their
kids' faith in them, just like abusers are the people who destroy their
marriages and relationships. All that's left for a child to wonder is
whether the other parent can be trusted or not. Personally, I found that the
fastest way to make a child feel really alone and untrusting is to not give
them a safe place to express and validate their own impressions. That gives
them TWO parents who seem to think abuse is okay and normal, not just one.

You're imposing personal baggage on the poor kid.

Strange statement. There's a big difference between 'baggage' and

'knowledge'. It's not 'baggage' that makes us teach our kids look both ways
before crossing the street, or keep them from drinking the Drano under the
sink. If I withdraw my child from a class run by a known pedophile, am I
'imposing personal baggage on him' or am I using my experience and judgement
to protect him from unsafe people? Personally, I decided not to stand by
while the poor kid went through the same hoops I'd been through, and learned
the same lesson the same hard way I did. My feeling was that if I have
knowledge that's relevant to his safety and well-being, and I consciously
don't act on it, then that's a real betrayal. It seems to me like it sends
the message to my son that he's a second-class citizen: what I won't put up
with myself, I'm quite happy to let him suffer.

He's an abusive PARTNER, not an abusive PARENT.

I don't think this one is accurate or relevant. A person who is abusive is,
by definition, unfit to raise or be around children regardless of whether or
not the child is ever a specific target. As parents, what we do counts at
least as much as what we say. We don't subject our children to abusers when
they're strangers, and we don't subject ourselves to anyone who we know to
be abusive 'because you're not the victim personally'. The rules shouldn't
be different for children, or simply because the abuser's a parent.

You're using your son in your personal power-struggle with his dad.

Actually, no. There certainly was a power-struggle going on, but just like
the abuse, none of it started with me. All I did was refuse to give in to
the blackmail and eventually move to prevent my ex-partner from using my son
as a tool for blackmail. Not something I did only to preserve myself, but
also because kids are not pawns and should be made safe from people who use
them that way. I personally believe that any parent who uses children as an
extended control tool is abusive of those children by definition and
forfeits all rights to contact with them on the spot.

What about his father's rights?

You earn the right to be a parent, and not with a quickie in the back seat
without a condom. Children don't come stamped with their parents' mark of
ownership, and pretending that they do is reducing them to the level of any
other possession. It makes them into objects. My son has a greater right not
to be an object than any man could claim through mere genetic connection.
Parenthood isn't a right, it's a privilege. It's the children who have
rights. And it's the parents who have never been abusive who are in the best
position to enforce and protect those rights on the child's behalf.

You'll poison him against humanity.

Well, I guess if that were going to happen, eight years would be long enough
for some signs of it to have shown up. I think kids actually learn greater
faith in humanity from knowing a few people who actually do put principles
into practice. They learn less of it from living around adults who turn
wishy-washy and won't stand up in their children's defence.

Fatherless children are permanently damaged and scarred.

I wonder. Does being fatherless scar them, or does society's treatment of

them and their mothers do the damage? Or do our stats on 'damage' REALLY
come from all the adults who were forced into proximity with dangerous,
negligent, unhealthy people in the name of 'keeping in touch with their
dads' when they were kids? I never could see how a poisonous father was
better than no father at all.

It's been eight years and counting - six since I actually filed a motion to
end all contact until he shaped up as a parent. I never forget how lucky we
both are that he just disappeared instead of trying to fight me on it,
because the two years before he dropped out of our lives were the real hell
for my son - not the six years afterwards.

I'm eternally grateful to my old Dutch counselor, who provided me with the
two bridges of thought that made it possible for me to walk over the bridge
of the fatherhood myth. So, for what the words were worth in our lives, I
leave them here for others as well.